Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

What lurks in the feverish imagination of Britt Daniel this time around? The Spoon frontman is known for crafting cryptic lyrics over jagged guitars, stuttering rhythms and delicious melodies on albums like the Texas band’s 2007 Top 10 breakthrough Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Spoon also contributed to the Will Ferrell comedy-drama Stranger Than Fiction). Here, Britt offers such fine curios as “The Mystery Zone,” “Is Love Forever” and “Who Makes Your Money,” which stick around like nagging fragments from vivid dreams.              

Such is Stephin Merritt’s deadpan genius that it’s unclear whether this so-called “folk” album was made in earnest or a fit of derision. Certainly, an overly cheery group singalong like “We Are Having a Hootenanny” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Christopher Guest’s mockumentary A Mighty Wind. But the Fields’ latest, recorded in contrast to the noise-pop of 2008’s Distortion, has some real acoustic gems, from the toy-box charms of “The Dolls’ Tea Party” to the carnival-esque “Seduced and Abandoned.”        

A music lover recently burned a compilation CD on his computer titled Northern Nuggets: Forgotten Sounds of the '60s. On it, he recorded a wonderful assortment of obscure songs by Canadians, including "One Single River (A Song for Canada)." Performed by Bob Dylan and The Band, the outtake from 1967's The Genuine Basement Tapes I-II was written by Ian Tyson and Peter Gzowski, no less. Sadly, there are no such curiosities on Oh What a Feeling 2, the four-CD box set issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Juno Awards. Like its 1996 predecessor, which sold an impressive 250,000 co-pies, the latest package favours only the best-known Canadian songs of the last four decades. Still, as a ...

Rarely has there been a starker contrast between an artist’s first and second albums. Corinne Bailey Rae’s debut arrived in the summer of 2006 like a ray of sunshine, full of light, breezy reflections on life such as “Butterfly,” “Like a Star” and “Put Your Records On” that helped to establish the English singer as a sweet, jazzy alternative to the dark soul of Amy Winehouse. Corinne’s self-titled release hit the U.S. Top 20 and went on to sell more than four million copies.     Then tragedy struck in 2008 when Corinne’s saxophonist husband, Jason Rae, died following an accidental overdose of methadone and alcohol. His death unleashed a torrent of emotion on Corinne’s new albu...

Basia’s acclaimed 2007 debut, Oh My Darling, had a retro charm that took the winsome folkie on tour across Europe and North America. The young Canadian singer’s followup has a similar old-fashioned feel, especially on spare songs like the tender ukulele number “Sparrow” and the bittersweet waltz “I’m Forgetting Everyone.” But boisterous choruses and galloping percussion (the latter played by Basia’s brother Bobby) give spirited songs like “Gold Rush” and “Walk You Down” a thoroughly modern and engaging twist.

The daughter of French singer Serge Gainsbourg and British actress Jane Birkin, Charlotte recently won the best actress prize at Cannes for her role in the controversial film Antichrist. Now she’s released her third album, a quirky electronic pop collection produced by Beck that is both whimsical and mildly disturbing. The title track, French for MRI, is a clanking industrial number inspired by the 2007 discovery of a blood clot in her brain, while songs like the gentle “In the End” are simply sweetly sung melodic pop.

Bad boys have long been synonymous with rock, from cradle-robbing Jerry Lee Lewis to the Rolling Stones, causing worried parents everywhere to lock up their daughters. More recently, hip hop has seen successive generations of trash-talking male rappers scandalize with gun and sex obsessions. Lately girls, from cheeky Lily Allen and flirty Katy Perry to gaudy Lady Gaga, have been getting into the act—with delightfully unladylike abandon.     Valley girl Ke$ha may be the naughtiest of them all. The 22-year-old California-born pop singer has soared to the top of the charts with her debut album, Animal, and songs like the party anthem “Tik Tok,” the top downloaded single by a female artist since...

Often called eccentric, Hawksley is one of Canada’s most versatile artists, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who produces his own recordings as well as those by the likes of Tegan and Sara and Great Big Sea. The Huntsville, Ont. native is also highly prolific: Meat is his 11th album in 10 years. While Hawksley’s latest features more gritty rockers than glam or cabaret-pop numbers, including “Chocolate Mouth,” there are also some exceptionally pretty tunes such as the sad piano ballad “Song for Sarah Jane.”

If you don’t recognize this rock group by name, then you’ll certainly know them from their treadmill video for “Here It Goes Again,” which went viral on YouTube and earned the nerdy, waistcoat-sporting Chicago band a 2007 Grammy Award. OK Go’s third album offers more dance workouts, like the Prince-inspired “W.T.F.” and “White Knuckles,” but frontman Damian Kulash also mixes melancholy and hope with slower funk numbers like “Skyscapers” and the undeniably catchy anthem “All Is Not Lost.”

Don’t feel sorry for Ringo. Although the man born Richard Starkey was always the sad-sack Beatle, the drummer with the large schnoz and puppy-dog eyes, Ringo Starr has always enjoyed a comical presence, coining some of the band’s most memorable phrases and often stealing scenes from John, Paul and George in the movies Help! and A Hard Day’s Night. Ringo’s own career, meanwhile, has been prosperous enough to contradict his image as the least talented member of the Fab Four. In fact, after Paul McCartney, Ringo was the most commercially successful solo Beatle. During the 1970s, he scored seven consecutive Top 10 singles, including “It Don’t Come Easy,” Back Off Boogaloo,” Photograph” and “You’...