Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Yoakam burst onto the country scene in 1986, the same year as Steve Earle. And while Yoakam seemed initially like a stylized poser, he has long since proven himself the real McCoy: an inventive, crooning guitarist with a genuine love of honky-tonk tradition. Featuring 87 tracks from a dozen studio recordings, tribute albums, soundtracks and concerts as well as many previously unreleased songs, this four-CD set shows that while he may have been originally inspired by Buck Owens, Yoakam’s musical tastes are much broader. Along with hits like his “Guitars, Cadillacs” and “I Sang Dixie,” the collection includes tributes to Merle Haggard, Kinky Friedman and Bob Willis & the Texas Playboys as well...

Like many fruitful partnerships, Bob Bossin and Marie-Lynn Hammond found beauty amid friction. Bossin was Stringband’s banjo player, political activist and all-round ham, while Hammond was its lead singer, resident eye candy and tasteful critic within the group who found Bossin’s penchant for corny jokes and mismatched socks intolerable. And yet, individually, each wrote inspired, folky slices of Canadiana and together made such classic albums as Canadian Sunset and National Melodies. This two-CD set collects Stringband’s best-known work, including Bossin’s "Newfoundlanders,” “The Maple Leaf Dog” and “Dief Will Be Chief Again” and Hammond’s “Vancouver,” “Country Music” and “I Don’t Sleep wit...

How very Björk. This six-CD collection, packaged in a custom-made transparent pink plastic case designed by Parisian design team M/M with illustrations by Icelandic artist Gabriella Fridriksdottir, is easily this season’s most eccentric box set. Each of the CDs (five 3-inch discs and one 5-inch disc) has its own theme: roots and strings (two discs each), beats and greatest hits (as chosen by her and not to be confused with the also available Greatest Hits, which was selected by fans who voted for their favourite songs at Björk’s official website). Are you still with us? There’s also a 16-page lyric booklet and a “family tree map,” basically a credit list with the elfin artist’s own handwritt...

If “Tubthumping,” with its riotous refrain “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” hadn’t become a huge hit (and a staple at hockey games), Chumbawamba might have remained an obscure anarcho-syndicalist collective, spouting polemics and living in a filthy squat in Leeds. As it is, they’re a major-label act churning out folk-flavored, politically correct albums like their latest. If this is revolution rock, god help the working class. It’ll put the masses to sleep, rather than have them storming the barricades. 

What defines emo punk? Peppy, positive tunes played with boundless energy by dudes in backwards baseball caps and baggy, low-slung pants. Throw in a chubby bass player and a tattooed lead singer and you’ve got New Found Glory, a quintet from sunny Coral Springs, Florida that plays with the intensity of the Sex Pistols but sings as sweetly as the Beach Boys. A popular draw on the Vans Warped tour, NFG write catchy songs about love and loyalty, like the new album’s buddy anthem “My Friends Over You.”

A dairy farmer’s daughter from Sicamous, B.C., Mark sure knows how to milk her influences, belting out rockabilly like a reborn Wanda Jackson or crooning country ballads like the second coming of Patsy Cline. On her second solo album, Mark, who also records with the fabulous Neko Case as the Corn Sisters, pulls out all the stops, singing with equal parts melancholy and mischief on songs about heartache, getting drunk and getting laid. If only country radio sounded as feisty as this.

If you’re the former Philosopher Kings vocalist and co-producer of Nelly Furtado’s smash debut, how do you establish yourself as a solo act? Well, if you’re Gerald Eaton, you trade your old stage name in for a new identity. Introducing Jarvis Church, Canada’s latest neo-soul singer. Although his record company is playing up his Jamaican heritage, Church is far more r&b than reggae. Standout tracks include his quirky duets with Furtado and Esthero, who joins him on "Run For Your Life,” about a psycho stalking fan.

The second release from Papa Roach finds the Northern California alt-metal group mining the same aggressive sound that pushed its debut album to triple platinum. On “She Loves Me Not,” frontman Coby Dick, who now goes his given name of Jacoby Shaddix, adds his angry rap vocals to the group’s hard-rock crunch. When he screams the song’s whiny refrain, “life’s not fair,” he sounds at risk of bursting a blood vessel. So it’s probably a good thing P-Roach has joined Eminem on this year’s Anger Management Tour.

These Aussie blokes were only 15 when they released their debut album. My, how they’ve grown. Gone are the grunge influences that tagged them as Nirvana wannabes. Working with legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks (Beach Boys), they’ve come up with a swirling, kaleidoscopic gem. Dreamy songs like “World Upon Your Shoulders” and “Tuna in the Brine” are closer to Pet Sounds than Nevermind. No wonder Parks calls the band’s Daniel Johns “the most talented person I’ve worked with since Brian Wilson.”

Love ’em or hate ’em—and many dismiss them as arrogant wankers—Oasis are one of the world’s truly great rock ’n’ roll bands. It’s easy to grow weary of the battling Gallagher brothers, but few write better rock songs than Noel or sing them as convincingly as Liam. Already, “The Hindu Times” has been all over the airwaves. But it’s Noel’s anthemic “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” that will get lighters flickering at concerts. And the biggest surprise is Liam’s “Songbird.” Christ, the little twat can write too. Who knew?