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There's more Nellie McKay to love on her new CD. The singer-songwriter now produces her own music — on her own label, and on her own terms. She talks to music reviewer Christian Bordal about what she says is her "attempt to get across a very personal statement."

It's somehow fitting that The Whigs' members reside in Athens, Ga., the flashpoint of '80s indie-rock. The trio's debut, Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip, is a great and goofy exercise in nostalgia that combines the gravelly rock of The Replacements with the off-kilter pop of Guided by Voices.

The Chicago band Lesser Birds of Paradise, known for its hushed and pastoral folk music, takes "You Are My Sunshine" out of the American songbook and slows the classic to a crawl. Left to a hypnotic trance, the words take on significant new meaning.

A documentary on the life of composer and lyricist Frank Loesser is about to debut on many PBS stations. Heart & Soul: The Life and Music of Frank Loesser highlights the creative genius behind Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

Former Belle and Sebastian singer Isobel Campbell radiates tranquility and calm wonder on "Willows Song." Emulating the haunted, melancholic tone of late-'60s British folk, Isobel Campbell, her off-in-the-cosmos soprano lures her listeners past the words, into the sloping melody and the thick swirls of atmosphere around it.

"Lie To Me" isn't the best song on Waits' overstuffed Orphans, but it's one of the most disarming ones, with a roar that can knock listeners sideways. That makes it a perfect tone-setter for the immense, thematically arranged outpouring that follows.

Brothers Damien and Tourie Escobar form the group Nuttin But Stringz, which is a venture into hip-hop violin. Their new CD is called Struggle from the Subway to the Charts.

Sonic Youth, the avant-garde rock band from New York, has released a new album called Destroyed Room, a collection of previously unreleased tracks and B-sides from the band's last 12 years.

A review of Last Man Standing, the new studio recording by Jerry Lee Lewis.

"Ain't Got No/I Got Life" sounds like the product of an unearthly collaboration involving Simone, Sly Stone and the Stax Department of Horns. Originally loping and straightforward, it now shimmies and swings, a model of loopy, unrestrained exuberance its originators could never have imagined.