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Best known as a member of the Stars and Broken Social Scene, Millan draws on themes of love and loneliness, and gives in to her country whims with her own take on the whiskey-drenched confessional.

The backbeat of Gov't Mule's "Mr. High and Mighty" is a heavy-lidded blast of '70s stomp-rock — Foghat's "Slow Ride" functions as a not-so-distant cousin. But rather than extol stoner virtues, the song expresses indignation over the doings of the craven and powerful.

Herb Alpert and Sergio Mendes, giants of 1960s music, are back. Alpert collaborated with electronica musicians to remix his hits. And rap and soul stars have turned Mendes' work into a variety of new songs... with some mixed results.

A compilation of Ethel Merman recordings from the '50s, The World is Your Balloon, collects songs she recorded for Decca Records. Few are songs Merman herself made famous.

Since the mid-1960s, songwriter J.J. Cale has been writing southern-style rock hits for Eric Clapton, Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers. He talks with NPR's Liane Hansen about his first collection of new songs in eight years, To Tulsa and Back.

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 track may be called "Our Discussion (of the Matter)," but the narrator of Nina Nastasia and Jim White's gorgeously turbulent song is mostly having a conversation with herself. White's arrhythmic drums only enhance the unsettled emotions in play.

Caribou's "Melody Day" sounds like the product of a different era — a song that might have been at home on, say, The Velvet Underground's Loaded, had Lou Reed been replaced by Brian Wilson and incorporated layered electronic beats into his songwriting.

Douglas' three very different quintet albums sound very good together, says critic Kevin Whitehead.

Violinist Hilary Hahn has been playing Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 since she was just 10 years old. Twenty-five years on, she brings grace and immense force and to this music.