The tribute-album idiom has changed. It used to be the cover song: Pat Boone covering Little Richard, for a '50s example of white artists taking black artists' songs into middle-class homes; or Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' "Little Darlin'" becoming a hit by the Diamonds while few even heard the first, utterly untamed version while the white cover hit the charts. And so it went, following a tradition that began much earlier, when the real thing was never the right one for charts and radio...

  Instrumental post-rock of a surging, emotionally varied sort marks the first full-length project by West Bend's wonderfully named Canyons of Static. The quartet-to-quintet, depending upon whether their violinist is in tow, takes as much from shoegazing, post-punk heavy guitar acts as it does from a classical approach to melodic and textual development...

  Ry Cooder's California trilogy started purposefully and thematically with Chavez Ravine, turned old-time-radio wistful on My Name is Buddy, and now takes a complete header into the deep end for the concluding I, Flathead. Assuming the point of view of Western bar band Kash Buk and the Klowns, Cooder opens with "Drive Like I Never Been Hurt...

  Genesis skipped Wisconsin during last year's reunion tour, but the three-DVD box set When In Rome 2007 spectacularly captures what we missed. Although original frontman Peter Gabriel and guitarist Steve Hackett passed on this tour, the incarnation of Genesis captured at a free open-air performance in front of 500,000 fans at Rome's historic Circo Massimo still boasted the longtime trio of vocalist/drummer Phil Collins, bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist...

  Poetry slams and rap battles: The former led to the latter for Milwaukee's Melissa Czarnik. A listen to her StrawberryCadillac debut makes it clear how that evolution came about. Though alt-soul ladies such as Lauryn Hill and Jill Scott are easy enough to hear as influences, so are Ani DiFranco (complex, feminist folk) and Edith Piaf (torchy cabaret).

  Milwaukee singer, songwriter and guitarist Bob Parduhn recently released his fourth album, Lost in the Times. Recorded at Milwaukee's Fly Studios and produced by local bass player Guy Fiorentini, the CD includes Parduhn's band mates from Bones of Contention, organist/pianist Scott Finch and vocalist Annie Perry, with whom Parduhn has recorded two albums; drummer Bill Backes, who recorded an album with Parduhn...

  The second solo album from Chris Barron sounds nothing like his old band, the Spin Doctors-which is reason enough to give Pancho and the Kid a spin. But more importantly, the dozen songs reflect the image of a much more thoughtful singer/songwriter than the one who penned "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong."That maturity is no doubt the result of Barron's full recovery from a paralyzed vocal cord, which back in 1999 left him...

   First, the good news: Death Magnetic contains Metallica's most sophisticated, energized and-yes-heavy material since its 1988 classic, ...And Justice for All. If you were hoping for a return to form, it's hard to deny the ways that Death Magnetic sounds like one. Finally, Metallica has revived the long-song format that it built a career on, and the guitar sound hearkens back to the monumental Master of Puppets, the last time James Hetfield and company were coming from an underground...

On this sampling of a decade's worth of work, Milwaukee interdisciplinary composer Mark Mantel offers a variety of modern classical/art music styles and experiments. Among other approaches, a suite of four works by poets is set to drones and percussive clanks and rumblings, sounding like post-punk industrial music with more tone...

Leave it to our reliable friends in U2 to respond to the music industry's structural implosion with a triple-shot of pricey extravagance-and the promise of more to come. Who could have foreseen that the guitar wailing of "I Will Follow" from the band's 1980 debut, Boy, was actually the first breath of a larger-than-life juggernaut. To be fair, even when listening with the benefit of knowing...