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Gabriel's new album is Up in name only: the album--his first in a decade (aside from some instrumental soundtracks)--is yet another exploration into life's mysteries and the dark places of Gabriel's mind. If truth-in-packaging laws applied to album titles, this would have to be renamed Down.

Explaining the platinum success of Alison Krauss (with or without Union Station) is about as difficult as doing the same for the Buckingham/Nicks incarnation of Fleetwood Mac: melodic pop tunes; sexy, intimate female vocals; and genre-bending arrangements. Fleetwood Mac mixed lots of ABBA into its blues/rock sound; Krauss threw in bluegrass and folk accents. It's as silly to dismiss Krauss because she's not real bluegrass as it is to think that she really is bluegrass! And if you don't think ABBA is at the root of the Buckingham/Nicks Mac, listen to the harmonies on ABBA's "S.O.S."--hell, listen to all of "S.O.S." and then throw on Fleetwood Mac or Rumours.

Maybe you've heard this story before: after Richard and Linda Thompson's legendary 1982 Roxy performance in support of their Shoot Out the Lights album, Linda collapsed backstage and was spirited off to Malibu by Linda Ronstadt. Thompson's marriage was breaking up before the tour and singing songs about a breakup, which Richard insisted at the time were not autobiographical, was just too much for her. It was easily one of the most memorable live musical experiences I've had-especially since I went with my ex-girlfriend who'd broken up with me a few months earlier.Maybe you've heard this story before: after Richard and Linda Thompson's legendary 1982 Roxy performance in support of their Shoot Out the Lights album, Linda collapsed backstage and was spirited off to Malibu by Linda Ronstadt. Thompson's marriage was breaking up before the tour and singing songs about a breakup, which Richard insisted at the time were not autobiographical, was just too much for her. It was easily one of the most memorable live musical experiences I've had-especially since I went with my ex-girlfriend who'd broken up with me a few months earlier. That allowed me to double the intensity of the pain emanating from the stage.

You needn't speak Icelandic to appreciate and absorb the primal purity and almost unbearable innocent beauty created by this electronica driven quartet. In fact, speaking the group's native tongue wouldn't help at all since vocalist Jonsi Thor Birgisson's lyrics are in a language of his own invention. You needn't speak Icelandic to appreciate and absorb the primal purity and almost unbearable innocent beauty created by this electronica driven quartet. In fact, speaking the group's native tongue wouldn't help at all since vocalist Jonsi Thor Birgisson's lyrics are in a language of his own invention.