Season highlights: Pop recordings
Earlimart, "Treble and Tremble" (Palm Pictures, Sept. 28). The LA noise-pop trio continues its progress from experimental punk band to brash, piano-driven auteurs with a new album -- a tribute to the late Elliot Smith -- that plumbs the nether regions of love and loss.
Joseph Arthur, "Our Shadows Will Remain" (Vector, Oct. 12). Arthur follows up 2002's "Redemption's Son" -- a brooding and eclectic wash of spiritual pop -- with what promises to be another kaleidoscopic tour of difficult moods, beautiful melodies, and raw emotion.
Matthew Sweet, "Living Things" and "Kimi Ga Suki" (Superdeformed/RCAM, Oct. 19). A free agent following a decade at a major label, power-pop maestro Sweet drops a pair of albums: "Living Things" is a lush, organic collaboration with Van Dyke Parks, and "Kimi," originally released in Japan in 2002, marks a reunion of many players from Sweet's landmark 1991 album "Girlfriend," with contributions from Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, drummer Ric Menck, and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz.
Eminem, "Encore" (Interscope, Nov. 16). The rapper takes a break from his side collective D12 and preparations for the launch of his own channel on Sirius's satellite-radio network to drop his fourth CD.
William Shatner, "Has Been" (Shout! Factory, Oct. 5). Ben Folds produced, Aimee Mann, Henry Rollins, Kris Kristofferson, and Joe Jackson appear, and Captain Kirk himself penned the pop tunes with a couple of exceptions, most notably a cover of Pulp's "Common People." "It's not a comedy," Shatner says on his website.
Brian Wilson, "Smile" (Nonesuch, Sept. 28). Thirty-seven years after the release that never was, a new studio recording of what is reported to be Wilson's symphonic pop masterpiece will finally see the light of day. Wilson, backed by a 10-piece ensemble, performs the piece live in Boston at the Orpheum on Oct. 14.
Elvis Costello, "The Delivery Man" (Lost Highway, Sept. 21) and "Il Sogno" (Deutsche Grammophon, Sept. 21). Only a musician as irrepressible as Costello gets away with such a wild double drop. A new rock album with the Imposters that was recorded in Oxford, Miss., features guest spots from Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, and Alison Krauss goes toe-to-toe with Costello's first full-scale orchestral work, commissioned by an Italian dance company and recorded with the London Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas.
Green Day, "American Idiot" (Warner Bros., Sept. 21). Who would have dreamed that the three snotty punk kids who brought us "Basket Case" would survive the decade, let alone concoct a politically-charged rock opera chronicling Jesus of Suburbia as he navigates the decline of the American Dream, complete with a nine-minute suite with Roman numeral chapters.
Buddy Miller, "Universal House of Prayer" (New West, Sept. 21). The great country-folk guitarist and songwriter delivers a song cycle about the soul, featuring collaborations with wife Julie, Victoria Williams, and Emmylou Harris.
Joss Stone, "Mind, Body & Soul" (S-Curve, Sept. 28). The precocious 17-year-old British soul singer follows last year's widely praised covers album "The Soul Sessions" with a collection of self-penned tunes.
Wu-Tang Clan, "Disciples of the 36 Chambers" (Sanctuary, Sept. 28). A live album recorded at California's Rock the Bells festival, where the entire lineup appeared on stage for the first time in years.
Tom Waits, "Real Gone (Epitaph, Oct. 5). Primus's Les Claypool, guitarist Marc Ribot, and ex-Canned Heat bassist Larry Taylor are featured guests on this piano-less collection, which Waits describes in advance press materials as "an electric pillbox, a homogenous concoction of mood elevators, mind liberators and downers, an alchemical universe of rattling chains, oscillating rhythms,and 9-pound hammers."
Keb Mo, "Peace . . . Back by Popular Demand" (
Mos Def, "The New Danger" (Geffen, Oct. 12). The Emmy-nominated rapper (he's up for his role in the HBO miniseries "Something the Lord Made") releases the long-awaited follow-up to his 1999 debut "Black on Both Sides."
U2, "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" (Interscope, Nov. 23). Producer Steve Lillywhite, who helmed U2's first three albums, is back for the band's first release since 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." Unfinished tracks from the album, stolen in July from a studio in Nice, France, haven't turned up on the Internet, as feared, but fans can check out the first single, "Vertigo," on Sept. 24, when the song is released to radio.
Gwen Stefani (Interscope, Nov. 23). For her as-yet-untitled maiden solo voyage, which Stefani calls her art project, the No Doubt frontwoman enlisted the talents of an all-star roster of guests. Dallas Austin delves into dance beats, Dre and the Neptunes handle the hip-hop, Dave Stewart and New Order negotiate the New Wave, and OutKast's Andre 3000 contributes a neo-musical-theater vibe to a track called "Bubble Pop Electric." 