This week our playlist includes music by The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Laura Veirs, Elliott Smith, David Bowie, Bobby Womack, Mimicking Birds and more.

Today we review music by Tom Waits, Lupe Fiasco, Stars, Joni Mitchell and others.

This week, we feature music from Animal Kingdom, Holopaw, Chris Bell, and more.

Alex Chilton died yesterday, but the guy that rock fans worshipped -- the musician who almost 40 years ago founded Big Star, and in the process helped give birth to power-pop and alternative rock -- died decades ago.

Sounding warmer and the most at home with her recordings since the mid-seventies, Barbra Streisand, the 67-year-old vocalist-supreme, at last reclaims the musical territory she reigned over in the sixties.

R.E.M. will be releasing Live At The Olympia, a 39-song, two CD set containing "working rehearsals" from 2007. I was lent a track that captures the band's energy and insightful views.

Reviewed: Big Star, Ace Frehley, Gordan Gano, Bruce Hornsby, Jay-Z, Mark Knopfler, Living Colour, The Phantom Movers and Muse.

While most of his contemporaries have the fantasy of signing the bottom line of a label contract, Jonah Smith has rejected a record company's offer instead.

The songs on Wilco's self-titled album are laden with fat, beefy hooks although there isn't the usual amount of boundary pushing here.

This year's BookExpo in New York City had its usual small arena of publishers at gussied-up kiosks hawking the latest and greatest by writers known and unknown.