The prolific singer/songwriter has reacted to the licensing feast surrounding "Speak for Yourself" ("The OC," "So You Think You Can Dance," Verizon advertisements) with a stronger focus on song structure and melody on Ellipse.

After 28 years, you'd think it would be tough coming up with new twists to captivate audiences. But apparently not for King George, whose latest album, Twang, is among the finest collections of songs he's released.

Lyrical themes get a bit murkier on her appropriately titled sophomore effort, Battlefield.

The new album's lyrical plotlines feel more organized than on past efforts, and musical twists are easier to follow, with Matthew's piano grounding the recording.

Backed by a fine team of multi-instrumentalists, Molina delivers a harrowing set of songs with short running times and minimalist arrangements.

The Satanic Satanist constructs an exquisite medium between indie music and hard rock.

The propulsive 11-track Horehound finds the White Stripes and Raconteurs frontman every bit as able on the drums as he is on guitar.

Daughtry and his band return with similar aggression on their sophomore album, Leave This Town. Daughtry's ferocious growl is still the centerpiece of the new songs, but the band has also taken a few creative risks.

"Monkey House" was the band's experiment in '80s synth-rock, and with Elavedo's touch, the razor-sharp, reflective edges of the album's space-age cogs are smoothed and rounded, with the bright-hot electro-pop brought closer to loungey funk.

BLACKsummer'snight is a testament that Maxwell hasn't lost a beat.

DJ/rappers Redfoo and Sky Blu (the son and grandson, respectively, of Motown founder Berry Gordy) fulfill all the lyrical requirements for a summer anthem--sunny locale, sexual tension and a liquor-assisted nonstop party.

It's driven by Helm's warm, amazingly rich moonshine vocals and decorated with bluesy guitar sprinkles, angelic violins and lovely harmonies by his daughter Amy of the folk-rock outfit Ollabelle.

This is Moby without his usual bag of tricks; the material rings truer than any of his previous work.

Thomas returns with a soaring collection of infectious pop songs that are destined for heavy rotation in 2009 and beyond.

Paisley hits all the right notes, literally and figuratively, weighing in on skinny dippin', beer, fishing, technology, children and women, among other all-American topics.

The appearance of Hood's dad, legendary session man David, gives parts of Murdering Oscar--even within the Southern-rock storm and Hood's charcoal vocals--a sweet, possibly unprecedented sense of tranquility.

The musical doesn't begin production until 2010. The time lapse is confusing for listeners of the narrative, which focuses on a young woman named Eve. But Murdoch, who lends his vocals to two of the album's 14 tracks, plays his strengths as the man behind the music.

Holly Williams, the daughter of Hank Williams Jr. and granddaughter of Hank Williams, follows her own musical path to deliver one of the best singer/songwriter albums to come out of Nashville in the last year.

Hitting a second stride with "Murray Street" in 2002, the band maintains its leadership position among melodic noise-makers with The Eternal, which is so chock-full of hummable pop hooks you'd think a hit doctor lent a hand.

The back half is all over the place, prone to the sort of detours that seem designed solely to show off Mos' scope, like the all-Spanish throwaway 'No Hay Nada Mas.' Still, when's he's on, which is more than not, Mos is refocused and seemingly rededicated.

The acronym that forms the title of their latest stands for "The Energy Never Dies," and they more than make good on that promise, blasting through 15 high-powered rave-rap jams that rarely lack for melodic hooks or rhythmic thrust.

On this fine self-titled set (produced, as was the most recent 97's album, by Dallas-based Salim Nourallah) Miller works his familiar mixture of '60s-pop jangle and alt-country twang, singing about the highs and lows of love like someone who just experienced them for the first time.

Todd Snider relates his hilariously heartbreaking hard-luck tales with a deadpan sing-speak delivery while superproducer Don Was gives the scrappy bar-band arrangements a glimmer of studio-pro warmth.

Jhelli Beam finds this prominent member of the West Coast underground hip-hop coalition Project Blowed challenging his unique flow and uncanny wordplay at every roundabout turn, rhyming against a tsunami of samples crafted by such L.A.-based production wizards as Daedelus and Nobody, among others.

As on many valiant attempts by electronic artists to cross over, there's too much going on. But Cope succeeds in creating an overall sense of unrest and some moments of electro-transcendence.

Co-produced by Andy Johns (Van Halen), the set captures the fun energy of a mind-blowing all-star jam: Satriani's fretwork is surprisingly raw, loose and gritty, while Smith channels John Bonham more than once.

Pop's understated delivery draws even the most skeptical of listeners in, bathing his hushed voice in beds of stark piano and tremolo-washed guitar.

Burnett's settings are much more stripped-down than his work on Robert Plant & Alison Krauss' "Raising Sand" but no less precise: 'My All Time Doll,' one of the strongest cuts, Jeff Taylor's accordion shades the desperation in Costello's lyric with just the right amount of sarcasm.