Every rose has its thorn, and every airport bar has its 22-year-old divorcee. But not every album has two songs from different reality shows starring Bret Michaels, or the theme from the prison movie he wrote, directed and starred in. Only Bret Michaels albums have those things. Michaels is an earnest doer, the kind of guy who's working on his bucket list long before the paramedics get him on the gurney. Sure, each time his third solo album recapitulates (or rerecords) "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," it's like the sad cowboy is getting trampled by his horse. But Miley Cyrus brightens up the cellphone-waver "Nothing to Lose," and Michaels' cover of Sublime's "What I Got" rings with survivor's pride.

“Jimbrowski”

Jungle Brothers sampled, among other things, jazz, James Brown and house music. The New York crew's lyrics were equally diverse but never short on clever wordplay or a playful sense of humor, as exemplified by this song from 1988's Straight Out the Jungle. "The idea for that came at the end of a studio session, with Mike, me, Red Alert and a woman Red was dating at the time," says the group’s Afrika Baby Bam. "Red was flirting with her and kept saying 'Jimbrowski' the whole night. Mike and I wrote the rhymes on the way back from the subway."