For her first studio album in nine years, performance art's greatest star combines personal acoustic songs with the synth-powered social commentary of her 1980s heyday. Laurie Anderson summons chamber music on "Thinking of You" and echoes classic Motown on the lyrics to "Strange Perfumes." The meat of the album, however, is explicitly political, and its showstopper is "Only an Expert," which melds global warming, bank bailouts, Oprah Winfrey and roaring guitar feedback from Anderson's hubby, Lou Reed. Hilarious and horrifying, it's the harsh 21st-century flip side to her unnervingly gentle hit "O Superman."

“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.