What to do after finishing your first opera and a 19-disc anthology of your life's work? If you're Rufus Wainwright, you make the L.A.-style Great American Pop Album your late mom, singer-songwriter Kate McGarrigle, never felt like making in the 1970s. His formal mastery is so complete it's hilarious, like Albert Pujols playing stickball. But thanks in part to retro-modern producer Mark Ronson, it never feels too arch. "Barbara" (featuring Wilco guitarist Nels Cline) is an ace take on Michael McDonald yacht-rock fluff, while the title track disses mainstream "suckers" in lush harmony over a Steely Dan-ish strut. Hey: If you got it, brother, flaunt it.

Listen to "Out of the Game": 

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“Too Close”

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'"