What is is this time? Schubert lieder? Balkan fusion? Elvis Costello's genre-hopping can be exhilarating and, often, exhausting. But here he's in one of his comfort zones, rootsy Americana, reunited with T Bone Burnett, who produced the similarly flavored 1986 ringer King of America. Recorded in Nashville in three days, it's tight and uncluttered, with fiddle and dobro accenting jaunty bluegrass-folk corkers such as "Hidden Shame."The music brings out the terser side of one of pop's most prolix lyricists, with some spectacular results: The closer, "Changing Partners,"is a waltz-time weeper so unfussy and timeless, you half-suspect Costello found it under a rock on an Appalachian hillside.

“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?'"