With ice caps melting and folkloric Mumford pop on the rise, volume two of this maritime music project – produced partly by pirate-booster Johnny Depp and fantasy-band builder Hal Willner – is even more timely than the first. The mood varies wildly: Beth Orton incants lonely blues ("River Come Down"), Iggy Pop fends off butt bandits ("Asshole Rules the Navy"), Frank Zappa gets jazzy (a late-Sixties "Handsome Cabin Boy"). Michael Stipe sounds great with pal Courtney Love on "Rio Grande," and Tom Waits wrings boozy pathos from "Shenandoah," which features Keith Richards on guitar. Yes, there are duds among these 36 tracks. But they pass the time. Boat trips can be really fucking long.

“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.