Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Last time around, she collaborated with Beck and Billy Corgan, with mixed results. This time, Faithfull picks the perfect partners for her tortured cabaret-singer persona: iconoclasts Nick Cave and PJ Harvey. Cave contributes “Crazy Love,” with its gypsy strings, and the strange “Desperanto,” which features Faithfull rapping. Harvey produced five songs, including the disturbing “No Child of Mine” and “The Mystery of Love,” which rivals Faithfull’s best work on her 1979 classic Broken English. Chilling stuff.

MacDonald is one of Canadian music’s little-known treasures, a gifted singer whose songs straddle traditional Cape Breton tunes and modern electronic sounds. It’s an engaging, hypnotic fusion that has lent itself to choreography by Les Grandes Ballets Canadiens and remixing by Transglobal Underground. Her latest CD is another strikingly original work, featuring the chanting “Murmur of Pearl,” the jazzy title track and the dreamy “Song for this Child,” with its pulsing rhythms and rich, cascading vocals. Jan. 18

Once again, Gwen tries to inject some hip-hop flavor into her dance-pop sound. But where Love.Angel.Music.Baby. shimmered with the sheen of something fresh, Stefani’s latest is just impossibly dull. The Neptunes-produced tracks are the worst, especially “Wind it Up,” a limp remake of Black Eyed Peas’ horrible “My Humps.” Stefani’s painful attempts at rapping are best avoided and only the Nellee Hooper-produced “Early Winter” and “Wonderful Life” are remotely musical. More sour than sweet, in fact.