Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

The music of Talking Heads has always been on the fringe of pop. True eccentrics, the members of the group have created songs on such unlikely topics as buildings, civil servants and mental health set to music ranging from American new wave to African tribal rhythms. Their new album, Little Creatures, continues to examine everyday thoughts and things--from television to babies and domestic bliss--and, because the group has now dropped African rhythms in favor of simple pop tunes, the album's music is easier to understand. On "Creatures of Love," an amiable country-and-western tune about human reproduction, David Byrne sings with childlike amazement about how "little creatures come out" after...

Artistic genius, or howling, lost-on-the-moor madwoman? Kate Bush has always defied description—and divided audiences along the way. As British author John Mendelssohn put it, when Bush “came out of of nowhere in 1978 with her jaw-droppingly eccentric debut single ‘Wuthering Heights,’ screeching like a banshee, flapping her arms as though trying to take wing, pulling alarming faces, people either adored or loathed her.” But absence has benefitted Bush. Since dropping out of the music world to raise a family, a massive cult has grown up around the reclusive, publicity-shy singer. There are now Kate Bush fashions and fan conventions, while the truly obsessive celebrate her birthday as “Katemas...

Quique Escamilla’s music is a tantalizing blend of sweet and sour, light and dark. The talented Canadian troubador’s entrancing second album opens with the Manu Chao-like reggae vibe of the title track, a tart tale of historical corruption and exploitation in his Mexican homeland, and ends with the gorgeous “Tú Sólo Tú” (“You Only You”), a pedal-steel-drenched traditional ranchera about obsessive love, a song Tejano pop star Selena covered before her tragic death. As with his debut album, the Juno-winning 500 Years of Night, Escamilla doesn’t shy away from other hard-hitting subjects, including “Highway of Tears,” about British Columbia’s remote highway where so many Indigenous women and gir...