Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Post-modern popsters Saint Etienne have always been an anomaly. Formed by English music critic Bob Stanley and named after a French soccer team, the trio forged a new genre by mixing the pop of swinging ’60s London with the sounds of the city’s club scene of the ’90s. The group’s seventh CD is an ambitious concept album, a pop opera about a fictional London apartment block. With tales of its residents and their day-to-day lives, it could easily serve as a dreamy soundtrack to the next Sims computer game. Jan. 24   

Although still best known for singing on Paul Simon’s Graceland album, the South African gospel group, led by Joseph Shabalala, has its own impressive history, including two Grammy winning albums. Here, Mambazo re-records some of its classic songs with Emmylou Harris (“Nearer My God to Thee”) and Taj Mahal (a Delta style “Mbube”), while Sarah McLachlan and Melissa Etheridge lend their voices to Graceland’s “Homeless” and “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” respectively. Sonic sweetness.  

Grime, the British amalgam of rap, garage and house music, is enjoying a huge crossover these days, with the success of artists like M.I.A., Dizzee Rascal and The Streets. Audio Bullys, aka Tom Dinsdale and Simon Franks, clearly hope to cash in on the trend with their mix of beats, samples and Cockney rap. But where The Streets’ Mike Skinner offers satirical and celebratory views of working-class London life, these brain-damaged stoners never rise above their dead-end existence. Desultory and depressing. Jan. 24