Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

Céline has ruled Caesar’s Palace since 2003. By year’s end, Canada’s ultimate diva will be leaving Las Vegas and resuming her mega-selling recording career (175 million albums and counting). A new English album and a duet with Annie Lennox are planned, but in the meantime the former child star releases this collection of songs by female writers from France and Quebec. Power ballads like “Et s’il n’en restait qu’une (je serais celle-là)” prove that La Dion is still a more convincing singer in French than in English. May 22

He lives in a Vancouver Island forest and his single name conjures up visions of Bim and Valdy, two popular B.C. folkies from the 1970s. But Wil is no tree-hugging wannabe. Nor is his latest album a collection of crunchy granola ditties. In fact, robust numbers like “Tell You Twice,” “Wedding Dress” and “Big Life,” a hopeful epic co-written with 54-40’s Neil Osborne, bear more of a resemblance to driving, anthemic songs by Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene, whose members contribute to this powerful major-label debut. May 22

Feist and Stars are labelmates on Arts & Crafts, which is giving the remix treatment to Montreal dream-pop collective’s Set Yourself on Fire the way it did with Feist’s Let it Die. Although it’s hard to imagine improving on Stars’ wondrous album, several “re-interpretations and re-imaginings” of those songs standout, including Final Fantasy’s chamber-quartet rendition of “Your Ex-Lover is Dead,” the Most Serene Republic’s Django-ish “Ageless Beauty” and Junior Boys’ minimalist take on “Sleep Tonight.” May 22