Album

When Pink Floyd first took its concept album "The Wall" to the concert stage more than three decades ago, even lead singer and chief songwriter Roger Waters couldn't imagine a day when rock music might get any bigger. But 32 years later, his magnum opus about the battle between individual freedoms and authoritarian oppression has magnified beyond Waters' own expectations of yore. Now the man who once excoriated the voluminous expansion of the rock concert experience has helped institutionalize it. "I famously hated playing to large numbers of people and playing in stadiums," Waters, 68, said from a tour stop in Austin, Texas, earlier this month.

There are things that Slash just doesn't want to talk about. And the timing was definitely not right a few weeks ago as the guitarist was preparing for a trip to Cleveland for his induction with Guns N' Roses into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "I don't even want to talk about that. I don't want to touch it," Slash said in April, his usual friendly demeanor turning cool at the mere mention of GNR. It was during a week of drama and uncertainty about the ceremony, which had peaked days earlier with the arrival of a confrontational open letter to the Hall of Fame from singer Axl Rose.

MUSIC Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters reprises what's been a massive project of recent years — his live incarnation of his band's seminal album, "The Wall. " Fans loved it at Coachella in 2008, and he returns for a triumphant take on the record's dystopian worldview and experimental rock. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 3939 S. Figueroa St., L.A. 8 p.m. Sat. $30.50-$248. ticketmaster.com.

What happens when an indie balladeer with a love for opera sets out to make a true pop album? Singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright decided to find out. Much to the relief of Wainwright's fan base, going pop doesn't mean dropping the piano or enlisting Skrillex to refashion his soft touch into crossover club anthems. Instead, the Canadian American artist who debuted in 1998 with vibrato-soaked ballads and later cemented his reputation with playful odes to vices like cigarettes and chocolate milk, called on one of pop's most stylish producers to helm his seventh solo album, "Out of the Game.

"The Velvet Underground's first album only sold 10,000 copies," Brian Eno's famous quote posits, "but everyone who bought it formed a band. " The Beach Boys were never remotely in the same universe of rock hipsterdom that the Velvets have long occupied, but they may top Lou Reed and company in terms of a nexus for far-reaching musical impact: The Southern California group's endlessly mythologized "Smile" album was never commercially released until...

Tom Wilkes, a Grammy Award-winning art director and album cover designer whose work included albums for the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Neil Young and other music legends, has died. He was 69. Wilkes, who was diagnosed with a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) in 1999, died of a heart attack June 28 at his home in Pioneertown, Calif., said his daughter, Katherine Wilkes Fotch.

A special two-record album and cassette of Pope John Paul II's 1987 speeches in America will be released by Fiore/Annuncione Ltd. shortly after the pontiff ends his trip. "Adventure Into Unity" will be available, along with the Pope's 1979 speeches, "Pilgrim of Peace" for $19.95, through an advertising coupon in Catholic newspapers or by calling, (800) 453-8600. A spokesman for Fiore/Annuncione said the firm has rights to the speeches from the Vatican Library.

* 1/2 Save Ferris, "It Means Everything," Epic. This debut packs all the charm of a low-budget cartoon--lots of bright colors and squirrelly action, but ultimately two-dimensional and pointless. The songs bop around in giddy, ska-inflected circles, slinging hooks that overshoot hummable and quickly become cloying. Singer Monique Powell chirps trite sentiments with Betty Boop vim that's technically feisty but emotionally bland.

The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Psychocandy" was the most stimulating album of the first half of 1986--but was it a hit? The answer is no if you measure success only by the Billboard magazine best-seller list. But the album was a hit according to the CMJ New Music Report, a biweekly industry newsletter.

Recordings by Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died six years ago, will be released as a solo album on Nov. 11. The album features a collection of songs Lopes recorded but never released, family friend Jay Marose said. Lopes, who was part of the hit '90s group TLC, was killed in a car crash in Honduras on April 25, 2002. Proceeds from the album will benefit Lopes' foundation, which aims to build orphanages and schools in Honduras, Marose said.

MUSIC Pink Floyd founder Roger Waters reprises what's been a massive project of recent years — his live incarnation of his band's seminal album, "The Wall. " Fans loved it at Coachella in 2008, and he returns for a triumphant take on the record's dystopian worldview and experimental rock. Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, 3939 S. Figueroa St., L.A. 8 p.m. Sat. $30.50-$248. ticketmaster.com.

It had only been a few years since Adam Yauch had found fame as the in-your-face rapper and bass player MCA in the transgressive, boundary-breaking trio the Beastie Boys. But in 1992 he was searching for something else, traveling in Nepal to snowboard and pursue a growing interest in Buddhism when he came upon a group of Tibetan refugees. The encounter intensified his interest in the teachings of the Dalai Lama, and he was soon one of the world's leading advocates for the cause of Tibetan independence.

In 1985, Los Angeles rapper Toddy Tee released what could be considered West Coast hip-hop's opening salvo against police brutality in black neighborhoods. The electro-grooved "Batterram," named for the battering ram that then-LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates used to smash into homes of suspected drug dealers, was a hit on local radio station KDAY-AM. The track went on to become a protest anthem in minority neighborhoods around the city where the device was often deployed against homes that were later proved drug-free: "You're mistakin' my pad for a rockhouse / Well, I know to you we all look the same / But I'm not the one slingin' caine / I work nine to five and ain't a damn thing changed …" rapped Toddy Tee. The L.A. riots of 1992 arrived with its soundtrack in place.

For legendary Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar's 75th birthday, a very special guest was invited onstage to perform with the onetime Beatles cohort. Shankar's accompanying orchestra members set down their instruments as she walked onto the New Dehli stage, sat down with her own sitar and performed a 15-minute solo set. In front of 2,500 people, Anoushka Shankar, Ravi's daughter, had made her musical debut. She was 13. "It was utterly terrifying," Shankar says of her big premiere in 1995.

Singer-songwriter M. Ward is an introvert blazing through an extrovert's world. In the span of 13 years, the 38-year-old artist (born Matthew Stephen Ward) has grown from recording hushed bedroom music in Portland, Ore.'s alt-troubadour scene to making albums with sitcom star Zooey Deschanel, co-founding the folk-rock supergroup Monsters of Folk and playing both Friday nights at this year's Coachella festival. Ward hasn't lost his affection for closeted, sometimes experimental folk, but in the last few years he's let in more light.

Whether touring, winning Grammys or fighting for the rights of music veterans, singer and guitarist Bonnie Raitt has always had plenty to keep her busy. So over the course of her four-decade career, a gap of a few years between albums wasn't unprecedented. But this time around, the seven-year lapse between her last CD and her new effort, "Slipstream" (arriving Tuesday), is different. The nine-time Grammy Award winner pulled off the road, put the band that she's toured with for decades on ice, and joined the audience.

Scratch the new U2 album off your Christmas list. Singer Bono says the album, which had been anticipated for release this fall, will now arrive sometime in 2009. But he says there's a good reason for the delay. "We've hit a rich songwriting vein and we don't want to stop," Bono says on the band's website, U2.com. "It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we've found diamonds not coal. I thought a while back we might have the album wrapped by now, but why come up above ground now if there's more priceless stuff to be found?"

Britney Spears' "Circus" took the singer back to the top of the national sales chart after selling 505,000 copies during its first week of release. Billboard noted that it makes her the first act with four albums to sell 500,000 or more copies out of the gate. Spears had been tied at three with Jay-Z, Garth Brooks, 2Pac and 50 Cent. It is her fifth No. 1 album. "Circus" was the only album to debut in the Top 20 this week. Other new chart entries included Scarface's "Emeritus," which entered at No. 24 on sales of 42,000, and Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain -- Live at Canterbury House 1968," starting out at No. 40 with 26,000 copies.

Underneath the stage before February's Super Bowl halftime show, Nicki Minaj felt an emotion she hadn't experienced in quite some time. She was really, really nervous. Over the last three years, the young rapper had become one of the most charismatic and commercially successful stars in pop music, with a gum-snapping flow and acerbic guest rhymes that stole the show from vets such as Mariah Carey, Kanye West and Rihanna. Her pop-inclined solo debut, "Pink Friday," hit No. 1 and launched bestselling singles like the elastic "Super Bass.

There's no mystery behind the title of singer Melanie Fiona's sophomore release, "The MF Life," when you consider what the 28-year-old Guyanese Canadian songstress went through to make and release the highly anticipated CD. The album, which finally hit stores Tuesday, was supposed to be out in early 2011. Though its lead single, "Gone and Never Coming Back," was released in January of last year, with "4 AM" following in September, the release of the full album was delayed countless times due to various setbacks.