Audio Recordings

The stage appears to be set for at least a modest ABBA resurgence with the arrival of the film version of the musical "Mamma Mia!" opening Friday. The soundtrack album has jumped into the Top 10 of the national sales chart even without a movie audience primed to lap it up: It sold 48,000 copies and enters at No. 7. Beck, meanwhile, lands at No. 4 with "Modern Guilt," the top new arrival during a week in which Lil Wayne, Coldplay and the "Camp Rock" soundtrack all held steady in the top three slots.

The artists: Whitney Houston & Akon The leaked track: "Like I Never Left" Back story: The diva has been missing from the pop landscape since 2003, when she released a holiday-themed collection. Much of the singer's headlines over the last few years have been more of the tabloid nature, focusing on health issues and her marriage to Bobby Brown. A new Whitney album -- one that's not embarrassing -- would ascend to blockbuster status. The verdict: "Like I Never Left," featuring production and a collaboration from Akon, is as much an Akon song as it is a Whitney cut. As such, its mission isn't so much to be a knockout, but to reestablish Whitney as a contemporary artist, even featuring some electronically manipulated vocals from Akon.

A newly discovered tape of the Beatles laughing and chatting during an early recording session has sold for $23,446, an auction house reported Tuesday. Cameo Auctioneers said the reel-to-reel tape was recorded in 1964 and had recently been discovered by a man in northern England while he was clearing out his father's attic. The tape features John Lennon and Paul McCartney collapsing into fits of giggles as they try to finish the ballad "I'll Follow the Sun."

Thanks to technology, Carrie Underwood, Martina McBride and LeAnn Rimes will be among the country stars performing with the king of rock 'n' roll on "Elvis Presley Christmas Duets." The new album, due out Oct. 14, will also feature Gretchen Wilson, Wynonna Judd, Sara Evans, Amy Grant and Anne Murray. Sony BMG is releasing the disc in partnership with Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc. They say it's the late icon's first duets album and the first Christmas compilation of its kind. While Presley only recorded 20 Christmas songs, his holiday albums have sold more than 25 million copies in the U.S. alone.

Broadway musical buffs can't get enough of "Gypsy" recordings. And now there is another one on the way. The 2008 Broadway cast recording, starring Patti LuPone, will be released Aug. 26 by Time Life, and the company is billing it as the most complete "Gypsy" ever. The recording includes half a dozen numbers cut from the show before the musical first opened on Broadway in 1959. These forgotten songs are annotated with liner notes on why they were not used.

When five FBI agents arrested Kevin Cogill at his Culver City apartment, it marked the newest weapon in the entertainment industry's war on piracy: felony charges against small-time bootleggers. Cogill posted nine leaked songs from an unreleased Guns N' Roses album, which has been in the works for more than a decade, on his music blog in June. The site crashed under the traffic, and he removed the songs after a few hours when the Los Angeles-based rock band's lawyers complained.

China isn't the only country to fake a musical performance during an Olympic opening ceremony. Turns out Australia knows a thing about miming music too. Eight years after Sydney hosted the 2000 Summer Olympics, officials with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra acknowledged that their stirring performance at the opening ceremony had been prerecorded.

Ol' Blue eyes did it his way -- and so now has Michael Feinstein. When he began kicking around ideas recently for a new album, the singer and recording artist who carries a torch for the Great American Songbook initially dismissed a suggestion that he do a Frank Sinatra tribute. There were too many on the market already, he thought, and most simply copied legendary performances, sometimes note for note. Why bother?

Bear Family Records' remarkable new release, "Let Me Be Your Sidetrack: The Influence of Jimmie Rodgers," makes a persuasive argument that Rodgers is one of the most important figures in the history of country music. According to the liner notes for the six-disc boxed set released last week, 102 of the 109 songs Rodgers did in the late 1920s and early 1930s were later recorded by other artists -- a 94% "cover ratio" unmatched by any other country singer-songwriter, including Hank Williams.

National Public Radio listeners can get an early listen to "Tell Tale Signs," the latest release in the "Bootleg Series" of Bob Dylan archival releases. The album will be released Oct. 7, but NPR will begin streaming the album for free listening starting Tuesday, a week early, on its website, www.npr.org. It's the first time NPR has offered a pre-release album stream. -- Randy Lewis