So here is why slotMusic won’t work, and lovers of CDs have nothing to worry about.

You might have heard about this. SanDisk, a company that makes memory cards, has launched a new physical format called slotMusic, that would see albums distributed on thumbnail-sized micro-cards, in MP3 format, with no DRM encoding. (Meaning you can rip it, burn it, and basically do anything you want with it.) They’ve got four big labels – EMI, Sony/BMG, Universal and Warner, who between them own, like, 500 other labels – to sign on, and you’ll start seeing these things in stores next year.

The cards will come with USB sleeves, which will let you plug them into your computers, your phones, your iPods, and (if you have the right hardware) your cars. Sounds good, right? You’re already thinking about selling off your CDs and making way for this new format? Yeah, I’ve had several conversations with fans of the CD, and they’re worried that this will surpass and supplant the shiny little discs before long.

I honestly don’t think so, though, and I’ll tell you why.

Lovers of the physical format want bigger, not smaller, in my view. Vinyl has seen a massive resurgence lately, and it’s not just because the sound quality is warmer and more natural, although that’s part of it. It’s also because vinyl record sleeves look awesome. The artwork is massive and enveloping – it has a physical presence, a context. CDs are similar, if smaller. Even cassettes have that physical presence, although speaking as someone who used to buy tapes regularly, that’s about as small as I’d want to go for my physical product.

And deluxe editions of CD packages for collectors are bearing me out on that – they’re going bigger and bigger. Look at the coffin box for Metallica’s Death Magnetic. Marillion’s Happiness is the Road is shipping as two hardbound books in a slipcase. Big. Hell, look at every box set ever, especially the ones with elaborate packaging, like Tori Amos’ A Piano, or the Doors’ Perception. Collectors of physical products like packaging they can touch and display.

Now imagine the packaging for a thumbnail-sized memory card. I highly doubt the box will be much bigger than the thing itself, especially for standard editions. Artwork? Nonexistent, or it may as well be at that size. The slotMusic card is tiny and disposable and context-free – in fact, you may as well just download MP3s from the comfort of your home.

And I think that’s what digital delivery fans are going to do. For those folks, the physical packaging is disposable, something to be discarded once the music has been transferred to the iPod. There’s no reason to think any physical product is going to sway them from that notion.

Consider this: if I want an MP3 version of Death Magnetic right now, I can either go to iTunes and buy it, or head to any number of torrent sites and steal it, without leaving my chair. Or, when slotMusic comes out, I can get up, shower, get dressed, brush my teeth, get in my car, go to a store and buy a card with those MP3s on it, drive home, open the box, connect it to my computer and rip the music, however that will work. I’d bet option one takes less time, and I know it doesn’t require me to get out of my pajamas.

Option two resembles what I do every week, except I buy CDs I can keep, stack and display, with artwork and liner notes that I value, because I’m a fan of physical products and packaging. I think the labels will need to realize that they’re dealing with two distinct audiences here – old-fashioned music collectors who like the tangible objects, and new-school digital delivery fans who like the immediacy – and slotMusic will likely flop with both of them.

On a slightly related note, anyone interested in gleaning some insight into just how intelligent the major labels really are should read this missive from Justin Ouellette, owner of muxtape.com. It’s quite the tale.

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Okay, let’s talk about solo albums this week.

To my mind, there are three different kinds of solo records, and I happen to have an example of each here. Just to be clear, though, we’re not talking about artists who’ve always gone by their own name, like John Mayer or Todd Rundgren, or even artists that go by fake names, like Marilyn Manson. I’m talking about artists that are part of a whole, and then decide to go it alone. Even Conor Oberst, who recently released his first non-Bright Eyes solo album, wouldn’t quite count for what I’m trying to explore here, because for all intents and purposes, he is Bright Eyes. Releasing a solo album is an interesting choice, but not a complete separation from an otherwise viable entity. That’s what I mean – artists who are in a band, but strike out on their own anyway.

And like I said, I think there are three kinds of those albums, each relating to the relative fame of the artist and his/her band. (Whew. You get all that?) Here they are:

1. You are more famous than your band.

In a case like this, staying in the band is the more fascinating decision. If Gwen Stefani, for example, had kept No Doubt going despite the fact that millions of frat boys came out to the shows just to see her, that would have been almost brave. The solo path just made sense for her, and it’s worked, at least commercially. (Listening to Stefani’s solo rubbish, I can scarcely believe I once liked No Doubt at all.)

The same holds true for Jenny Lewis, who is without a doubt the star of Rilo Kiley. Just look at the difference in profile between Lewis’ solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, and her partner-in-Kiley Blake Sennett’s project, The Elected. Lewis, a former child actor, is the draw – Kiley fans respond to her voice and lyrics more than any other element of that band. (An argument could be made that Lewis fits into category three as well, but cut me some slack. I can only deal with what I have on hand.)

So Lewis making solo records is just a natural progression, I think. But the divergent musical paths her work has taken with and without the band are striking. Rilo Kiley’s latest album, last year’s Under the Blacklight, was a glossed-up pop festival, plastic and funky, fun and lightweight. And now here is Acid Tongue, Lewis’ second solo record, and it’s the exact opposite.

There’s a definite sense of authenticity to Lewis’ solo work, something that has eluded Rilo Kiley. Acid Tongue is an old-time session, a bunch of simple folk-rock songs recorded in three weeks with a slew of guest stars. It was produced by Lewis’ other half, Jonathan Rice, and the whole thing has a natural warmth to it that just radiates from the speakers. This is just as earthy as Rabbit Fur Coat, although it rocks quite a bit more. It’s basically just a nice little record, showcasing Lewis’ fine voice.

The surprises here all come from the guests, in fact. Elvis Costello takes a vocal turn on rocker “Carpetbaggers,” continuing the rootsy vibe of his last few albums. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel, collectively known as She and Him, add some nice backing vocals and guitar work, as does Benji Hughes. Perhaps the most sit-up-and-take-notice moment of the record is the choir on the title track, which fills up the space left by the sparse arrangement – that choir includes Rice and Black Crowe Chris Robinson.

Lewis acquits herself very well here, though. She strikes a near-Motown vibe on “Trying My Best to Love You,” hits crazy-high notes on “Godspeed,” and turns in an amazing eight-minute, multi-part rock epic called “The Next Messiah.” Acid Tongue is, in its own way, as effervescent as Under the Blacklight, but the sweet acoustic guitars and pianos lend this album a grounded feel – just check out “Jack Killed Mom,” a Dusty Springfield-worthy tale complete with a call-and-response chorus and spoken-word interlude from Hughes. It’s pretty great.

I’m not sure Lewis deserves to be more famous than her band, but records like Acid Tongue prove she has good instincts, writes a decent song, and surrounds herself with the right people. Rilo Kiley has always been an outfit that tries too hard, but Lewis on her own has struck the right notes of authenticity and authority. It’s better than anything she’s done with her band – it seems a solo career is the right move, and I hope she keeps on this path.

2. Your band is more famous than you.

This is kind of the catch-all category. Most solo albums fall here – historically, a solo project has meant some measure of wing-spreading, of taking flight from the nest. It’s easy to stay anonymous, part of a whole, and somewhat more difficult to branch out, own your ideas and sign your name to them. For the most part, that’s a solo album.

Take Lindsey Buckingham, for example. Since 1974 (incidentally the year I was born), Buckingham has been one of the musical cornerstones of Fleetwood Mac, one of the highest-selling bands in pop music history. He’s written half of their hits, and Stevie Nicks has written the other half, with a few exceptions. But the Mac’s band dynamic has never been especially sturdy, and both Buckingham and Nicks had launched solo careers by 1981.

Here’s what I mean when I say the band is more famous than the man: I can all but guarantee you everyone living in the U.S. today knows a Fleetwood Mac song. You know “The Chain.” You know “Landslide.” You know “Go Your Own Way.” Hell, Bill Clinton made sure everybody who lived through the ‘90s knows “Don’t Stop.” You know these songs. But the number of people I meet who think Lindsey Buckingham is the female singer and Stevie Nicks the male one is staggering. People know the tunes, but they don’t know the tunesmiths.

In a very real sense, it’s no longer a risk for Buckingham to make solo albums. He’s seen two of his solo projects cannibalized for Fleetwood Mac sessions, in fact – for 1987’s Tango in the Night and 2003’s Say You Will. But lately, he’s been going through the most prolific period of his musical life. After his brilliant third solo album, 1992’s Out of the Cradle, Buckingham pretty much disappeared for a decade, but the Say You Will sessions have revitalized him.

In 2006, Buckingham released Under the Skin, an aching, confessional, acoustic record that shone twin spotlights on his amazing finger-picked guitar work and his aging, breathy voice. At the time, he promised a more upbeat, electric guitar album would be coming soon, but nobody actually expected it before the next decade, especially since he sweetened the pot with a live album last year.

But holy crap, here it is – Gift of Screws is an odd, mesmerizing, terrific Buckingham album. His voice remains in shaky shape, but everything else here is in fine, fine form. Take opener “Great Day,” for instance. It starts with a drum machine’s skittering beat, an unadorned vocal, and a few guitar flourishes. It slowly morphs into a tour de force, however, Buckingham whipping out a blistering electric guitar solo that proves he hasn’t lost a note.

“Time Precious Time” is even weirder, yet more rewarding. It’s almost entirely finger-picked guitar and vocal, and if you’ve never heard Buckingham play, you’ll be amazed at how fast and how precise he is. The song’s chorus is sung over a blissful ascending and descending guitar pattern that knocks me out. Things smooth out from there, with “Did You Miss Me” standing as one of Buckingham’s catchiest songs in years, and “Wait For You” cranking out a fiery blues.

In 10 songs and 39 minutes, Buckingham covers a lot of musical ground, and he does it all well. Just check out the title track, with its mini-Fleetwood Mac reunion – Mick Fleetwood’s on drums, and John McVie’s on bass. But if you were expecting a polished pop gem from this song, be prepared for an off-kilter garage-rock extravaganza, with yelping vocals and some awesome guitar playing. Two songs later, he’s ending the album with the graceful, almost gospel “Treason,” layering his own voice into a chorale.

A good solo album should give fans of the band, especially fans who don’t give a damn who wrote what song or played what guitar solo, a reason to jump ship and follow it out to sea. Gift of Screws more than does that. At age 58, with a voice that just isn’t what it once was, Lindsey Buckingham has gone and made one of his best solo discs anyway, and Mac fans could do a lot worse than trying it out.

3. Neither you nor your band are famous.

Now, I suppose there’s a fourth category, for solo artists that are equally as famous as the bands they’re in, but honestly, I can only think of one case, and that’s Genesis and Phil Collins. And it could be argued that Collins made Genesis famous, hence dropping this file into category one, but that’s another argument.

Off the top of my head, though, I can think of a dozen instances in which a band and a solo career exist in equal obscurity. (Daniel Amos and Terry Taylor, or LSU and Mike Knott, or more recently, Band of Horses and Tyler Ramsey.) The question then becomes this – if your band hasn’t made its mark in the public consciousness, why launch a solo career? Sometimes the answer is commercial, sometimes personal, but more often than not, it’s because the solo songs don’t sound like the band songs, and wouldn’t fit under that banner.

Here’s a great example: Amanda Palmer. If you know her at all, you know her as the piano-vocal half of the Dresden Dolls, a band that somehow combines the theatrical and the confessional without compromising either one. They’re known for a piano-punk sound with heaping helpings of German cabaret influence, and as you may have guessed, they’re utterly unique. Their two albums (and one b-sides collection) are dense and difficult, but fascinating and rewarding.

So when Palmer found herself with a bunch of drum-deficient pop songs last year, she really had no choice but to make a solo album. Now, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I’ve known the title of this record – Who Killed Amanda Palmer – for about two months, and I just got the Twin Peaks reference this week. Pity me, I am slow. But I immediately figured out that her choice of co-producer, the great Ben Folds, meant that this would be a different Amanda Palmer on display.

And I was right. Things are different right from the start, as Palmer’s piano gives way to sweet strings on opener “Astronaut.” About half of these songs are pretty ballads, filled out with violins and cellos. I’m especially enamored of “Blake Says,” but the immediate standout is “Ampersand,” as in, “I’m not going to live my life on one side of an ampersand.” Piano, orchestra, Palmer’s surprisingly pretty voice, and that’s all. It’s wonderful.

“Runs in the Family” is perhaps the most Dolls-esque song, rapid-firing five notebook pages of lyrics over 2:45 of explosive music. “Leeds United” finds Palmer’s voice running ragged as she spits out a great melody over a rollicking horn section. “Guitar Hero” teams her with East Bay Ray of the Dead Kennedys for a mid-tempo nod-along, and Annie Clark of St. Vincent joins in for a lighter-than-air cover of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “What’s the Use of Wond’rin?” (She makes it about domestic violence, just through context, and it works.)

There are two things that haven’t changed, though – Palmer’s voice and lyrics. Her words here are tender and tragic, most often – she even wrings pathos from roadkill deer on “Have to Drive,” and when she takes on self-identity in “Ampersand” and inherited personality disorders in “Runs in the Family,” you can’t help wondering how autobiographical it all is.

Palmer tells stories as well as her co-producer does – just check out “Oasis,” a bluntly shocking tale of teenage life that puts equal emphasis on having an abortion and joining a band’s fan club. And then there is “Strength Through Music,” which isn’t directly about Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, but may as well be. It’s creepy and bare-bones, Palmer whispering most of the lyrics: “It’s so simple, the way that they fall, no bang or whimper, no sound at all…”

The record closes with a pair of beautiful ballads, Palmer finding new corners to send her strong, rich voice while Folds’ string arrangements surround her. “I’m not as callous as you think, I barely breathe when you are near,” she sings in “Another Year,” and it’s one of the record’s most striking moments.

And when it’s over, there’s no doubt – this is Amanda Palmer’s solo album, and she’s reinvented herself. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Palmer and the Dresden Dolls continue down parallel, yet totally separate paths, and it’s great to hear such diversity from this talented songwriter. I’m probably as tired of saying this as you are of hearing it by this point, but Who Killed Amanda Palmer is one of the best records of the year.

Next week, Ben Folds, and whoever else I can find time to listen to. Plus, the Third Quarter Report.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

We lost Rick Wright this week.

For those of you who don’t know, I’m a keyboard player. I started at a really young age, teaching myself – my grandmother was a concert pianist, and I inherited at least my appreciation for music from her, if not any real measure of skill or talent. I learned by listening, and by finding keyboard parts to emulate. I learned all the Journey songs. I learned Europe’s “The Final Countdown.” I even learned “Right Here Waiting,” by Richard Marx.

But these were just songs to me. I had no idea who wrote or played the parts I liked, and even as a young pup, I could sense that keyboards were considered a second-class instrument. I think it’s safe to say the first keyboard player I really knew by name, the first one I wanted to be, was Rick Wright. And although my path to Pink Floyd fandom wasn’t a typical one, I like to think I caught up pretty quickly.

I was 13 years old when A Momentary Lapse of Reason came out. You’ll have to forgive me for thinking it was one of the best albums ever – at that time, I had no other Floyd records to compare it to. I also simply didn’t know the history. Momentary Lapse was almost David Gilmour’s third solo album, and it was assembled by Gilmour and a bunch of session musicians. Wright did play on it, but only sporadically, despite being listed in the credits as the primary keyboard guy.

My 13-year-old self didn’t care about any of that, though. He was blown away by the sound – here was a rock band, with a singular guitar player, but the foundation of the whole thing was the keyboard. The album opened with a shimmering synth instrumental, included songs that featured little but keys and voice for long stretches, and used synthesizer voices not as dance-club gloss, but as a serious building block of something massive.

Of course, I soon went back and heard everything else Floyd, and I don’t need to tell you how good it all is. If you haven’t at least heard The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, you owe it to yourself to hunt down copies right now. Floyd has a reputation for making tripped-out drug soundtracks, but when they were on their game, they made music that enveloped you in a mood, music that took you somewhere else without needing drugs or anything else.

Take Wish You Were Here as an example. Released in 1975, Wish is a conceptual piece about former Floyd singer Syd Barrett, and about the band’s feelings on the music industry following the worldwide success of The Dark Side of the Moon. In 45 minutes, this thing takes you from sweeping and grand, to creepy and sinister, to sweet and nostalgic, and then back to huge and epic. And the twin cornerstones of the whole thing are Gilmour’s guitar and Wright’s keyboards.

There are so many Rick Wright highlights across Floyd’s unique and daunting catalog, but the one you’ll probably hear the most about in pieces like this one is “The Great Gig in the Sky.” This song is amazing – it’s mostly just Wright’s piano and Clare Torry’s soaring, wordless vocal, but it’s transporting. Grand as this song is, my favorite Rick Wright moment on Dark Side comes just a few songs later – “Any Colour You Like” is little more than an instrumental segue between the gorgeous “Us and Them” and the record’s finale, but just listen to the warm, wonderful playing on this thing.

Wright died this week at age 65, after a struggle with cancer. If you’re in a mood to remember just how good he was, you have an interesting opportunity – his final full performance will be released Tuesday. David Gilmour’s Live in Gdansk documents the final show of his On an Island tour, and like that album, the tour featured Wright on keys. All of Island is performed, but the set also includes some real gems from some near-forgotten Floyd records: “Fat Old Sun” from Atom Heart Mother, for example, and “Echoes” from Meddle.

It wasn’t intentional, but Live in Gdansk seems like it will serve as a fitting testament to Rick Wright, the second founding member of Floyd to pass on (after Syd Barrett in 2006). Floyd albums are always going to have a special place in my heart, and Rick Wright influenced my growth as a musician and music lover tremendously. He’ll be missed. Enjoy that great gig in the sky, Rick, and thanks, from keyboard players everywhere.

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I’ve bought a ton of music in the past two weeks, but I haven’t found a whole lot of time to listen to it, unfortunately. And we’re in the middle of the Hurricane Ike of release periods – I’m getting a minimum of four new albums every week until November. Next week I’ll have heard a bunch of them, and I’ll give you my thoughts. But this week, here’s a look at what’s ahead:

September 30 is massive. I’m probably most anticipating and dreading Way to Normal, the new Ben Folds album – nothing I’ve heard has knocked me out, and in fact much of it has turned me off completely. It sounds like frat-boy shenanigans, like he could have written some great songs, but decided to play his PS2 instead, and just made shit up in the studio. I don’t have high hopes. I’m much more confident about Ani Difranco’s Red Letter Year, which sounds like a full band effort again after years of minimalist experimentation.

But wait, there’s more! Neal Morse will release another prog-tastic record, called Lifeline. Todd Rundgren makes his twice-a-decade return with something called Arena, which promises to be a more guitar-heavy excursion. Tom Morello dusts off his Nightwatchman persona again for some more protest folk on The Hidden City, and The Jesus and Mary Chain finally get that four-CD set of b-sides and rarities together. (They’ve given it the delicious title The Power of Negative Thinking.)

The early weeks of October will bring new things from Oasis (Dig Out Your Soul), Ray LaMontagne (Gossip in the Grain), and Deerhoof (Offend Maggie), but you all know the one I’m most excited about. It’s Perfect Symmetry, the third album from Keane, and while the first single (and leadoff track, “Spiralling”) kicks it ‘80s style, the other songs I’ve heard are much more Keane-sounding. Especially the album closer, “Love is the End.” I really like that one. So we’ll see what they came up with.

Here’s just a straight list of the other acts with new records in the first three weeks of October: Of Montreal, Rachel Yamagata, Secret Machines, Revolting Cocks, Sixpence None the Richer, Snow Patrol, Chris Cornell (Produced by fucking Timbaland. Seriously.), the Dears, Hank Williams III, AC/DC (sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, as if that weren’t a sign of the apocalypse), and …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead.

The last week, though, has some big ones. October 28 will see the release of 4:13 Dream, the new Cure album – originally planned as a double, this is technically part one, and contains all the upbeat tracks. The downbeat ones are scheduled for release next year, but I’ll believe that when I see it. Queen and Paul Rodgers piss on Freddie Mercury’s grave with The Cosmos Rocks, and because I am a sucker completist, I will buy it. Starflyer 59 will release Dial M, and Ryan Adams and the Cardinals return with the just-announced Cardinology.

Oh, and somewhere in there, Marillion’s Happiness is the Road will hit my mailbox. I’m loving it more with each listen. The two discs will be released individually to U.S. stores on October 20. If you can only buy just one, get Essence, the first volume.

November brings a ton of stuff as well, including the new Travis (Ode to J. Smith), a new Shiny Toy Guns (Season of Poison), another Tracy Chapman disc (Our Bright Future), Scott Weiland’s second solo album (Happy), and, for some reason, the third Killers album (Day and Age). Autumn will also hopefully bring us Michael Roe’s new solo album, the Lost Dogs’ Route 66 project, and that long-awaited collaboration between Roe and Michael Pritzl.

The farthest outpost on my musical map of the year right now is 808s and Heartbreaks, the fourth Kanye West album, scheduled (for the moment) to drop on December 16. But if the last two months of 2008 fill in the way October has, we could be in for an expensive fall.

Okay, I’m out for the week – going to try to listen to a few CDs in preparation for next week, when I should be able to review Lindsey Buckingham, Amanda Palmer and Jenny Lewis, at least. Thanks for your patience.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

This is my 400th column.

I’m coming right up on the end of my eighth year doing this thing, and if all proceeds the way it’s supposed to, I’ll hit 500 sometime in August of my 10th year. That’s a tremendous amount of time to dedicate to a single project, but when I look back at the best stuff I’ve done here since 2000, I’m pretty proud of it. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have.

So here’s my semi-annual thank you to everyone who’s been along for this ride. New converts, longtime readers, what have you – I’m glad you’re here. This would be pretty pointless without you, and I appreciate the friends I’ve made through this column, and the letters I receive on a regular basis. Music is the best, as the man once said, and I’m grateful I get to share my love of it with you, and hear about your love of it in return.

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I got the strangest e-mail from Marillion this week.

As any longtime reader knows, Marillion is pretty high on my list of favorite bands. They’re also one of the most forward-looking, all-inclusive, cutting-edge marketing machines on the planet, and they never fail to surprise me on that score. From album pre-orders to concert subscription services to free samplers for new listeners to revolutionary fan-powered enterprises, this is a band that has remained completely independent for many years mainly by being unbelievably imaginative.

Their 15th album, Happiness is the Road, is weeks away from release. Here is a rundown of some of the extraordinary things they’ve done so far to make this an experience for the fans. First, they held another pre-order, and somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000 fans ponied up for the new record before a single note was recorded. They used that money to make the record, and to pay for gorgeous packaging – two hardcover books in a thick slipcase, loaded with images. Then, they listed the names of everyone who pre-ordered in the liner notes.

They held a couple of drawings for pre-orderers, the most interesting of which offered a chance to play on the new album. One lucky woman got to travel to the Racket Club, Marillion’s studio, and play finger cymbals on “Essence,” one of the new tracks. A couple of months ago, the band launched another contest, this one on YouTube – fans were given a new song for free, and asked to create their own video for it and post it online. The video with the most views by the end of the year will get $10,000, and an additional 10 grand will go to the band’s favorite entry.

All of this is brilliant grass-roots marketing, but it wasn’t until this week that I realized just how far outside the box they’ve been thinking. Knowing full well that this new album would hit file-sharing sites within hours of promo copies being sent out, the band decided to distribute the album on those sites themselves. Or, more accurately, they asked us, their fans, to do it.

Their e-mail, sent just to those of us who pre-ordered, offered a chance to download the entire new album (all 110 minutes of it) for ourselves, and then download and distribute separate specially-coded files of all of the songs. These files will direct downloaders to another site, where they will be asked to enter an e-mail address, and be given the option to pay for the track. They don’t have to pay anything, but the files they download are heavily DRM-encoded, which means they can’t be burned to a disc or transferred to an iPod.

The idea, apparently, is to flood file-sharing sites with these files, so they will drown out the inevitable DRM-free leak of the album. At the very least, the band reasons, they’ll get e-mail addresses out of it, and can hopefully encourage those people to buy a concert ticket, or another album from the band’s site. The decision to let the pre-orderers download clean copies for themselves must have been a difficult one – the band knew just how upset some fans would be if they gave the new record away for free to everyone who wanted it, so this is a courtesy if anything, but they must also know that these clean files will find their way to the same sites as the encoded ones.

It’s a bold idea, though, and I hope it works for them. The publicity it’s generated can be a good and bad thing – it’s drawn more attention to the little band that could, and hopefully will drive up sales from people like me who hate file-sharing and all it represents, but now that the freeloaders know these files are out there, they’ll likely find them a lot easier to avoid, especially if clean files are on the same sites. I wish Marillion every success with what could not have been an easy course to chart.

As for me, I wouldn’t know how to upload files if you paid me, so I just took my free download and left it at that. I hope that’s okay with the band – I’ve pre-ordered Happiness twice, actually, to have it in deluxe and standard packaging, and I promise all I’ve been doing is listening to the clean files, not sharing them. (Well, I’ve been playing them for people too, but not sharing the files… you know what I mean.) I thought about waiting for my pre-order to arrive, but I’m a weak, weak man. And besides, I could get into some freak accident and die before it shows up, missing my chance to hear it at all.

Does that rationalization work for you? Because it worked for me.

I’ll give a full review of Happiness is the Road next month. I’m grateful for the extra time with it, honestly, because in six or so listens, I’ve gone from “This is monotonous, boring dreck” to “This is one of the best albums they’ve ever made,” and I think it’s slowly starting to click. It’s a Marillion album unlike any other, and at the same time, it’s very much what they do. I can’t wait to hear the real thing.

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This one’s for Steve Pelland.

I was 14 years old when …And Justice for All, the fourth Metallica album, was released. It was one of the first albums I remember waiting for, and buying as soon as it came out. It was also the first Metallica album I heard all the way through – I’d heard scattered songs, like “Fade to Black” and “The Four Horsemen,” but never an entire record. And as a church-going teen, it was something of a scary endeavor. I actually hesitated pressing play that first time, but I’d heard over and over again that Metallica was the best band in the world, and I had to find out if that was true.

If you’ve never heard it, …And Justice for All is an amazing, oppressive, dark, difficult, poorly-mixed album of intensely complicated metal. It was Metallica’s first record after the death of their original bassist, Cliff Burton, and they clearly felt they had something to prove – there is nothing fun about this album at all, and it’s 65 minutes long. It’s a punishing experience, an exhausting first go-round for a newbie.

But it led me to the Holy Trilogy, the Burton albums: 1983’s Kill ‘Em All, 1984’s Ride the Lightning, and 1986’s incredible Master of Puppets, considered by many the best metal album ever made. It’s hard to argue – Puppets is a progressive masterpiece, as complex and beautiful as it is heavy and angry. Metallica gets credit for being louder and faster than most other bands, but they’re not usually thought of as melodic, and they never really get props for the prettier moments on their records, like the intro to “Battery” and the glorious middle section of “Orion.”

Anyway. As I was absorbing these monumental records (and finding more artists like Metallica to enjoy), I met Steve Pelland. He worked with me at a local grocery store while we were both in high school, and we bonded over (you guessed it) Metallica. And Megadeth, and Testament, and a few other bands too, but mostly Metallica. He was my best teenage metalhead friend. So when Metallica announced their new album in 1991, a self-titled affair with an all-black cover, well, Pell and I had to hear it together.

We’d heard “Enter Sandman,” of course, and while we made excuses for it, we knew it wasn’t the Metallica we loved. The rest of the Black Album was the same – simple songs, often based around one riff, most of them around five minutes long. I can say this now, although I couldn’t say it then – it was boring. There were good points: the riff on “Sad But True” remains a monster, and “Nothing Else Matters” is still the prettiest thing the band has done. But it was lacking, and we were disappointed.

Steve and I went our separate ways when I took off for college, and I never really got to hear what he thought of where our favorite band went after that. It turns out, the Black Album was the template for everything else for more than 10 years. Load and ReLoad were simplistic boogie-rock, taking much of their sound from ‘70s radio. They were probably fun to make, but they weren’t much fun to listen to.

And St. Anger, the “comeback” album from 2003, clearly wasn’t a good time for anyone. That record brought back the aggressive vibe of the old days, but crippled it with terrible songs, insanely bad production and the incredible decision to excise Kirk Hammett’s solos from the process. It’s still the Metallica album I play the least.

It’s fair to call me a long-suffering Metallica fan, and I’d bet Pell feels the same way. I approach each new Metalliproject with skepticism and cynicism now – I’ve been burned too many times. Will I buy every new album from the band? Sure. Do I expect to enjoy them? Not really.

I can’t say I went into Death Magnetic, the just-released ninth Metallica record, with any real hope. Our boys are old now – they’re all in their mid-40s, even new bassist Robert Trujillo, and long past their metal sell-by date. Then there’s that title. Death Magnetic doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. It’s certainly not a statement like Kill ‘Em All or …And Justice For All. And then there was the St. Anger experience, which has taught me to ignore any and all claims that the band has “recaptured their old fire.” My mantra has become “I’ll believe that when I hear it.”

Well, sit down, Metallifans. I’ve just heard it, and I believe it.

Death Magnetic is the best Metallica album in 20 years, the best thing they’ve done since Justice, easy.

I know, I know, hard to believe. But they’ve done it. They’ve made a stone cold classic album, two decades after their last one. Credit producer Rick Rubin, who unfailingly brings out the best in his clients. But also credit James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich, who turned in their best batch of songs since the Reagan years, and credit the whole band for playing these songs so tightly, so powerfully. I hope it’s not an insult to say they sound half their age on this thing.

Just listen to opener “That Was Just Your Life,” and your faith will be restored. After a lengthy, doomy intro played on clean guitars, that riff starts up, and Ulrich hammers his drums, first in straight time, then in “FUCK YEAH!” thrashy double-time. The song takes a hundred hairpin turns – it’s as progressive as anything on Justice, and as heavy. Despite their reputation as speed-happy screamers, Metallica has always been a melodies band, and they don’t disappoint here – these explosive metal epics have choruses and hooks, too, and this one’s is awesome.

And then, of course, there is Hammett. He’s unleashed here for the first time in a decade, and his solos are massive. The brief one in “That Was Just Your Life” ends with a classic Hammett whammy-bar divebomb, and I couldn’t keep the goofy grin from my face. My inner metalhead’s favorite band is so very, very back.

The rest of the album is, astonishingly, just as good. I chuckled a bit at the title of “All Nightmare Long,” but it turned out to be my favorite thing here. The chorus is somewhat nu-Metallica, but the verses and instrumental sections are right out of the classic era. “The Day That Never Comes” resembles “One” a little much, but its second half shreds. Most of these songs break seven minutes, and unlike the endless dirges on St. Anger, they deserve that length. Hell, there’s a 10-minute instrumental (“Suicide and Redemption”), on which you can really hear how good Trujillo is, and it rocks.

There is one speed bump, and if you’ve glanced at the track list, you can probably guess what it is. “The Unforgiven III” is a slower power-ballad kind of thing, and it doesn’t quite belong amidst all these complex epics. I have not yet (ahem) forgiven the original “Unforgiven” for inspiring Nickelback’s whole career, and the sequel (on ReLoad) wasn’t worth my time either. Happily, the third one is the best of the bunch, but its orchestral touches and slow power chords drag the record down.

It’s not fatal, however, and it is the only low point on an album full of highs. Even simple pieces like “Cyanide” drip attitude and confidence, two things missing from every album since 1988. And trickier ones, like “The End of the Line,” sound so damn good you’ll think you’re listening to some mythical lost album from the golden years. They couldn’t have picked a better closing song than “My Apocalypse,” sort of a five-minute coda – it fills the same role as “Damage Inc.” and “Dyer’s Eve,” bringing the album to a crashing, heart-stopping halt.

I don’t know if Steve Pelland’s bought this thing yet, but he’s going to love it. I know, I know, I didn’t believe it either, especially after the band whined their way through Some Kind of Monster and started suing their fans. But somehow, they’ve done it. For the first time in 20 years, Metallica has made a great album, and as a long-frustrated fan, I’m pleased to report that it’s safe to come back now. Is it as good as the Holy Trilogy? Of course not. But you won’t believe how good it actually is.

Pell, let me know when you’ve heard it. I can’t wait to hear what you think.

Next week, Lindsey Buckingham and Amanda Palmer.

See you in line Tuesday morning.

I only bought one CD this week.

My usual average is about four, and sometimes I buy as many as eight or nine, but this week… one. I didn’t plan it, it was just an accident of the calendar. And it was just a trick of fate that the one album I wanted this week was Brian Wilson’s That Lucky Old Sun.

I say this because my normal propensity towards buying lots and lots of new music leaves me little time each week to fully absorb each new nugget I bring home. But this week, I’ve had days and days to listen to nothing but That Lucky Old Sun, and I’ve been grateful for them. I have probably heard it 15 times by now, and I suppose the first of many nice things I plan to say about this new album is that I’m nowhere near sick of it. I’ve tried listening to other things, in fact, and I’ve come back to That Lucky Old Sun again and again.

I really didn’t expect that would be the case. Quite honestly, I’ve been dreading the release of this album ever since it was announced, and living in fear of it for a month, especially as I watched the release calendar take shape and realized I’d have nothing else to write about this week.

What do I mean? Well, in order to answer that, I have to delve into Brian Wilson’s incredible history, and talk about his masterpiece, SMiLE. Wilson, as everyone knows, led the Beach Boys through one golden-throated good-time single after another in the early ‘60s before evolving into possibly the greatest pop genius America had yet produced.

In the beginning, they were the “no. 1 surfing group in the country,” as the cover of their second album, Surfin’ USA, proclaimed. But it was always the harmonies of the Wilson brothers – Brian, Carl and Dennis – with their cousin Mike Love that set them apart. “I Get Around,” for example, is a very simple little song, but the vocal arrangement is amazing. Beach Boys songs were all about sun, surf and fun, and practically created the image of southern California as a surfer’s paradise. It was a formula, but it worked, and the band did it well.

But then, in 1966, Wilson unveiled the songs that would become Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys’ ninth album, and nothing would ever be the same. Pet Sounds is, in a word, perfect. It’s a sumptuously arranged, sad and beautiful pop record, and it includes a few of the greatest songs ever written, including “God Only Knows” – that song alone would have earned Wilson a place in the pop pantheon. This was not mindless surfin’ fun, this was deeply considered music, the work of a master.

Emboldened by his success with Pet Sounds (and challenged by the Beatles’ Revolver, released the same year), Wilson started working on his masterpiece, a “teenage symphony to God” called SMiLE. This album would take the pop-as-orchestral-composition leanings of Pet Sounds further – it would be a seamless suite of sometimes zany, sometimes heartfelt songs that would stretch Wilson’s talents as producer and arranger. It would have been astonishing.

But it didn’t happen. At least, not in 1967, when it was supposed to.

Wilson finished “Good Vibrations,” the first single, and it was released to great critical acclaim. But under pressure from his bandmates, his label and others, Wilson crumbled, and left the studio sessions unfinished. In May of 1967, SMiLE was called off. The Beach Boys continued on, but never made another album like Pet Sounds. And Brian Wilson slipped into depression, drugs and mental illness, none of it helped by his relationship with controversial therapist Eugene Landy, and didn’t come out of it until the 1990s.

Wilson’s music suffered tremendously in that time. He contributed to Beach Boys projects, but only sparingly. His first solo album, self-titled and released in 1988. was weak, save for the fantastic “Love and Mercy.” His second proper album of new stuff, Imagination, came 10 years later, and wasn’t a lot better. It seemed we had lost one of our only true geniuses, as Wilson struggled just to be happy from day to day.

So the news that a reinvigorated Wilson, at 62 years old, had decided to finally finish SMiLE was met with understandable skepticism. Hell, I was certain it would be crap, especially considering the mediocrity of Gettin’ In Over My Head, Wilson’s 2004 solo disc. Sadly, that album contained some of Wilson’s best songs in more than 30 years, and they were no great shakes. Could Wilson finally drag himself out of decades of depression, overcome his paralyzing fear of the music on SMiLE, and deliver?

Hell yes, he could. The finished SMiLE, released near the end of 2004, is quite simply one of the best albums ever made, by anyone. I do not say that lightly. It is joyous and brilliant and melancholy and goofy and complex and perfectly arranged. It is the work of a fearless young composer, finished and spit-shined by his grand master elder self. And if you don’t want to take just my word for it, look at the album’s Metacritic page. It scored an impossible 97 out of 100, and is the site’s highest-regarded album ever.

The triumph of SMiLE has a lot to do with the obstacles Wilson was working against – he had to crawl back into his 1967 mind and complete a long-lost project that had grown mythical in its stature, he had to conquer his own terror in doing so, and he had to whip his ruined voice into shape to sing the complex melody lines he’d written as a 24-year-old. It should not have worked. It worked magnificently.

The problem is this – as soon as the glow of SMiLE faded, the eternal question of “what’s next” began cropping up. How do you follow up one of the best albums ever made? Do you even try?

I’m not sure I would have, if I were Brian Wilson. Having vaulted over the biggest musical and personal hurdle of my life, I think I’d probably have taken it easy for a while, retired to an island somewhere. As a Brian Wilson fan, I can think of nothing more dreadful than him following SMiLE with album after album of withering returns, blasé and mediocre records like Gettin’ In Over My Head.

And so I shivered a bit when I heard earlier this year that Wilson had premiered a new work in London, a 38-minute suite of songs meant as the successor to SMiLE. I literally shivered. When I then heard that Wilson was recording That Lucky Old Sun for release in 2008, my heart stopped. Here was What’s Next, and would it live up? Was SMiLE a creative rebirth for America’s greatest living songwriter, or was it an aberration? Could a 65-year-old Wilson possibly compete with his 24-year-old self? Would it even be fair to judge this new album against SMiLE?

See? Paralyzed with fear. I bought That Lucky Old Sun on Tuesday, and took it home, performing ritual prayers over it. “Please don’t suck,” I chanted. “Please don’t suck.”

Thirty-eight minutes later, I exhaled. And then I let out a whoop of joy. And then I pressed play again.

And again.

And again.

And I haven’t stopped yet.

Let me be absolutely clear right at the outset. That Lucky Old Sun is not SMiLE. Nothing else is, frankly. But remove that album from the equation, and Lucky Old Sun is Brian Wilson’s finest, deepest, catchiest and best work since Pet Sounds. It is a love letter to life, an examination of California culture and Wilson’s place within it. It is, in many ways, the most important album Brian Wilson has ever made, and he’s bravely met the challenge head on.

That Lucky Old Sun is a 38-minute seamless suite, as promised. Wilson has based it around the title song, a Louis Armstrong hit from his childhood, and its hook line – “That lucky old sun’s got nothing to do but roll around Heaven all day” – gives him the chance to mold the album around his two favorite subjects, California and God. He’s also incorporated four spoken narratives into the framework, written by SMiLE collaborator Van Dyke Parks.

But the real wonder of this album is Wilson’s own contributions. Technically, there are 11 new Brian Wilson songs here, most co-written with Scott Bennett, although they all wrap together into a cohesive whole. And they’re great little songs. You can immediately hear the difference between a Brian Wilson going through the motions, and a Brian Wilson fully engaged in his work. Put simply, the songs on Gettin’ In Over My Head could have been written by anyone. The songs on That Lucky Old Sun could only have been written by Brian Wilson.

After stating the theme with the title song, Wilson kicks off the proceedings proper with “Morning Beat,” a simple rocker buoyed by the glorious “maumamayama glory hallelujah” refrain. I quite like this one and “Good Kind of Love,” a goofy little tune with a catchy chorus, but things really take off with “Forever She’ll Be My Surfer Girl.” A sequel to 1963’s “Surfer Girl,” this is the first hint you get that this album is going to be about looking back and looking forward at once. It’s also a fantastic song, pure golden pop.

I can’t understate just how great Wilson’s backing band, including members of the Wondermints, is. Though these songs are less complex by far than SMiLE, they are no less intricately put together, and the band is up to every challenge Wilson throws at them. And they harmonize like a choir of angels. Even middling tunes like “Mexican Girl” come alive with this band, and gleaming gems like “Live Let Live” are wonderful to behold. Wilson’s voice isn’t what it used to be, and he sometimes has trouble hitting the notes, but he’s surrounded himself with generous musicians committed to doing justice to his songs, and making him sound good.

As much as I love the first two-thirds of That Lucky Old Sun, if it had merely gone on like that for all 38 minutes, I would have called it better than expected and filed it away. But the last third… I can barely find the words, honestly, I’m so moved by it every time I hear it. While much of the album sets the scene, the last six tracks give you the story, and it’s about Brian Wilson himself.

For the first time, Wilson has taken a long look at his lost years, and here, he bravely sings about them. It sounds like the final step in his recovery, the last few paces on the road to joy. “Oxygen to the Brain” is a delightfully goony fable about waking up, on which Wilson sings, “I wasted a lot of years, life was so dead…” Over a very silly (and very Wilson-esque) backdrop, he comes to: “I’m filling up my lungs again, and breathing in life…”

A snippet of old song “Can’t Wait Too Long” paves the way for “Midnight’s Another Day,” the emotional heart of the album. A gorgeous piano ballad, “Midnight” is a song of regret and recovery. “Waited too long to feel the warmth, I had to chase the sun,” Wilson sings, tying the record together with a master stroke. His voice is as strong as it’s been in years here, but its weaknesses only enhance the song – you really feel like he’s lived this piece. “Lost in the dark, no shades of gray, until I found midnight’s another day…”

Nothing, then, will prepare you for the pure and unrestrained joy of “Going Home,” the penultimate track. A monstrous boogie layered with Beach Boys harmonies, the song finds Wilson returning to California and breathing it in for the first time in ages. “I heard my sound, I found my smile,” he sings, cleverly nodding to his masterwork as the backing vocalists sing snippets from “Roll Plymouth Rock.” The bridge is a heart-stopper: “At twenty-five I turned out the light ‘cause I couldn’t handle the glare in my tired eyes, but now I’m back drawing shades of kind blue skies…”

If the album had ended there, I would have been happy, but “Southern California” is an even better finale. It’s back to the piano, but this time, it’s sweet and major-key. Try not to get goosebumps at the opening lines – while the backing vocalists “ooh-ooh” like it’s 1963 again, Wilson sings, “I had this dream, singing with my brothers…” Both Dennis and Carl are gone now, and you can hear how much he misses them. The song is a lovely reminiscence, bringing the album’s themes together with a lovely flourish. “When you wake up here, you wake up everywhere,” Wilson sings, looking up at the lucky old sun as it rolls around Heaven.

Here’s the kicker: “Oh, it’s magical, living your dreams, don’t want to sleep, you might miss something…”

This, from the saddest man in pop music, the one who wrote “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “In My Room” and “Caroline, No.” The real theme of That Lucky Old Sun is that Brian Wilson is finally, after decades of struggle, a happy man. And I’m happy for him. This album is a joy to listen to, and was clearly a joy to make. Most importantly, it shows beyond a doubt that SMiLE was no fluke – it was the opening of the floodgates, perhaps the start of a renaissance for this gentle genius.

I’m trying not to oversell That Lucky Old Sun, but it’s hard – I love it very much. It’s not SMiLE, but it is one of the most conceptually and musically rich albums of the year, and what’s wrong with it pales into insignificance when stacked next to what’s right with it. Brian Wilson is alive and awake, breathing in life and making great music, and right now, I can’t imagine anything more beautiful. That Lucky Old Sun is a triumph, perhaps even more than SMiLE was – if a lesser work musically, it’s a deeper one personally, an emotionally bold album that sums up Wilson’s career, and looks forward to new wonders on the horizon.

It’s a beautiful thing. I feel as lucky as the sun to have heard it.

See you in line Tuesday morning.