As sad as classic album-rockers like Rush are to see long-form recordings lose momentum in the marketplace, the new single-song market has its advantages, guitarist Alex Lifeson says: It keeps fans engaged.

Even as Jeff Lynne is set to issue new solo versions of his greatest hits with the Electric Light Orchestra, he has reunited with former ELO member Richard Tandy. Videos of the pair performing “Showdown” and “Evil Woman” have been posted to elo.biz.

Ry Cooder has a way with words, a way with song. He can catch a nasty groove, and toss off a ripped-from-the-headlines insult like nobody this side of Bob Dylan. Who can forget the way he cuffed around unscrupulous bankers last year?

Hall and Oates have always been an enigma. To this day, they remain an immensely talented duo capable of some of the greatest white R&B vocal harmonies ever put down on vinyl.

The eight-string Novax guitar has long the instrument of choice for Charlie Hunter, and the two are as inseparable as was Dizzy Gillespie and his trumpet with the bent-up bell.

It is still, by any measure, their most unusual, yet satisfying album — that moment when the power and mystery of Los Lobos music found its fullest flowering in the off-the-wall pop atmospheres created by Mitchell Froom.