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music: essential tracks

Santigold performs in Austin, Texas, on March 14, 2012.Jack Plunkett/The Associated Press

This week: Rush, Norah Jones, Loudon Wainwright III, Santigold and a Levon Helm tribute

ROCK

HEADLONG FLIGHT

By Rush, from the forthcoming Clockwork Angels (Roadrunner); streaming here

Whoo-boy, the iconic trio gets its grind on with the pounding, steel-wheeled lead single from its upcoming 20th studio album. This is your father's Rush.

POP

GOD MORNING

By Norah Jones, from the forthcoming Little Broken Hearts (Blue Note); streaming here

A lover is given a wake-up call he didn't place, on an icy-elegant kiss-off produced by Brian (Danger Mouse) Burton. The exquisite Norah Jones changes her sheets, going for a sound more white satin than her traditional velvet.

FOLK-BLUES

OLDER THAN MY OLD MAN NOW

By Loudon Wainwright III, from Older Than My Old Man Now (Shore Fire); Streaming here

An old man takes a look at himself, and finds no satisfaction in living longer than his father had – "I don't feel like me, now that there's no race left to run." A bluesy harmonica accompanies a jaunty ditty that opens with a thoughtful spoken-word passage about a long-dead dad who still keeps his son under his thumb.

POP

RIOT'S GONE

By Santigold, from the forthcoming Master of Make-Believe (Atlantic); streaming here

The singer Santigold changed her name from Santogold, but perhaps she meant to switch it to Matt Berninger, the brooding National vocalist whose halting phrasing she borrows big time on a moody, space-filling track where, "deafened by the fray," she wishes for her unrest to subside.

ESSENTIAL VIDEO

THE WEIGHT

By T he Black Keys and John Fogarty

Levon Helm tributes abounded this past weekend, including Bon Iver in San Francisco ( Ophelia), and at Coachella, where John Fogarty joined the Black Keys for a rendition of The Weight. "I gotta go, but my friends can stick around," indeed.



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