I loved, loved the Flaming Lips' Embryonic, and find The Soft Bulletin to be a pretty magical cornucopia. Pretty big fan of 1995's Clouds Taste Metallic as well. Yet I've never considered for even a second if the Lips could be one of my Favorite Bands. They might've struck gold three-ish times, but they've made about four times that many records, and they're such junkies for typical gotcha bullshit that it's hard to trust that their bottomless propensity for novelty won't permeate their record writing. Records like this one, that is, released especially for Record Store Day with a legitimate other famous guest on every track. My mind is telling me no, but my body's saying yes.

"2012 (You Must Be Upgraded)"

The best thing about Wayne Coyne is he takes dares very seriously. So in order to top his previous records, which were released inside gummy skulls and fetuses, his new album opens with the distinct voice of Ke$ha vying with abrasive tones unheard in major-label music since Aphex Twin's ...I Care Because You Do. She fits in this jungle-clash cacophony perfectly, which is either a testament to her versatility (hey, I believe in Ke$ha) or the amorphousness of the Lips' music circa 2012. Other than the drumbeat, I don't hear the currently-being-cited Stooges' "1969" though. The synths sound like someone dialing a phone through an overfed amplifier.

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For some reason, like the Craig Finn solo album, I'm kind of dreading this. Jack White's one of my generation's greatest, which is partly the reason I'm always worried about when he'll Clapton out. Without his cro Meg-non secret weapon on drums (well, drum, singular -- as in one at a time), he came off painfully normal alongside Brendan Benson in the Raconteurs, and tantalizing but anonymous in his third billing with Alison Mosshart in the Dead Weather. No telling what impact this all will have on the modestly-announced debut album under his own name, but let's rock this.

"Missing Pieces"

Ha, kind of a funny in-joke in the music here; it's like a lounge-organ version of the oft-repeated "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" riff, as if he knows fans are expecting a complacent rundown of his usual style. But the song's immediate and catchy, and you're in the middle of it before you know it, sharing a cell with a mild shitstorm guitar solo. One of the most normal ways to open a solo debut I think I've ever heard, despite the Meg/breakup bait, "Sometimes I want to control everything about you."

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Sure, I heard bad things about MDNA, but when's the last time critics actually jumped for Madonna? In the pre-"poptimist" era of 1999, with Ray of Light, I'm pretty sure. Music was a billion times better, and the oft-cited failure American Life is actually pretty strange and fun (vocoder and rapping!). But MDNA's single was lukewarm, and roundly and rightly considered so. Time to see if I can give our star any luvin' at all.

"Girl Gone Wild"

Awesome. Maybe Lady Gaga inspired Madge to do spoken cheesy intros again, so she makes a quick confession, then we're off to the races. The dry clarity of this casually morphing disco beat is on par with Music, her last great album and a good sign. Yet it's extremely spare and calm as well -- at least for a lead track from a very famous pop singer that begins with a faux church confession. Instantly catchy, even for her. Good start.

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Odd Future is here, get used to it. Posse albums usually failed in the past because the star rapper's cohorts are always such dickheads, but when being dickheads is your selling point....

This unambitious sampler might be where the Goblin-polarized legions get won back. And don't think they're not hiding behind Frank Ocean for cred now. Odd Future performs April 9 at the Warfield.

"Hi"

A minute and a half of one of their buddies insulting everyone in the group without overexerting himself: "Mike G -- crusty ass!" Establishes both their self-deprecation cred and their laziness cred. Crucial.

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​Let's be real: bands don't change your life more than, oh ... once. So if we were lucky to get two excellent albums from James Mercer and whoever happens to be with him, it's no slouch that a third pretty-good album added three more perfect tunes to the canon: "Australia," "Phantom Limb," and "Girl Sailor." So while we're living down perfection, let's see how many new bonuses we get five years later, on Port of Morrow. (Official release date: March 20.)

"The Rifle's Spiral"

So his new band has some kind of glockenspiel player! This is already worth the trouble. Rhythmic, too -- sort of a chunky, interrupted disco stomp, with kind of intense minor chords (!), a rare and juicy enough thing coming from these prim and proper tweetotalers even without the line about a dagger straight to the heart.

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Bruce Springsteen has done a lot in the last 20 years: toured for John Kerry, immortalized a horrific moment of police brutality in "American Skin (41 Shots)," and put his money where his mouth is as America's Poster Boy, with a big fat folk album enlisting a dozen sepia-toned authenticity arbiters, as well as a dusty Nebraska-y one that counted anal sex among its details. What he hasn't done is made a record as memorable as any from the 20 years preceding. But excellent dribs and drabs (2007's rightfully Magnetic Fields-compared "Your Own Worst Enemy," the Seeger band's recast of Nebraska's "Open All Night") continue to elicit hope. So did the announcement that this week's Wrecking Ball promises to do for Occupy (an event whose workings continue in the present tense) what the The Rising attempted for 9/11 (an event that was final and well-mythologized before Springsteen could articulate his feelings). This is the Boss' juiciest shot since Vietnam at articulating the compassion in American frustration -- and I'm a betting man.

"We Take Care of Our Own"

Glockenspiel! For that alone, this is his best, E Street-est opener in years. Unfortunately for said glockenspiel, this melody is as one-note and underdeveloped as "Radio Nowhere," another fine song released to radio nowhere. Unfortunately, the title adds no further commentary to this supposed affront to the banking firm of Romney & Santorum.

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​Van Halen is about one thing: revenge. Eddie brought in Sammy to get rid of Dave, flirted with Dave again to get rid of Sammy, brought in Gary Cherone to clear out the building, trained his own son to replace his most loyal member, and brought Dave back in for now. Don't be surprised if he cans his own son yet. And there's even a theory that he picked an intentionally terrible first single ("Tattoo") to humiliate Dave and the fans who dared beg for his return. None of this is below him. But is a good album?

"Tattoo"
"Tattoo" is indeed very stupid. "Tat-too/Tat-too" is not a hook, a slow, bluesy vamp isn't an opening track, and David Lee Roth sounds bored trying to do Anthony Kiedis/Steven Tyler rap nonsense ("Swap meet Sally" actually sounds like "swamp meat salad"). The second verse basso voiceover is very stupid. But it's not unlistenable. And it's bad in ways that don't feel wrong; sleazy trash is fine for this band. Cherone's funk-ballads were not.

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If I may make two predictions about Clear Heart Full Eyes, the solo debut from combustible, fan-friendly Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn, they are that:

1. It's not going to save rock 'n' roll.

2. It's not going to be a meta-narrative about how it doesn't save rock and roll.

If the last Hold Steady album, Heaven Is Whenever, proves anything, it's that the guy is sick of and slightly worried by the amount of attention he's gotten for documenting his manufactured-turned-true rock heroism over and over. The Hold Steady was beloved as an ironic comment on classic rock bands, then somewhat as mini-arena heroes who straddled the fence between reality and fantasy, and finally disappointed everyone by dispensing with irony altogether. They revealed themselves to hate Radiohead after all, probably to indie rock's chagrin, and the finest song on Heaven exasperatedly tried to explain, "We can't be good every night." Yeesh. So I don't begrudge him if the new solo detour Clear Heart, Full Eyes is as bad or weird as Lulu -- dude needs a palate cleanser. But just for fun I'm gonna judge him anyway. Craig Finn plays the Noise Pop Festival Feb. 21 at Bottom of the Hill.

"Apollo Bay"
Early reports of this thing, like the NPR page I'm streaming it from, are calling it a "'lyrics record." Uh, you're kidding? Not to be the guy who's all have-you-heard-the-early-stuff but until "Chips Ahoy!" I don't remember being able to notate Craig Finn's vocals on a Hold Steady record before. Because there weren't melodies. The riffs supported the narratives and phrasing, more repetition of characters and joke setups ("My name's Robbie Robertson but people call me Robo") than refrains or stanzas. But this first song has a big, wordless pedal steel break for atmosphere. And the lyrics are actually kind of hard to make out, a first for Finn. I think he's muttering about apostles. The music sounds like recent, Americana-inflected Modest Mouse. Which brings up a good question: why hasn't Isaac Brock made a pedal steel-haunted solo record yet?

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No matter what you've read, the Black Keys are as generic as Kings of Leon. The super-successful Brothers was a good record, but didn't escape its own sameyness by the time you're waiting for it to be over. And their success only speaks to the market's sore vain need for a famous rock band right now. I need one, too -- but frozen food-section White Stripes isn't it. Prove me wrong, El Camino.

"Lonely Boy"
An interesting detuning bass slurp kicks things off before turning quickly into a less interesting chorus: "I've got a love that keeps me waiting." Everything's predictable in that futurist-tasteful Danger Mouse way. A big shiny synth organ riff and stiffly quantized drum pats make this another pretty-good nothing song for the blockiest blues band of all time.

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Funny thing about Drake: I'm forced to care. This goes beyond my duties as a music writer; rap now is in a state where someone like Drake or Rick Ross becomes the sun and everyone surrounding becomes an orbiting satellite. I'm a huge fan of co-Money Youngins Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj, and I'd like to keep up with Andre 3000, The Weeknd, and Rihanna as well. And many of those folks are likely to be on the next big rapper's album, too. That's just how it works; if I want to hear the newest Wayne verses, I've gotta hear this guy. If I sound like I'm shrugging, you're right. Not really a Drake fan. But I'm not much of a 2011 fan, either. So I'm open to anything that gets people excited before I get my year-end lists in order.

"Over My Dead Body"
I could barely make it through Thank Me Later, which had a six-minute opener and lots of soft-focus beats and self-pitying rhymes. So this is already better: it's only four minutes and he fuck-yous the haters early on. The beat is closer to Deerhunter's shimmering Halcyon Digest.

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