POP/ROCK: Various artists, "Cities 97 Sampler Volume 23"

Open a charity compilation CD with Adele's "Someone Like You," and you've got an instant winner. Just her voice and piano recorded in Cities 97's Studio C says so much about 2011 (even though this version was captured in October 2010, almost a year before the song became the I-need-a-good-cry anthem). It also says so much about this edition of the sampler. For the first time in 23 years, Cities 97 has embraced female voices in a big way on this annual fundraiser for local charities. Other stand-outs include Lissie's percussive soulness on "When I'm Alone," Florence + the Machine's haunting, understated power on "Dog Days Are Over" and the intoxicating female/male romance of the Civil Wars' "Poison and Wine." Female harmonies boost the Head and the Heart's "Lost in My Mind" and Fitz & the Tantrums' "Don't Gotta Work It Out," two staples of 2011.

Add strong efforts from usual "Sampler" suspects Amos Lee, Matt Nathanson and David Gray, and Cities 97 may have come up with its most diverse compilation yet. Too bad there is only one local act, Farewell Milwaukee, among the 19 tracks.

"Volume 23," which will be available Thursday at Twin Cities' Target stores for $25.97, is expected to raise nearly $800,000 for Minnesota charities.

  • JON BREAM, STAR TRIBUNE

POP/ROCK: David Lynch, "Crazy Clown Time" (Sunday Best)

Leave it to Lynch to make a debut solo album as bewildering and elusive as his movies. After years of collaborating with musicians, the visionary behind "Blue Velvet," "Eraserhead" and "Lost Highway" has finally recorded what could be the soundtrack to those films' most unsettling moments.

The director likens his music to "modern blues," a term that belies the grim and hallucinatory effect of "Crazy Clown Time." Like the plot of "Mulholland Drive," nothing on this album is what it appears to be. Lynch's reedy voice has been so processed, he sounds like either an android or an apparition crooning from the bottom of the ocean.

These songs lurch, sometimes crawl, through a swamp of woozy synths, twanging electric guitars and portentous melodies. A haze rarely heard outside a Cocteau Twins record hovers over "These Are My Friends." "I Know" and "Speed Roadster" come closest to capturing the stark paranoia and desolation of Lynch's movies.

This being David Lynch, there are some utter head-scratchers. The opening "Pinky's Dream," sung by Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O, belongs on another album. Clocking in at more than seven minutes, "Strange and Unproductive Thinking" chugs like a short-circuited lecture on quantum physics; head spinning optional.

Maybe it's no surprise that the album's strangest curveball is also its most straightforward song. "Good Day Today" pulses like an anthem in search of the nearest gay bar, casting Lynch as the unlikeliest dance diva ever.

  • JAMES REED, BOSTON GLOBE