Akon
Freedom
Universal

Akon spun off two number one pop hits and one number two from Konvicted, so he couldn't be blamed for working the same tricks, yet Freedom is a major change of pace -- the kind of drastic switch-up that normally happens after reaching a creative and commercial dead-end. Hip-hop and R&B are all but scrapped entirely. The set instead is rooted in the gleaming synthesizers and spring-loaded dance beats of Euro-pop.

Britney Spears
Circus
Jive

Last year, Britney Spears was in a Blackout, this year she's acknowledging her life is a Circus via a friendlier, happier re-do of its club-centric predecessor. If Blackout was a producer's record, Circus is a handler's record, an attempt to sweep all the madness of the past year under the rug and give the people the Britney that they know and love: high-energy dance-pop, drippy ballads and a hint of scandal.

Neil Young
Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968
Reprise

The latest installment of Neil Young's Archives -- and allegedly the last before the long-awaited box set arrives -- is Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 which presents a full set of highlights from an intimate two-night stand at the Ann Arbor venue. This is the show that produced the "Sugar Mountain" as heard on Neil's Decade and the rest of the concert is equally good, offering a welcome reminder of just how open-hearted and fragile -- and, thanks to the winding spoken introductions, how funny -- Neil Young was before he turned into a legend.