Ken Tucker

The Stooges rock band, led by singer Iggy Pop, have just released their first album in almost 35 years. It's called The Weirdness.

These days, Iggy Pop's best known piece of music may be the riff for his song "Lust for Life," which was used prominently in the movie Trainspotting and, more recently, in a TV commercial for a cruise ship line.

But when he was with the Stooges in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Iggy Pop helped define the path that punk and metal music would follow in the years to come.

A review of the debut album Alright Still, by the 21-year-old British singer Lily Allen.

The new season of TV's American Idol starts on Tuesday, but four previous Idol stars — Taylor Hicks, Fantasia Barrino, Kellie Pickler and Chris Daughtry — have all put out albums within weeks of each other. Rock critic Ken Tucker says their styles vary widely, but that quality-control is a common problem.