At any rate, it's a brand-new media world. I'm just not sure my man Howard's gonna rule over it like he did the old one. Indeed, no one will.

Prince, 3121 (Universal)

Along with Michael Jackson, Prince helped drag R&B, funk and disco kicking and screaming into the rock era of the late '70s and early-to-mid-'80s, climaxed, naturally, by his 1984 triumph, Purple Rain. Since then, the Purple One has struggled to regain the pop epicenter, overshadowed by the explicit rawness of rap, much like his predecessor James Brown's career was temporarily waylaid by synths and the drum machine.

Returning to the major label fold, albeit on a series of one-off arrangements, has been a boon for The Artist's prolific nature and reluctance to edit himself, and like Musicology, his latest at least returns him to song structure and some of the things we've come to love about the mighty tyke - his melding of sensuality and spirituality ("Satisfied"), minimalist techno funk ("Love") and widescreen guitar epics ("The Dance").

While "Te Amo Corazon," his flaccid attempt to win over the Latin market, literally peters out, "Black Sweat" is a welcome return to Brown's "It's Too Funky in Here" territory, and "Fury" is introduced with an organ chord progression that evokes everyone-on-the-dance-floor classics like "1999" and "Let's Go Crazy." This time, though, our man Prince seems to have abandoned dalliance for devotion, as in "Lolita," where he vows to his under-aged temptress, "U're sweeter but U'll never make a cheater out of me." And when he asks, "Don't U wanna come?" up to his hotel room in the title track, it's more about transcendence than titillation. Even for a non-believer, devotion never sounded so tempting.

Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy" (Downtown/Atlantic)

After his groundbreaking The Grey Album and Grammy-nominated turn on the Gorillaz' Demon Days, Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) is the producer of the moment, and he doesn't let down on this remarkable collaboration with Atlanta soul singer Cee-Lo Green (Thomas DeCarlo Callaway) that takes the ache of classic soul and grafts onto it a bouncy backbeat teased with silky strings. The first single from their upcoming album, St. Elsewhere, it's already #1 at the Apple U.K. iTunes Music Store. "I remember when I lost my mind," croons Green, and guaranteed you will, too.

A second track, "Go Go Gospel," has a speeded-up Eastern European, vaguely klezmer flavor, featuring bleating horns and a surging church choir, proving that the mash-up is a malleable concept with infinite possibilities.

V for Vendetta

Call it the Phantom of the Revolution. Like The Matrix, the Wachowski brothers' latest is about a near-future fascist empire, in this case England, is intent on quashing any sign of rebellion, as a masked figure known simply as V, who fancies himself a latter-day Guy Fawkes crossed with the Count of Monte Cristo, seeks to liberate the oppressed people by blowing up buildings like the criminal court of the famed Old Bailey and the Parliament, with its iconic Big Ben watchtower.