Whether by design or by accident, the ladies dominate the new releases this week, as three very high profile female superstars release much-anticipated new albums.

Janet Jackson — who apparently wants to be called just "Janet" these days — releases her first post Nipplegate CD Discipline. The record is said to be a broad mix of innocent sounding R&B/pop, frenetic dance numbers, and an extension of the steamier stuff that got her into so much trouble at the Super Bowl. Live and learn I guess.

Erykah Badu has been making intoxicating records that mix old-school flavored R&B with hip-hop for about ten years now. The provocatively titled New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War is reportedly her most hip-hop, yet most adventurous, release to date. The album will also be the first in a series of similarly themed (and titled) releases. Badu gets help here from Sa-Ra, Madlib, 9th Wonder, and mainstays Karriem Riggins, James Poyser, and Ahmir Thompson.

Dolly Parton's Backwoods Barbie returns the country legend to more mainstream pop territory, after recent experiments with a bluegrass sound. The album mixes new original material with a few well-chosen covers, such as her version of Betsy Ulmer and Craig Wiseman's "Jesus & Gravity."

The 20th anniversary of the Cowboy Junkies' landmark Trinity Sessions is celebrated with the band going back into church, and taking another crack at those songs. On Trinity Revisited, the Junkies are joined by several guest vocalists including Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant, and Vic Chesnutt. Highlights here include a new, longer-than-the-original version of their classic Lou Reed cover "Sweet Jane" (which Reed himself famously called the best version of the song he had ever heard), as well as Merchant's take on "To Love Is To Bury." This new reinterpretation of Trinity Sessions comes in a deluxe CD/DVD package that also includes a documentary film.

Forbes is the silken voice that drives Pink Martini, the self-described "...Hollywood musical of the 40's or 50's - but with a global perspective which is modern." On this solo record, Forbes takes leave of the Martini's world lounge, picks up the guitar, and gets personal. I'm ready for it.

It's so nice of Death Angel to think of me on my birthday. This San Francisco thrash band gave a fitting name to their third album, 1990's Act III (one of my all-time favorites, by the way), and promptly exited stage left when a tour-bus accident took them off the road long enough to splinter the band. Just as they were on top of their game, garnering praise for a fantastic piece of metal, they broke up and disappeared. Act III, lucky for us, was so solid and mature that it has stood the test of time. Maybe that's why, after nearly 14 years, the band responded to the unending praise for that long-ago career and returned for what many, including me, thought might be only a curtain call - 2004's killer The Art Of Dying.