With her latest foray into special effects happy pop, Madonna apparently wants us to know that fame and fortune are shallow and overrated. Oh. It's not that there's anything wrong with the material girl reinventing her image (again) and taking a stand against everything she's publicly embraced for the past 20 years, but she could at least make a good record while doing it. American Life has its moments; the simple X-Static Process has downright beautiful elements as Madonna once again examines her relationship with a higher power. (The song is more reminiscent of Like A Prayer's lovely b-track Oh Father than the mega-hit title song.) Madonna still has a powerful voice, and when she puts away her electronica toys for the disc's simpler compositions, she shines. The two singles, American Life and Die Another Day (from the Bond flick), certainly get into your head, but the carelessly repetitious ditties come off like they were phoned in, and the rap portion of American Life is abysmally nonsensical. A few high points aside, it's most likely this CD will have non-diehard fans saying what Madonna feels the need to repeat umpteen times in the title single -- Fuck it.

Now that everybody who's ever had a foot in Saddle Creek has gotten his or her 150 words in Rolling Stone, the adorably reluctant middle-American rock stars have started throwing key parties. That must be how we arrived at Mayday, a junior varsity super group quietly boasting members of Cursive, Bright Eyes and Lullaby for the Working Class. I Know Your Troubles Been Long is the nearly immediate follow-up to last year's Old Blood, both of which are stacked with indie-rock spirituals and cowboy songs. The acoustic guitars strum slowly but thunderously, the cymbals rattle and Ted Stevens broods expertly about a weeping mom, a burning car and troubled days. Mayday's tireless dedication to unending sorrow leaves little room for fun, but when the uptempo moments unexpectedly turn up (like the instrumental Lesson Two for Children: Making Biscuits, which jams on banjo and harmonica), it's a welcome respite. Which is not to say there's no pleasure to be had in the grizzled, mostly joyless storytelling and moody, bluesy music; this band wants you to roll with the punches and hold a beer up to your sore jaw. It's a more welcoming prospect than the Conor Oberst/Tim Kasher spoken-word side project that's probably right around the corner.

Thu., May 15, 7:30 p.m., $8, all ages, with Wise & Foolish Builders and Pattern is Movement, North Star, 27th and Poplar Sts., 215-684-0808.

This re-release should answer the question, Did record producers take a lot of drugs in the 1970s? Merman (1909-1984) was the reigning musical comedy diva from around 1930 to 1960, starring in a series of major hits including Girl Crazy, Annie Get Your Gun and Gypsy. The corporate logic apparently was that since the audience that worshiped Merman (predominantly gay men) also loved disco, they'd run out and buy a Merman disco LP. Brilliant, no? No.

Almost half a century after becoming a star, the septuagenarian shakes her groove thing to disco arrangements of her Broadway standards, complete with backup singers (given to gasping, Whatcha got? Hey, whatcha doin'? and, less grammatically, Blow me a kiss! Take me a bow!). The oldie songs are spiced up with over-the-top instrumentals -- for example, I Got Rhythm has a frenetic Dixieland accompaniment. But Tin Pan Alley-era songwriting and Studio 54 orchestrations don't mix; wah-wah pedals and Moog synthesizers add nothing to Irving Berlin's They Say It's Wonderful and Cole Porter's I Get a Kick Out of You.

By the time The Ethel Merman Disco Album was first released in '79, disco was already dead and this effort couldn't resuscitate it. As the years passed, it became a collector's item among show tune fanatics and the new liner notes (Could there be anything better than Merman's ballistic belt teamed up with the bouncy brass of disco?) hype its camp status. It's the kind of album you have to hear at least once, if only for the novelty factor. The liner notes also claim that Donna Summer told Merman, If I'm the queen of disco, you are the disco diva! Thank God we never got a Merman rendition of Love to Love You Baby.

How very nice that such a superb and renowned musician as Andrs Schiff has found a home at the iconoclastic ECM New Series label, where he can indulge himself in such projects as the magical solo piano music of Leos Jancek, or this present selection of songs. With all due respect to the fresh, intelligent singing of German soprano Juliane Banse, it is Schiff's buoyant and delicately colored piano playing that really brings this release to life. The contrast between the dreamy, lush world of Debussy and the touching humanism of Mozart such as one finds in his operas is blurred by the stealthy fervor of this superbly melded duo. There is an unrehearsed sense of spontaneity that makes this recital exceptionally unforced and lively, a perfect springtime treat. Debussy and Mozart are both extremely popular composers who, for no special reason, are not well known for their songwriting. This delightful release should change that perception.

Mahler's Third Symphony is a bear of a work. This six-movement, one-and-a-half-hour gargantuan -- written for a huge orchestra, multiple choruses and mezzo solo -- is invariably something of an endurance contest as a live concert experience. The listener, in such a circumstance, may be forgiven for resenting the sheer bulk of this music. And so we may thank the gods for the art of recording, which allows us to absorb this grandiose undertaking at leisure, in much the same way as we might experience a serialized video production. At the helm of this enterprise is Pierre Boulez, one of the great musical polymaths of our time, as he renders this massive, oozing glacier of sound with awesome clarity and expressiveness. Those so inclined will still listen to the whole glorious mess in a sitting, but it is a viable option to tune in just for the bombast, such as the ridiculously drawn-out finale, or to revel in Mahler's amazing ability to weave gentle, multicolored fabrics of sound and create moments of aching beauty for the human voice.