It took Arrested Development three years, five months, and two days to get a record contract to release their first album in 1992. The album, appropriately called 3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of ... introduced white college kids everywhere to rap and to Mr. Wendal (Remember him?). It's taken more than 10 years to get out their follow-up to their sophomore effort Zingalamaduni, Since the Last Time. It’s not going to be so easy this time around—there aren't a bunch of pushovers like the Spin Doctors to compete for airtime. But they understand what they’ll need to succeed: their first single is titled “Miracles.”

The Eagles team up with rock vanguards Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club to distribute their first full-length studio album in 28 years, The Long Road Out of Eden. No word yet whether they’re going to sell them in bulk—buy nine, get the 10th free! They’ll make great stocking stuffers for the kids.

Richard Lloyd may not be the most famous guitarist to emerge from the legendary proto-punk band Television, nor the one with the most successful solo career—both of those honors it is safe to say go to Tom Verlaine—but he’s giving Tom a run for his money as the craziest. Radiant Monkey is his first studio work in seven years and it comes complete with its own philosophy. An excerpt: “Man has reached a cul-de-sac—a dead-end, where he mistakes technological progress with emotional maturity. Men are like lemmings who are headed for a cliff from which there is no return. Mankind has all the animals within him—his inner self is a zoo, and the cataclysm is near. Man is a swine; he shits where he eats and unless he works upon himself for the benefit of all mankind he is doomed.” Uh-oh.

And if all of these albums are a bit too commercial for you, feel free to check out Charalambides’ newest, Likeness. Released by Kranky Records, it features all of the psychedelic folk rock that you’ve come to know and love from the Austin—by way of Houston—duo.

But that’s the beauty of hitting Amy Winehouse (as opposed to, say, Anna Nicole) rock-bottom: There’s no shame more promising for the fall season than being publicly laughed at by Rihanna, 2007’s ungodly New Wave–R&B C-3PO who would indeed short-circuit beyond all repair if spritzed by the tiniest drop of rainwater. As those fraught Stoli vodka ads admonish, choose authenticity: Ms. Spears’ long-awaited fifth studio album—it of the really quite excellent “Gimme More,” produced by prolific Timbaland apprentice Danja—is still scheduled for a Nov. 13 release, though one can’t help but point out that’s just around the date Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy was supposed to come out last year.

Speaking of Timbaland, and b(f)f Justin Timberlake—it’s unclear who’s whose wingman, but I’m pretty sure the two have contributed more to the G.D.P. than International Paper has the past few quarters—both are said to have lent a hand and/or falsetto on Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre (also Nov. 13). The New Order resurgence was entirely warranted, and the Blondie revival totally overdue, but Le Bon & Co. is truly a synth line too far. If Gen Y sincerely wants to groove to the tunesmiths that accompanied its conception (pretending, for the moment, that our parents were cool), much better to stick to Siouxsie Sioux’s first (!) solo album Mantaray (Oct. 2). Here’s predicting Siouxsie’s time has come: the former proto-goth Banshee provided a major plot point in last year’s Notes on a Scandal—you know, the Oscar nominee about a boy who seduces Cate Blanchett’s irresistible, brittle MILF.

Still, fear not, history hasn’t entirely ended. Now that the interminable Kanye West–50 Cent Sept. 11 pissing contest is out of the way, radio-friendly hip-hop can reassert its rightful place against the barricades. For sure, it’s questionable that an album audaciously titled Voice of the Young People (Oct. 22) is coming from an artist noted for a Dadaesque novelty hit about lip gloss and a nom de guerre that promises maternalism in miniature. But what a Dadaesque novelty hit about lip gloss! Seventeen-year-old Brooklyn M.C. Lil Mama obviated the need for High School Musical 2: Here was the youth in all its mundane glory—postfeminism, post–hookup culture, smart girls will still genitalize their mouths for attention, but only if the S.P.F. is up there and the taste is kind of pleasant too. Lupe Fiasco mined similar, if more outwardly sophisticated, territory on last year’s lovely, languid Food and Liquor. If there’s any justice, sophomore LP The Cool (Nov. 20) will deliver his clever, unassuming raps about age-old petit bourgeois anxieties from the shadows of high-profile patrons Kanye and Pharrell Williams—certainly, Lupe’s the only member of the trio who still seems more fit to roll by on a skateboard than a Segway. To pair The Cool with something decidedly uncool, try In Our Bedroom After the War (Sept. 25) by the Montreal indie pop quintet Stars; in its own way, it’s just as dreamily perceptive regarding the entanglements of being somewhat young and vaguely oppositional in our new urban gilded age.

Now, back to the past. There was, after all, little more emblematic of the utterly preposterous 1990’s than vocal pop’s octave-range arms race. Four octaves! Five! Six! Up and up the numbers went, like so many Pentium megahertz counts. In these more sober times, two of the prime belligerents warble back onstage. Pick your anachronism: Celine Dion’s The Woman in Me (Nov. 13) or Mariah Carey’s as-yet-unnamed 11th album (Nov. 20). Either way, expect more melisma than melodies. Less willfully oblivious alternatives (that’s a good thing) include the actually human-sounding balladeer Keyshia Coles (Just Like You, Sept. 25) and the cooing former chart-topper Ashanti (The Declaration, Dec. 4), still licking her wounds from foolishly betting on Ja Rule during the last 50 Cent gauntlet-throw.

Meanwhile, the brother–sister act the Fiery Furnaces are set to release their sixth full-length, Widow City, on Oct. 9. Once a promising duo, the Furnaces have, on recent releases, devolved into something of a hipster Donny and Marie (that’s not a good thing). At least some things are consistent: Expect the Weakerthans’ Reunion Tour (Sept. 28) to be beautiful, literate, wispily-knowing guitar rock—and to be immediately overshadowed by higher-concept bands with less utilitarian haircuts.

Also, to put Britney’s recent travails in a little perspective, bet you didn’t know there was a Backstreet Boys record coming out soon (Unbreakable, Oct. 30).

A sometime associate of the Stockholm-based Cheiron Productions, Mr. Martin worked formerly with the late Denniz Pop, known in the United States for his work with Ace of Base. Together, Denniz Pop and Mr. Martin produced early Backstreet Boys tracks like "We've Got It Goin' On" and "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)," one of the group's biggest American hits and a late-90's radio and video classic. Built around aired-out street beats and the sound of girls squealing-plus a descending minor-key bass riff that brands the music the way a logo identifies a pair of jeans-the track might have been mere party fodder, what with the Backstreet Boys encouraging listeners to rock their bodies. But in midjam, the Backstreet Boys stop and pose sad, even poignant questions that mate the anxieties of pop idols with those of, gee, postmodern artists the world over: "Am I original?" one of them innocently sings, his voice seemingly flown in from an old soul record, before going on to wonder, far less interestingly, whether his audience finds him sufficient in other ways. But, is he original -they're kidding, right?

Maybe not. Just as country fans now hear a fresh new thing in the work of Shania Twain and her scarily good producer Robert John (Mutt) Lange, maybe Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears fans-a very young audience who crave an antidote to their parents' rock or neo-soul, or their older brothers and sisters' techno-hear something, yes, original. Mr. Martin's Swedish production style is influenced by Mr. Lange's reductive methods and the music of Abba, international pop's timeless godhead of melodic European grace; it thrives on elimination. For instance, on Ms. Spears' single, ordinary concerns about the facility and beauty of her voice, or the insight and wit of her subject matter, go out the window. "… Baby One More Time" is just an adequately alluring female voice singing about romantic pain, that's all. What makes the record work is the glowing pop structure Mr. Martin encases it in. He slowly and dramatically unveils his plans in a three-minute song that seems to go on longer, arranging suspended piano notes, perfectly meshing background vocals and deafening one-beat accents. What so bothers traditional pop fans is the almost brutal grip Mr. Martin exercises, refusing any move into full-on rock or soul or dance. That means no spontaneous guitar riffing, no swaying choruses and no free grooves. Uh-uh. But that might be exactly what hooks younger fans.

Backstreet Boys was brilliant at delivering department store passion in this kind of studied vacuousness. Sometimes the boys did it by lavishing their voices on blue-ribbon pure-pop tunes like "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)" and the terrific "As Long as You Love Me" as though they were penned by Gustav Mahler-long established in somebody's canon. Other times, they just fired up the musical logos and added more names to the fan club rolls.

On Millennium , Backstreet Boys do more of the latter, further consolidating and refining some of the lushest harmonic pop any male vocal group has ever offered. Oh, there's a touch of old-style "theme" here and there. In "Larger Than Life," the boys actually compliment their fans by seeing them as the icons; the very big, very orchestral, very American "The Perfect Fan" salutes family and motherhood (and even pulls in the Tates Creek High School Choir of Lexington) but keeps it all in the easy-to-understand language of idol and consumer.

What Millennium banks on is the kind of musical rush-undisturbed by text or personal style-that Mr. Martin knows will come out when those kind-of-Spanish-but-kind-of-not acoustic guitars stream around a pretty melody, as on "I Want It That Way," the current single. Or when rhythms and real strings get at least as hot as a Mediterranean afternoon sun in July, as on "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely." On "It's Gotta Be You," the musical logos-that bass again, but voiced higher-compete with a dynamite Backstreet vocal loop that chants "Baby, baby, it's the way you make me, kinda-make-me-go-crazy," effecting an excellent post-Bach counterpoint. Mr. Lange himself shows up to produce "I Need You Tonight," a version of "Let's Make a Night to Remember," the hot do-me song he helped Bryan Adams make in 1996. The Backstreet Boys restrain themselves, though; they never flatly suggest to the girl, as Mr. Adams did, "let's make out."

But let's leave the post-postmodern and get back to the merely postmodern. Listening to Millennium , you might legitimately wonder: Is there a Robbie Williams in this group? Mr. Williams, who contends he's still young on his new solo outing, The Ego Has Landed (Capitol), a compilation of his previous British albums, sang into the mid-90's with Take That, the now-dissolved English version of Backstreet that mostly failed to excite Americans. Running off and reinventing himself as a literate soccer lad, Mr. Williams now records white soul songs about the psychological aftermath of breaking up ("No Regrets"), occasionally doing the same thing with a rockier twist ("Win Some Lose Some"). He has a somewhat high voice full of idiosyncrasy and delight. Mr. Williams can deliver lines as ineffectual as "Your cool suburban sun …" and wind out the word "cool" like a Ferrari driver reveling in the sound of his own engine. He and his co-writer and producer Guy Chambers rewrite knowing little bits of David Bowie, New Order, Elton John, even a 70's band like Mott the Hoople. So, is he original? (Who cares.)

As it happens, Mr. Williams has a tune, a tremendous one, entitled "Millennium." Whereas the Backstreet Boys are usually careful not to muddy their music with a point of view, Mr. Williams sings about trying to get on in an era that everyone realizes is often full of shit. His idea of cultural hope is to score his big little tune with a glorious orchestral flourish written by John Barry for a 60's James Bond film. At his best, Mr. Williams is a great pop artist. Either that, or he's just another bright 25-year-old.