Mad Mom

Composer Danny Elfman's score for director Tim Burton's black-and-white stop-motion tale of a boy and his newly reanimated dog is steeped in the kind of rich, choir-driven, harmlessly macabre innocence that supplied 1990's Edward Scissorhands with the heart it needed to break free of its overly quirky trappings. With nods to the frantic, pinball-like precision of Pee Wee's Big Adventure ("Electricity") and the good-natured malevolence of The Nightmare Before Christmas ("Invisible Fish/Search for Sparky"), Frankenweenie is fun, breathlessly atmospheric, and surprisingly affecting. Employing an effortless mix of menace, heartache, and joy, Elfman has crafted his most sentimental and nuanced score since 2003's Big Fish, and while it may borrow liberally from some of his previous works, it's still a joy to listen to from start to finish.

Uh-Oh was only David Byrne's second pop-oriented solo album and his first to be released after the formal end of Talking Heads. Though informed by his various investigations into world music, the album was a natural successor to the Talking Heads records, relying on involved percussion tracks topped by Byrne's quirky singing and lyrics…