When it comes to tragic spectacles in this sorry age of reality television, beyond even the pathetic sight of Patti Blagojevich eating bugs on "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" falls the obnoxious exploitation of Scottish homebody Susan Boyle.

Diagnosed with learning difficulties and, she says, verbally tormented and physically abused by teachers and schoolmates, Boyle also was blessed with a pure, clear and ringing voice. Until a few months ago, the 48-year-old singer most often displayed her talent in church while living quietly with her cat Pebbles in the house where she was raised. But things dramatically changed last April, when she appeared on the third season of the U.K. television show "Britain's Got Talent."

Though Boyle ultimately lost the talent contest--placing second to a dance troupe--she became a worldwide phenomenon as millions watched clips of her singing a track from the musical "Les Miserables" and the standard "Cry Me a River" on YouTube. Now comes her debut album, "I Dreamed a Dream," arriving in stores Tuesday, but already the bestselling pre-order CD in the history of Amazon.com, topping "Jay-Z, Whitney Houston and even the Beatles' remastered CDs," according to her publicists.

"One of the things that is so unique about Susan Boyle is her ability to touch people around the world," according to her American record label, Columbia. And it's certainly true that many of her fans have been attracted by the power of her voice and the story of an ordinary woman's triumph over the superficialities of our celebrity culture.

Unfortunately, it's also true that the way that story was calculatingly scripted into "Britain's Got Talent" has attracted just as many people--the kind who get a real kick out of watching a former governor's wife and failed "American Idol" Sanjaya Malakar eating bugs and enduring other tortures in the jungle--who are laughing at Boyle and ruthlessly mocking her on the Internet, on radio and in gossip columns, unleashing the same callous cruelty as those who attacked her during her school days.

Boyle has paid a price for all of this. Hospitalized in a psychiatric clinic the day after she lost on the TV show, she also dropped out of many of the dates on the live tour that followed. The British press endlessly speculated about her health and well being, though she said she needed to conserve her voice for her album.

Columbia refused to provide reviewers with advance copies of "I Dreamed a Dream," but despite one of the tightest security clampdowns in the digital age, the music finally leaked on the Internet Thursday. The verdict: While Boyle's voice is an impressive instrument, it cannot be denied that her interpretations of the 12 11 covers and one original are nowhere near extraordinary enough to merit a fraction of the attention and anticipation they've garnered if considered solely on musical merit.

Arranged for maximum orchestral bombast and drenched in schmaltz, the material clearly was chosen for the broadest marketing appeal. There are Baby Boomer-friendly pop songs ("Wild Horses," "Daydream Believer," "The End of the World"), traditional hymns ("Amazing Grace," "How Great Thou Art"), the tunes she sang on television and even, in consideration of the season, a closing version of "Silent Night."

None of these can fairly be considered the definitive reading of the song, as artful as the work of a Charlotte Church, or even anything beyond the capabilities of a thousand gifted mezzo-sopranos regularly appearing in musicals staged by community theaters around the world. The difference is that Boyle, for better or worse, is in the midst of Andy Warhol's fabled 15 minutes of fame.

In the end, the most notable track is the one purported to be Boyle's sole original, "Who I Was Born to Be," which stands as an autobiographical anthem. "I'm not a girl/I've known the taste of defeat," she sings over syrupy strings. "[Now] I've got the world in my hands/And it feels like my turn to fly/Though I may not know the answers/I can finally say I'm free/And if the questions led me here then/I'm who I was born to be."

Let's hope that Boyle truly is as free and as happy as she asserts.

Boston's proto-alternative quartet the Pixies took that victory lap in 2004. Now, while they remain popular enough to play three nights at the Aragon Ballroom--Friday and Saturday sold out, though Thursday only was about half full--it's hard to consider them anything but a cynical corporation cashing in on blatant nostalgia--a hipper version of Creedence Clearwater Revisited or Journey and whoever is singing with that group these days.

Bandleader Black Francis, bassist Kim Deal, guitarist Joey Santiago and drummer David Lovering have had nearly five years during their second act to prove that they are once again a vital, vibrant and forward-moving creative unit. Instead, absent even the whiff of a new album, the twist they've put on their latest tour is that it's the 20th anniversary celebration of "Doolittle," their second and best studio album, and an epic of free-associated weirdness, twisted sexual imagery and religious symbolism.

Before launching into the album proper on night one at the Aragon Thursday, the group screened "Un chien andalou," the 1929 Surrealist film by Luis Bunel and Salvador Dali that inspired some of the songs' lyrics. Then the band let loose a salvo of B-sides from the same era--"Dancing the Manta Ray," "Weird at My School," "Bailey's Walk" and "Manta Ray"--none of them especially noteworthy on record or onstage.

Finally we were into a track-by-track reading of 1989's still inscrutable classic, starting with "Debaser," rolling through the standouts "Here Comes Your Man" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven," bogging down in the middle of side two just like the vinyl LP and wrapping up with "Gouge Away."

Black Francis screamed and shouted, and Deal added the skewed harmonies. Santiago churned out those unique acid-surf riffs, and Lovering hammered the drums like Dave Grohl's uncle. And throughout, they all showed their mastery of those quiet/loud/quiet dynamic shifts that became an alternative-rock trope.

None of it was embarrassing, but none of it was extraordinary, either. The Pixies were a stilted, static band that added little fire to the songs in live performance in '89, and the same is true in '09. This time, however, you could buy a live digital recording of the show you just saw for $25 on the way out, to relive the experience you already bought with your $44.75 ticket.

Of course, reliving the experience is what the new millennial Pixies are all about. And they seem happy to continue facilitating that as long as people want to keep buying it.

For all the talk of an edgier, angrier and more mature new Rihanna, it's hard to buy the re-emergent dance-pop singer as a towering pillar of feminine strength akin to Patti Smith, Courtney Love, Queen Latifah or Mary J. Blige.

It will take more than a few fiery television interviews and a dark and futuristic new look that's equal parts Darryl Hannah in "Blade Runner" and Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes in TLC to really sell that.

Nevertheless, "Rated R," the new album recorded in the wake of Rihanna's altercation with former boyfriend Chris Brown arriving in stores Tuesday, is by far the best, most layered and most heartfelt effort of the 21-year-old artist's career, even if her new woman-in-charge persona is in part just another marketing pose.

Ever since Robyn Rihanna Fenty was discovered in her native Barbados by Evan Rogers, a veteran producer of 'N Sync, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson and Kelly Clarkson, the one-time beauty queen has followed the path of many other prefab pop princesses in the new millennium, cheerfully turning her scantily clad self over to the manipulations of the star-making machine.

Her first two albums, "Music of the Sun" (2005) and "A Girl Like Me" (2006), were easily dismissible dance-pop trifles with a hint of Caribbean spicing. Riri, as she's known to fans, began to show more range with the phenomenally successful "Good Girl Gone Bad" in 2007. But as that title and the enjoyable but ultimately insubstantial singles "Umbrella" and "Disturbia" indicated, she still seemed to be just another pretty puppet dancing on the strings of her (male) producers, managers and handlers.

Then came the altercation with Brown that derailed her scheduled performance during the Grammy Awards last February. Though the details were sketchy at first--and Rihanna, like many victims of abuse, initially seemed to absolve her assailant--Brown eventually pleaded guilty to felony assault, and Rihanna bid him good riddance.

There can be no debate: Penitent or not, Brown has proven to be a world-class creep and a brutal thug. He began serving a sentence of five years' probation, six months of community labor and a year of domestic violence counseling last August. And Rihanna started making her fourth studio album with a superstar team of producers and songwriters including Stargate, the Dream, Ne-Yo, will.i.am and Justin Timberlake.

"I was involved in a lot of the writing," Rihanna told Glamour magazine. "I put everything I've wanted to say for the past eight months into my music. The songs are really personal. It's rock 'n' roll, but it's really hip-hop: If Lil Wayne and Kings of Leon like my album, then I'll feel good... It's super-fearless."

Though there's nothing inherently rock 'n' roll or "super-fearless" about lacing slick, synthesized dance-pop grooves with a little electric guitar, some of it courtesy of Slash, a quarter of a century after "Thriller," there is a more insistent punch and electrifying energy in the 13 grooves on "Rated R," which also lives up to its title and emphasizes its maturity with a lot more profanity than we've heard from Riri in the past. (This is her first disc with a Parental Advisory warning label.)

The album moves through the same sort of emotional journey that one imagines the singer undergoing in the last year. After an opening old-school horror-movie homage called "Mad House"--more shades of "Thriller"--we find Rihanna boasting about being part of an unbeatable team ("Together we gonna be taking over") and sitting on top of the pop charts and the world in general ("Brilliant, resilient/Fan mail from 27 million") in "Wait Your Turn" and "Hard."

Then things get darker--and more interesting. Set against a spare, piano-driven melody, "Stupid in Love" is as honest an examination of how a smart woman can fall into a destructive relationship as pop has ever given us. The singer continues to probe this theme with the more upbeat and obviously metaphorical "Russian Roulette" before finally standing up for herself in "Rockstar 101." (And isn't it great that, even in these commercially co-opted times, some people still equate "rock" with "rebellion"?)

"I've never played a victim/I'd rather be a stalker," Rihanna sings. That's hardly a profound or particularly feminist lyric, but its strength comes from the way she spits out the words. In both the quieter, more introspective songs and the angrier dancehall-flavored club-stompers, her limited vocal range has never sounded more convincing or deserving of the pop spotlight.

As with the first third of the disc, the last portion isn't quite as gripping as the middle section. The album ends with a bit more sunshine, culminating with the lushly arranged, Timberlake-penned "Cold Case Love" and the aptly named sing-along coda, "The Last Song."

Is any of this the 2009 equivalent of Aretha Franklin belting out, "R-E-S-P-E-C-T/Find out what it means to me"? Heck no. But "Rated R" is a much better effort than many might have expected from Rihanna, and one that makes this listener eager to hear how much more she may grow in the years to come.

One of the most promising groups on the Chicago rock scene of the early '90s, though it never achieved the success of peers such as Veruca Salt, Tart was a trio led by Joy Gregory and Laura Eason, both of whom also performed with the Lookingglass Theatre. Now, Eason has written a play called "Rewind" inspired by her time in the band and the rock scene of that era, including the sad death of Jim Ellison of Material Issue. Produced by the Side Project Theatre Company, 1439 W. Jarvis, it opens at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20 (tickets are $18) and runs through Dec. 20 with several showings a week. Check www.thesideproject.net for more information.

During the world premiere of Them Crooked Vultures at Metro last August, the primary joy of this latest supergroup came from surrendering to the pummeling rhythms of Dave Grohl--one of the finest drummers of his generation with Nirvana turned one of the most pandering radio schlock meisters of the last decade with the Foo Fighters--as he gleefully channeled John Bonham while assaulting the clock with Bonzo's old bandmate, legendary Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. You felt every punishing bass drum beat walloping you in the chest as Jones' rumbling four-, six-, eight- and more-string bass lines vibrated your innards, while at the same time you taxed your brain following rhythmic patterns turned inside-out and upside-down with no loss of forward momentum.

This was hard rock that was as visceral as it was intellectual, and it was a jolly good time and a pretty impressive trick--onstage. Unfortunately, it hasn't translated nearly as well now that the much-buzzed all-star trio, which expands to a quartet in concert, has finally released its debut album, and much of the blame must rest on the third leg of this glitzy tripod, Queens of the Stone Age bandleader Josh Homme.

Given the leisure and the dubious benefit of pondering the songwriting and parsing Homme's weak and not in a Robert Plant-like way vocals--not for nothing has this guy often ceded the mike to guest singers with the Queens--all of the flaws of this made-in-a-manager's-boardroom collaboration become all too obvious, and they are the same as most supergroups': Star power and virtuosity don't compensate for lackluster material, no matter how much the musicians are stoked to be jamming with storied peers.

Jones' impressive skills as a master arranger and versatile multi-instrumentalist are underutilized, with only the odd coda (such as the "Sgt. Pepper's"-style outro incongruously tacked onto the end of "Mind Eraser No Chaser"), afterthought dollop of keyboards ("Spinning in Daffodils") or downright bad idea (the lounge music-on-Mars detour of "Interlude with Ludes") hinting at that reservoir of talent. Grohl's undeniable ear for hooks and sweet backing vocals also go untapped, putting most of the burden on Homme to craft the vehicles to carry these Grand Prix drivers, and he delivers tunes that would be filler at best on the finest Queens albums (the single "New Fang" or the stomping "Elephants") as well as material that at worst wouldn't make the cut on a "Desert Sessions" toss-off ("Bandoliers" or "Caligulove," whose lyrics are even worse than that titles might indicate: "I already gotcha baby/Put yourself upon me/I'm in lust, a slave to desire/When you Caligulove me").

Yes, there are pleasures to be had: Muso-geeks would be happy to hear Jones and Grohl play the Britney Spears songbook, just because it was the two of them playing. But for all the promises the musicians showed onstage--or, for that matter, in much of what they've done before--the sum of the whole on record is much less than each of the parts.

Though two of its members have much higher-profile pedigrees than many of the groups that the Demo2DeRo column addresses--Dan "Vapid" Schafer has played in Screeching Weasel and the Riverdales, as well as leading the Methadones, and Jeff Dean is in the Bomb--their new collaboration with bassist Rick Uncapher (Textbook) and drummer Jimmy Lucido on the debut album "Yeah, Whatever..." could easily be overlooked outside the punk underground, and that would be a shame.

Despite the cheeky, hinting-at-generic sounds moniker, Noise By Numbers draws inspiration from the fertile'80s indie-rock scene of Husker Du, the Replacements, Dinosaur Jr. and their ilk as well as classic Chicago punk sounds like Naked Raygun and the Effigies to inject a heaping dose of sing-along melody into every propulsive and hard-hitting groove, making for an instantly familiar yet somehow distinctive and fresh-sounding formula: Good tunes are timeless, and they're always welcome.

The band has two impressive gigs in the coming weeks, at the Beat Kitchen on Dec. 4 and opening for Rise Against at Metro on Dec. 18, but a sampling of its songs are streaming now at www.myspace.com/noisebynumbers.

John Mayer, "Battle Studies" (Columbia) [1/2 STAR out of 4]

Amid an infinite sea of rich, complex and at times challenging flavors, sometimes you just want a scoop of plain vanilla. There's nothing wrong with that, but even in the world of unfettered whiteness, there are degrees of quality, ranging from, say, a thick and creamy scoop of Ben & Jerry's to the generic, tasteless and ice-speckled stuff on deep discount at the supermarket.

Easy-listening coffee-house fixtures Norah Jones and John Mayer fall into the latter category. In both cases, this is nothing short of a crying shame, because each is capable of much better--30-year-old Jones with her sultry, smoky, sleepy-time jazz chanteuse vocals, and 32-year-old Mayer with his long-since-stifled grounding in credible electric blues. Yet on their fourth studio albums, both compromise their roots as never before, cheerfully yielding to the lowest-common-denominator demands of the pop machine to churn out buckets of blandness.

Jones is slightly more successful than Mayer with "The Fall," a title clearly meant to evoke the encroaching gray stillness of the season rather than her commercial potential. Though she turns to producer Jacquire King, a veteran craftsmen of hipster-rock efforts by Modest Mouse and Kings of Leon, a minimalist cabaret sound and somnambulistic mood prevail, with guest collaborators such as Ryan Adams and Will Sheff of Okkervil River doing little to elevate the lulling conformity of the songwriting. Jones does mellow chill-out reasonably well, but after a few tracks of it, you're thinking, "Snorah." Things only really pick up midway through the disc on "It's Gonna Be," a hypnotic swampy groove a la Dr. John, which underscores that this still-young artist could do great things if only she challenged herself a bit.

Meanwhile, though Mayer promises explosive excitement on "Battle Studies"--"Clouds of sulfur in the air/Bombs are falling everywhere/It's heartbreak warfare," he croons in the opening track--he veers closer to some unholy hybrid of Sting and Dave Matthews, and the romantic pap of the 10 original tracks fizzle like the embarrassing dud of a North Korean nuke. Laden with laughable romantic-schlock lyrics and trite, sappy melodies, these songs aim for the pathos of classic Carpenters but come closer to maudlin Barry Manilow. And no, neither the guest turn by Taylor Swift on "Half of My Heart" nor the two Boomer-courting covers--exceedingly lame, Lite-FM versions of the Cream via Robert Johnson standard "Crossroads" and Bruce Springsteen's "I'm On Fire"--do a thing to elevate the dross.

The expiration date for Curtis Jackson, a.k.a. 50 Cent, was obvious from the moment he made his mainstream debut with "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" in 2002: No matter how strong your ear for catchy hooks and thumping beats, there's only so much mileage you can get from the "baddest of the bad-ass gangstas" routine when we've heard it so many times before, especially when you have little to add besides endless prattle about how many times you've been shot and stabbed.

Fiddy tried to show a bit more range with "Curtis" in 2007, timed for a celebrated showdown on the pop charts with Kanye West's "Graduation." But you'll recall that West won, commercially and artistically. The melodramatically entitled "Before I Self Destruct" actually was recorded before "Curtis," but the "more personal" effort was swapped out for the darker disc at the last minute, and the 16 tracks here haven't grown any fresher while sitting on the shelf for last two years as 50 Cent's been busy selling vitamin water and courting Hollywood.

There are enticing moments, to be sure--it would be impossible not to have a few, with a top-dollar roster of production talent including DJ Premiere, Dr. Dre and Polow da Don. But the cameos by Eminem (on the tired and tossed-off "Psycho") and R&B superstar R. Kelly ("Could've Been You," one of two ill-advised Fiddy smooth jams) add nothing, and the millionaire businessman's rhymes about scheming bitches, treacherous drug dealers and his allegedly unrivaled ability to beat all rivals to a bloody pulp have never sounded more predictable, boring, contrived or thoroughly insincere.

In addition to bearing a striking and somewhat unsettling resemblance to a young John Mayer, Chicago singer and songwriter Derek Nelson at times skirts a similar "vaguely rootsy meets bland pop pandering" sound on some of the tracks from his debut EP, "Something Obscure," a six-song effort for which he seemingly spared no expense. (Recorded in Chicago, it was mixed at the famous alt-rock sanctum of Smart Studios in Madison, Wisc.)

Yet while a track such as "Tightrope Walker" is easily dismissed as romantic fluff, others such as "Sidestreets in London" have a more heartfelt lyrical approach and winning musical touches like melancholy violin and endearingly Dylanesque harmonica. In other words, it could go either way for this young aspirant--he's only got a handful of gigs under his belt to date--and one hopes he'll take the more challenging, less predictable path. Meanwhile, sample his music at www.dereknelsonmusic.com or www.myspace.com/derekchristophernelson.

Though I hate to post rumors as news, the local music scene has been buzzing that two underground venues may be shutting its doors in the near future. (Calls to confirm both went unreturned.)

Cal's 400 Liquors on S. Wells has been serving as one of the cooler dive bars on the punk-rock underground for several years now, but several musicians who frequent the place say it's going out of business, and its MySpace page doesn't list any shows after Nov. 25 (which is not in itself unusual, as Cal's has never exactly been on top of publicizing its calendar).

According to Mike Feirstein of Cal's, the punk-rock dive is alive and well. He emailed:

Hey Jim, I don't know what local musicians feed you information, but they're wrong about Cal's closing. I love rumors though. Peppers (the little burger joint next door to us) closed this past week after being in business for over 20 years. Maybe that's what is fueling these rumors. A lot of Board of Trade morons are spreading stuff also. It's nice to get the press from you even though it's an ill rumored falsehood without any legitimate facts other than what 2 musicians who frequent the bar report. In fact I urge you to come down some weekend and see a show. ... Thanks for caring. I think I'll update the myspace page for the next few months.

Meanwhile, the calendar is equally empty for the coming weeks at Sonotheque, the hipster venue at the cutting edge of electronic dance music on Chicago Avenue at the fringes of Wicker Park.

It would indeed be a loss to the local music scene if both venues are going under. Anyone out there have the facts? (I'd love to be proved wrong on both counts.)