(FORTUNE Magazine) – Beulah The Coast Is Never Clear Velocette

While your boss delegated from his beach house all summer, you were stuck in the office getting the life zapped out of you by that one fluorescent light on the fritz. Cheer up. One trip through Beulah's latest batch of dreamy sunshine pop will have you reaching for the Coppertone. As for whether you'll actually get a tan...

Sex Mob Sex Mob Does Bond Ropeadope Records

We're going to have to go all the way back to Octopussy for the last truly decent James Bond movie. But the fellas in this smoky avant-jazz combo are keeping the swank spirit of 007 alive with their fictional spy-flick soundtrack. If Pierce Brosnan could deliver a performance as deep as Sex Mob's grooves, we'd be set.

Tenacious D Tenacious D Epic

Spinal Tap once famously mused, "There's a fine line between clever and stupid." Well, for Tenacious D--a portly pair of guitar-wielding comics with stoned delusions of rock-god grandeur--that fine line is their stage. A warning: The hilarious lyrics aren't just swimming in profanity, they're doing cannonballs into Olympic-sized pools of it.

Various Artists Timeless Lost Highway

Michael Jackson's recent all-star concert may have packed more freakish spectacle, but as tributes go, Timeless is tough to beat. Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Lucinda Williams, and Johnny Cash all drop into the studio to pay respect to Hank Williams. The unlikely showstopper is Beck's lonesome-blues take on "Your Cheatin' Heart."

X Wild Gift Slash/Rhino

According to the Eagles, California in 1981 was a place of peaceful, easy feelings. But anyone who bought this Molotov cocktail of a record knew that was a sham. Raw, dirty, and somehow beautiful, Wild Gift is L.A. punk served straight up. It may be 20 years old, but, thank God, it hasn't grown up one bit.