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Don't tell the rock kids, but the newest DFA Records offering isn't punk funk or even revivalist new wave -- it's a techno album, straight up.

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At the beginning of the decade, dance music got downsized. You can, in part, thank Royksopp for this. The Bergen, Norway duo's late 2001 debut, Melody A.M.., hit at a point when bruisers like Paul Oakenfold were beginning to feel like relics of the dot-com-bubble era, and simpler styles, from mash-ups to electroclash to microhouse, were staging an aesthetic takeover.

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Nothing shapes you up like rejection. Just ask Wilco, who turned getting dropped from their record label four years ago into a strange kind of career move, complete with accompanying movie and books.

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"Don't be light," Air advised us on their last record, 2001's 10,000 Hz Legend. Now they're taking their own advice, substituting a darkly downbeat feel for that album's thin bombast -- the synths lay low, the laughs subside, the acoustic guitars are real-world pastoral, and JB Dunckel and Nicolas Godin sing like they mean it.

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The usual pop story is that you can’t go home again, but in hip-hop you’re suspect if you leave. That’s never been a problem for Minneapolis rapper Slug. He may tour 200 days a year, but he’s remained outspokenly loyal to his hometown since 1997’s Overcast!, taking as much pride in his boho-Midwesternness as Outkast do in being ATLiens.