To listen to Stevie Hawkins’ take on "A Song For You" is to have a conversation with a ghost in a dimly lit room after the show has ended. Hawkins, long the rhythmic engine for the song's originator Leon Russell, steps from behind the drum kit to the microphone, and the space between these two roles compresses decades into four and a half minutes....

Listening to “Panic Buttons,” the new single from the resurrected rave act Joe Average, feels like finding a party invitation tucked inside a government-issued emergency broadcast. It arrives with a grin, not a grimace. Thirty-four years is a long time to be quiet, and the Brighton trio of Rich, Mad Mick, and Prof have clearly spent their time away pondering the best way to...