Madi Diaz's new album Phantom is a break-up record, but you'd never know that from a casual listen - and that's just what the singer/songwriter was aiming for.

"I'm trying to push past the break-up-record thing," she said in a recent phone interview in advance of her November 21 record-release show at Rozz-Tox. "I'm hoping the music pulls it past the cold, harsh idea of a break-up record. ... That's kind of my favorite thing, that juxtaposition: the very dry, grounded, present lyrics with a kind of uplifting, soaring musical bed. That's what I was striving for with the record."

Both Diaz and Christian Lee Hutson - who will be returning to the Quad Cities for the Daytrotter.com show with Diaz - are promoting records whose idiosyncratic pop textures mask darker emotional content.

The band Darlingside drew its name from an old chestnut for writers - the instruction to "murder your darlings." (Killing your darlings would be "darlingcide," which is made softer and more enticingly opaque as Darlingside.)

All the band members met at Massachusetts' Williams College, at which they heard that advice in class.

Guitarist/singer Don Mitchell explained it this way in a recent phone interview promoting his group's November 12 show at the Redstone Room: "You should be willing to get rid of the things that were initially what made you excited about the work, because those ... tend to be the clever ones; those ... tend to be the most indulgent moments. You might need ... to blow up the song in order to put it back together and continue to move forward."

That's an important lesson for songwriting, but it also applied to this band as a whole, which has over the past year-plus reinvented itself - shifting from an atmospheric, earnest rock band to a folk outfit.

Images by Chris Jones of the October 17 Pearl Jam Concert at the i wireless Center. For more work by Jones, visit MusicRowPhotos.com.

Looking despondent, the young conductor was comforted by his mentor. "Think of it this way, my son," the old maestro began. "If everyone was equally dissatisfied with your repertoire, at least you gave them a balanced season."

It's an old joke, but it sarcastically underscores the futility of finding music that will satisfy everyone.

But, in the Quad City Symphony's 100th season, Music Director and Conductor Mark Russell Smith has fashioned a carefully considered, diversely adventuresome musical celebration that includes a balanced sampling of masterpieces, premieres of six new commissioned works, and guest soloists ranging from world-class recording artists to members of the orchestra.

It's a dream season that lies ahead, but it's been an evolutionary process for Smith to get there.