Just in time for Valentine's Day, filmmaker John Waters follows up his wonderfully weird Christmas-music collection from 2004 with a new CD for lovers, featuring 14 personally selected "come hither" wolf-whistles from his own twisted-kitsch record collection. New Line Records invites you on A Date with John Waters this week, a wild ride of oddball nuggets that kicks off with "Tonight You Belong to Me," a 45-RPM ditty from 1956 by 11- and 14-year-old sisters Patience & Prudence - the first record the five-finger-discounting Waters admits he ever shoplifted. Alongside tracks from Clarence "Frogman" Henry, Jet Boy Jet Girl, Dean Martin, Mildred Bailey, and Ike & Tina Turner, a few of Waters' cohorts in shock cinema made the cut, with Edith "Egg Lady" Massey's "Big Girls Don't Cry" and Mink Stole's cover of "Sometimes I Wish I Had a Gun."

This weekend the Quad City Symphony Orchestra is celebrating composers who stood apart, in some way, from the conventions of their time. Although the program does include Beethoven and Strauss, the emphasis is on modern American composers, three of whom are living.

As Music Director and Conductor Donald Schleicher explained, these are (or were) composers "on the cutting edge" who "invented and created and didn't just follow the patterns of their predecessors.

"So often we play music by dead composers," Schleicher said. "Dead composers were once living, so I think it's interesting to investigate and perform music by living composers. Like an artist, composers sometimes become more famous after they die."

Off the radar in the States since its European issue on Frontiers Records last summer, a new heavy masterpiece from hard-rock royalty is released domestically next week. The former voice of Deep Purple and Trapeze, Glenn Hughes may have turned 55 last year, but let the legend show what a frontman is really all about. With his classic, soulful, golden tone refreshingly grand in response to so many whiny emo broken hearts and edgy malcontents, the new album - Music for the Divine - is also one heck of a players' album, ready to feed a nation of hungry, head-banging guitarists and drummers. Fueled by the beat of Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and the expressive guitar work of J.J. Marsh, the album also features Chili Pepper guitarist John Frusciante on two tracks, including the lone cover on the album, The Moody Blues' "Knights in White Satin." Recorded in Smith's Hollywood Hills home - the former residence of Gary Grant - the magic is bristling and alive.

Sub Pop Records is following in the footsteps of the Merge and Saddle Creek imprints by rewarding the purchaser (remember them?) with free, official mp3 downloads directly from the label, via a coupon found inside all forthcoming vinyl LPs. Yes! Give the vinyl purchaser something special, or at least hold hands on the path down to the iPod or 10-cent blank CD. I'm all for this common sense approach in a world where music is becoming exchangeable files instead of (geezer alert!) collectible physical artifacts, linked together by a discernible, evolutionary timeline. The first LP to contain a unique coded coupon is Tuesday's release of The Shins' Wincing the Night Away.