Downloads

“River”

Sarah McLachlan

www.clearchannelmusic.com/cc-common/stripped/sarahmclachlan

In a performance for Clear Channel Music’s “Stripped” program of this song from her latest album, “Wintersong,” Grammy-nominated McLachlan takes on fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell’s classic song of loss in the frozen season. (See story, Page E22.) She does a good, understated job of it too, mercifully downplaying her vocal trademark -- the hiccup that approaches a yodel (for an example, listen to her version of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”). The guitars provide an exquisite wash behind her and she sings it allowing every aching, poetic line to have its moment without trying to milk the dramatic moments. The track is streamable, but not for downloading.

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“Candy (Drippin’ Like Water)”

Snoop Dogg

music.yahoo.com/premieres

Where to begin? Snoop continues to pursue his career as master pimp to a harem of women with bizarrely dyed hair. The metaphor is made clear in the first 10 seconds after which it just becomes a strutting party on Hollywood Boulevard. But, strangely, there is gold beyond the stars in the Walk of Fame. Snoop is taking a hyphy detour; there’s hardly anything on the track except rapping, some of it brilliantly and hilariously by E-40, MC Eiht, Goldie Loc, Daz and Kurupt ... and the pasha of the blue carpet himself, Snoop. It’s all in fun until you realize that every woman in the video is merely candy to these grown-up adolescent boys.

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“Jeremiah (Something Beautiful)”

Sinead O’Connor

www.emusic.com/album/10983/10983544.html

This is a devotional hymn to Jesus Christ and something of a confession, for, like St. Augustine, O’Connor has spent time in sin before being enveloped by the mother church of Catholicism. Now she wants to give back and exhorts the church to give as well to the needy -- “Who will dress their wounds?” As with McLachlan, there are none of the vocal histrionics from O’Connor’s past and only a deliberate, quiet determination backed by finger-picked acoustic guitars. Available until Dec. 31 as a free download.

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“The Muckin’ O Geordie’s Byre”

Jimmy MacBeath

www.rounder.com/index.phpidalbum.phpcatalog_id6309

“At a relic aul’croft upon the hill / Roon the neuk frae Sprottie’s mill, / Tryin’ a’ his life tae jine the kill / Lived Geordie MacIntyre.... “ You can’t do much better than this song, originally released as part of a famous series of Scottish field recordings by the University of Edinburgh. This MP3 is but a fragment of the full song, but even these few seconds give the listener a taste of MacBeath’s hallucinogenic high command of the Scots dialect. Rounder Records has included it on a Jimmy MacBeath collection.

casey.dolan@latimes.com