Though my cold, black heart rarely stirs for the work of singer-songwriters, the voice of Sharon Van Etten always turns me into a weepy, vulnerable heap. If you listen closely to this gorgeous Tiny Desk performance she gave with her musical partner, Cat Martino, you can hear the sound of my eyelashes fluttering with misty delight.

Los Lobos has proven time and again that a universal shared experience will always trump culture and language. The group writes music that speaks to all of us as individuals, yet can make us feel connected when we pack ourselves into a club to watch them perform.

Few musicians get better with age, but Nick Lowe is an exception. I've been following Lowe's music since his days with the country-rock band Brinsley Schwarz in the early 1970s. He wrote one of his best-known tunes with that band: "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding?" But it wasn't until he left Brinsley Schwarz that people began hearing his name, first with the Dave Edmunds project Rockpile. (Edmunds produced one of the last Brinsley Schwarz records, the one with "What's So Funny.")

First it's the GPS router of doom, now the robots are just going to be driving the cars?

The New York Times had a piece over the weekend that outlined yet another Google-cum-robot plan for world domination. Robot cars. No, really, I'm serious.

I cheat on books regularly. Were I to write my confessions, I would have to admit to buying books for purely aesthetic reasons. Some I bought for their covers, some for the feel of the paper, and some I had a genuine interest in -- until a newer, glossier novel caught my eye. My first encounter with Gayle Forman's If I Stay began like most of my romances -- for purely physical reasons. But something told me this book was "the one." And sometimes you just can't let a special book go.

Mavis Staples is a legend, but she's not stuck in the past. You probably know her work with her family band, The Staple Singers, which was all over the radio in the '70s with hits like "Respect Yourself," "Let's Do It Again" and "I'll Take You There" (which she excerpts in her performance here).

Several generations of nerds can chart the course of their lives against the career trajectory of "Weird Al" Yankovic. For me, his 1984 album In 3-D was the first record I ever owned, and his appearance at the Wausau County Fair in 1985 was the second concert I ever attended. I spent my 17th birthday being driven to the movie theater — by my mother, of course — to watch UHF, Yankovic's debut as a leading man, by myself.