New York magazine celebrates its 40th year with a special anniversary issue. In it, the magazine's culture critics give their take on the most essential New York works of art since the publication's inception, "The New York Canon: 1968-2008," featuring performances and works by Steve Reich, John Adams, Laurie Anderson, Audra McDonald, Adam Guettel, Stephen Sondheim, David Byrne, Brian Eno, and The Magnetic Fields.

Steve Reich's latest Nonesuch release, Daniel Variations, will be in stores tomorrow, and the Metro (UK) gives the album five stars, calling it "remarkable." MusicOMH gives the album four stars, calling the title piece "the most vital of Reich's recent works," suggesting it marks "a new stylistic phase" for the composer.

Wilco, The Black Keys, and Amadou & Mariam will be among the bands playing at this year's Lollapalooza, the event's organizers have announced. The lineup for the three-day festival, to be held at Chicago's Grant Park, August 1-3, includes more than 100 artists, including Radiohead, The Raconteurs, Nine Inch Nails, and Kanye West.

"Ry Cooder is probably my guitar hero," Billy Bragg says in a Sunday New York Times Playlist. "The economy of his playing is something to be admired at a time when guitar players tend to think the more notes you play the better you are. My Name Is Buddy is up my street because it's capital-P Political ... There's a lot of love in the songs; they fit well in the tradition. Woody Guthrie's spirit runs through this record very strongly. Cooder plays stuff that we now refer to as Americana, but nobody called it that then. His excursions have been great, but for him to come back to where he began is pretty cool."

Youssou N'Dour was in London this week to perform with his Super Etoile band at Indig02, and The Independent gives the show four stars. The paper sees Youssou's latest Nonesuch release, Rokku Mi Rokka (Give and Take), as "the weave of percussion, bass lines and quicksilver guitars with N'Dour's extraordinary voice that stands out. His singing is a rhythmic device as much as an emotional force."

The Magnetic Fields' Distortion tour may have come to a close, but that just means more time for Stephin Merritt to share another of his many talents: DJing. He stopped by the KCRW studios in his newly adopted hometown of Los Angeles this past Sunday to play guest DJ on Gary Calamar's late-night show.

Mandy Patinkin returns to Broadway, the site of his Tony Award-winning musical debut in Evita, his starring role in the original production of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George, and countless other performances, on May 19 for a one-night-only event to benefit the off-Broadway Classic Stage Company. He will be accompanied by his longtime pianist, Paul Ford, in this special solo performance at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre.