THURSDAY, APRIL 24

Tift Merritt

Paul Beaty/AP (ENLARGE)
Grammy-nominated Tift Merritt has drifted closer to mainstream with her latest album 'Another Country.'
Evan Agostini/AP (ENLARGE)
A Rhapsody commercial brought Sara Bareilles' music to the masses.
MOST POPULAR STORIES NY psychiatrist: Brinkley, Cook need therapy Scalpers ask $1,500 for free Bon Jovi concert Drew Barrymore and Justin Long end relationship McConaughey, girlfriend welcome baby boy Original Village People policeman in hospital
EMAIL THIS PRINT THIS MOST POPULAR
RELATED LINKS: • Blog: Atlanta Music Scene • Find a concert • When to buy tickets

CHANGES: This Grammy-nominated, North Carolina-based vocalist made her major label bow with "Bramble Rose" in 2002. Since then, she's drifted closer and closer to the mainstream — and toward mainstream success. This year's "Another Country" is a long, long way from the EP of raw country duets she recorded with fellow North Carolinians the Two Dollar Pistols at the tail end of the '90s.

• THE 411: 8:30 p.m. $17; $15 advance. Five Spot, 1123 Euclid Ave. N.E., Little Five Points. 404-223-1100, www.fivespot-atl.com.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25

FINALES: In a dramatic reinvention, Al Jourgensen took this band from lightweight synth-pop confectioners of the early '80s to the metallic industrial dance machine that created the brutal rantings of "Stigmata" and "Jesus Built My Hotrod" in the late '80s and early '90s. The later work is the kind of stuff that gives the faint-hearted the willies, but this is your last chance to see it live. Jourgensen claims this is Ministry's final tour. With Meshuggah and Hemlock.

• THE 411: 8 p.m. $35 advance. The Masquerade — Heaven, 695 North Ave. N.E., Midtown. 404-577-8178, www.masq.com.

The Honda Civic Tour

AMBITIONS: This show offers three of the more stylish and melodic pop-rock bands of recent vintage — and one more seasoned band that seems a little lost.

The Hush Sound is distinguished by the voice and piano of Greta Salpeter, who alternates lead vocals with Bob Morris. The band is signed to Decaydance, the label of Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz.

Minneapolis quintet Motion City Soundtrack is a bit like a modern-day Cars, complete with a boatload of hooks and squiggly synthesizers sweetening the guitar-driven arrangements.

There used to be an exclamation point in Panic at the Disco's name, but the Las Vegas-formed band has dropped it on new album "Pretty.Odd." As Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield points out in a review of that album, many ambitious young bands seem to be looking to the '70s for inspiration. "My Chemical Romance aim for Queen and the Killers imitate Bruce Springsteen, Panic go for ELO circa 'Mr. Blue Sky,'" Sheffield writes.

You'd think that being pretty and privileged would have put Phantom Planet on the fast track to success. But the band's supremely hooky 2002 sophomore album, "The Guest," languished until the lead track "California" became the theme song for the hit Fox series "The O.C." Since that high-water mark, the band hasn't really provided the soundtrack to anything except its own identity crisis. Reviews of the band's just-released fourth album, "Raise the Dead," have been a mixed bag.

• THE 411: 7 p.m. $35. Masquerade Music Park, 695 North Ave. N.E., Midtown. 404-659-9022, 404-249-6400, www.livenation.com.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30

SUCCESSES: Ah, the power of television. This California musician's single "Love Song" was prominently featured in a commercial for the music service Rhapsody, and suddenly it was vaulting up the charts. The piano-driven pop tune eventually landed in the Top 10, and the album the song comes from, "Little Voice," climbed to No. 7 on Billboard's album chart. With Rachael Yamagata.

• THE 411: 8 p.m. $20; $17.50 advance. Variety Playhouse, 1099 Euclid Ave. N.E., Little Five Points. 404-521-1786, www.variety-playhouse.com.