With Kelly Osbourne making her big push for a place in the limelight and Michael Jackson back in the headlines, Lisa Marie Presley really couldn’t have picked a better time to grace the world with her full-length debut as a recording artist. That’s right, the daughter of one King and ex-wife of another is finally ready to make a musical statement of her own, in the form of To Whom It May Concern (Capitol), which is due in stores April 8.

Presley was actually signed five years ago, by the man who helped make Alanis Morissette one of the bestselling female artists ever, Glenn Ballard. Fortunately, she had the patience to wait until the pop world had became a total freak show, with Ozzy Osbourne beaming his family life into living rooms around the world, boys and girls competing for spots in readymade pop groups on reality programming and then actually moving a respectable number of units, and singers auditioning before panels of A&R scouts for record deals on television. Next to all that insanity, Presley’s emergence as a solo artist seems like just another unicycle juggling act in the three-ring media circus that may well include (or so it seemed as we went to press) a war televised in real time by reporters wielding M-16s. Who knows, maybe some lucky soldier will emerge as an audience favorite — and if he can sing, there could be a record deal in his future. Do they allow A&R scouts on the battlefield?

Presley had plenty of help on To Whom It May Concern, which is being marketed as a rock/pop CD and not a country release. For starters, Ballard and Danny Keough (another of her former husbands) helped mold the disc. Billy Corgan, the former Smashing Pumpkin and current Zwan frontman, had proved he could work with the toughest of the tough when he lived through a writing session with Courtney Love for Hole’s Celebrity Skin (Geffen); he’s credited with co-authoring To Whom It May Concern’s " Savior, " a tune that’s been described as " dark-hued. " Other highlighted numbers include " S.O.B., " which is being advertised as a brutally self-analytical tune, and " Nobody Noticed It, " the requisite broken-hearted number. But the real topper is the title track, which is said to be a " forceful cry for an end to the prescribed drugging of children. " Now there’s a cause we can all get behind.

On a more serious note: critics’ darling Lucinda Williams has apparently overcome her battle with obsessive-compulsive perfectionism in the studio. It took her a decade to produce the much lauded Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (Mercury; 1998) but only three years to deliver the equally lauded if looser and more soulful Essence (Lost Highway; 2001). Now she’s gearing up for the release of another remarkable full-length, World Without Tears (Lost Highway), which is also due April 8. The disc features a full 14 new tunes ranging from Stonesy rockers to sensual rootsy ballads to gritty Delta blues. And with the exception of some keyboard overdubs and one vocal track, it was recorded live in an effort to capture the feeling of an intimate club performance.

On a more humorous but no less historical note: Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg have, against doctor’s orders, rejoined forces as the Fugs for one more final album, The Fugs Final CD (Part I) (Artemis). First formed back in 1964 in an East Village that was then teeming with radical activity, the Fugs are one of the more notorious products of the ’60s, an agit-pop folk group concerned more with making noise, cracking jokes, and scoring good weed than with little things like, oh, tuning their instruments — though some would argue that they did as much to bring poetry to pop music as Dylan. The new album is due April 22, and the timing could be just right, because if we’re still hunting down Saddam, then there may be a real anti-war movement for Sanders and Kupferberg to hitch their wagon to. If not, we can all feign amusement at song titles like " Government Surveillance Yodel, " " Perpitude " (a word, I believe, that was first used by George W.), and " Where Is My Wandering Jew? "

Also back on the comeback trail this spring are Fleetwood Mac, who are currently raking it in with their latest greatest-hits package — The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac — and whatever royalties they get from the Dixie Chicks’ cover of " Landslide. " On April 15, the Mac will unload Say You Will (Reprise), their first full-length studio album of new material since 1986’s unforgettable Tango in the Night (Reprise). Apparently Christine McVie, who spent most of the last reunion looking as if she’d just taken a bite of something particularly vile-tasting, wasn’t available this time around — she had some overdue library books that she really needed to return, and there were the usual " creative differences. " But Say You Will does feature songs and performances by the fab foursome of Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, and John McVie. Buckingham produced the material, and he managed to get the last of the final mixes done a mere 18 months after they began recording. All four will stay together long enough to support Say You Will with a 40-city summer tour.

Another heavy hitter on the comeback trail is Martin L. Gore, a gentleman some may remember as one of Depeche Mode’s founding members. Some of you may also remember that back in 1989 he released an interesting little EP called Counterfeit (Mute/Reprise), which featured radically reworked versions of some of his favorite songs. Well, in the lull following Depeche Mode’s Exciter (Mute/Reprise) world tour, which ended almost two years ago, Gore revisited the Counterfeit concept and came up with Counterfeit2, a full-length collection of radically reworked versions of some more of his favorite songs, including Iggy Pop’s " Tiny Girls, " Lou Reed’s " Candy Says, " and Blind Willie Johnson’s " In My Time of Dying " (memo to Led Zeppelin: it’s not that hard to credit the original songwriter). He also raids the songbooks of John Lennon, Nick Cave, Kurt Weill, and some dude named David Essex.

There’s still no news of a new Weezer album on the Geffen/Interscope schedule, though it’s been almost a year since Maladroit (Geffen/Interscope) came out. But Rivers Cuomo’s favorite band who sound just like Weezer, Ozma (whom you may remember from their opening slots on two Weezer tours, or from the main stage of last year’s Warped Tour), are getting ready to roll out their third album, Spending Time on the Borderline (Kung Fu). Think of them as Pasadena’s younger, cuter, less cryptic answer to Weezer and enjoy the big fat power-chord hooks and the vocal melodies that are so super-sweet and chewy, you’ll be tempted to brush between tracks.

The bad news for Weezer fans is that Rivers Cuomo, apparently while on a drunken bender, found himself in the studio when the modern-rock band Cold were recording " Stupid Girl, " the first single from the follow-up to their gold-certified 2000 CD 13 Ways To Bleed on Stage (Flip/Geffen). So now he’s being touted as the very special guest on Year of the Spider (Flip/Geffen) for his " Stupid Girl " cameo. The album is due April 29, baring any court injunctions initiated by Cuomo’s team of lawyers.

Family loyalty is a beautiful thing. Especially when a beautiful young thing like Taryn Manning, the tomboyish it-girl actress whose roles in 8 Mile, White Oleander, Crossroads, and crazy/beautiful landed her a sweet gig in that recent Gap campaign (she sang " I’ll Take You There " ), is sweet enough to bring her bro’ along on her trip to the top of the pops. Together Taryn and, ah, Kellin Manning are known as Boomkat, an act who mixed the tough-grrrl attitude of Avril Lavigne with enough hip-hop beat science to send the " Thunderpuss " remix of their first single, " The Wreckoning, " to the top of Billboard’s " Hot Dance Music " chart, whatever that means. It’s certainly not a bad set-up for boomkatalog one (DreamWorks), a summertime treat of an album that’s set to hit stores April 8, rain or shine. That DreamWorks has spent the past few months carefully positioning the siblings’ tunes in shows like Alias, Boston Public, and Birds of Prey probably hasn’t hurt either.

They’re young, they’re sassy, and they look better in tight jeans than the Donnas do. All of which should have radio programmers falling all over themselves to play the first single from the homonymous debut by Lillix, a sweet and nasty foursome of Avril Lavigne clones from British Columbia who have so far gotten a pretty nice pre-release ride by Madonna’s Maverick label. Indeed, that’s them singing the Romantics tune " What I Like About You " as the themesong for the WB Network sit-com of the same name, which if it hasn’t been cancelled already should be gone by May 1, when Lillix hits stores. Fortunately, the first single isn’t " What I Like About You, " it’s " It’s About Time, " a mixed-up-in-romance number chock full of deep thoughts like " Time is something you can’t rewind. " You go, grrrls!

True to form, Madonna has begun to stir up controversy in advance of the release of her new American Life (Warner Bros.), which is due on April 22. Apparently, the video for the first single, " American Life, " is being interpreted by some as anti-war — which of course in the current climate amounts to being un-American. Somehow we suspect she’s not all that bothered by the extra attention. The Flaming Lips have an EP in the works that features covers of Kylie Minogue’s " Can’t Get You Out of My Head, " Radiohead’s " Knives Out, " and Beck’s " The Golden Age, " as well as an ode to White Stripes frontman Jack White called " Thank You Jack White (For the Fiber-Optic Jesus That You Gave Me) " — called Flight Test (Warner Bros.), it’s due April 22. Third Eye Blind now plan to release their third album, Out of the Vein (Elektra), on May 13. The Deftones are set to release their new Deftones (Maverick) on May 20. And Mary J. Blige is working on her sixth studio album, Love and Life (Arista), with P. Diddy; it too is expected May 20.