Cooder's use of animal characters allows his populist song cycle to frame his social commentary from an outsider's perspective.

NPR: A Dustbowl Lament from an American Chameleon

His first great success, "Le Bestiaire" (1919, words by Guillaume Apollinaire), was a song cycle about animal life that is scarcely four minutes long.

WSJ: Francis Poulenc | More Than Almost Great | Sightings by Terry Teachout

Brown, whose other works include the short-lived Broadway musicals "Urban Cowboy" and "13, " and another acclaimed song cycle "Songs for a New World, " is enjoying a purple patch of late.

WSJ: Songwriter Jason Robert Brown revisits tough times

The critically acclaimed Bitter, 1999's brooding song cycle about a troubled relationship, cast NdegeOcello as a mature and unconventional chronicler of human behavior, but since then, she's taken more creative risks.

NPR: MeShell NdegeOcello in Concert

The songwriter was in the subway a dozen years ago on his way to a meeting at Lincoln Center with the fragment of an idea for his next project: It would be a song cycle about a husband and a wife in a troubled marriage.

WSJ: Songwriter Jason Robert Brown revisits tough times

It makes the usual song, applause, song, applause 90 minute cycle seem rather mundane.

BBC: Review: Rufus Wainwright at the Ipswich Regent, 2010