Amazon.com: Raising Sand: MP3 Downloads: Robert Plant and Alison Krauss
To be released on Oct 23, "Raising Sand" is a complete album that blends two distinctive voices from totally different strains of popular music. Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant is a high-voiced screamer who's mellowed through the years. Yet he retains the edgy timbre befitting his "Hammer of the Gods" upbringing. Alison Krauss needs no introduction. She possesses the purest soprano in bluegrass, country and beyond. Absolute beauty, she has.

On the ballads their voices blend wonderfully in a strangely-new-yet-familiar way. But the rock-tinged tracks are just okay. When they invoke Mountain Soul, it's blessed harmony.

Check out the Amazon.com download system. It's a new online music store with MP3s formatted at twice the audio quality of iTunes. Buy only the tracks that suit your taste. Or take the whole album for $8.99, a considerable discount from the plastic disc.