I was very dissatisfied when I realized that the MediaLibrary\'s GetVisualizationData() returns a bunch of zeros on WP7. What are the other approaches I could apply in order
I think that I have found exactly what you are looking for. Beat Detection written by JWatte. From the screenshot, its looking very pretty.
Here is a little framework, in Silverlight, that might assist with your project.
Here is a Silverlight FFT and oscilloscopes example.