The Brothers Ramone gave the world a million of these precious moments. If Kiss are the Yankees of rock 'n' roll, then the Ramones were the Mets–perpetual underdogs who got by on spirit and pluck.

The late Joey Ramone, né Jeffrey Hyman, while not in my view the crucial Ramone, was certainly the most lovable one, and his support for musicians in the New York area was ceaseless. All of this, as well as the fact that he knew he was dying from lymphoma during the production of Don't Worry About Me (Sanctuary), renders his first–and last–solo album awfully poignant.

Don't Worry showcases the Joey we knew for 25 years, cutting up and waxing euphoric about pop-culture ephemera. On "Maria Bartiromo," his well-publicized tune about CNBC's financial-news babe, Mr. Ramone chants the on-air reporter's name like a mantra, then asks the object of his affection: "What's happening with Intel / What's happening with Amazon?" Renditions of the Stooges' "1969" and Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" speed along by dint of his unfailing good nature. That Mr. Ramone knew his time on earth was coming to an end imbues the Armstrong tune with bittersweet resonance.

Mr. Ramone deals even more directly with his illness on "I Got Knocked Down (But I'll Get Up)." "Sitting in a hospital bed / Frustration going through my head / Turn off the TV set / Take some drugs so I can forget," he drawls in his froggy baritone. It's a sad, ironic twist on the aforementioned verse from "I Wanna Be Sedated," and it's heartbreaking. This is not the Joey Ramone that New York knew.

For those who choose to ignore the fact that Mr. Ramone was coming to terms with his mortality in song, Don't Worry About Me is a lightweight, fun little punk-pop record, made with bassist Andy Shernoff (of the Dictators) and drummer Frank Funaro (once with the Dictators, now with Cracker), longtime producer Daniel Rey and Mr. Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh. Don't Worry About Me could have sounded crisper. There's too much reverb on the drums, for one thing–but to complain just seems churlish.

The night after I played "I Wanna Be Sedated," I met Mr. Ramone's mother, Charlotte Lesher, at the release party for Don't Worry About Me . One never knows what to say to someone who outlives their own child, so I said something innocuous and dumb. What I wished I'd said was that her son, as evidenced by this record and about 15 others, was a mensch.

Kasey Chambers: Good on Her If you caught the Golden Globes a few weeks ago, you noticed that Hollywood is ga-ga for Australians. Nicole Kidman, Baz Luhrmann and Russell Crowe–a New Zealander by birth–are the favored variety of foreigner in the film biz these days.

In that spirit, Kasey Chambers, a gifted singer from Australia, is looking like the future Nicole Kidman of Nashville, a town that is to mainstream country music what Hollywood is to film.

Of course, there are really two Nashvilles, each with its own set of royalty. The hits-oriented wing has Garth Brooks and Faith Hill, while the artistic wing has Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams.

Ms. Chambers' Barricades and Brickwalls (Warner Bros.) pitches its tent squarely in the latter category and comes with instant validation–Ms. Williams lending her wracked, quavery vocal imprimatur to "On a Bad Day."

If legions of National Public Radio devotees prick up their ears because of Ms. Williams' involvement, that's swell. But Ms. Chambers' contralto is such a rich, keening instrument that it doesn't really need any help from the celebrity corner.

Her voice is so genuine, so honeyed, that clichéd lyrical tropes involving runaway trains and "crying a river of tears" go down easier than they have a right to. Even "Ignorance"–a truly silly dirge hidden at the end of the album, in which she enumerates global injustice after injustice–is more tolerable. Ms. Chambers is not an innovative writer, but then the last innovative country songwriter, Jimmie Rodgers, died in 1933.

Given her antipodean roots, purists will probably also carp about what constitutes a birthright to make credible country music, but the elongated vowels of down-under syntax, as well as the Aussies' complicated feelings of rage and inferiority regarding the British Isles, lend themselves to the genre. The fact that Ms. Chambers' family traveled the outback in the late 80's, before she and her brother began a country band, also doesn't hurt.

Besides, any lingering doubts disappear when Ms. Chambers opens her mouth to sing. Her blue yodel in "A Little Bit Lonesome" and piercing melancholy on "Million Tears" are first-rate and, as a whole, Brick Walls and Barricades is much better at showing off Ms. Chambers' considerable talent than her last album, The Captain .

Will we be seeing her move to Nashville to become the town's next insurgent ingénue? Not bloody likely, as they say in Sydney. But we can always appreciate her from afar.

Cornelius: Radioheady

Have you listened to either Kid A or Amnesiac , Radiohead's one-two punch of dreary dystopia, lately? Did it occur to you that both have as much heart as those notorious San Franciscan dog lovers, Robert Noel and Marjorie Knoller?

Cornelius' Point (Matador) is for those who don't mind generosity and a sense of fun in electronic music. The Japanese polymath, a.k.a. Keigo Oyamada, includes a dollop of disco, a bit of bossa nova and a sliver of speed metal in his first full-length record since 1998's Fantasma . The record also vacillates between a mood redolent of Robert Wyatt's oceanic 1974 Rock Bottom and the sound of a CD player malfunctioning. And that's a compliment.

In 1982, popular music was often whatever Prince Roger Nelson decided it was. Twenty years later, the same can be said for Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, two Virginians who, under their nom de pop , the Neptunes, have produced the work of Britney Spears, Ol' Dirty Bastard and Kelis, and under the rubric of N.E.R.D. have made a new album. Both Prince and the Neptunes produce songs on the new No Doubt record , Rock Steady , and both crossbreed musical idioms by instinct. But guess which of their respective new records is hopelessly convoluted, and which is the very thing you want to put on during a party?

In every sense, Prince has arrived at the place he has quite publicly coveted since the early 90's: The Rainbow Children (NPG) is the work of an unfettered artiste. It is (take a deep breath) a concept album. Using a portentous basso profundo to narrate a sci-fi–fantasy plot line so impenetrable that it would benefit no one for me to recount it, Prince takes 11 tracks to get to a single, solitary hook-in the breezy ballad "She Loves Me 4 Me."

But Prince's hard-won freedom seems to have come at the price of his discipline. The Rainbow Children is full of accomplished but unfocused funk workouts and sundry forays into Ellingtonia and sub- Godspell epics that never quite catch fire. In his favor, Prince sprinkles pungent guitar throughout, and his voice is still an exceptional, feral thing, even when it conveys twaddle.

Prince has earned the right (and more notably, the financial independence) to do exactly as he pleases. But if he keeps producing material that's as unrealized as The Rainbow Children , everyone else will have just as much right to ignore him.

Instead, they can pay attention to N.E.R.D.'s engaging new album, In Search Of (EMD/Virgin), which shows what the Neptunes do to amuse themselves when they're not channeling one of their clients.

On In Search Of , Mr. Williams and Mr. Hugo want to make you split your sides as you bob your head. "Tape You" and "Brain" are both staccato, sprightly bits of lewdness of the sort that Prince is either too old or too in thrall to his Jehovah's Witness elders to dream up these days. And should anyone doubt that N.E.R.D. can craft something more weighty than danceable smut, there's "Am I High," an airy ballad indebted to Donny Hathaway.

N.E.R.D. prefers to use a full band on In Search Of , which is a shame, since the duo's syncopated drum programming is its greatest virtue. But Messrs. Williams and Hugo, modest melodists at the best of times, have nonetheless made a flyweight and eminently fun party record.

world in the overweening manner common to pop-

culture colossi. She ended the decade with only that English accent as her most

detestable affectation. In between, she released some magnificent singles. Greatest Hits Vol. 2 (WEA/Warner Bros.) not only complements her first hits

compilation, The Immaculate Collection ,

but also serves to silence those clowns who say she has no musical ability. She

has always relied on collaborators, but there's a thread running throughout GHV2 that proves the simple fact that

when she isn't distracted, Madonna is a supreme melodist as much as she is a

marketer or provocateur.

As it is, 1992's Erotica

and 1994's Bedtime Stories are pretty

shitty albums, redeemed only by the thrilling flamenco-househybrid "Deeper and

Deeper" and "Take a Bow," her greatest ballad by some distance. Her futile

attempt to erase Patti LuPone's "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from collective

memory cleared the way for her second great period, emblematized by 1998's Ray of Light and last year's Music . Who knew that middle age and

motherhood would prompt songs as great as "Ray of Light," "Beautiful Stranger"

and "Don't Tell Me"? (By contrast, Prince, her closest analogue, used that time

of life to disappear into his own hindquarters.)

In any case, GHV2

amounts to 10 of Madonna's most splendid tunes padded by five mediocre ones.

Thanks to the programmable skip function of your CD player, it's one of the

only holiday gifts you can have sex to.

Kid Rock/Britney Spears:

Our James & Carly

Many showbiz couplings are head-scratchers. Even the most

absurdity-numbed mind boggles at the sick-making reports that Kim Basinger's

current swain is none other than Eminem. Perhaps Alec Baldwin will start

courting Philadelphia's own R&B pixie Pink in response.

I imagine that, 30 years ago, as another crisis threatened the

American psyche (not to mention American lives), it was comforting to know that

somewhere-either in Martha's Vineyard or a Manhattan recording studio-James

Taylor and Carly Simon were cuddling.

And so it is in the national interest that I appeal to Kid Rock

and Britney Spears to have the "you know I'll always love you, but it's not

working out" talk with, respectively, Mr. Rock's pneumatic consort and Ms.

Spears' boy-band swain, and to begin dating one another. After all, Ms. Spears

has been carrying on for quite some time like a young woman who might drop her

flimsy raiment next to Mr. Rock's chair at Scores.

Looking at Kid Rock, you can't help but be struck by how he

resembles David Lee Roth circa 1981-85. These days, Bob Ritchie grins the same

grin that was plastered on Mr. Roth back then-the rictus of a man who has the

world by the balls in a downward tug. It's impossible to begrudge him such

proclamations as "I've got the baddest bitch in the world" and "Got more money

than Matchbox 20 / Get more ass than [Sugar Ray singer] Mark McGrath" in the

song "Cocky."

Unlike1998's Devil Without a Cause , Cocky (Lava/Atlantic) tends to

vacillatebetweenbig, dopey,riff-rap behemoths-concerning Mr. Rock's

affection for himself, the greater Detroit area, the signature guitar figure of

"Free Bird" and "big, corn-fed Midwestern hos"-and pleasant country and Southern-rock

ready-mades in which his good-naturedside shines. "Picture," a duet with

Sheryl Crow, is the best of these.

Here is a man who, like Mr. Roth, is enjoying himself. While his

peers combine hip-hop and heavy rock (two idioms that should, at their best,

bellow "PARTY!") and proceed to plumb the depths of cheap, aggrieved

miserablism, Mr. Rock's narcissism is purely celebratory. God bless him!

Now, as for Ms. Spears: Her third album, Britney (Jive), is a fairly delightful mixed message. She's "not a

girl, not yet a woman," as a tune by that name puts it. Yet every sign, such as

that HBO special, points to where her true allegiance lies. Clearly, this is a

matter her handlers are still grappling with, but that sort of tension is what

makes pop music worthwhile.

The storied Swedish songwriting and production team of Max Martin

and Rami is joined by staccato R&B sculptors the Neptunes (Kelis, Mystikal)

and Rodney Jerkins (Destiny's Child). The former fashion two terrific, vaguely

lewd tunes, the single "I'm a Slave 4 U" and "Boys," which recalls the duo's

work on Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Got Your Money"-and which finds Ms. Spears using

her coital purr to ask the object of her ardor if they should "turn the dance

floor into our own little nasty world." Mr. Jerkins contributes a useless

rendition of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," while Martin/Rami largely rearrange their

previous, better tunes like the immortal " … Baby One More Time" and "Oops!… I

Did It Again" for Ms. Spears.

Britney Spears is the sum of her packagers, but maybe it's time

for her to move on to mentors who are less conflicted about what's appropriate

for the Nickelodeon set. It seems to me that Kid Rock is the kind of Svengali

she could use: someone who could help her find her voice as a full-fledged

woman. And they would look good together, don't you think?

The Nortec Collective:

Forget the Donkey Show!

Ever since dance music (and its less danceable electronic-music

variants) became easier to produce via affordable technology, a consistent

pattern has emerged throughout the world. To wit: take your parents' corny

music, chop it up, and use it to accentuate and distinguish the de rigueur bouillabaisse of pulsing bass

lines, 4/4 beats and ghostly synth washes you just cooked up.

The two-year-old Nortec Collective is nine chaps from Tijuana who

have taken the tropes of norteño

music (martial snare rolls, horn bursts, zip-zagging accordion fills), put the

beats on, and-hey, presto!-Nortec was born. The

Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1 (Palm

Pictures) is the prime exponent of a movement that may yet supplant donkey

shows and an indiscriminate drug trade as the thing that Yankees should know

about the crossroads of California and Mexico.

Norteño music doesn't

have the foothold in New York that it does in the Southwest-particularly in

Texas and Southern California, where a huge Mexican-American presence ensures

that you can hear it booming out of car stereos all day. The Tijuana Sessions , while a fine techno record, isn't a great norteño primer, since its elements are

either scattered or deeply submerged in the mix.

But the Nortec Collective's show at S.O.B.'s with D.J. Krush on

Dec. 12 may make the role those same elements play much more explicit. Or it

may not! But you will be moved to

dance, unless you're one of those pitiful souls who prefer to stand stock still

and stroke your chin.

King Crimson/

John Paul Jones:

Englishmen In New York

It is with some certainty that I predict that the only women

attending the King Crimson/John Paul Jones show at the Beacon Theater on Dec. 14

will be accompanying their husbands or boyfriends. In 1999, I dragged my ex

along to see Mr. Jones, the bassist of Led Zeppelin, at Irving Plaza, and she

promptly fell asleep in the lobby. This led to the realization that watching

technically demanding music played by rock veterans in their 50's does not a

great date night make. So it'll be me and my guitarist pal checking out King

Crimson-at some times the most vicious progressive-rock band, at others the

most rhythmically compelling-and Mr. Jones, the living half of one of the top

five greatest rock 'n' roll rhythm sections ever.

King Crimson is led by Robert Fripp, an owlish little pedant of

whom it was once said, "Rock music's gain is the field of economics' loss."

People like him don't typically make great guitarists, but his circumspect yet

frenzied approach is unique. He has led numerous incarnations of the band off

and on since 1969; the current version involves Adrian Belew, singer and

tremendous guitarist in his own right (the id to Mr. Fripp's superego), and a

bassist and drummer who are disciples of their predecessors in the band. At

Town Hall in October 2000, King Crimson threw in David Bowie's "Heroes"

alongside the brisk, interlocking geometry of their own songs.

Like fellow secret weapon George Harrison, John Paul Jones

largely retreated from view since the 1980 demise of Led Zeppelin, occasionally

busying himself with soundtrack and production work. In 1994, he paired with

Diamanda Galas on the sepulchral The

Sporting Life , following up with 1999's bass-guitar showcase Zooma (released on Mr. Fripp's DGM

label). His band, which includes a former member of Kajagoogoo (!), plays

rearranged instrumental versions of Led Zeppelin songs-such as the melody of

"When the Levee Breaks," which Mr. Jones plays on lap steel guitar-alongside

his more recent pile-driving compositions.

So two essentially avant-rock bands, led by two stiff-upper-lip

Englishmen, will play to a bunch of folks who will use many bridges and tunnels

to get there. I promise you that this will be a fine thing.

Kiss: The Yankees Of Rock?

My friend Bill hates the Yankees. Always has. But he respects them. He cannot deny their sheer tenacity. Something similar is at work with Kiss. Although greatness has never been purely a statistical matter in popular culture, it's clear that Kiss is the greatest rock 'n' roll band New York City has ever produced.

You may object to the band's P.T.-Barnum-presents-Kabuki appearance. You may not much care for their crude odes to their penises, anal sex with groupies, etc. You may gag at bassist Gene Simmons' single-minded kapitalist krassness-the Kiss Kasket, in which members of the Kiss Army may spend eternity, is only the most recent example.

But in the final analysis, you can't fuck with Kiss. Two Jews from Queens, the former Chaim Witz and Stanley Eisen (better known as Mr. Simmons and guitarist Paul Stanley), have written wonderful, catchy rock 'n' roll songs for nigh on 30 years. And this is what their new boxed set-prosaically titled Kiss (Universal)-stresses, forever and ever.

Those two guys rounded up two street goyim from the Bronx and Brooklyn (guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss, respectively) and concocted a complete package that, around 1977-when the Yankees won their first World Series of the decade-became the definitive rock experience for kids around the world. It takes outer-borough New Yorkers to truly connect to people in Eugene, Ore.

Sure, tromping around a stage dressed like Godzilla while things explode isn't terribly subtle. But George Steinbrenner spares no expense for the spectacle that is a home game, and nobody questions the Yankees' heart. Consequently, if you have no place in your soul for "Rock & Roll All Night," "Deuce," "Shout It Out Loud," "I Want You" or even "Lick It Up," then I feel sorry for you. The band's return to makeup and Madison Square Garden in 1996 felt a lot like the Yanks' World Series win that same year.

The Kiss boxed set obviously charts the kareer arc of Kiss (who are still immersed in an interminable farewell tour). Included herein are solo teenage recordings by Mr. Simmons and Mr. Stanley, demos of such standards as "Love Gun" and "Strutter," and many live recordings. The liner notes detail the sometimes harsh decisions that Messrs. Simmons and Stanley have made for the greater good of their franchise-for one, firing and rehiring Mr. Frehley and Mr. Criss, as well as the various men who replaced them. It brings to mind Billy Martin's many tangles with Mr. Steinbrenner.

From a punkish post-glam band to a cross-cultural phenomenon to the elder statesmen of hair metal to a quartet of 50-plus longhairs attempting, with varying degrees of success, to squeeze into studded leather jumpsuits, Kiss is an essential part of the New York diaspora.

Divine Comedy: Radiohead Redux

In the mid-90's, Irishman Neil Hannon-who amounts to the Divine Comedy-made his name by fashioning homages to Scott Walker, the Anglo-American orchestral-pop mastermind of the 60's. Mr. Hannon became something of a pop star for his trouble, while his contemporaries proffered less elegant, lager-fueled pub rock. (You do remember Oasis, yes?) So why would Mr. Hannon wish to do what all of his guitar-wielding countrymen-like Travis, Coldplay and Starsailor-essentially do and re-record Radiohead's O.K. Computer ? This is more or less what he has done. He even ditched his smartly tailored suits for T-shirts and jeans.

With Regeneration (Parlophone), the first full-length Divine Comedy record since 1998, Mr. Hannon does precisely this, but accomplishes a bit more than the above-mentioned bands, all of whom dole out listless, defanged versions of the music Radiohead recorded before the band decided that straightforward songcraft wasn't ambitious enough.

Truth be told, Mr. Hannon does not entirely abandon his initial modus operandi. "Bad Ambassador," for instance, is punctuated by a sweeping string arrangement and the heroic arcs of his own rich baritone, both serving to offset a great debt to Radiohead's "Karma Police." But as Regeneration progresses, a sense of dread, accentuated by some ambient effects, seeps in. As he mopes about the yawning soundscape of "Eye of the Needle," one pines for the rollicking come-on of 1996's "Something for the Weekend."

If there is some kind of deep need among the British public for variations on songs from O.K. Computer , then that need is best served by Mr. Hannon. I must say that I liked him better when he played the decadent sharpie-the chap could wear a suit!

Shelby Lynne: Alanis-ized

"Anything he says to do, I am there," Shelby Lynne said of Glen Ballard, her current producer, in a recent interview. "I totally trust him, on any level." But surrendering to Mr. Ballard, the producer- cum -therapist behind Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill and Wilson Phillips' "You Won't See Me Cry," can be perilous.

It certainly seems like a bad idea in the context of Love, Shelby (Island). The follow-up to last year's magnificent I Am Shelby Lynne (her sixth record, for which she famously won the 2001 Grammy for Best New Artist) is an undistinguished Adult Contemporary ready-made. Ms. Lynne's voice can still convey bottomless hurt and dignity, but Mr. Ballard tends to encourage banality. Hence the dreadful bluster of "Jesus on a Greyhound," the dull "Wall in Your Heart" ("I feel your pain"-uughh). Only "Tarpoleon Napoleon," a torchy ballad in the style of Owen Bradley's productions in 1960's Nashville, indicates the promise of her previous record.

Mr. Ballard bragged in the aforementioned article that he knows how to make records that connect to as many people as possible. That's inarguable, but I can't imagine that anyone could form a lasting attachment to Love, Shelby .

(International) Noise Conspiracy: Garage Theory

Two years ago, a smartly coifed Swede named Dennis Lyxzén put an end to Refused, a quartet that seemed bent on broadening the narrow parameters of rap-metal (see: Rage Against the Machine). This amounted to adding a smattering of melody, the odd techno and drum-and-bass affectation and, courtesy of a lengthy manifesto touching on the agitprop of Guy Debord, a much more thoughtful take on radical-left politics.

Now Mr. Lyxzén attempts a similar, yet much more challenging, trick. With the (International) Noise Conspiracy, he takes the stylistic and theoretical preoccupations of Ian Svenonious, the leader of worthless indie R&B bands Nation of Ulysses and the Make Up, and renders them worthwhile. A New Morning, Changing Weather (Epitaph) works up an impressive head of steam via nimble garage-soul anthems like "Bigger Cages, Longer Chains," "New Empire Blues" and "Born Into a Mess" and furious, heady potboilers like "A Northwest Passage," "Last Century Promise" and "Capitalism Stole My Virginity."

It's a popular tactic for hipsters to strip-mine Nuggets, the garage-rock Rosetta stone, for source material, but the (International) Noise Conspiracy is more inventive and accomplished than the typical game of connect-the-dots played between a bunch of bowl-haircut-sporting nincompoops.

The (International) Noise Conspiracy, who will appear at Maxwell's Nov. 16 and the Knitting Factory Nov. 17, succeed simply by giving extremely hot and purposeful performances. All the best-intentioned proselytizing ain't worth a good goddamn unless there's something cookin' in the rhythm section.

The Bottom Line was maybe half full when Peter Case walked onstage for the late show on April 29. Just as things got under way around 11 p.m., a guy yelled out a request. Everybody could hear him. Mr. Case, who has played steadily for 25 years, first on street corners, then in dives and on stages, told the guy sure, he'd play the request. In fact, he said, he'd give the guy a private performance "in the alley, after the show."

People in the audience laughed a bit nervously. Mr. Case,asinger-songwriter based in Santa Monica, Calif., may carry an acoustic guitar and he may have a few songs dealing with love and family life, but this wasn't no James Taylor concert.

Mr. Case played 13 songs during the late show, six of them from his new album, Flying Saucer Blues (Vanguard Records), and three from his 1998 folk-rock masterpiece Full Service No Waiting (Vanguard). He didn't play anything from his days as the lead singer of the Plimsouls, an early-'80's power pop band (skinny ties, big guitars) based in California.

Great things were predicted for Mr. Case and the Plimsouls. Despite the amazing catchiness of the 1983 album Everywhere at Once (Geffen), stardom never came. While the Go-Gos and the Knack hit the Top 40, the Plimsouls got a cameo appearance in the teen movie Valley Girl … and that was about it.

When Mr. Case released his first solo album, Peter Case (Geffen), in 1986, influential New York Times critic Robert Palmer named it one of the 10 best records of the year. His second album, released in 1989, also got great notices. It seemed that if Mr. Case wasn't going to have teenage girls chasing him in the streets, at least he'd always have the love of the geeks in the music press. But even critics' darlings need momentum, and Mr. Case lost his when he waited three years before releasing his next album. Lo and behold, when the Mitchell Froom-produced Six-Pack of Love (Geffen) finally arrived in 1992, it was a stinker. Mr. Case then waited three more years before getting back on track with his next album of new material, the somber Torn Again (Vanguard). It was a great album, but by then the music-press geeks had other singer-songwriters to slobber over.

So there he was, alternately bitter, sincere and amused before that half-empty room on a Saturday night in New York. Five songs into the show, he unveiled "Blue Distance," a truly major ballad from the new album. This was the high point of the show. It's a killer song and Mr. Case gave himself over to it fully. It's about always being on the verge of bliss with someone you love–and never quite getting there.

Flying Saucer Blues is solid, with four or five great songs and no clinkers. Aside from "Blue Distance," the song "Black Dirt & Clay" is also amazing. It's about playing with your first set of childhood friends, digging in the dirt and clay with them. By now, Mr. Case notes in a late verse, some of his childhood friends must be under the black dirt and clay. He doesn't dwell on this observation or wring any cheap melodrama out of it. He is tough, and the song keeps moving along. "Black Dirt & Clay"–which he didn't play during the Bottom Line show–is nostalgic and happy and dark all at once.

In concert, Mr. Case's guitar-playing was sharp as always. With his odd tunings and Mississippi John Hurt-style finger-pickings, he makes a good racket. On songs like the new "Coulda Shoulda Woulda," a funny rave-up about Mr. Case's screw-ups and regrets, or "A Little Wind (Could Blow Me Away)," a wild one from a few years ago, he let it all out, putting his rock-and-roll training to good use. Accompanying him was David Perales, a lightning-fast fiddle player who also happens to have a smooth tenor singing voice. This duo really made a band.

Although you got your $20 worth, I've seen Mr. Case cast a spell on audiences. He didn't quite pull this off at the Bottom Line. He seemed almost embarrassed to give himself over to the demands of his songs at times. It's hard work, getting up on a stage and immersing yourself in the not-so-pretty stuff that bubbles up from your subconscious for the amusement of a half-empty house, and Mr. Case wasn't always up to the task. He rushed his closing number, "Hidden Love," a deep ballad from 1989. When he left the stage at around 12:30 a.m., he looked relieved to be out of there. Unlike a lot of performers, Mr. Case is not a whore for applause. He has to be in the mood.

–Jim Windolf

The Big Playback : Rap Nuggets

With 25 years of evolution under its baggy-panted ass, hip-hop's midlife malaise seems to be occurring right on schedule. Although rap has yet to mimic rock's decline as a cultural force, its once-thrilling Dionysian pedant grandeur–the outlaw fantasies, Joycean wordplay, and pot-

fueled chop-socky fever dreams–has grown increasingly predictable, at least among those acts that have some influence upon the culture.

Success has robbed this narrative art of import. Rapping about riches and bitches doesn't exactly resonate when the narrator is a platinum-selling multimillionaire who has no trouble getting some. As well, many of the "underground" rappers who have been bubbling under for the last half-decade are really sheep in wolves' clothing; Armani armies cloaked in FUBU waiting for a chance to strike. Musically, sampling laws have caused producers to settle on static loops or lazily fall back upon live instrumentation. And then there's the ubiquitous Sean (Puffy) Combs, a surly Huey Lewis who won't fade away.

Which is why The Big Playback (Rawkus) couldn't have been released at a better time. Rappers prefer to do their bragging themselves, but I'll go out on a limb and suggest that this single-CD compilation by the knowledgeable smart-asses at the defunct hip-hop 'zine Ego Trip may come to be held in the same esteem as Lenny Kaye's epochal Nuggets double-record set did when it was first released in the early '70's.

Nuggets was a collection of obscure garage-rock singles from the '60's–mean, crude and forgotten–released in the over-produced era of Grand Funk Railroad and Yes. It was a shiv in the back of the then-current slickee-boy value system and served, for better or worse, as a catalyst for the punk rock sensibility that was lurking beneath the culture's surface.

The Big Playback, which has been released as a companion CD to the recently published Ego Trip's Book of Rap Lists , serves a similar purpose, shaming the playa-hata haters, and 20 years into hip-hop, it's time. James Taylor had to face Lester Bangs; Master P must suffer his Ego Trip .

It's not acknowledged enough that hip-hop isn't a monolith. Just as an Elvis Presley fan wouldn't necessarily have been an Emerson Lake & Palmer head, there's no reason to expect Public Enemy's listeners to embrace Juvenile, or for Juvenile's defenders to enjoy Dilated Peoples.

With that in mind, The Big Playback shouldn't be heard as a criticism, but rather as a corrective. In an age where the Cash Money and Ruff Ryder crews are celebrated for an utterly formalized idea of danger, it may be hard for those who weren't there to believe just how simultaneously silly and rough-edged hip-hop was during its adolescence less than a decade-and-a-half ago. It's like hearing "Bye Bye Love" after first hearing the Everly Brothers covering Mark Knopfler tunes.

As on Nuggets , a few of the artists featured on The Big Playback have done all right for themselves in recent years, though they have all seen better days. Producer Marley Marl of "Marley Marl Scratch" is a well-acknowledged legend, as is, to a lesser extent, the vocalist on the track, MC Shan. (Shan gets curiously dissed by the otherwise obscure MC Mitchski on "Brooklyn Blew Up the Bridge.") Positive K of "Step Up Front" would later hit with "I Got a Man." And Craig Mack, of the once ubiquitous "Flava in Ya Ear" (Boop. Beep.) is sublime under the alias MC EZ on "Get Retarded," which features a repeating "zoom-zoom" worthy of Esquivel and name-checks Alvin Ailey. Some of the greasers on Nuggets thought they were Dylan, too.

That's not the artiest the compilation gets. The disc's 10-minute finale "Beat Bop" by Rammelzee vs. K-Rob, carries a "produced and arranged by Jean-Michel Basquiat" credit, although, the liner notes explain that, according to Rammelzee, the late artist merely put up the dough to finish the record. A freestyle in the vein of Spoonie Gee's "Spoonie's Rap," "Beat Bop" conjures a time when the discussion of high-low was more likely to involve ideas than apartment ceilings. And it's a reminder of how slowly the fastest rappers rapped just 10 years ago.

One doesn't expect music to move backward. Current attempts at old-school ambiance often sound didactic–Jurassic 5 being a prime example. But if these aesthetic values–the casual rawness and silliness, the ingeniously clashing samples, the aversion to pomposity or the emptily epic–could find their way back into hip-hop … well, don't count on it. Divine Force may rap, "I stop crime/like Robocop" in "My Mic is on Fire," but don't forget that for as much time as RoboCop spent on the streets, ultimately he was defending corporate interests. And the boardroom is more crowded than the recording studio these days.

– D. Strauss

Ween's Smart Asses Halve Their Cheek

The guys of Ween chose well when they picked their band's name. With a single word, they evoked the smirky contempt that colored a decade's worth of their albums from 1990's GodWeenSatan: The Oneness through 1997's The Mollusk .

Puerility is not necessarily a problem in my book, but the fact that Ween never explored any other emotional contours in its music had gotten awfully tedious.

Until now. On the band's latest release, White Pepper , guitarist Mickey (Dean Ween) Melchiondo and chubby-cheeked vocalist Aaron (Gene Ween) Freeman reveal, for the first time, that Ween has heart. I can't discern any sneering on at least half of the tracks on this album.

Three songs on the CD–"Exactly Where I'm At", the sitar-driven "Flutes of Chi" and "She's Your Baby"–burst with epic late-60's references. Summoning the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix so baldly could have been a liability for the irony-loving duo from New Hope, Pa., but not here. These are lush, well-thought-out songs. If there's any internal winking or nudging going on in them, I can't tell. And for once, Mr. Freeman doesn't go for the cheap laugh by talking shit all over a nice melody.

"Even If You Don't" adds some nice crunch to a Kinks-like descending chord sequence (a la "Dead End Street"). And somebody like Christopher Cross could knock "Stay Forever" out of the ballpark.

The notion that Ween has produced an emotionally generous tune that anybody can sing might cause some anxiety among the more reflexive malcontents who can't get enough of the band's lo-fi antics. But there's something for them on White Pepper too. South Park -style wackiness drives "Bananas and Blow", which marries a watered-down, steel-drum-driven calypso groove to a song concerning being "stuck in my cabana, living on bananas and blow." "Pandy Fackler" could be a bowler-and-white-suspenders homage to Noel Coward, but its appeal is sabotaged by patented Ween tomfoolery.

Snideness also runs through the remorseless riffage of "Stroker Ace," and "The Grobe," which recalls the vibe of Ween's classic "Poopship Destroyer." But these two cuts rock as well as they razz.

Clearly, Ween still likes to have a laugh, and that's okay. But it wrote some fine songs for White Pepper ; songs that aren't sacrificed for sake of irony, which comes pretty cheap these days.

–Rob Kemp

Nothing like that can be said of Mr. Young. Even if 1996's Broken Arrow was not terribly inspired, the last decade never found the singer-songwriter less than invigorated. With each release, he refined home truths and values in his songwriting.

Whether he is summoning a big, bad leviathan of guitar feedback or crafting songs of perfect plain-spoken parable, Mr. Young is a natural. It's been said before about him, but Silver & Gold makes it worth repeating: Mr. Young's complacency can sound as rewarding as his fearless experimentalism.

Silver & Gold is Mr. Young's first release since 1997, not counting Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's recent Looking Forward , to which he siphoned off four songs intended for his solo album.

The 10-song CD is very much in the homespun, acoustic vein of 1992's Harvest Moon and 1978's Comes A Time . Thematically, it parallels "Long May You Run" by stressing loyalty throughout. It's not an unqualified late-period masterpiece. But maybe it's all right that it isn't, because masterpieces are rarely reassuring, and who wants to live without reassurance?

Mr. Young intended to record Silver & Gold all by himself, and, indeed, two tracks feature just him and his guitar. But he decided that other musicians would be necessary. So he called in Memphis keyboardist Spooner Oldham (who banged out the electric piano signature of Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man [The Way I Loved You]"), Booker T & the MGs bassist Donald (Duck) Dunn, longtime steel guitarist-producer Ben Keith, and drummers Oscar Butterworth and Jim Keltner (a player who has never failed to craft deeply appropriate beats on demand for more than three decades).

These sidemen provide accompaniment that seems spectral and firm at once. You could even imagine Mr. Young welcoming the musicians into the studio with the CD's first track, "Good To See You," although the song is directed at a lover. The sheer good-naturedness of the tune distracts from its slightness. The same goes for "Daddy Went Walkin,"a charming rustic fable, and "Distant Camera."

The heart of Silver & Gold is "Red Sun." A hymn in waltz time, it's the most transforming, affecting song he's written since 1994's "Western Hero" or "Philadelphia." Emmylou Harris joins Mr. Young on the track, adding a startlingly pure top harmony that mirrors his own earthbound tenor. "And the dreams that you're havin'/they won't let you down/ If you just follow on/'cause you know where you're bound," the duo sings. Time stops with "Red Sun." It's as if Mr. Young has excavated a primordial tune that has always existed.

Two songs get close to the wonder of "Red Sun": the stately "Horseshoe Man," where two lovers search for redemption from a kind of cowboy messiah, and "Razor Love," a marvelous meditation on overwhelming love.

The oddest song is the jaunty "Buffalo Springfield Again," which addresses Mr. Young's first successful band, and Stephen Stills' last good one. "Used to play in a rock and roll band/ but they broke up," Mr. Young sings. Could the distancing "they" be a hint that the rest of the song's warm-and-fuzzy sentiments toward Springfield hide festering resentments? Maybe. But the song indicates that camaraderie is paramount to Mr. Young, which may also answer why he continues to work with his ghastly fellow travelers C,S&N.

Enduring love, as ever, seems to be on Mr. Young's mind. I can't imagine that Pegi Young, his wife and muse, must ever get inured to having such tender songs written about her. "Our kind of love never seems to get old/It's better than silver and gold," he coos on the title cut.

The closing "Without Rings" gravely suggests that faithfulness lasts after the death of a lover: "I know that you can fly/'Cause I'm on the ground without you." The tune also contains the one line on Silver & Gold that couldn't have been written 50 years ago: "My software's not compatible with you." Shades of Trans , his bizarre 1983 Kraftwerk homage? Perhaps, but it doesn't take away from the song's age-old ache.

This lovely, lilting record is not a bold step forward for Mr. Young, but he's had more of those than most worthwhile songwriters his age. And unlike sad-sack songsters like Smog and Will Oldham, nobody can say Neil Young sounds like anyone else. The old hippie therefore has the right to simply take stock. When he does, Mr. Young has more insight to offer than any of his fat and happy contemporaries. After listening to Silver & Gold you may not understand any better Mr. Young's reheated affiliation with Crosby, Stills & Nash, but you'll know in a second why they are hanging with him.