Just such a somber mood links three eagerly anticipated fall releases that otherwise would have nothing in common: Peter Gabriel's Up (Geffen), Beck's Sea Change (DGC) and Old 97's leader Rhett Miller's The Instigator (Elektra). Unlike Bruce Springsteen's The Rising , none of these albums deal directly with Sept. 11, but they do reflect the psychological aftermath of that day. Each CD is weighted with dark thoughts and riddled with fear and despair-emotions in ample supply since the towers fell.

Of the three, Mr. Gabriel's CD has been the longest in the works. Though he released Long Walk Home , a film soundtrack, earlier this year, and Ovo , a collection of the music he wrote for the multimedia exhibit at London's ill-fated Millennium Dome, in 2000, this is the former Genesis member's first real studio effort in 10 years.

Always a meticulous craftsman, Mr. Gabriel's creative pace has slowed in direct proportion to the growing sophistication of recording technology. His fussiness as a producer is sometimes too audible here-a few sections of the album sound obviously, and awkwardly, grafted together via computer and sampler-but overall, the attention to detail makes for rewarding listening. As one would expect from an unapologetic art-rocker, there are details aplenty; most of Up 's 10 songs are in the six- to seven-minute range, and so convoluted that a few spins are required to fully grasp their structure. Yet once their inner logic is revealed, Mr. Gabriel's rambling ways take on a rococo charm.

Though the hook-laden funk-rock featured on many of Mr. Gabriel's most commercially successful songs-"Sledgehammer," "Big Time," "Steam"-is absent, the musical multiculturalism that's been a Gabriel trademark since at least 1980 is well represented. Surprising juxtapositions abound: a turbulent string arrangement and an impassioned vocal by the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on "Signal to Noise," for example, or the laying of crystalline lead guitar by Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green over the Blind Boys of Alabama's gospel-tinged singing on "Sky Blue."

Up 's reflective and, yes, earnest feel is more reminiscent of Mr. Gabriel's early solo work from the 1970's-songs such as "Solsbury Hill," "Here Comes the Flood" and "Indigo"-than anything he's recorded in the last two decades. Even his husky voice seems to have recaptured some of the youthful vulnerability that marked his years with Genesis.

And yet the Peter Gabriel of the 1970's, who reveled in witty allusions and intellectualisms, would never have allowed himself to write a song as emotionally raw as "I Grieve." The track opens with a subdued beat and a mournful blend of synthesizers, as Mr. Gabriel laments the loss of an unnamed loved one. "They say life carries on," he sings in a desolate whisper, "carries on and on and on," each repetition more haunted than the last. Toward the song's end, the beat turns into a joyful ska rhythm, and those same words about life carrying on become a celebration. But the mood soon falters, the drums fade out, and we're back where we started, with Mr. Gabriel wondering: "Did I dream this belief or did I believe this dream?"

In the time it took Mr. Gabriel to make one album, Beck Hansen released seven. Mr. Hansen has often been as guilty as Mr. Gabriel of camouflaging the personal emotions in his music with irony or abstraction. This does not appear to be the case on Sea Change . For want of a better description, this is Beck's most singer/songwriterly album, and it contains the warmest and most human songs he's penned to date.

Teaming once again with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich-who helmed Beck's previous best, 1998's Mutations -Mr. Hansen has created a subtly beautiful sonic backdrop to complement lyrical sentiments that are simple and direct. They're also on the gloomy side: The sun never shines, the tears keep flowing and happiness is only a vague memory. "Time wears away all the pleasures of the day" is the first line of the aptly titled existential lament "Already Dead," while the despondent chorus of "Nothing I Haven't Seen" describes an alienation so painful that there's no getting used to it: "It's nothing that I haven't seen before, but it still kills me like it did before."

Considering their morose quality, it's no surprise that songs such as "The Golden Age" and "Guess I'm Doin' Fine" have a strong country flavor.

Elsewhere, the spirit of that great English depressive, Nick Drake, hovers close by. The sublime mix of acoustic guitar, upright bass and strings on "Round the Bend" recalls Drake's "River Man." And "Saturday Sun," the last song on Mr. Drake's 1969 masterpiece Five Leaves Left , is paid homage by Beck's "Sunday Sun."

But the most striking feature of Sea Change is Mr. Hansen's singing. Beck's vocals, at least on record, have often suggested a deep-throated Elmer Fudd. His marbles-in-the-mouth delivery hasn't vanished entirely, but there's a new conviction in his voice this time. The aloofness of old has been replaced by something that sounds a lot like honesty.

No one could ever accuse Rhett Miller of lacking honesty. As the leader of the Old 97's, Mr. Miller has gotten a lot of mileage out of forthright displays of emotion-and follicular superiority. At a recent one-man acoustic show at Fez, he repeatedly whipped his head back and forth during frenzied breaks that I can only describe as hair solos, to the loudly expressed delight of the audience's female members.

In current parlance, the Old 97's are an alt-country band, but in a previous era they would have been described as heartland rock, and that term better conveys the big, blustery, heroic quality of their music. With the band currently on hiatus, Mr. Miller has embarked on a solo career. The Instigator , the first album he's released under his own name, is a winning example of his tuneful and decidedly unironic approach.

On the face of it, The Instigator is far more upbeat than the new releases by Mr. Hansen and Mr. Gabriel. It's a bright, sparkly guitar-pop record, given extra sheen by the contributions of producer and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion (Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple, Macy Gray). Two tracks, "Four-Eyed Girl" and "Hover," are exuberant declarations of romantic devotion. But unease crops up here too, usually having to do with love-or the lack of it. In "Terrible Vision," Mr. Miller sings about a dream in which his reluctant partner leaves him and, as a consequence, "there was no god that I could believe in." In "Things That Disappear," a relationship's bitter dissolution is just another illustration of life's, and love's, essential misery. And on "Come Around," when Mr. Miller moans, "I'm gonna be lonely for the rest of my life," his voice is pregnant with desperation.

Yet in the end, The Instigator 's message is brashly positive. "I want to live," Mr. Miller sings in the song of the same name, "I want to see tomorrow … so I can see you tomorrow." Behind him, the ringing guitars and pounding drums defy gravity, amplifying the point beyond debate.

For certain white pop music performers who owe a debt to black music, there comes a time when they decide to stop standing politely to the side and start getting down into the funk. This move comes with its own special ethical anxieties, but it often frees them up and allows them to do their best work. And so you have Dusty Springfield going to Tennessee and making the great Dusty in Memphis ; or David Bowie soaking up Philadelphia to record the Philly-soul-style Young Americans ; or Talking Heads jettisoning the strict four-piece lineup and practically merging themselves with funk music's finest to make the polyrhythmic Remain in Light (which led to the more discreetly funky Speaking in Tongues ); or Blondie checking out Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five to make the landmark pop-rap song "Rapture"; or the Clash studying New York of 1981 like musicologists in order to make the hot hip-hop-influenced single "This Is Radio Clash" and the beat-crazy album Combat Rock ; or Paul Simon immersing himself in South African sounds and hiring some of that nation's star players for Graceland ; or the Beastie Boys' entire career. In that long tradition of enthusiastic white persons trying to capture the true spirit of funk or soul in a respectful but aggressive manner comes Beck Hansen with Midnite Vultures (Geffen).

He has been in this territory before, but never with such commitment. On this album, his sixth, Beck serves up one delicious funk groove after another. Midnite Vultures shows off his keen musical intelligence, his gift for odd but catchy mel-odies, a good feel for rhythms that really move and swing, and a nice wit that goes a long way toward allowing you to forgive him for his various musical thieveries. Beck, 29, claims he wanted to make a big dumb party album with this one; thankfully, he didn't quite succeed in that aim. Midnite Vultures is not dumb. If anything, it may be too clever in places, like in the closing cut, "Debra," an attempt at a desperate, down-on-your-knees soul ballad that doesn't really rise above the level of mere parody.

It may be too late in the game, here in 1999, to fret over the issues of race, minstrelsy and musical authenticity. After all, the Beastie Boys are now at the box-set stage of their career, and we're almost 20 years into Madonna, and one could again mention that all of white rock-and-roll (not to mention country music) is built on forms that originated in Africa. And yet, songs like "Nicotine & Gravy," "Hollywood Freaks" and "Mixed Bizness" from Midnite Vultures , with their choral singing, funk beats and goofball lyrics, strongly suggest that Mr. Hansen might consider sending a big fat royalty check to George Clinton, the genius ringmaster of Parliament, Funkadelic and such classic solo albums as You Sho' 'Nuf Bit Fish and Computer Games .

On the other hand, black rap artists have also drawn from Mr. Clinton's well over the years. Does Beck owe a bigger debt because he is a white bohemian who stumbled into funk after early forays playing folk and punk? Is the whole issue of musical authenticity out of date? Should they really separate the black music from the white music in the CD department of Borders stores? Did Vanilla Ice really suck? Did Pat Boone? Should Korn play the Apollo? Can't we all just get along?

I hereby submit to the jury a truth that Beck's music is simply more interesting–as in the bastardized funk-rock of "Peaches & Cream," perhaps this album's masterpiece–when he puts more of his own strange sensibility into it, rather than just displaying how skillfully and, yeah, how funkily he can parrot the sounds he loves. Like the clever but uninspired "Debra" on Midnite Vultures , the Brazilian-style song "Tropicalia" from his last album, Mutations , is a snooze because it was imitative rather than inventive; the same goes for the old-school rap number, "Where It's At," from his 1996 hit album, Odelay . And when I saw Beck late in the Odelay tour, I just felt embarrassed when he and the (white) guys in his band started doing bits (preacherlike exhortations, choreographed dance steps, that damn song "Debra") that mocked stuff from a soul revue.

Luckily, Beck is on fire for most of Midnite Vultures . With "Get Real Paid," he rescues some 80's synthesizer sounds from the pop music junkyard, using them as a backdrop for some easy P-Funk-style funk. That collision makes for a song that's all the better for being musically dirty or impure. The country-flavored (but still beat-driven) "Beautiful Way" is simply a beautiful heartbreak song (nice backing vocal from Beth Orton) in the melancholy tradition of Beck's "Jack-Ass" from Odelay and "Hollow Log" from his 1994 folkie album One Foot in the Grave .

Over all, this is a cool, smart party album. Beck owes a lot to George Clinton and Prince and James Brown and Flavor Flav, but Midnite Vultures give you a sense of his integrity, good taste and, mainly, his ability to get down.

–Jim Windolf

Prince Is Back (As Producer)

Twenty years ago, we all fell in love with a little guy with big hair and a bigger talent named Prince Rogers Nelson (stage name: Prince). He was sexy. He was outrageous. He rode a white horse. He sang about getting head. But the best part was the music, all performed by Prince. It was greasy and dirty and it rocked the house.

Later on, he stopped singing so much about things like getting it on with lady cab drivers ("Lady Cab Driver") and got deeper with the lyrics by taking on all kinds of subjects–family problems ("When Doves Cry"), childhood ("Starfish & Coffee") and even God ("The Cross"). He also sang about some alter ego dude named Christopher Tracy ("Christopher Tracy's Parade"), but that was O.K., because the music was still wild, inventive and rocking.

And then, weary of being a super-employee for the Warner Brothers record label in the 90's, he cut the whiskers on his cheek so that they spelled out the word "slave" and dropped the name Prince and started releasing records on his own label. Those releases, Emancipation (three CD's) and Crystal Ball (five CD's), both a mix of old and new material, both badly in need of an editor, seemed like the ramblings of someone lost inside his own head. Prince was gone and in his place was the Artist.

It's good news, then, that, with Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic (Arista), Prince is back, sort of, credited as the album's producer. The male-female glyph symbol that he now uses to denote his identity is credited as the album's arranger, composer and performer. Anyway, Rave is a solid collection of 16 songs, with a few clunkers thrown in. It easily ranks with his better work– 1999 , Controversy –though it's not so sublime as Purple Rain or Sign o' the Times .

Listing Prince as the producer of the album is one of his trademark goofy touches, but it's a sign that he's willing to have some fun with the oh-so-serious issue of his name and concede some territory to his former audience-friendly persona.

In Rave , he returns to the pop genres that he made famous. For a good party jam, there's the title track "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic." For a good old keyboard driven rock 'n' roll song, the kind of song that he patented and now owns, there's not one, but two: "So Far, So Pleased" and "Baby Knows." An infectiously funky screw tune, "Hot Wit U," has a wonderful keyboard bass sound that hums in your ears. On "Man o' War," a slow bluesy groove, he gives us (as usual with his solos) an all-too-brief, tantalizing taste of what he can do with the guitar. Then comes "I Love U, but I Don't Trust U Anymore," a delicate ballad.

Within the songs themselves, he moves effortlessly between pop genres. The jazzy feel of "The Sun, the Moon and Stars" transforms seamlessly into a mild reggae groove. "The Greatest Romance Ever Sold" slides easily between sitar-style guitar and keyboard lines and four-part harmonies worthy of the Delfonics (all sung by the man himself).

Let's not get carried away. Rave has its faults. The remake of the Sheryl Crow tune "Everyday Is a Winding Road," is a bit limp. "Undisputed," his latest foray into rap, is abysmal, revealing yet again that, for whatever reason, the man from Minneapolis and rap simply do not go together. But after the solipsism of much of his 90's output, the Prince-produced Rave gives us the symbol man at his best–when he stops doing it just for himself and makes sure it's good for us, too.

–William Berlind