Consumer Guide '90s: R

Radiohead: Pablo Honey (Capitol, 1993) "Creep"

Radiohead: The Bends (Capitol, 1995) Admired by Britcrits, who can't tell whether they're "pop" or "rock," and their record company, which pushed (and shoved) this follow-up until it went gold Stateside, they try to prove "Creep" wasn't a one-shot by pretending that it wasn't a joke. Not that there's anything deeply phony about Thom Yorke's angst--it's just a social given, a mindset that comes as naturally to a '90s guy as the skilled guitar noises that frame it. Thus the words achieve precisely the same pitch of aesthetic necessity as the music, which is none at all. C

Radiohead: OK Computer (Capitol, 1997) My favorite Pink Floyd album has always been Wish You Were Here, and you know why? It has soul, that's why--it's Roger Waters's lament for Syd, not my idea of a tragic hero but as long as he's Roger's that doesn't matter. Radiohead wouldn't know a tragic hero if they were cramming for their A levels, and their idea of soul is Bono, who they imitate further at the risk of looking even more ridiculous than they already do. So instead they pickle Thom Yorke's vocals in enough electronic marginal distinction to feed a coal town for a month. Their art-rock has much better sound effects than the Floyd snoozefest Dark Side of the Moon. But it's less sweeping and just as arid. B-

Radish: Restraining Bolt (Mercury, 1997) the right music at the wrong time ("Failing and Leaving," "Sugar Free") **

Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx . . . (Loud/RCA, 1995) A lushly impenetrable jungle of sonic allusions transforms the nightmare of the crack era into a dream of cream skimmed and warmed for the bathtub--a dream with its own internal logic, moral weight, and commitment to beauty. It's an illusion, as any project denizen caught in the crossfire knows. But materially and metaphorically, Wu-Tang's power to create this illusion provides a way out of the hell underneath--especially, but not exclusively, for them A-

Raekwon: Immobilarity (Loud, 1999) "Skit No. 1"; "All I Got Is You Pt. II"

Rage Against the Machine: Rage Against the Machine (Epic, 1992) metal for rap-lovers--and opera-haters ("Wake Up," "Know Your Enemy") *

Rage Against the Machine: Evil Empire (Epic, 1996) Three years late, it's the militant rap-metal everybody knew was the next big thing. Zack de la Rocha will never be Linton Kwesi Johnson. But collegiate leftism beats collegiate lots of other things, not to mention high school misogyny, and it takes natural aesthetes like these to pound home such a sledgehammer analysis. A-

Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Los Angeles (Epic, 1999) If only it promised as much for the future of rock leftism as for the future of rock guitar ("Calm Like a Bomb," "War Within a Breath"). *

Rahzel: Make the Music 2000 (MCA, 1999) Having fun with the human beatbox (and friends) in the studio (and on stage) ("Southern Girl," "Night Riders"). *

Railroad Jerk: Railroad Jerk (Matador, 1990) steam-powered industrial ("In My Face") *

Railroad Jerk: One Track Mind (Matador, 1995)

Railroad Jerk: The Third Rail (Matador, 1996) Marcellus Hall represents Manhattan art-slackerdom like the proud denizen he is. Whether courting a librarian or donning the leftwing blackface of "Objectify Me," he's got his vernacular literacy down, and he can also write a chorus. Talk about local color--there's even a song with "shareholders" in it. B+

The Raincoats: Extended Play (Smells Like, 1994) sui generis after all these years ("Don't Be Mean," "No One's Little Girl") *

The Raincoats: Looking in the Shadows (Geffen, 1996) I hate to be schematic, but they ask for it: for the first 10 tracks, the songs alternate in lockstep, Ana Da Silva-Gina Birch and forgettable-remarkable. What puts this comeback over the top is that the last two go Birch-Da Silva remarkable-remarkable--the literal "Love a Loser," which should be a single if only because the infertility fantasy and the old-age fantasy and even the pretty fantasy are a little too remarkable for MTV, and Da Silva's title tune, which summons empathy for a jilted stalker who ends up getting hold of his fantasies. And as always, only at a higher level of instrumental expertise, the band's musical charms are coextensive with its limitations. B+

Ma Rainey: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (Yazoo, 1991) Kills me to find among the nine songs unavailable on the Shout! Factory alternative neither the jug-band-with-piano "Hustlin' Blues," where she turns her pimp over to the law, nor the loose-limbed New Orleans "Sissy Blues," where her man samples transvestite jellyroll. But they do include the title song, a historically accurate alternative to the identically named August Wilson play without which the album would not exist, "Sleep Talking Blues," in which revenge doesn't cheer her up much, and "Shave 'Em Dry Blues," in which adultery is quick, hard, and good for what ails her. B+

Bonnie Raitt: Luck of the Draw (Capitol, 1991) One reason it took Raitt two decades to achieve the El Lay iconicity she deserves is her resistance to both folk gentility and studio antisepsis. So praise Don Was for humanizing the control-freak production values she could never get on top of in the '70s. Another is her moral seriousness. So praise songwriters like John Hiatt, Bonnie Hayes, and maybe even Paul Brady for combining heft with hookcraft, and Shirley Eikhard, whoever she is, for "Something to Talk About," the slyest distillation of this rowdy Quaker's sexy ways since "Love Me Like a Man." But after that tell Raitt that no commercial reservation should ever torpedo a "Tangled and Dark," about a deep, long wrangle with love itself, or an "All at Once," about losing the teenage daughter she's never literally had. It's like the guitar she's afraid she hasn't properly mastered--she stops writing at the risk of her own intelligence, idiosyncrasy, and reality. A

Bonnie Raitt: Longing in Their Hearts (Capitol, 1994)

Bonnie Raitt: Road Tested (Capitol, 1995) Her supposed comeback in fact a breakthrough, she never approached gold back in the day, and hence was never big enough for a live album until now. This is lucky timing, because Grammy-era bland-out rarely dulls her concerts, where her roots-respectin' rockers come out raunchy, her tender ballads casually intimate. So even if you love Nick of Time, this two-CD mix of old songs and new illustrates why Raitt became an icon while Ronstadt turned into a gargoyle. She creates a world in which Bruce Hornsby and Bryan Adams project as much soul as Ruth Brown and Charles Brown. She's so free of ironic impurities she sings "Burning Down the House" as if it means one thing. And her parting words aren't "Take care of yourselves"--they're "Take care of each other." A-

Bonnie Raitt: Fundamental (Capitol, 1998) I'd rest easier claiming this album sounds like middle-aged sex--creaky, caring, not shy about adjusting its groove--if it weren't for the other thing it sounds like, which is the debut album she cut with a bunch of folkie eccentrics when she was 21. So just say it sounds like Bonnie Raitt, old before her time as always. Songwise it's a little less consistent than Luck of the Draw, but now that Don Was has withdrawn there's finally some mess to go with her slide--Tchad Blake's kind of mess, in which junk is recycled into decor and everybody leaves coffee cups on the speaker cases. Some of them come from Starbucks. Some are straight out the vending machine. Some are Fiestaware originals. A-

Rakim: The 18th Letter: The Book of Life (Uptown/Universal, 1997) his canon has a clarity his comeback can't match ("When I'm Flowin'," "It's Been a Long Time") **

Rakim: The Master (Universal, 1999) The classicism that had better be its own reward ("Strong Island," "When I B on Tha Mic"). *

Rammstein: Sehnsucht (Slash, 1998)

Ramones: Mondo Bizarro (Radioactive, 1992) More like an old country singer (George Jones leaving Epic, say) than the world's greatest rock and roll band (greater than Mick's side project, anyway), Joey and whoever (Johnny credited on guitar, Dee Dee cowriting two good songs, Marky ditto, C.J. singing Dee Dee) do right by their formula. Reasons to believe: the Dee Dee ballad Joey sings, and the Beach Boys tribute that goes, "Touring, touring, it's never boring." A-

Ramones: Acid Eaters (Radioactive, 1993) hippiedom as punk ("My Back Pages," "Have You Ever Seen the Rain") *

Ramones: Adios Amigos! (Radioactive, 1995)

Ramones: It's Alive (Sire/Warner Bros., 1995) Redundant when it was dropped on the punk-besotted U.K. in 1979, this concert is precious history now--seems so impossibly light and quick it makes you suspect they didn't fully sustain their live pace into their forties after all. Partly it's repertoire--the 28 songs reprise their three best albums, and all but a couple are still classics. Mostly, though, it's Tommy, who hung in for five years without ever turning show drummer. They needed Marky (and Richie) to drive them on. But it was Tommy who designed the vehicle. A-

Lesego Rampolokeng with the Kalahari Surfers: End Beginnings (Shifty, 1992) "The Desk"

Rancid: Rancid (Epitaph, 1993) punk rant at its streetest ("Rejected," "Adina") **

Rancid: Let's Go (Epitaph, 1994) scattershot rads in the U.S.A. ("Harry Bridges," "Burn") ***

Rancid: . . . And Out Come the Wolves (Epitaph, 1995) Third time out they're as far ahead of the Offspring as they are behind the Clash. Musically, their oi-ska 'core has got it going on--the 19 anthems start catchy, rev up the guitar in the middle, tail off to catch their breath, and climax with two war chants and a piece of personal invective that I hope isn't about Green Day because that would be petty. But their words only go halfway, which matters when you honor the literal and print your lyrics--their stories vague out, their slogans implode, and their politics have no future. Even in punk terms, they're not great singers either. Not only won't they change the world, they won't change rock and roll. Which is no reason not to wish them well. A-

Rancid: Life Won't Wait (Epitaph, 1998) With punk revivalism deemed almost as uncouth as frat-boy ska in these postalt times, the three-year hiatus since . . . And Out Come the Wolves may have flattened the rep of one of the few bands to get either style right. That's how pop works--you work your claim, times change, you lose. But art is more forgiving, and aesthetically, this beaty disc is an improvement--snakier in the bass and loopier in the vocals, careening forward in a lovely confusion that never approaches thrash or march (well, maybe march). Whatever their ideas about black lung, glass-pipe murder, baseball bats in Poland, liberty failed liberty, and love redeeming love, they make you glad they have feelings about them--and convinced that for once you know the difference between feeling and pose. A-

Ranking Ann: A Slice of English Toast (RAS, 1991) "Liberated Woman" plus Mad Professor ("Kill the Police Bill") *

Shabba Ranks: As Raw As Ever (Columbia, 1991)

Shabba Ranks: X-Tra Naked (Epic, 1992) Like any dance music, dancehall is for acolytes. Trick cuts can divert the uninitiated, but there's rarely reason to buy a whole album by one artist, this one included. I'm ready to believe his crossover is rooted in rhythmic authority, but I can't help believing that his heinous sexual politics contribute--finding-fooling-feeling-fucking-and-forgetting or declaring oral-genital contact an abomination, he must seem quite the noble savage to young pan-Africanists seeking new horizons in male supremacism. C+

Shabba Ranks: A Mi Shabba (Epic, 1995) crossover beats, crossover 'tude--hey, "You do me and I do you" ("Ram Dancehall," "Let's Get It On") *

Rara Machine: Break the Chain (Shanachie, 1991)

Rare Essence: Work the Walls (Sounds of the Capital, 1992) dance single of the year plus the usual ("Work the Walls") *

Eddy Raven: Greatest Country Hits (Warner Bros., 1990) "Who Do You Know in California"

Raven-Symone: Here's to New Dreams (MCA, 1993) "That's What Little Girls Are Made Of"

Raw Fusion: Live from the Styleetron (Hollywood Basic, 1991)

Dave Ray and Tony Glover: Ashes in My Whiskey (Rough Trade, 1990) rueful moans in the quiet night ("Uncertain Blues," "HIV Blues") **

Jimmy Ray: Jimmy Ray (Epic, 1998)

Collin Raye: In This Life (Columbia, 1992) "What They Don't Know"

Real McCoy: Another Night (Arista, 1995) One expediently omniverous German hookmeister plus two soft-sung African American Army brats equals Eurodisco without overkill--every song catchy, every beat perky except on the sad one, every lyric recapitulating the pleasures and perils of l-o-v-e along the mind-body continuum. Shallow? Received? Er, pop? Mais oui--I mean aber ja. A-

The Real Roxanne: Go Down (But Don't Bite It) (Select, 1992) "Ya Brother Does"; "Go Down (But Don't Bite It)"

Rebekah: Remember to Breathe (Elektra, 1998)

Rebel MC: Rebel Music (Desire, 1990) "Music Is the Key"

Red Aunts: #1 Chicken (Epitaph, 1995)

Red Aunts: Ghetto Blaster (Epitaph, 1998) the varied punk noisefests I credit to their learning curve, the screechy punk vocals I blame on their voices ("Alright!" "Wrecked") **

Otis Redding: Remember Me (Stax, 1992) "Trick or Treat"; "Send Me Some Lovin'"; "Cupid"

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Warner Bros., 1991) they've grown up, they've learned to write, they've got a right to be sex mystiks ("Give It Away," "Breakin' the Girl") **

Red Hot Chili Peppers: One Hot Minute (Warner Bros., 1995)

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Californication (Warner Bros., 1999) New Age fuck fiends ("Scar Tissue," "Purple Stain"). *

Redman: Whut? Thee Album (RAL/Chaos/Columbia, 1992)

Redman: Doc's Da Name 2000 (Def Jam, 1998) Redman's brand of weed-fueled raunch-ruckus has never been as wild or ecstatic as Busta Rhymes's or Ol' Dirty Bastard's, but here he fuses their comic high spirits with his own trademark grit into ground-level, politically incorrect satire full of loud farts, stinkin' asses, and no-account thugs making monkey noises. In a genre where nobody wants to be a role model and everybody is, Redman cuts fresh cheese: "I'm a everyday nigga like a Toyota/The A&R hope we don't drop the same coda." People have jobs on this record--"whether it's fast food, or transportation, sneaker store, doin' hair, or straight-up strippin', we gotta get the cash"--and that includes a "round-the-clock lyricist" who claims to sleep in his workboots. Not everybody can go to work, though. So give the last word to babymama militant Liquidacia, whose demands include 40 cans of Enfamil a month and no reporting babydaddies to welfare: "We must stick together in order to survive in a world of bourgie hos." A-

The Reducers: Shinola (Rave On, 1995)

Alex Reece: So Far (Quango, 1996)

Lou Reed: Magic and Loss (Sire/Reprise, 1992)

Lou Reed: Set the Twilight Reeling (Warner Bros., 1996) Ever since Sally Can't Dance, if not "The Ostrich," Reed has been writing stupid-sounding songs that outrage his intellectual fans and probably his stoner fans too. On his best album in over a decade, including three consecutive "serious" ones, these include the backward-looking "Egg Cream" (only a self-hater could resist that hook) and the silly-sexy "HookyWooky" ("Reed Reveals: Fucking Is Fun!") and even the defensively macho-cynical "NYC Man" (asshole's confession as asshole's boast). Hooray for Laurie Anderson, either for distracting him from his various higher callings or for urging him to be himself. In a related development, he rocks out on guitar. A-

Lou Reed: Perfect Night: Live in London (Reprise, 1998) honoring his own history with Dylanesque craft and disregard, only you can understand every word ("The Kids," "New Sensations") **

Lou Reed/John Cale: Songs for Drella (Sire, 1990) Lousy background music--absorb it over three or four plays, then read along once and file it away like a good novel. But like the novel it will repay your attention in six months, or 10 years. The music's dry because it serves words that make an argument worth hearing: Andy Warhol was a hard-working genius--a great artist, if you will--betrayed by hangers-on who no matter what carping philistines say gave a lot less to him than he did to them. Villain: Valerie Solanas, whose attempted assassination broke his generous spirit and turned him into "Society Andy." Inspirational Verse: "You might think I'm frivolous, uncaring and cold/You might think I'm frivolous--depends on your point of view." A-

Dianne Reeves: Art and Survival (EMI/ERG, 1994)

The Refused: Shape of Punk to Come (Burning Heart, 1999)

Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (Nonesuch, 1998) Grown even more universal (and likable) in posttechno retrospect, Reich's mathematically ebbing-and-surging facsimile of eternal return is the great classic of minimalist trance, at once prettier and more austere than any Terry Riley or Philip Glass. Eleven minutes longer than in the ECM original "owing to a tempo change governed by the breathing pattern of the clarinetist," this relaxed rerecording will appeal to graduates of the chillout room. But though rock and rollers can go with its flow, it's not a true reinterpretation like Bang on a Can's Eno, and I prefer the intensities I learned to love. Maybe Beethoven can be rehashed forever (and maybe not). With Reich, one is all any nonprofessional needs. B+

Junior Reid: Junior Reid and the Bloods (RAS, 1995) that old-time riddim meets dem newfangled beats ("World Gone Reggae," "Not a One Man Thing") **

Vernon Reid: Mistaken Identity (550 Music, 1996) profuse guitar, 'nuff rap ("CP Time," "What's My Name") **

Django Reinhardt: Django Reinhardt (Koch International, 1995) The label is per the late, lamented CDNow, which listed this 66th of 68 Reinhardt albums for $8.49; the copy I bought my wife for Christmas a few years ago says Koch Präsent. It has a purple-and-green cover, track listings indicating years, times, and composers but not personnel, and liner notes comprising two blank squares of paper. So it goes with the Roma guitarist, whose discography is as impenetrable as any in jazz. Take for instance Bluebird's high-profile 2002 Djangology, which proves a warmed-up remaster of Bluebird's 1990 Djangology 49 in different order with prettier packaging for a few dollars more. The '49 session reunites the classic Quintet of the Hot Club of France, which means mainly violinist Stephane Grappelli, who as a Chuck and Jimi fan I like as much as the eclectic three-fingered melody master. Probably because he was getting old, I find Djangology mellower than guitar music should be. The material and players on these '36-'37 sessions are a mess, but recognizable standards are the rule, with anonymous vocalists and obstreperous big bands intruding only occasionally. More important, this CD is hot--hotter than two 2001 releases also at hand, Naxos Jazz's Vol. 2 and Music Club's Swing Jazz. Blistering, in fact--what pace. He "swings," all right--like Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie. A-

R.E.M.: Out of Time (Warner Bros., 1991) Hiding political tics behind faux-formalist boilerplate, pop aesthetes accused them of imposing Solidarity and Agent Orange on their musical material, but in fact such subjects signaled an other-directedness as healthy as Michael Stipe's newfound elocution. Admittedly, with this one beginning "The world is collapsing around our ears," I wondered briefly whether "Losing My Religion" was about music itself, but when Stipe says they thought about calling it Love Songs, he's not just mumbling "Dixie." Being R.E.M., they mean to capture moods or limn relationships rather than describe feelings or, God knows, incidents, and while some will find the music too pleasing, it matches the words hurt for hurt and surge for surge. The Kate Pierson cameos, the cellos, and Mark Bingham's organic string arrangements are Murmur without walls--beauty worthy of DeBarge, of the sweetest soukous, of a massed choir singing "I Want To Know What Love Is." A

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People (Warner Bros., 1992) eternal sleep ("Man on the Moon," "Nightswimming") ***

R.E.M.: Monster (Warner Bros., 1994) Sick of dummies claiming they can't rock, the old Zepheads deliver the first power-riff album of their highly lyrical career. Peter Buck's sonic palette is rainbow grunge--variegated dirt and distortion as casual rhetoric--and he's so cranked even the slow ones seem born to be loud. As for Mr. Stipe, he's in the band, where he belongs. Message: guitars. Which after years of politics and sensitivity is well-timed. A-

R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi (Warner Bros., 1996) Two years of road adventures, such as they were, that fuse spontaneity and arena scale. At sound checks and ad hoc local studios, Michael Stipe preaches and exhorts more than he rambles or muses, Mike Mills spelunks with keybs, and Peter Buck pumps the folk-rock jangle that broadened Amerindie's first wave. Nothing epochal, and there's poetry in that--the poetry of a nominal community that has learned how to keep its dreams modest and enjoy them that way. But for all the reliable melodies, momenta, and FX--love the siren on "Leave," guys--there's also routine in it. A-

R.E.M.: Up (Warner Bros., 1998)

Nicole Renée: Nicole Renée (Atlantic, 1998) "Telephone"

The Replacements: All Shook Down (Sire/Reprise, 1990) slow thoughtful rools ("Sadly Beautiful," "The Last") **

The Replacements: Don't Sell or Buy, It's Crap (Sire/Reprise, 1990) loud sloppy rools ("Satellite") **

The Replacements: All for Nothing/Nothing for All (Reprise, 1997) I never bought the theory that Warners tamed them--life generally has that effect anyway. But the all-for-nothing disc's selection from the slide made inevitable by Let It Be, which stands beside Wild Gift as Amerindie's very peak, short-changes the wild ("I Won't") and the tasteless ("Waitress in the Sky"); you'd be better off with Tim. The miscellaneous arcana on the nothing-for-all disc, however, are pretty unkempt for a pop band in the process of mastering its craft as it loses its purpose--a blues, a lo-fi proposition, a Disney cover, B sides, what-all. In fact, although or because it's a mess, it's got more pizzazz than either of their two final albums. No "Aching to Be," that's for sure. A-

Paul Revere & the Raiders: The Essential Ride '63-'67 (Columbia/Legacy, 1995) Organized by a Mennonite conscientious objector and fronted by an omniverous pop showman, this was the one American garage band whose recorded output justified the ensuing mythos. Where here-and-gone hitmakers like the Standells and the Count Five were never as good as their best songs, and wild Northwest rivals like the Sonics and the Wailers never even had best songs, these guys sunk their chops into professional smashes ("Hungry," "Kicks") until they figured out how to write them ("Ups and Downs," "Him or Me--What's It Gonna Be"). And long before that, they figured out how to rock out, beating the Kingsmen to "Louie Louie" and daring the previously unreleasable frat-orgy classic "Crisco Party/Walking the Dog." Eventually, they also figured out how to wimp out. But unlike their vinyl best-of, this CD is programmed to cut out first. A-

Revolting Cocks: Beers, Steers and Queers (Wax Trax, 1990) sexist subtext (or text), no redeeming antisocial value, rock like a funk-damaged Ministry nonetheless ("Stainless Steel Providers," "Beers, Steers and Queers") **

Busta Rhymes: The Coming (Elektra, 1996) "Whoo Hah!! Got You All in Check"

Busta Rhymes: When Disaster Strikes (Elektra, 1997) "Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See"

Busta Rhymes: Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front (Elektra, 1998)

Marc Ribot: Rootless Cosmopolitans (Island, 1990) "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"

Marc Ribot: Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans) (Atlantic, 1998) This witty, beautiful, slightly bent tribute to the old-time trés-playing bandleader Arsenio Rodriguez--inventor of the son montuno, the Cuban conjunto, and practically speaking the mambo--reduces all that action to a guitar-bass-drums-percussion jazz quartet, sometimes with organ and once with a few horns. Deconstructing as it adores, enjoying the rhythms and melodies of arrangements that function simultaneously as dance music, dinner music, and art music, it epitomizes what it is to love something from a distance there's no denying, yet love it well. A-

The Tony Rich Project: Words (LaFace, 1996) better his enlightened-bourgie Smokey than D'Angelo's pomo-new jack Marvin ("Like a Woman," "Billy Goat," "The Grass Is Green") ***

The Tony Rich Project: Birdseye (LaFace, 1998)

Keith Richards: Main Offender (Virgin, 1992)

Keith Richards and the X-Pensive Winos: Live at the Hollywood Palladium, December 15, 1988 (Virgin, 1991)

Kim Richey: Kim Richey (Mercury, 1995)

Kim Richey: Glimmer (Mercury, 1999)

Lionel Richie: Louder Than Words (Mercury, 1996)

Jonathan Richman: Having a Party With Jonathan Richman (Rounder, 1991) confessions of a reluctant grownup ("Monologue About Bermuda," "The Girl Stands Up to Me Now") *

Ride: Going Blank Again (Sire, 1992) high-texture also-rans process rock and roll readymades through art school sensibilities and infernal machines ("Time After Time," "Not Fazed") ***

Amy Rigby: Diary of a Mod Housewife (Koch, 1996) Personalizing the political for a bohemia that coexists oh so neatly with structural underemployment, thinking harder about marriage than a dozen Nashville homilizers, the ex-Sham leaves the comforts of amateurism for an ex-Car and some El Lay roots-rockers, throwing her voice around in the process. All the ones you notice at first--the Berryesque "20 Questions," the chartworthy "Beer and Kisses," the lovelorn "Knapsack," and the thematic "The Good Girls"--were laid down in California. But the ones you don't notice you remember, including the five where she returns to reliable locals like Tony Maimone, Doug Wygal, and her hub, who in his real-life version even gets to bang things on a couple of songs. Concept album of the year. A

Amy Rigby: Middlescence (Koch, 1998) What's most original about Rigby isn't her analysis of the men who fail to provide the kind of love she demands so sanely and evokes so hotly. Nor is it her designated theme, age, although I wonder how many 23-year-olds will learn as much about fun from "The Summer of My Wasted Youth" as she wants them to. It's class, which she's old enough to understand for the simple reason that she doesn't have enough money--not the way the executive mom who covets a bigger co-op doesn't have enough money, the way the temp mom who buys back-to-school outfits at Goodwill doesn't have enough money. Her voice as real as Roxanne Shanté's, Rigby sings in a material world. So Trisha Yearwood, I'm begging: cover "All I Want" if not "What I Need." A-

LeAnn Rimes: Blue (Curb, 1996)

LeAnn Rimes: You Light Up My Life (Curb, 1997)

LeAnn Rimes: Sittin' on Top of the World (Curb, 1998) Not content to split the difference between Patsy Cline and Debbie Boone, this young teen and her in-it-to-win-it voice turn as grotesque as a mascaraed five-year-old in a beauty pageant. She begins by imagining a guy who "worships my body." Her Dad Rimes production and Carole Bayer Warren crossovers reveal Mutt Lange as the easygoing popster he is. She never cracks a smile, rarely revs a tempo. And in the only climax she understands, she colors in the "Purple Rain" so dark I'd say its purple was black if that metaphor weren't patently ridiculous. C+

Riverdales: Riverdales (Lookout, 1995)

Roaring Lion: Sacred 78's (Ice, 1994) Lion (a/k/a Hubert Raphael Charles, Raphael De Leon) was the most recorded Trinidadian of the pre-World War II era, and title notwithstanding, this selection of classics (plus a few '50s pleasantries) has nothing to do with praising the Lord--or no matter how happily he tapped into Shango ritual, the orishas either. Even more than most calypsonians, Lion played the secular sophisticate, cultivating foreigners, intellectuals, Atilla the Hun, Rudy Vallee. Because he took pride in not repeating himself, he deployed more tunes than the competition, and if some of his arrangements are almost pop, "Rhumba Dance" amd "Bamsee Lambay" are almost Latin tinge. Subjects include flies, Queen Elizabeth's royal tour, girls who dance with girls, a pyromaniac, agape, and sex, which the man who made "Ugly Woman" famous rarely if ever associates with love. A-

Dennis Robbins: Man With a Plan (Giant, 1992) With neotraditionalism going and outlawism gone, it's an up to run into a Nashville cat with a beard, and a boon that it could stand a trim. A Detroit native gone hillbilly and proud, he savors the details pop leaches out of country--the 300-hp galmobile, the words of the hymn he gets married to, the TV set that freaks with the sewing machine on. And like the young John Anderson, he knows enough to keep things fast and/or funny whenever possible. A-

Dennis Robbins: Born Ready (Giant, 1994)

Robbie Robertson: Storyville (Geffen, 1991) Robertson's unctuous undertone is the voice of a two-bit hustler who's discovered the big lie--the good and the beautiful, rapture and immortality, my BMW's in the shop, of course I'm not married, I can't wait to go down on you. It's disheartening that people whose age and wisdom approach my own are fussing over his New Orleans "concept"--a posse of L.A. studio hacks augmented by a few ringers and the kind of second-line once-removed horn charts the Band was hiring 20 years ago. The '70s are over, gang. Now let's dispense with the '80s. C

Fenton Robinson: Special Road (Evidence, 1993) his pain flows like whiskey, and he just wants to moan the blues about it ("Love Is Just a Gamble," "Crying the Blues") *

Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: Anthology (Motown, 1995) The hard truth that minor Miracles songs are just barely carried by the breathy faith and modest grit of Smokey's tenor is softened by the minor miracle of how diligently he nurtured the inspiration that put him on the charts at 18. Granting a few wonderful moments, this gets going midway into disc one, with 1963's "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," my nomination for the best thing he ever recorded. It rolls through 1967's "I Second That Emotion" and then starts wandering--wandering attractively, intelligently, imaginatively, professionally, but with only "Tears of a Clown" (and its follow-up, the graciously sarcastic "I Don't Blame You at All") worthy of serious payola. A-

Tom Robinson: Love over Rage (Rhythm Safari, 1994) "Green"; "Fifty"

Charlie Robison: Life of the Party (Sony/Lucky Dog, 1998) "Poor Man's Son"

Robyn: Robyn Is Here (RCA, 1997) So front-loaded it could almost be a vinyl album with a hot side and a cool side, only since the singer is 17 call them perky and caring. Positioned at four and six, the Max Martin-aided "Show Me Love" and "Do You Know (What It Takes)" are key, but without Robyn and her boys' "Bumpy Ride," "You've Got That Somethin'," and "The Last Time" at one, three, and five you wouldn't listen twice. Then, a few spins in, you notice a hint of velvet in her timbre--more like suede, really--that suggests not sensuality but emotional depth. Which in turn makes the orchestrated popsongs about romantic responsibility sound thoughtful rather than mawkish. Too bad she'll turn 21 like every other teen idol. B+

Suzzy Roche: Holy Smokes (Red House, 1997)

Tabu Ley Rochereau: Man from Kinshasa (Shanachie, 1991) The king placates soukous fashion instead of following it, and having kicked off with an electrokickdrum that's never so forward again, his third U.S.-release variety show eschews total speed trip. Catchy tunes, plangent pace changes, Cuban/Ethiopian horns, musette accordion--and enough rippling guitar to keep them coming back for more. A-

Seigneur Tabu Ley Rochereau: Muzina (Rounder, 1994)

Tabu Ley Rochereau: Africa Worldwide: 35th Anniversary Album (Rounder, 1996) Except when Franco showed him how on Omona Wapi, Tabu Ley never conquered his schlock habit Stateside. Even the 1989 best-of he recut for RealWorld sounded like cummerbunds and leisure suits. But as Kinshasa transformed itself from hellhole to charnel house, Afropop's smarmiest godfather withdrew not just to Paris but L.A. Then, with a quick new guitarist and dulcet vocal acolytes helping him exploit a nostalgia it would be cruel to deny, he rerecorded a magnificent dozen of the thousand or so songs he churned out when Zaire was young, and in the great tradition of classic Afropop, their airy grace still projects an illusion of possibility. This old hero no longer plans to conquer the world. He's just grateful he can remember how it felt to be looking ahead. A-

Rochereau et l'Orchestre Afrisa: Exil-Ley (Bibiche, 1993)

The Roches: We Three Kings (Paradox, 1990)

The Roches: A Dove (MCA, 1992) For a long time they seemed strangers in their own music, distracted by some purist superego whispering in their ears about acoustic guitars. Here their pop style hasn't changed that much--it's a little more eclectic, if anything. But it could almost be growing out of their three consanguineous voices; they sound as natural and gorgeous as the Comedian Harmonists, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, maybe even the Judds. So when the words don't kick in right off, just immerse in the sound until they do, because they will. Pained smiles replace nervous giggles not because they've lost their sense of humor, but because Suzzy has finally gotten sick of her own whimsy, because the '90s are even less fun than the '80s, because you can't live with them and you can't live without them, and because they thought following "You're the One" with "You're the Two" was feminist comedy enow. A

The Roches: Can We Go Home Now (Rykodisc, 1995) domestic nonviolence, subtly sublimated for your tranquil contemplation ("My Winter Coat," "I'm Someone Who Loves You") **

Pete Rock & CL Smooth: All Souled Out (Elektra, 1991)

Pete Rock & CL Smooth: Mecca and the Soul Brother (Elektra, 1992)

Jimmie Rodgers: The Essential Jimmie Rodgers (RCA, 1997) Rodgers isn't the most accessible of totems--read Nolan Porterfield on his "raw energy" and "driving" guitar and you'll think somebody made a mistake at the pressing plant. But he didn't invent country music being a purist. He was the first to put into practice the retrospectively obvious truth that Southerners wanted more from their music than hymns, reels, and high-mountain laments--blues voicings and pop tunes and even a little jazz, though most of these classics are strictly solo. Also, he yodeled, a sound that encompasses the restless bad-boy escapism of "The Brakeman's Blues" and "Pistol Packin' Papa," which fortunately for rock and rollers predominates, and the dreamy good-boy nostalgia of "Dear Old Sunny South by the Sea" and "My Old Pal," without which he wouldn't have meant spit in T-for-Texas or T-for-Tennessee. Also encompassing both is "Waiting for a Train," as signal a Depression song as "Brother Can You Spare a Dime." It was recorded in 1928. A

Virginia Rodrigues: Sol Negro (Hannibal, 1998) Notes by Caetano Veloso, who's clearly stunned at the ability of the daughter of a street vendor to evoke "operas, masses, lieder, and spirituals," a response shared by many Lusophiles and every fan of the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir who's in on the story. The rest of us will be stupefied that such a "celestial" voice can exist at all. She never stretches her rich, Ella-like highs into a scat--though the few midtempo numbers have a nice jazzy lilt (dig that berimbau), her instincts are exceedingly solemn. Veloso is Veloso, which means he "transcends the distinction between erudite and popular" far more vividly than he thinks Rodrigues does. High middlebrows Djavan and Milton Nascimento don't, and their cameos give the game away. B-

Roy Rogers: Rhythm and Groove (Pointblank, 1996) plays great slide, rides catchy rhythms, writes decent songs ("Built for Comfort," "For the Love of a Woman") *

Jim Roll: Lunette (New West, 1999)

The Rolling Stones: Flashpoint (Rolling Stones, 1991)

The Rolling Stones: Voodoo Lounge (Capitol, 1994) world's greatest roots-rock band ("Brand New Car," "New Faces") **

The Rolling Stones: Stripped (Virgin, 1995) Accepting--nay, embracing--the necessity of performing as a unit, they rehearsed. Ditto his responsibilities as a member of Great Britain's ruling class, Mick enunciated--except on the sole words not reproduced in the lyric booklet (that's right, lyric booklet), which go, approximately, "She was [n?]ifty, [sh?]ifty, she looked about 50." And macabre though it may seem, they all went out and cut not merely another unplugged recap, but a live album that reprises their classic material and groove in an honorably autumnal spirit--an album that might tell you something a decade from now. Muddy Waters would be proud. A-

The Rolling Stones: Bridges to Babylon (Virgin, 1997) still know how to construct, play, and--sometimes--sing a song ("You Don't Have To Mean It," "Flip the Switch") *

The Rolling Stones: No Security (Virgin, 1998)

Henry Rollins: Rollins: The Boxed Life (Imago, 1993) Gen X Comedy Hour X 2 ("Strength--Pt. 2," "Airplanes") **

Sonny Rollins: Silver City (Milestone, 1996) I was all set to call my man Giddins and ask whether this two-CD set could possibly be as unerring as I thought when I learned that most of the choices had been put forward by Gary himself, for the Voice's Rollins issue. So moan all you want about conflict of interest. This is the shit--funny, tortured, profound, romantic, carnivalesque. Surprisingly for a modernist of fabled young alienation, Rollins adds to the easeful, virtuosic majesty of his mature sound an enlightenment that takes the entire vocabulary of the saxophone, from follow-the-notes melody reproduction to squeaks and blats that know no tonal referent, as a sound-palette that is its own reason for being. Hence he may come off too well-adjusted for the what-you-got rebels of rock's supposedly alternative nation. But if you feel about rock and roll the way Rollins does about the saxophone--that it's all one structure of feeling from howl to croon, bubblepop to jungle, Mariah to Polly Jean--you should forget your singing habit and sign on for one hell of a ride. A+

Sonny Rollins: A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1999) This 1957 date is the Rollins virtuoso fanciers fancy: two-plus hours on the Sunday of Sputnik 2, the tenor colossus braving the harmonic void in the closest thing to free jazz a bebop saxophonist essaying Porter, Gershwin, Arlen, and his beloved Hammerstein can rev into. Backed by retro-rocketing Monk bassist Wilbur Ware and a young Elvin Jones testing his launching capacity, Rollins is charged with venturing far out from these tunes without severing the harmonic moorings normally secured by a piano. He does it again and again--but not without a certain cost in ebullience, texture, and fullness of breath. Impressive always, fun in passing, his improvisations are what avant-garde jazz is for. The drum solos are a club convention that let him idle his engines a little. A-

Rollins Band: The End of Silence (Imago, 1992)

Rollins Band: Weight (Imago, 1994)

Rollins Band: Come In and Burn (DreamWorks, 1997) Success doesn't suit this drug addict, who will kick caffeine only when they synthesize rage itself. Since I got big yucks out of 1992's spoken-word twofer The Boxed Life, which recalled a lab-assistant job and other homely pursuits, I am entitled to grouse about the grim star diary that is 1997's spoken-word twofer Black Coffee Blues. And while it's no surprise that this thrash-and-churn is his metalest metal ever, it's amazing that Spielberg-Katzenberg-Geffen made Rollins their flagship rocker--for all his corp clout and cult cred, he was off the charts a month after he muscled on. As pathetic as it is for aging Spinal Taps to fabricate melodrama out of an adolescent despair they remember via groupies and fan mail, it's even more pathetic never to feel anything else. C-

The Romantics: What I Like About You (And Other Romantic Hits) (Epic Associated/Legacy, 1990) sweets from our Sweet ("Talking in Your Sleep," "What I Like About You") ***

Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris: Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions (Asylum, 1999) tribute to the modern art-song, country-folk division ("Western Wall," "1917") *

The Roots: Do You Want More?!!!??! (DGC, 1995)

The Roots: Illadelph Halflife (DGC, 1996)

The Roots: Things Fall Apart (MCA, 1999) Stop the violence in hip hop, but make an exception if these guys will shoot the piano player. Kamal gets away with his omnipresent ostinato beds here mostly because the band is looking back to the old-school rap they loved before they discovered jazz lite. They even sample now and then--I've never been so happy to run into Schoolly-D in my life. What's so consistently annoying on their earlier intelligent records is almost hooky on this one, integral to a flow that certainly does just that, which isn't to say you won't be relieved when it rocks the house instead. Gee--maybe they've gotten more intelligent. B+

The Roots: The Roots Come Alive: Open Access (MCA, 1999) World-class DJ and beatbox, excellent drummer and bassist, pretty darn good rapper(s), bourgie jazzmatazz ("Proceed," "Love of My Life"). **

The Roots All Stars: The Roots All Stars: Gathering of the Spirits (Shanachie, 1998) Mutabaruka, Sly, Robbie, and friends meet the predancehall elite (Culture, "Blackman King"; the Mighty Diamonds, "Blackman Pride"). **

Cesar Rosas: Soul Disguise (Rykodisc, 1999) after seven long years of Mitchell Froom, Los Lobos's rocker has it his way ("You've Got To Lose," "Better Way") **

Michael Rose: Michael Rose (Heartbeat, 1995) badder than you know, but not than you wish ("Badder Than You," "Casabank Queen") *

Diana Ross: The Force Behind the Power (Motown, 1991)

Rossy: Island of Ghosts (RealWorld, 1991)

Rossy: One Eye on the Future One Eye on the Past (Shanachie, 1994)

Royal Crescent Mob: Midnight Rose's (Sire/Warner Bros., 1991)

Royal Crown Revue: The Contender (Warner Bros., 1998)

The Royal Macadamians: Experiments in Terror (Island, 1990)

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra: Plays the Music of Oasis (Music Club, 1997) Horny minisymphonies with a trap drummer and even, unless my ears deceive me, the occasional electric guitar. Maybe it's a wonderful world after all. C

Royal Trux: Accelerator (Drag City, 1998) The snot-rock of their dreams ("Accelerator: I'm Ready," "The Banana Question"). ***

Ruff Ryders: Ryde or Die Volume 1 (Ruff Ryders/Interscope, 1999) "What You Want"

Rugburns: The Morning Wood (Bizarre/Planet, 1994)

Todd Rundgren: With a Twist . . . (Guardian, 1997)

Run-D.M.C.: Back From Hell (Profile, 1990)

Run-D.M.C.: Together Forever: Greatest Hits 1983-1991 (Profile, 1991) Use your programming buttons--the jumbled order, intended like the title to conceal how over they are, cheats them instead. Played chronologically, the music coheres--their style evolves naturally, switching gears only when they begin sweating street cred--and the rhymes lay out a tragedy. A pair of streetwise college kids inveigh against a scourge before anybody has an inkling it's going to happen. Preaching and demonstrating self-reliance, they start with a beatbox and two stentorian voices--"Unemployment at a record high"--and then incorporate just enough guitar to turn the market around. As they get famous, their boasts begin to sound out of touch--live '83 they're all camaraderie, live '84 it's already like the audience is down there somewhere--and by '87 or so their message seems formulaic. But given their bona fides, it retains a certain credibility--even the useless 1989 spiel "Pause" (rhymes with "Don't break laws") sounds like them. By the time they check out with the scary tale of a crack shooting on "The Ave.," they're packing nines--and unemployment 1983-style seems like heaven, or at least not-hell. A

Run-D.M.C.: Down With the King (Profile, 1993) A triumphant comeback, but the comeback is spiritual and the triumph formal, which adds up to art rather than culture. Where multiple producers usually signal overweening identity crisis, this is debt collection--since rap as we know it proceeded from their innovations and accommodations, there's no one in the music who doesn't owe them. And though the two Bomb Squad cuts owe Cypress Hill in turn, all the other guest overseers--Q-Tip, Jermaine Dupri, Pete Rock, EPMD--drop plenty flavor without impinging on the group's aural identity. Sure of their hard-not-gangsta ethos, equally deliberate in the vocals and the bass and drums, they always sound like Jay, Run, and Darryl Mac. Yet with their own spare production style signifying only as a trademark, they live off those outside shots, and the boasts about the stages they useta rip up ring truer than the ones about the trends they're gonna start. I hope their godfather status is good for sales as well as respect, influence as well as sales. But I wonder how much their return will mean, even to rap aesthetes, if it isn't. B+

Run On: Start Packing (Matador, 1996) "Xmas Trip"

RuPaul: Supermodel of the World (Tommy Boy, 1993) I know it wouldn't be an authentic disco album without filler, but he's too blandly male a singer to put over pro forma romance. The exception is "Supernatural," as you'll figure out if you match title to persona and consider the possibilities. And when he cops an attitude--on five cuts by my count, culminating in the deep-dish "A Shade Shady"--he brings off a time-warped genderfuck all his own. B+

Bobby Rush: I Ain't Studdin' You (Urgent, 1991) "Ain't Studdin' You"

Otis Rush: Ain't Enough Comin' In (This Way Up/Mercury, 1994)

Brenda Russell: Greatest Hits (A&M, 1992)

Carl Hancock Rux: Rux Revue (550 Music, 1999) "Blue Candy"

RZA: RZA as Bobby Digital in Stereo (V2, 1998)

R: Compilations

Rawkus Presents Soundbombing II (Rawkus, 1999) Whoever's representing--Medina Green eating crosstown beef or Eminem tripping on a minivan or Company Flow dissing AmeriKKKa or Pharoahe Monch toasting the mayor or "hairy fat slob unshaven" R.A. the Rugged Man conjoining his "white trash nation" with "all the starvin' artists"--the Rawkus subculture is always peering over its own edge. The beats aren't invariably propulsive, but they never relent, with timeouts for DJs to scratch themselves minimized. Although the us-against-society mood is far from asexual, nobody macks and nobody flosses. Nobody deals either. Racism is an issue, race isn't. In our present-day dystopia, no wonder so many make this imaginary world their home. A-

The Real Bahamas, Volumes I & II (Nonesuch, 1998) Recorded by two young amateurs in 1965, initially released in 1966 and 1978, then re-released minus two tracks on one CD, these part-sung, finger-picked gospel songs constitute one of the great treasures of folkiedom's collecting adventure. Here is the individual untutored genius in the person of the literally nonpareil guitarist Joseph Spence. But here also for once is communal creativity in action, as leaders rhyme their couplets while so-called background singers dab, smear, and pixilate the music we're there for, and I dare you to decide who's who for the entirety of "God Locked the Lion's Jaw." Although full-fledged tunes rise up only intermittently from the quirkily articulated babble, many of these have been anointed classics--"I Bid You Good Night," "Out on the Rolling Sea," "Don't Take Everybody to Be Your Friend." The Bahamas became a haven for escaped U.S. slaves after slavery was abolished in the British Empire in 1834. Friendly but also mischievous and not all that easy to know, these folks sound as if they know the limits of friendship to be one of God's great truths. A

The Real Hip-Hop: The Best of D&D, Vol. 1 (Coldfront, 1999) The main thing undergrounders mean by "real" is Hold That Tune, a/k/a/ Hook Junkies Keep Out. Though this ethos dates officially to the South Bronx's primordial ooze, its immediate forebear is these mid-'90s productions of Premier and his lessers. On choice singles from a singles music, the warm feelings hip hop heads cherish for M.O.P., the Lost Boyz, Smif-N-Wessun, and Showbiz & AG can be shared by us hook users. An excess of celebrity similes is counterbalanced by gangsta talk as unmitigated metaphor. Competitive world, hip hop. It could kill ya. A-

Real: The Tom T. Hall Project (Delmore, 1997) many titles skipped by the gemlike Essential Tom T. Hall and the softer two-CD box, but that doesn't mean Johnny Polonsky and Ron Sexsmith are up to them (Iris DeMent, "I Miss a Lot of Trains"; Kelly Willis, "That's How I Got to Memphis") **

Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute to Cole Porter (Chrysalis, 1990) Although only Shane MacGowan, David Byrne, and Debbie & Iggy have ever been identified professionally with punk, only the Jungle Brothers--whose suave rap, unlike Neneh Cherry's gauche one, ignores Cole Porter altogether--would exist as we know them without it. From U2 to K.D. Lang to Sinead O'Connor, from Tom Waits to Salif Keita to the Neville Brothers, they've all built their market shares in fissures of taste and heightened expectation that punk opened up. And this is where punk's fierce certainty that "rock" is never enough ends up--in the suspicion that the "rock" punk changed utterly and not at all is actually a historical phase of "pop." Rarely has the pomo practice of trashing history while you honor it reached such a pitch of accomplishment. The songs are so strong that they remain Porter's whether Waits is bellowing one to death or the Fine Young Cannibals are rearranging one to a draw or Lisa Stansfield is literalizing one to within an inch of its printed lyric. Inevitably, there are duds, but listen enough and they shift on you. The recontextualizations--O'Connor's gravid "You Do Something to Me," Keita's Mandinka "Begin the Beguine," Erasure's electrodance "Too Darn Hot"--are for the ages. A

Red Hot + Country (Mercury, 1994) Wilco with Syd Straw: "The T.B. Is Whipping Me"

Red Hot + Rhapsody: The Gershwin Groove (Antilles, 1998) Bacharachians please note: this AIDS-fighting Gershwin tribute is how great songwriters make themselves felt. Beyond near has-beens Bowie and Sinéad and the all-too-inoffensive Natalie Merchant, the contributors are marginal. Spearhead, Sarah Cracknell, Morcheeba, Finlay Quaye, to stick to standouts, flounder as often as they fly. But entrusted with this material they soar or at least flutter about, as do Smoke City and Majestic 12, both previously unknown to me. Defined by keyboard textures from sampledelica to Hammond B-3, this is a seductive showcase of the moody sensibility shared by acid jazz and trip hop. Now if only the sensibility had Gershwins of its own--well, soon they'd no doubt find themselves something better to do. A-

Red Hot + Rio (Antilles, 1996) art-rocking up grooveful kitsch in a soulful cause (Money Mark, "Use Your Head"; David Byrne + Marisa Monte, "Waters of March") **

Reggae for Kids (RAS, 1992) dad says, "The real thing"; kid says, "I like all the songs but this one [Black Sheep's `Time To Think']" (Eek-a-Mouse: "Safari," Gregory Isaacs: "Puff the Magic Dragon") *

Rent (DreamWorks, 1996) pretty funny for art-rock ("La Vie Boheme," "Tango: Maureen," "Happy New Year B") *

Return of the D.J. Vol. II (Bomb, 1998) Beyond Three: "The Positive Step"

Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons (Almo, 1999) First cut's the worst, which I blame not on Chrissie Hynde but on "She," the softest song Parsons ever wrote (and probably the only one about black people). Last cut's the best, and though "In My Hour of Darkness" is anything but soft, I credit it primarily to Victoria Williams and a gang that owes Parsons everything, from alt-country lifer Mark Olson to Nashville darling Jim Lauderdale to in-betweeners Buddy and Julie Miller. There are plenty of great songbooks with plenty of great admirers, but damn few that define a sensibility, and even Elvis Costello and Evan Dando seem to have pondered Parsons all their musical lives--though not as much as Aunt Emmylou, who shares recipes with Beck H. and Sheryl C. As for Gram's own kids, even the slow ones--parched Gillian Welch, sodden Whiskeytown, spaced Cowboy Junkies--designed their sounds for this material, which nails their identification-alienation harder than their own ever will. A-

Rhythm Country and Blues (MCA, 1994) Patti LaBelle & Travis Tritt: "When Something Is Wrong with My Baby"; Little Richard & Tanya Tucker: "Somethin' Else"

Rig Rock Jukebox: A Collection of Diesel Only Records (First Warning, 1992) The Blue Chieftains: "Punk Rockin' Honky Tonk Girl"; Courtney & Western: "Go to Blazes"

Risqué Rhythm: Nasty 50's R&B (Rhino, 1991) The blue blues compiled on Columbia's Raunchy Business and reprised on Bluesville's Bawdy Blues are novelty material. Voicing r&b's revolt of the body against the cerebral demands of bebop, this stuff is sexy. Even the novelties--the original "My Ding-a-Ling," say--are carnal, and though the oft-collected "Work With Me Annie" and "Sixty-Minute Man" may be mild as poetry, they're plenty physical as music. The Sultans' "It Ain't the Meat" and Connie Allen's "Rocket 69" are plenty physical as poetry. And Wynonie Harris and Dinah Washington will make you want to fuck. The gift that keeps on giving for any music-lover whose genitalia you cherish. A

Rock Stars Kill (Kill Rock Stars, 1994)

Rock This Town: Rockabilly Hits Vol. 2 (Rhino, 1991) Elvises-come-lately, revivalists, and other diehards keep the legend juiced *

Rock This Town: Rockabilly Hits Vol. 1 (Rhino, 1991) If like me you resist the rockabilly myth, here finally is something that sounds like a national movement--not just the Sun story plus, but weirdos and up-and-comers talking to each other by phonograph. Some of these artists were one-shots, some geniuses, some pros. Showbiz kids and child country singers and crazy young hillbillies and oilmen's sons and Western swingers who got lucky, they'd turn into freebasers and adult country singers and saner old hillbillies and bizzers who'd hook up with Nancy Sinatra and Gram Parsons and corpses in Dave Alvin songs. With no input from Elvis or Eddie Cochran, seven of the 18 have died--at 17, 30, 36, 45, 52, 55, and 58. So these kids weren't kidding when they tried to capture their youths in nervous-to-frantic guitar and put them on plastic. The knew something was happening, but they didn't know what it was. And you can still kind of hear it. A

Roller Disco: Boogie from the Skating Rinks (K-Tel, 1996) Was there such a thing as roller disco? Or were there just songs you roller-discoed to? As Frankie Smith might put it: "Willzoo kizzairs?" The few overcollecteds (Cheryl Lynn, Taste of Honey) and underwhelmings (Rick James, Dazz Band) detract barely a whit from a 10-track budget item that peaks with two magnificent rarities: Vaughan Mason's transcendently utilitarian "Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll" and Taana Gardner's kittenishly walkin'-'round-here-so-intense "Heartbeat." A

Roots of Jazz Funk Volume One (MVP, 1997) Hitting their stride in the pre-Beatles '60s as lounge loafers diddled their hi-fis, the solid young jazzmen twixt bop and free figured out how to do Bird without getting so intellectual about it by devising midtempo heads from straightforward riffs and mining gospel for changes. Movement leaders Blakey, Silver, Morgan, Adderley, and Hubbard all contribute a signature song to this overdue summation, as do the market-ready Hancock-Montgomery-Smith and the art-thirsty Coltrane-Rollins-Mingus. A wealth of soulful sidemen--Joe Henderson, Bobby Timmons, Bob Cranshaw, Billy Higgins, on and on--never let up. A+

Roots of Jazz Funk Volume Two (MVP, 1997) Mellower, and schlockier, than its predecessor. Donald Byrd, Lou Donaldson, "Canadian Sunset"--these are not names associated with high principle. Except for repeater John Coltrane, you'll find no art stars here at all, nor any leaders of Blakey-Adderley calibre. But from Johnny Griffin's "Blues for Dracula" to Jack McDuff's "Rock Candy," the funk will be more palpable to the acid-damaged as a result. And if you're art-damaged yourself, let me put it this way: it'll be Good For You. A

Roots Rock Guitar Party: Zimbabwe Frontline Vol. 3 (Sterns/Earthworks, 1999) Chimurenga and its vaguely soukous-inflected descendants are liberation music no longer. Mugabe's the new boss, and though he isn't the same as the old boss--they never are, and at least he's not white--he is certainly a tyrant, dividing-and-plundering along tribal and sexual lines. But where Afropop surrendered lilt and intraband debate for escapist desperation and automatic virtuosity as nationhood bore down on the material lives of the people, these 12 tracks, all but one recent, maintain an illusion of communal jollity and balanced progress. Past kisses future as guitars articulate thumb-piano scales into a language all their own, an endeavor spiritually engrossing enough to keep everybody involved occupied. When you read the translated lyrical snippets, you can infer how much the all-male Shona choruses aren't saying. When you listen to the music, you give everybody involved credit for tending their bit of human space. A-

Ruffhouse Records Greatest Hits (Ruffhouse, 1999) The Miseducation, Score, and Cypress Hill lifts have their own lives. "Insane in the Brain" is worth hearing twice. "Fuck Compton" is history. Kriss Kross weren't always has-beens. Nas wasn't always nasty. John Forté and Pace Won have their own futures. Few labels have done '90s hip hop so proud. A-

The RZA Hits (Razor Sharp/Epic, 1999) If Enter the Wu-Tang is a block party mythologized into a masterwork, its endless spinoffs are soirees in smoke-filled rooms, where intimates tender messages and crack jokes newcomers can only pretend to understand. So this public work is a public service. Never mind that it pulls three tracks from the source and two each from the most obvious solo exceptions, by ODB and Ghostface Killah. Just be grateful that for once they're celebrating the obvious--the anthemic, the obscene, the braggadocious. In this context, even Raekwon sounds like a regular guy. Says the produceur: "That's enough information right there to get you involved, get you inside the system." Whereupon he sets off a three-minute Wu Wear ad. A-

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