Consumer Guide '90s: T

Tail Dragger: American People (Delmark, 1999) "American People"

Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense (Special New Edition) (Sire/Warner Bros., 1999)

James Talley: Woody Guthrie and Songs of My Oklahoma Home (Cimarron, 1999) 20 Woody songs done calmly and faithfully, as a spiritual resource ("Belle Starr," "Talkin' Dust Bowl Blues") *

Taraf de Haïdouks: Taraf de Haïdouks (Elektra/Nonesuch, 1999) Look, I got no use for Gypsy music, nor for the Balkan stuff to which it is geographically related. Gypsy's too demonstrative in its passion and longing, and as for Balkan, I've tried and failed and gone on with my life. So here's Band of Brigands, three generations of lautari from southwestern Romania it says in the notes, the elders not above improvising about the fall of Ceausescu, the young ones imbued with the old ways even if they love the music of the cities where they dream of performing--and where they now enjoy a presence, this being a best-of from three albums on a Belgian label. I love the tongue-twisting "Dumbala Dumba," the deep cellar-door creak of "Rustem" 's large cymbalum, and the heartbroke melody of "Sabarelu," which seems to be about rivers. I dunno, maybe the other guys work up that floridity for the tourist trade. Or maybe this is a special band--fast, intense, tuneful, yet always frayed around the edges. A-

Tarika Sammy: Fanafody (Xenophile, 1992) In concert, these two women and two men from Madagascar left me nauseous with memories of Peter, Paul & Mary--made me suspect that their profusion of lively rhythms and lovely melodies could be nothing more than the market-ready "folk music" of the planet's largest one-world theme park. On record, however, the fine Afro-Asian tunes and sonorities overcome--with a crucial guest boost from two Mustaphas two on Afro-American bass and drums. A-

Tarika Sammy: Balance (Green Linnet, 1994)

Tarnation: Gentle Creaturs (4AD, 1995) With the Cowboy Junkies gone the way of regular junkies (who either disappear or sign with Geffen, right?), along come these San Francisco country-mopers. Not that it couldn't be worse--I mean, Joan Baez stripped of her chops is more amusing than Joan Baez clinging to them. C

Howard Tate: Get It While You Can: The Legendary Sessions (Mercury, 1995) The CD biz caught up with both Great Lost Soul Men in 1995. Razor & Tie's The Essential James Carr documents a Memphis depressive who feels everything and understands nothing, and although the half that wasn't on Blue Side's 1987 At the Dark End of the Street is markedly less distinctive than the half that was, it'll sure make you wonder what Eddie Vedder has to get so upset about. Tate is a blues-drenched Macon native who had the desire to head north and sounds it every time he gooses a lament with one of the trademark keens that signify the escape he never achieved. He brought out the best in soul pro Jerry Ragovoy, who made Tate's records jump instead of arranging them into submission, and gave him lyrics with some wit to them besides. In return, Ragovoy brought out the best in Tate. So corporate politics be damned--I'm docking this a notch for ignoring their great lost '72 Atlantic collaboration. A-

Skatemaster Tate and the Concrete Crew: Do the Skate (4th & Broadway, 1991) rap so swinging it takes its bass upright ("Irv's," "Hey Wooley") *

Hound Dog Taylor and the Houserockers: Deluxe Edition (Alligator, 1999) The six fingers on Taylor's hands abraded his vibrato almost as good as 10-dollar guitars and cracked amps, which is a good thing, because in the end he found his hero Elmore James a bit of a fancy man. Filling out a trio with another guitar and a drum kit, he blasted Maxwell Street with a scrawny sound the booklet swears was "huge," which is another way of saying "Play Loud." From the "It Hurts Me Too" that howls out crucial lines in a prearticulate slide to the joyously unforgiving "Give Me Back My Wig," this is the house-rockin' music nobody else ever got right, as perfect in its way as Jimmy Reed, or the Ramones. A

James Taylor: New Moon Shine (Columbia, 1991)

James Taylor: Hourglass (Columbia, 1997) "Line 'Em Up"; "Walking My Baby Back Home"

TBTBT: Too Bad to Be True (Cold Chillin', 1993) "One Track Mind"

Team Dresch: Personal Best (Chainsaw/Lesbionic Candy-Ass, 1994) "Fagetarian and Dyke"

Team Dresch: Captain My Captain (Chainsaw/Candyass, 1996) the everything-clashing model of passionate cooperation ("Uncle Phranc," "Don't Try Suicide") **

Technotronic: Recall (SBK/EMI, 1994) Jo Bogaert and Patrick De Meyer prove Eurodisco is a producer's music on "2 U X," an instrumental that sets me strutting every time it sneaks up--which it can do because I tune out all the guy singer's exhortations until Ya Kid K (or is that Daisy D.?) picks him up midway through "I Want You by My Side." So if the guy's cuts fade and the girls' take me to techno church, maybe the secret of this spiritual uplift for secular people isn't Bogaert and De Meyer after all. Maybe it's the girls. A-

Teenage Fanclub: God Knows It's True (Matador, 1990) Title tune's the only time they've yoked melody/noise/sound and sense/nonsense/paradox at optimum archness without undercutting either or both. The other one with words comes close. The two instrumentals only partly fulfill their modest mission in life, which is fusing strum and skronk. B+

Teenage Fanclub: Bandwagonesque (DGC, 1991) a singa with attitude might put some there there ("Metal Baby," "Is This Music?") ***

Teenage Fanclub: Thirteen (DGC, 1993)

Television: Television (Capitol, 1992) I prefer the more rocking, songful old Television, but it's a tribute to Tom Verlaine's conceptual restlessness and force of personality that in a world where alternative guitar means making noise or mixing and matching from the used bins, these four veterans have regrouped with a distinct new sonic identity. Droll, warm-hearted, sophisticated, cryptic, jazzy yet unjazzlike, they sound like nothing else--except, just a little, old Television, mainly because Verlaine has ignored the Lloyd Cole jokes and refused to alter his voiceprint. B+

Television Personalities: Yes Darling, But Is It Art? (Early Singles and Rarities) (Fire, 1995) part time punks and how ("Part Time Punks," "Arthur the Gardener") *

The Temptations: Anthology (Motown, 1995) The Tempts were too good for their own good--good enough to placate what was once called the adult audience with so-called "standards." Fortunately, the horrible examples that blotch their catalogue are held to "The Impossible Dream," which closes disc one with a dull, symbolic thud. Whereupon they start fronting Norman Whitfield's funk group, which was one of the best. Personally, I would have skipped a few Motown subclassics for a little of the crazy and mellifluous late doowop they made back when Paul Williams was their soul man and Berry Gordy hadn't finalized his formula. But as any American should know, "My Girl" and "It's Growing" and "My Girl" and "I Wish It Would Rain" and "My Girl" and "Ain't Too Proud To Beg" and "My Girl" are the essence of that formula--and also, if he was as lucky as we hope, of David Ruffin's tragic life. A

Terminator X: Terminator X & the Valley of the Jeep Beats (P.R.O. Division/RAL/Columbia, 1991)

Terror Fabulous: Yaga Yaga (EastWest, 1994) "Action"

Joe Tex: The Very Best of Joe Tex (Rhino, 1996) I recently asked two young musos who Joe Tex was. The Irish guy didn't have a clue, but the African American did--"Bang a Gong," right? Sheesh. Before and after he became a Black Muslim minister, this East Texas moralist-jokester mixed such timeless trifles as "Skinny Legs and All" (God, don't you even remember that one?) and "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)" (a lucky last gasp occasioning a luckier album that came out for "sissies") with a good-humored country wisdom that rivaled Smokey's urban variant for pith and empathy. Nashville pro Buddy Killen oversaw the Muscle Shoals funk, but the music's economy and amiability grew out of Tex's character and talent. So "Hold What You've Got," people. Remember that "The Love You Save (May Be Your Own)." And don't neglect the p.i. benchmark in which a Vietnam-era GI Joe hears from his sweetheart: "And your letter brought me so much strength/(Tell you what I did, baby, huh, you won't believe it)/I raised up and got me two more enemies." A

Texas Tornados: Texas Tornados (Warner Bros., 1990) On record they're a little too country for a honky-tonk conjunto rocking that Western swing. Freddy Fender especially is more ragged and more glorious entertaining fellow graybeards in person. But when Augie Meyers gets real silly or Doug Sahm gets real gone now, it doesn't matter at all. And the rest of the time it doesn't matter much. B+

Texas Tornados: The Best of Texas Tornados (Reprise, 1993) The debut was rougher than tough and sweeter than shit, but as a genre band they're made for this selective, wide-ranging format. Mad rocker Doug Sahm is no longer a legend outside his place and time, vato vibrato Freddy Fender now remembered as a have-a-nice-day one-shot with a novelty artist's name, but not only were they both major in the bilingual, panstylistic Tex-Mex universe, they ain't oldies now. As for Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez, they're born sidemen whose solo albums stand up. In short, any young person who loves good rock and roll, good country, good conjunto, maybe even good polka has a supergroup out there waiting. Try "Guacamole," a great sex metaphor. Or "Who Were You Thinkin' Of," a classic country song. Or "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," no one-shot. A-

That Dog: Totally Crushed Out! (DGC, 1995) Biz babies who get too much shade for it, they come through with a sublime, honest little mock-concept album about teen love among the psychologically nondisabled. Their simple noise-pop tunes are actually melodic, their ugly-pretty contrasts actually generate tension, their sophisticated harmonies actually massage one's ears. And "He's Kissing Christian" is the best triangle song since "When You Were Mine." A-

That Dog: Retreat from the Sun (DGC, 1997) For a pop adept, Anna Waronker skimps on the surefire. On no more than half does the chorus come around and grab the ring; on no more than a couple does the verse leave you waiting for the chorus to make its move. But I think that's because she realizes that we're so inured to tunefulness that the surefire backfires. Waronker's deep hooks are a flatly winsome voice, an unsentimental guitar, and a flirty adventurism that promises loving sex without offering much hope she'll be there six months from now--even if she's indulging one of her domestic fantasies at your expense. A-

Thelonious Monster: Beautiful Mess (Capitol, 1992) As always, Bob Forrest is beset by bad feelings he can't comprehend--about an unjust society, a dysfunctional family, a feminist girlfriend who runs off with "some faggot from the Posies," above all about himself. Crawling around the nice house he secured with his advance or gazing awestruck at the nice girlfriend he doubts he deserves, covering Joan Armatrading or duetting with Tom Waits, sleeping eight to a room in Vegas with his equally confused friends, he always seems to end up doing what he does best--whining. He whines tunefully, loudly, childishly, revoltingly, nakedly, sweetly, intelligently, and though he probably doesn't deserve that girlfriend, you can tell why she doesn't think so. With a jerk like Forrest, this constitutes a major artistic achievement. A-

Therapy?: Nurse (A&M, 1993) enthusiasts (in the religious sense) of despair (ditto) ("Accelerator," "Gone") ***

They Might Be Giants: Flood (Elektra, 1990) tunes, aarghh, tunes--please not more tunes ("Dead," "Your Racist Friend") **

They Might Be Giants: Miscellaneous T (Bar/None/Restless, 1991) "We're the Replacements"; "Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought We Had a Deal"

They Might Be Giants: Apollo 18 (Elektra, 1992) For a stunning five-song run toward the start, they replicate the brittle brilliance that tricked their old fans into expecting a tour de force every time. The packed pop-pomo pastiches make the redolent meaninglessness of near-literal lyrics signify and sing, softening you up for the more scattered experiments that follow. Which include the XTC-does-Bo-Diddley "Hypnotist of Ladies," the 22-part "Fingertips" ("I'm having a heart attack/I'm having a heart attack"), the brittlely brilliant "Dinner Bell," and "Narrow Your Eyes," which if I'm not mistaken is about the actual dissolution of an actual relationship. A-

They Might Be Giants: Why Does the Sun Shine? (Elektra, 1993)

They Might Be Giants: John Henry (Elektra, 1994) "I Should Be Allowed to Think"; "Meet James Ensor"

They Might Be Giants: Factory Showroom (Elektra, 1996) to quote the ever clever Ian Dury, there ain't half been some clever bastards ("How Can I Sing Like a Girl?," "I Can Hear You," "James K. Polk," "XTC Vs. Adam Ant") ***

They Might Be Giants: Severe Tire Damage (Restless, 1998) Billed as greatest hits but actually just live, and not especially well-chosen by my no-more-or-less-idiosyncratic-than-theirs lights--where's "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?"? And of course there are bait cuts, new songs their wee fan base presumably can't live without. What I wouldn't have figured is that "Doctor Worm" ("I'm not a real doctor but I am a real worm") and "They Got Lost" (trying to find a radio station so low-watt it fades out no matter which way they turn), are my favorite things on a record that includes "XTC Vs. Adam Ant" and "Meet James Ensor," reflexively clever titles I include as a guarantee that the songs live up to them. "Meet They Might Be Giants/Brooklyn's cultish songmen/Set on random, skim our book/Watch out for falling hooks." B+

They Might Be Giants: Long Tall Weekend (www.emusic.com, 1999) The biggest problem with Net-music utopianism is that no matter how fast and convenient downloads get, music itself will continue to exist in, if you'll pardon the expression, real time. That's its very essence. If 1441 minutes of music go up on the Web today, that's a minute more than anyone can hear in that period, period. Might the Net be a useful way for consumers to sample their musical options? Sure. Might it help strapped artists get by? Conceivably. Are there good things there that are unavailable elsewhere? Certainly not as many as in the sum total of specialty shops in our metropolis, although the same may not hold in Wichita. This, however, is one of them. Human song generators whose metier is the miscellany, they're ideally suited to construct a download-only album that isn't an out file taking on airs. Although "They Got Lost" is on last year's live album and patrons of their live shows and dial-a-song service may recognize other tunes, this is as enjoyable a CD as they've released in the '90s. With love to the literal "Operators Are Standing By," it peaks with "Older," which is about real time. A-

Thingy: To the Innocent (Absolutely Kosher, 1999)

Thinking Fellers Union Local #282: Lovelyville (Matador, 1991) Although it's possible to imagine these musicians powering a rock and roll band that means a damn thing, this cross between Frisco antiheroes the Residents and Dixie dregs Love Tractor is too avant-garde to serve up anyone's money's worth. Nothing lasts, that's the message, whether it's the dense riffage of "2X4S" or the orchestrated guffaws and seal barks that finish "More Glee" with a flourish. Lyrics? How vulgar. We should be thankful when they make with the private jokes doted on by performance artists everywhere. B-

3rd Bass: Derelicts of Dialect (Def Jam/Columbia, 1991)

Third Eye Blind: Third Eye Blind (Elektra, 1997)

Third Eye Blind: Blue (Elektra, 1999) "10 Days"; "Wounded"

Third Rail: South Delta Space Age (Antilles, 1997)

The Third Sex: Card Carryin' (Chainsaw, 1996)

Chris Thomas: Cry of the Prophets (Warner Bros., 1990)

David Thomas: Mirror Man (Thirsty Ear, 1999)

Irma Thomas: Time Is on My Side--The Best of Irma Thomas Volume 1 (EMI, 1993) betta than Etta? ("Two Winters Long," "Some Things You Never Get Used To") ***

Irma Thomas: Sweet Soul Queen of New Orleans: The Irma Thomas Collection (Razor & Tie, 1997) Born in 1941, Thomas had four kids and two husbands behind her by the time of her brief pop run in 1964, but you'd never have known how hard her life had been. She was too busy trying to sing the songs right, and that didn't mean interpreting them, much less infusing them with her own experience--it meant nailing a commercial sound. Blessed with a surpassingly warm voice even for New Orleans, she took more naturally to the cockeyed optimism Allen Toussaint can't repress than to the darker moods of the early soul songs she tried. But just to be on the safe side she put happy and sad into everything, as on Toussaint's oh so hummable "Take a Look"--which comes out far more serious and sincere, and hence effective, than the wedding-day bliss of its lyric requires. It's her tractability before strong material--better chosen here than on EMI's already deleted 1992 best-of ("Volume 1," ha)--that makes her so winsome. And it was her determination to please that eventually turned her into a blatantly ordinary local institution. Believe me--she was more interesting when she didn't know what she was doing. A-

Rufus Thomas: The Best of Rufus Thomas: Do the Funky Somethin' (Rhino, 1996) Rock's most literal link to minstrelsy ("Walking the Dog," "Do the Funky Penguin [Part I]," "Somebody Stole My Dog"). ***

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments: Bait and Switch (Onion/American, 1995) Formerly leader of the slovenly folk-rockers Great Plains, among whose achievements was the best song ever written about Rutherford B. Hayes, Columbus lifer Ron House demonstrates on this $800 debut album that punk and youth need have nothing to do with each other anymore. First five tracks rush by in a perfect furious tunefest, climaxing with a bar song called "Cheater's Heaven" that's ripe for total rearrangement by anybody in Nashville with some guts left. After that recognition is less instantaneous except on "RnR Hall of Fame," which comes with liner notes to match: "TJSA proudly accept the honor of being indicted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . . . " If indie scenes are so full of wordwise ne'er-do-wells like this, how come they never put it on tape? A-

Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments: Straight to Video (Anyway, 1997) Ron House makes the sex life of an aging punk in an overgrown college town sound active, raunchy, and not without spiritual rewards--in addition to the professional shank shaker and the prostitute with her leg half chewed off, he fucks several women with truly enormous libraries. He also bids an unsentimental farewell to Lester Bangs and complains about the age of the spectacle. A-

Butch Thompson: Yulestride (Daring, 1994) hymns laced with standards and bent quietly into cocktail-piano wassail ("Silent Night," "Jingle Bells") ***

Butch Thompson: Thompson Plays Joplin (Daring, 1998) One reason Scott Joplin's rhythmic revolution comes through so faintly on record is that it was swallowed whole by the tempo of 20th-century life. Though it's true enough, as anyone who's ventured near Treemonisha knows, that Joplin craved respect, that's no reason to forgive all the concert pianists who've arted up and toned down his beat since Joshua Rifkin. With a firm hand, the man from Lake Wobegon sets them straight. His Joplin doesn't rock, swing, or anything like it. But at their most liltingly delicate these rags are set in motion, as he says, by "the same driving pulse that underlies all of America's truly original music." Marvin Hamlisch go back where you came from. A-

Richard Thompson: Rumor and Sigh (Capitol, 1991) From his vintage bike to his veiled belief that Salman Rushdie had it coming, the innate conservatism of this policeman's son is manifest, and at times his prejudices about artistic substance produce meaningful threnodies of no immediate artistic interest. But even the boring stuff goes somewhere, and nobody throws a meaner party. His tales of sex education and old 78s are so cranked up and cranky you wonder how you ever could have thought fun would be easy, and he gets almost as much mileage out of not understanding women as George Jones. Wonder whether George could get through the changes of "I Misunderstood." Or add a little zing to "You Dream Too Much." B+

Richard Thompson: Watching the Dark: The History of Richard Thompson (Hannibal, 1993) "Can't Win"; "Tear Stained Letter"; "Bogie's Bonnie Belle"; "Crash the Party"; "From Galway to Graceland"

Richard Thompson: Mirror Blue (Capitol, 1994) I thought she loved me but she didn't--why does this keep happening? ("Shane and Dixie," "For the Sake of Mary") *

Richard Thompson: You? Me? Us? (Capitol, 1996)

Richard Thompson: Mock Tudor (Capitol, 1999)

Richard Thompson + Danny Thompson: Industry (Rykodisc, 1997) The second Thompson is bassist Danny, the instrumental interludes of whose North of England jazz-march unit Whatever set off Richard's six songs in the manner of Charlie Haden or Kurt Weill--with music that intensifies meaning as well as sustaining mood. The songs themselves, all of which attend closely to the title concept, were researched in dying coal mines and the Karl Marx library, among other places, and let's hope they convince Richard that art is 90 per cent perspiration. It does him a world of good to get out of himself. A-

Teri Thornton: I'll Be Easy to Find (Verve, 1999) A veteran of polio, cancer, incarceration, and cabdriving whose perfect pitch and three-octave range were getting raves when she was in her twenties, Thornton transfigures the showboating artiness that puts pop fans off jazz singers. Since I've lived happily without Sarah Vaughan and Abbey Lincoln, at first I didn't trust my pleasure in the soulful concentration, harmonic subtlety, and deliciously curdled timbre of Thornton's first record since 1963. But from her self-composed blues to her rearranged "Lord's Prayer," her occasional piano to her consistent standards, this woman knows how to serve a song her way. If she's making something of "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "Nature Boy" at this late date, it's only because she's waited a long, long time. A-

Henry Threadgill: Too Much Sugar for a Dime (Axiom, 1993)

Henry Threadgill: Where's Your Cup? (Columbia, 1997)

3Ds: Hellzapoppin (First Warning, 1992) down dirges and squeaky-fast dissonance for the insatiable pomo tunehound ("Helzapoppin," "Outer Space") *

Throw That Beat in the Garbagecan!: Cool (SpinArt EP, 1993) the EP, not The Cool Album, which ain't ("Cool," "Little Red Go-Cart") *

Johnny Thunders: Bootlegging the Bootleggers (Freud, 1990)

Johnny Thunders: Have Faith (Mutiny, 1996) despite nondescript backup and much solo acoustic, his best crappy live tape yet ("Blame It on Mom," "Too Much Junkie Business") *

Tiger: Shining in the Wood (Bar/None, 1997) One young U.K. rave cites "The Stooges, The Ramones, Stereolab, Suicide and The Fall"; a middle-aged friend eavesdrops from the kitchen and asks who that is that sounds like the Beatles. In short, this EP evokes everyone and no one, except maybe pop fans who get just plain excited making songs out of Moogy drones and distaff football choruses and bang-crash drums and fab guitars and everything else they like. Not just ebullient, which is rare enough, but ebulliently anything-goes, without any neoprimitivist/neominimalist guardrails keeping them out of the abyss. Plus the kind of obscurely goofy lyrics that are so irritating in ordinary theoretical pop. Goofy--I love it. B-52's? A

Tiger Trap: Tiger Trap (K, 1993)

Pam Tillis: Homeward Looking Angel (Arista, 1992)

Timbaland: Tim's Bio (Blackground/Atlantic, 1998)

Timbaland and Magoo: Welcome to Our World (Blackstreet/Atlantic, 1997) Tim is as simple and deep as his unsampled bass-beats. In fact, he's so uncompromising about being laid-back that he finds himself charged with no less a responsibility than redefining reality, which in his unorthodox view is benign, within limits: "I got my man Big D./Rodney/In case somebody wanna rob me." Magoo does the Flavor Flav thing, leaving Tim free to keep the self-referential rhymes as clean as they wanna be: "I'm on my last verse/As you can see I did not curse/I wanna make it radio-friendly/So people in America can hear me." He's woman-friendly too--won't call you a ho, just lick on your toes. A-

Timbuk 3: A Hundred Lovers (High Street, 1995)

The Time: Pandemonium (Paisley Park, 1990) not enough concept/too much band ("Skillet," "Chocolate," "Pandemonium") **

Sally Timms: To the Land of Milk and Honey (Feels Good All Over, 1994) "Homburg"; "Junk Barge"

Sally Timms: Cowboy Sally (Bloodshot, 1997) Piecing together an EP that looks (and probably is) every bit as casual as the rest of her solo noncareer, the old Mekon and new kid-TV star surveys fake authenticity at its weedlike best, from John Anderson's comeback-album title song to "Long Black Veil," which may just be the greatest phony folk song of all time--with Nashville punsters, No Depression punters, and "Tennessee Waltz" betwixt and between. Wryer than your professional country thrush. Kinder, too. A-

Sally Timms: Cowboy Sally's Twilight Laments for Lost Buckaroos (Bloodshot, 1999) Alt-country songbook ("Cry Cry Cry," "Rock Me to Sleep"). **

Tin Huey: Disinformation (Future Fossil, 1999) Lost postpunk album, more pop and less art than anyone knew at the time ("Seeing," "Cheap Machines"). *

Tiny Tim: I Love Me (Seeland/Ponk, 1995) "Another Brick in the Wall (Part Two)"

Tiny Tim with Brave Combo: Girl (Rounder, 1996) respect for a lover of popular song ("Stairway to Heaven," "Sly Cigarette," "Fourteen," "Bye Bye Blackbird") ***

Aaron Tippin: Greatest Hits . . . and Then Some (RCA, 1997) as prole as Music Row gets ("Ain't Nothing Wrong With the Radio," "Cold Gray Kentucky Morning") *

TLC: Oooooooohhh . . . On the TLC Tip (Arista, 1992)

TLC: CrazySexyCool (La Face, 1994) Three great songs here: in ascending order, the cheater's whisper "Creep," the sisters' sermon "Waterfalls," and the wet dream's statement of principle "Red Light Special." The filler sustains, the skits are funnysexycool, the male rappers rock. But other wet dreams end badly--a guy would have to be pretty hard up to sustain four minutes interest in "Let's Do It Again"'s vow of lifelong intromission--and the project's caution is summed up by the Prince cover. Really, ladies, the brilliance of "If I Was Your Girlfriend" was that a guy was singing it. B+

TLC: Fan Mail (La Face, 1999) just like you they are lonely too ("Silly Ho," "Unpretty") ***

Tom Tom Club: Dark Sneak Love Action (Sire/Reprise, 1992) "Who Wants an Ugly Girl?"

Tony Toni Toné: The Revival (Wing, 1990) who says a love band can't play funk music? ("Feels Good," "Oakland Stroke") **

Tony Toni Toné: Sons of Soul (Polygram, 1993) sexy liars of the year ("If I Had No Loot," "Anniversary") *

Tony Toni Toné: House of Music (Mercury, 1996) Launched by a hilariously gutsy Al Green hommage that knows the great man's every moue and off-beat, Raphael Saadiq and his henchmen give the r&b revival what for, constructing a generous original style from a varied history they know inside out--Tempts, Sly, Blue Magic, Kurtis Blow. And for almost every sound they provide a sharp song, which is more than Holland-Dozier-Holland and Gamble-Huff could manage when they were compelled to stick to one. Defeating second-half trail-off and a CD-age windiness the band isn't beatwise enough to beat, Saadiq's flexible, sensitive, slightly nasal tenor, spelled by the grain of D'Wayne Wiggins's workaday baritone, recasts the tradition in its image. Wasn't sampling supposed to strangle this sort of virtuosity at the root? A

Tony Toni Toné: Hits (Mercury, 1997) In the tradition of the Everlys and the Alvins, the Wiggins brothers can't stand each other anymore. So this may be it for them, which is too bad, because only with House of Music did they become true sons of the soul revival, the most accomplished r&b act of the '90s. That's still the album to remember them by. This one merely creates the illusion that they always had it in them to match easy pop funk like "Feels Good" and "Little Walter" with come-ons like the opportunistic "Thinking of You" and the steadfast--a whole year, gosh--"Anniversary." A-

Tool: Aenima (Zoo, 1996)

Too Much Joy: Cereal Killers (Giant, 1991) After a year of sleeping on floors, stealing wives, and expressing solidarity with 2 Live Crew, their music is thicker, tougher, hookier, sometimes even a tad overproduced. And their lyrics are still what it's there for. So smart they have dumb people sniffing about the Dead Milkmen, they have their moments of empathy, social responsibility, self-knowledge, and so forth. But as a sucker for a cheap laugh, I prefer "King of Beers" ("na na na na na na sorrow") and "Long Haired Guys from England" ("i bet in london i could get a date/'cause i'm a short haired guy from the united states"). Both of which are longer on self-knowledge than most dumb people I meet. A-

Too Much Joy: Mutiny (Giant, 1992)

David Toop: Screen Ceremonies (Wire, 1995) music for a postmodern sex ritual ("The Psychic," "The Darkened Room") *

David Toop: Pink Noir (Virgin, 1996) "improvisation" goes trad ambient--usually with a pulse, which usually makes all the difference ("Mixed Blood," "Slow Loris Versus Poison Snail") *

Too Short: Short Dog's in the House (Jive, 1990) "The Ghetto"

Too Short: Shorty the Pimp (Jive, 1992) In his fourth book, Iceberg Slim--who invented Short Dog's schtick as surely as Dr. Funkenstein--boasted about escaping "the terrible emptiness of the pimp game." He considered old pimps "contemptible," "pathetic." On his seventh album, Too Short boasts that he's "a player for life." Who you believe? C+

Too Short: Get In Where You Fit In (Jive, 1993)

Toots and the Maytals: Time Tough: The Anthology (Island, 1996) This rocksteady diehard's 1968 "Do the Reggay" named a groove he was too constitutionally uptempo ever to get into; this unspoiled journeyman's soul affinities endeared him to hippie diehards and failed to touch young African Americans, who by the mid-'70s figured the soul that was passe when it came from the South must be pure shuck-and-jive if it came from the islands. So eager to please that only 1988's patently nostalgic Toots in Memphis ever showed the courage of his conceptions, he was also too songful ever to come up dry. I can think of things I miss, such as the heartily discomfiting "Famine." But this is the testament of Otis Redding's love child. His eagerness is a natural force. And his pleasures abide. A-

The Tories: Wonderful Life (N2K, 1997)

Liz Torres: The Queen Is in the House (Jive, 1990) house as in disco, house as in a home ("Loca," "Payback Is a Bitch [What Goes Around Comes Around]") *

Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die (Thrill Jockey, 1996) Obviously not stupid, which I can understand means a lot to them after their troubled childhoods, these guys are the class of the American post-rock cough cough hack hack movement ptooey ptooey. But I would direct their attention to the British band Mark-Almond, a now forgotten jamming unit that achieved real sales and a measure of hip around the time they were born. Not that I necessarily think these "eclectic," consciously unspacy, all too unhurried soundscape improvisations are destined for the same degree of obscurity. Patterns of culture have changed, and in a boutique economy, this shit, like all other shit, is probably here to stay. Still, there are surer roads to posterity. Best moment: the lead bassline, lifted directly from "Poptones" (by PiL, kids). B-

Tortoise: TNT (Thrill Jockey, 1998)

Peter Tosh: Scrolls of the Prophet: The Best of Peter Tosh (Columbia/Legacy, 1999) Tosh's prime was over long before he was murdered in 1987, probably for being the stoned, arrogant gadfly-cum-crank he turned into. By cherry-picking his 1976 and 1977 Columbia albums, culling two Rolling Stones keepers, adding three worthy oddments, and preserving EMI's 1981 "Fools Die" just in case anybody thinks I'm kidding about far downhill he slid, this showcases the Wailers' only born propagandist. You love Bob Marley, I love Bob Marley, but he didn't venture social statements as hard-hitting, verbally or musically, as "Equal Rights" or "Legalize It." Righteous militance rarely wears well. That Tosh could have done this much with it is worth writing down. A-

Total: Kima, Keisha and Pam (Bad Boy, 1998) bad girls ("Do Something," "There Will Be No #!*@ Tonight") *

Ali Farka Touré: The River (World Circuit, 1990) As a self-taught guitarist who's rarely reviewed without reference to John Lee Hooker, Toure is conflicted about Afro-American music--does he owe it or does it owe him? And although he always displays the guitar style that occasions the comparison (which I'm betting is part influence, part tradition, and part invention), his recordings drift into the folkloric. So it's a relief that unlike Mango's Ali Farka Toure or Shanachie's African Blues, this one means to cross over a bit. Not only does it make room for a second human being (Amadou Cisse on calabash, the percussion device that Toure overdubs on his Mango release), but tracks colored with harmonica, saxophone, fiddle and bodhran, and the single-stringed njarka that Toure picks up for the finale--not to mention an extra edge of vocal command. I don't know what Malians will think. But I say the result is variety, not compromise. And I say it's what he's always needed. A-

Ali Farka Touré: The Source (World Circuit, 1992) in a ruminative mood, with a band cogitating in ("Goye Kur," "Dofana") **

Ali Farka Touré: Niafunké (Hannibal, 1999) In Mali a little goes a long way, so after his harrowing experience with Ry Cooder's sense of rhythm the artfully primeval guitarist-vocalist took his modest winnings back to the well-named title village, where he devoted himself to making green things grow. Finally, after five years, he surrounds himself entirely with homeboys and reemerges with a record "full of important messages for Africans." Over here he doesn't "expect people to understand," and of course we don't. But when it comes to evoking a sun-baked place where a little goes a long way, you couldn't beat these hymns, homilies, wedding songs, dance tunes, and we-are-what-we-are apostrophes with a trap set. A-

Ali Farka Touré: Radio Mali (World Circuit/Nonesuch, 1999)

Ali Farka Touré with Ry Cooder: Talking Timbuktu (Hannibal, 1994)

Sidi Touré: Hoga (Sterns Africa, 1996) Adept of the trance-prone voodoo called "holley," inventor of a trad-to-the-future band music where guitars vie wildly with calabashes over a swirling drone of African viol, this Songhai, whose day job is with Mali's big official Bambara band, is not to be confused with fellow Songhai Ali Farka Touré. He's weirder, and more active. It's a Gao thing, you wouldn't understand--until you listen, once. A-

Allen Toussaint: Connected (NYNO, 1996) "Computer Lady"

Pete Townshend: Psychoderelict (Atlantic, 1993)

Pete Townshend: Psychoderelict (Music Only) (Atlantic, 1993) Shorn of the voice-overs and bad dialogue designed to make the "dramatic" version as explicit as multileveled self-referentiality can be, what I'd dreamed might be his sparest, strongest, sweetest set of songs in years turns out to have needed all the camouflage it could get. It's long been evident that what turned Tornshend on about pop art was the art rather than the pop--he didn't want to drag opera down to rock's level, he wanted to raise rock to opera's. In practice, this means he has a fatal weakness for long synth intros. After the jagged surprises of the lead "English Boy," there are far fewer intelligent moments than a guy this intelligent out to keep in his back pocket. If he's so damn worried about the postinformation age, it's because he's in the information business and is afread of getting left behind. And he damn well should be. C+

T.P O.K Jazz: Somo! (TMS, 1990) With the leader already too near death to fulfill his commitments, I checked out Franco's band sans Franco a few years ago, and while it wasn't as transcendent as Franco's band avec Franco, which I'd been lucky enough to catch a few years before that, I could barely drag myself away at 2:45 from a set that began around midnight. Honoring the gentle rumbas of the storied past, this seven-track, 55-minute feast doesn't peak like live or get hype like modern. But at its malest it's sweet, so sweet. A-

Track Star: Communication Breaks (Die Young Stay Pretty, 1998)

Traffic: Far From Home (Virgin, 1994) Leave those silly Rolling Stones be, children--you're an old-fart virgin until you've done the deed with this slab of eternal life, created in a mere eight months by two well-heeled boys farting around the Irish countryside. Jim Capaldi's drums are mixed like a tribute to the disco of yesteryear, but Stevie, I mean Steve, enters the CD age on his own terms--where ordinary old farts jack their releases up to an hour by unloading 14 or 15 songs, he stops at 10. Title tune takes a full two-and-a-half minutes of overdubbed overture to get to the lyric. Which begins . . . oh, you don't want to know. C-

Trailer Bride: Smelling Salts (Bloodshot, 1998) "Quit That Jealousy"

Trailer Bride: Whine de Lune (Bloodshot, 1999) Melissa Swingle's "got two long arms, and they're as strong as they are thin," but the boxcars are locked. So if you don't let her work on the railroad she may just lay down on the tracks. Cursing snakes, crashing windshields, poking around for a minor chord, that's her way--depressed but determined, with just enough guitar, banjo, and mandolin to make something of it. Slack-jawed mountain dolor in the age of Valium--a hyperconsciously eerie tour de force. A-

Tranquility Bass: Let the Freak Flag Fly (Astralwerks, 1997) "La La La"

Transvision Vamp: Little Magnets Versus the Bubble of Babble (MCA, 1991) "Down on My Knees Again"

Boubacar Traoré: Mariama (Sterns Africa, 1990) Guitar and vocals from a Malian (and Parisian) schoolteacher turned singer-songwriter, who declaims like Ali Farka Touré (only Traoré's lovingly preserved Khassonke guitar has no Hook in it) or the Baaba Maal of Djam Leelii (and he accompanies himself). Pealing forth his precepts and laments with a resonant gravity rendered doubly mesmeric by the quiet, implacable instrumentation, Traoré brings me up short every time. If he says everything comes in its own time, then by gum I believe him. And will leave Maal's nice new Baayo to the specialists. A-

Lobi Traoré: Segou (Cobalt, 1996) Like his benefactor and cameo sideman Ali Farka Touré, Traoré is a Malian John Lee Hooker fan. Only he's faster and tighter. And he works with three drummers all the time. And he lets in several second guitarists, none of them Ry Cooder. And although I don't find them in the credits, I swear there are birds backing him on one cut. Supposedly he has something to do with the blues. I hear Wassoulou circle games myself. A-

Lobi Traoré: Duga (Cobalt, 1999) Mali's eternal round, described with the help of French blues harmonica ("Sogow," "Wolodennu," "Lala"). *

Traveling Wilburys: Volume 3 (Wilbury/Warner Bros., 1990) A genre piece without a genre, this plays down the masquerade--Tom Petty's superstar equipment-storage problems coexist naturally with toxic golfers, blood-yellow skies, uppity wimmin, elusive wimmin, greedy wimmin, and of course beautiful wimmin. From the gal who's "got a body for business, got a head for sin" to riffs that date to when they were pups, it shows off just enough of the colloquial command of the old masters they hype themselves as. Inspirational Verse: "Lift your other foot up/Fall on your ass/Get back up/Put your teeth in a glass." B+

Merle Travis: The Best of Merle Travis (Rhino, 1990) The Kentucky emigre fronted a California band like no other--Western swing gone honky tonk, with trumpet and accordion--and showed Chet Atkins and Scotty Moore how to play guitar. Which is fine for aesthetes--me, I listen to country music for singers and songs, in this case songs. Writing for money, Travis was a man of his class in the homeless "No Vacancy," the now-traditional "Dark as a Dungeon," From Here to Eternity's "Re-Enlistment Blues," and, oh yeah, "Sixteen Tons." He was a man of his gender in the endlessly clever "So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed," "I Like My Chicken Fryin' Size," and on and on. And he was a font of Inspirational Verse. Try "Cincinnati Lou" ("She's got a way of rollin' them eyes/Makes me think of paradise/And I don't mean heaven just a plain old pair o' dice") or "Fat Gal" ("Warm in the winter, shady in the summertime," and also "If things get rough and times get hard/I'll render my gal and sell the lard") or "Lawdy, What a Gal" ("You keep your eyes wide open/Every time I'm kissin' you/The reason that I know you do/Is I keep them open too"). Try just about anything. A

Randy Travis: Heroes and Friends (Warner Bros., 1990)

Randy Travis: High Lonesome (Warner Bros., 1991) "Better Class of Loser"

Randy Travis: Greatest Hits, Volume One (Warner Bros., 1992) The consumer fraud does his rep an injustice: put all 22 tracks from his two separately sold best-ofs on one CD, where they belong, and there'd be no doubting who's the preeminent country singer of our era. As laid-back as Lefty or Merle with more voice than either, he reaches down to muse in a bass every bit as conversational as the high baritone he beseeches with, and his hits never force an emotion or waste a word. He's a homebody rather than a honky tonker, and he flirts with genre exercise--Lefty didn't need to explain, "I come from the country," or peddle an antialienation homily like "Heroes and Friends." Nevertheless, his style is so consistent that the jumbled chronology will be inaudible to listeners who didn't date their lives by these songs. Not only will it convince you that the genre is his life, but that it has something to do with yours. A

Randy Travis: Greatest Hits, Volume Two (Warner Bros., 1992) One sign of how seriously Travis took his commercially chancy separate-disc best-of ploy is that he didn't stint with the bait cuts. Rather than bringing the collection down the way they usually do, four of the five previously unreleased songs on the two records are as classic and made-to-order as his style itself. Note, however, that on this less consistent volume the new ones are highlights. And that new title number five is the Travis-penned greeting card that brings the package to a close--and down. A-

Randy Travis: Wind in the Wire (Warner Bros., 1993)

Randy Travis: This Is Me (Warner Bros., 1994) give him decent material and let the poor guy be ("Small Y'All," "Gonna Walk That Line") *

The Treacherous Three: Old School Flava (Wrap/Easylee, 1993) Their would-be comeback has the inconvenient and probably fatal peculiarity of gathering strength as it goes along. Cassette buyers should fast-forward to side two, which excites from "Ain't Nothin' Changed"'s hype beat to "Feel the New Heartbeat"'s eternal hook. And cultural nationalists should ponder "A True Story," in which ordinary show violence is made to seem both memorable and contemptible. Sure somethin's changed, and they know what it is. But they refuse to let it suck them in. B+

A Tribe Called Quest: People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (Jive, 1990) Not Afrocentric enough to hear this indubitably progressive pastiche as a groove album, I cut-by-cutted it, and I'm glad I did. Though most of the second "side" remains subtler than is by any means necessary, it has more good songs on it than any neutral observer will believe without trying: the Afrogallic "Luck of Lucien," the slumming "After Hours," the cholesterol-conscious "Ham 'n' Eggs," the lustful "Bonita Appleburn," the safe-sex "Pubic Enemy." Which latter, let me cavil, adheres to the rap convention by sticking to gonorrhea, thus rendering AIDS Other-by-omission once again. Onward. B+

A Tribe Called Quest: The Low End Theory (Jive, 1991) dope jazzbeats and goofball rhymes from the well-meaning middle class ("Check the Rhime," "Buggin' Out") ***

A Tribe Called Quest: Midnight Marauders (Jive, 1993) Like so many "beats," Low End Theory's Ron Carter bass was really a glorified sound effect--what excited its admirers wasn't its thrust, or even the thrill of the sound itself, so much as the classiness it signified. Kicking off with a disembodied computer voice promising "presentation precise, bass-heavy, and just right," this follow-up makes that bass rock the house, literally, and never contents itself with concept. Right, they "kick more game than a crackhead from Hempstead." But rather than "kick a rhyme over ill drumrolls," as I don't doubt they can, they construct horn hooks I love better than I understand. A-

A Tribe Called Quest: Beats, Rhymes and Life (Jive, 1996) fighting sensationalist obscurity with philosophic subtlety, which I wish could work ("Jam," "Crew," "The Hop") ***

A Tribe Called Quest: The Love Movement (Jive, 1998) "Rock Rock Y'All"

A Tribe Called Quest: The Anthology (Jive, 1999) "They provided the soundtrack for your life," annotator Selwyn Seyfu Hinds reminds the collegiate hip hoppers for whom Quest was the great crew of the '90s, politely failing to mention that for just that reason they don't need this record except to reconceive a catalogue they know by heart. But then there's the rest of us, for whom they've always been background music two ways--as the atmospheric stuff so many hip hoppers make of jazz and as the soundtrack to someone else's life. For us, these nonstop highlights are a godsend. Quest's swinging conversation unifies a sequence subtler and more musical than strict chronology would allow--the way two horny debut cuts poke in toward the end, say. Having added jazz bass to funky drum programmers to quiet flow to hooks-to-go to matter-of-fact realism-not-"reality," they convince our viscera what our brains allowed--that Quest was a great band. So if they want Roy Ayers, they can have him too. A

Tribe 8: By the Time We Get to Colorado (Outpunk, 1993)

Tribe 8: Fist City (Alternative Tentacles, 1995) lay back and trust the band, gal--also your own lyrics ("Freedom," "Barnyard Poontang") *

Tribe 8: Snarkism (Alternative Tentacles, 1996)

Tricky: Maxinquaye (Island, 1995) From Soul II Soul to Massive Attack to Tricky is a straight line leading straight down to a bad place you should take a chance and visit. Depressive, constricted, phantasmagoric, industrial, yet warmly beatwise and swathed in a gauzy glow that promises untold creature comforts, these are the audioramas of someone who's signed on to work for the wages of sin and lived to cash the check. Determinedly Lo-NRG, he's a sad sack with attitude, a complicated malcontent whose cynicism can't quash his capacity for euphoria or rebellion. And though he long ago saw through the willed optimism of black-Brit dance music, he's here to tell you that a dystopia with Martine singing in it has some serious rewards. A+

Tricky: Pre-Millennium Tension (Island, 1996) Far from an anomaly, "Tricky Kid" is definitive here, exploiting two moderately odious cliches--the woes of stardom and I'm-Tricky-and-you're-not--as if they're OK because he's Tricky and you're not. Rubbing our face in shit is his specialty, after all, and since everything else depresses him, why shouldn't that extend to his own success and his own arrogance? Whether you go along depends on how compelling you find his decon job on a hip hop soundscape that's discernibly rawer and starker here than on Maxinquaye. I say his music comprehends and inhabits the dystopia of everyday life more radically than Wu-Tang could conceive. And acknowledge that on this evidence, his trick requires Martine and can't work forever. A-

Tricky: Angels With Dirty Faces (Island, 1998) "Mellow" might have been recorded in a shipyard--augmenting Jack Hersca's nagging if fetching guitar and Gene Lake's steady if seething drums is a rhythm element that suggests a boat whistle heard across a moonless harbor. Next track the artist makes his pop bid with a catchy femme-chorus refrain and a guest star: Polly Jean Harvey, what a draw! For another three songs, a decent level of musical amenity is maintained: Martina's crooning tale of woe underpinned by low-register guitar/keyb riffs of unspecified origin and Calvin Weston's free drumming, three-note distorto hook beneath Tricky's speed-mumble, xylophonish tinkle countered by a keyb belch like an engine that won't catch. Thereafter the residues of grimy technologies settle into permanent low-level disorder: foghorns lowing, brakes complaining, clocks sounding across windswept nights, locomotives struggling uphill. He's a hater not a fighter, and the devil is in his details. So give that man a set of horns--he's earned them. A-

Tricky With DJ Muggs and Grease: Juxtapose (Island, 1999) As always with Tricky, the right idea for pop isn't necessarily just right for him. Beats, of course; songs, sure; a band, who could say no? And right, individual tracks connect pretty good--hot lesbian porn, you devil you. Yet though his soundscapes be obscure and forbidding, they're what he's great at; his rap affinities and rock dreams are off the point, especially in the studio. So the best thing about these shapely selections is that they remain obscure and forbidding as they stand up and announce themselves. Second-best is their scorn for criminal pretensions, always a boon from a borderline nihilist. A-

Travis Tritt: A Travis Tritt Christmas: Loving Time of the Year (Warner Bros., 1992) "`Free Bird'!" ("Silver Bells") *

Travis Tritt: T-R-O-U-B-L-E (Warner Bros., 1992)

Trotsky Icepick: The Ultraviolet Catastrophe (SST, 1991) "Venus de Milo"

Tru: Tru 2 da Game (No Limit, 1997)

The Derek Trucks Band: The Derek Trucks Band (Landslide, 1997)

The Derek Trucks Band: Out of the Madness (House of Blues, 1998) Kid can play--also think ("Preachin' Blues," "Young Funk"). **

John Trudell: AKA Grafitti Man (Rykodisc, 1992) Stubbornly utopian in the face of continuing defeat, hip to the way idealism succumbs to neurosis, his remixed compilation is a counterculture throwback that never seems dated. The settings, sharp studio-rock readymades keyed to the very '60s guitar of the late Jesse Ed Davis and spiced occasionally by Native American chants or drumbeats, can get you going, and Trudell takes them as his due. Making no attempt to sing, he bounces his recitations off their backboard like a beatnik discovering poetry-with-jazz, his timing and inflection devoid of hesitation or bad faith even though Kris Kristofferson's laconically off-key backup sounds harmonically sophisticated by comparison. It's as if nothing of musical moment has happened since Highway 61 Revisited. A-

John Trudell: Johnny Damas and Me (Rykodisc, 1994)

Jennifer Trynin: Cockamamie (Squint/Warner Bros., 1994)

Tsinjaka: Tsinjaka (Rogue, 1992)

Ernest Tubb: Country Music Hall of Fame Series (MCA, 1992) Snotnoses who think Hank and Lefty make them country fans won't believe how slow, flat, and sentimental the first honky tonker was. And though except for one hymn these 16 selections were all hits, there are livelier and more poetic possibilities that might help dilettantes comprehend his primal unflappability. Then again, so would a quick listen to Red Foley, who wasn't Pat Boone's father-in-law for nothing. Every genre needs an acid test. You may never be the same. A-

Tubuai Choir: Polynesian Odyssey (Shanachie, 1993)

Moe Tucker: I Spent a Week There the Other Night (Sky, 1994) Tucker's genius as the found drummer in the greatest of all bohemian bands was knowing the shortest distance between two points, and she maintained the knack as a divorced mother of five who couldn't make ends meet working for a Wal-Mart in Douglas, Georgia. It's rare enough for any artist to give this American archetype its due; when the archetype turns artist, it's a gift from the pop muse. Backed by a claque that includes John Cale and two Violent Femmes on these 1991 sessions, the self-taught rhythm guitarist lays down a crude, almost skeletal rock and roll that never suggests anything so highfalutin as minimalism and says what she has to say about poverty, sloth, shyness, and the idiocy of provincial life. There's also a love song to a daughter who has trouble loving back. And an "I'm Waiting for the Man" that's pure found minimalism. A-

Moe Tucker: Dogs Under Stress (Sky, 1994) saying less with more ("I Wanna," "Crackin Up") *

Tanya Tucker: Super Hits (Columbia, 1998) Adding "Greener Than the Grass (We Laid On)" to the kiddie-porn Greatest Hits, a boon; replacing the rape-Gothic "No Man's Land" with "You Are So Beautiful," an obscenity ("Would You Lay With Me [in a Field of Stone]," "The Man That Turned My Mama On"). ***

Big Joe Turner: Joe Turner's Blues (Topaz, 1998) Even by Kansas City standards, Turner was pretty primal. The aspiring urbanity of Jimmy Rushing and Jimmy Witherspoon didn't suit him--he's a whale out of water in the big-band settings his Rhino triple is forever upgrading to. Here he hollers and moans over boogie-woogie piano--especially Pete Johnson, but also, and differently, Meade Lux Lewis, Willie "The Lion" Smith, Albert Ammons, even Art Tatum--and combos playing de facto jump blues. Broke as the Ten Commandments or taking jockey lessons because he ain't no monkey man, he's a country bluesman with a jazzman's phrasing and a bad mother fuyer's certainty of his own endangered prerogatives. A-

Big Joe Turner: The Very Best of Big Joe Turner (Rhino, 1998) Atlantic was the site of Turner's "dumbing down," saith Jim "James" Miller, by which he means it's where the noble shouter streamlined, speeded up, and otherwise refused to act his age. The sound on this strictly hit-bound single-disc is one Turner devised himself in self-produced New Orleans sessions featuring a band-not-combo whose single-minded unison will pass for first r&b and then rock and roll. It's perfected with "Shake, Rattle and Roll," cut in New York with Atlantic sharpsters including drummer Connie Kay, whose sock means even more to the song than the sun shining through Jesse Stone's lyric. Until the niche marketers catch up with him, this fat (fat) 43-year-old is set to flip, flop, and fly all over America's teenaged heart. A

Ike Turner: I Like Ike! The Best of Ike Turner (Rhino, 1994) Hardly the last major rock and roller to brutalize women, Turner gets short-changed by history partly because his best-known victim was so major herself and partly because his specialty was collaboration. Sadly, Rhino's licensing whizzes failed to secure his Federal sides, depriving us of both his rawest singer--Billy Gayles, the real Screamin' Jay Hawkins--and his most primordial guitar. And leaving a lean, mean bandleader whose ear for the permanent novelty only began with "Rocket `88'"--as did everything else. A-

Ike & Tina Turner: Proud Mary--The Best of Ike and Tina Turner (Sue, 1991) Seven early-'60s hits, two or three of them classic, constitute their authentic stage. Then there's a hiatus when they record for at least four other labels (cf. Tomato's typically patchy Great Rhythm & Blues Sessions quote unquote). Then there are Beatles, Stones, and Sly covers, followed by Eki Renrut's "Workin' Together," followed by the Creedence cover that breaks them pop. After which they return to authenticity at a higher (that is, less authentic) level of consciousness, like "Funkier Than a Mosquita's Tweeter" and their second-biggest pop record, "Nutbush City Limits," which reached number 22. Excellent stuff in general, don't get me wrong. But legendary? This woman really knew how to show off her legs. A-

Tina Turner: Simply the Best (Capitol, 1991) With its hyperstylized soul and dominatrix shtick, Tina's pop-queen phase is recommended to Madonna fans who fancy a more serious grade of schlock. Except on straight love songs, which are rare, her production values will titillate your sensorium even if you're not in the mood--the dream hooker of Mark Knopfler's sexist fantasies come "true." A-

Tina Turner: What's Love Got to Do With It (Virgin, 1993) This respects literal chronology even less than the movie, which has her doing "Proud Mary" before Creedence released it. But there's a logic to the willy-nilly segues--in which, for instance, two glossily intelligent new products of her pop-diva phase, the thematic "I Don't Wanna Fight" and the pneumatic "Why Must We Wait Until Tonight?," flank B.B. King's 1964 "Rock Me Baby" and the Trammps' 1978 "Disco Inferno," neither of which has ever had her name on it before. In essence, she's reenacting her career as timeless myth, submitting every brilliant exploit and humiliating compromise to the unmatched lust and lustre of her 54-year-old pipes. She's never sounded more beautiful or more alive. Or more enigmatic--it's as impossible as ever to glimpse what she might be like in "real life," or even to pin down an artistic appeal that at this point seems to inhere in the raw fact of her survival. As for the sex, it's more abstract and calculated than ever. And right--love has nothing to do with it. A-

Tina Turner: Wildest Dreams (Virgin, 1996)

Tuscadero: Step into My Wiggle Room (Teenbeat, 1995)

Tuscadero: The Pink Album (Elektra/Teenbeat, 1996) they want you to know they were gurls, leaving the grrrl question open ("Latex Dominatrix," "Dime-a-Dozen") ***

Tuscadero: My Way or the Highway (Elektra, 1998) songcraft as end-in-itself for as long as this contract shall remain in effect ("Not My Johnny," "Queen for a Day") *

Shania Twain: Shania Twain (Mercury, 1993) "God Ain't Gonna Getcha for That"

Shania Twain: The Woman in Me (Mercury, 1995) New Nashville's sexually liberated woman--proud, hot, and, especially, male-identified ("[If You're Not in It for Love] I'm Outta Here!" "Home Ain't Where His Heart Is [Anymore]") *

Shania Twain: Come on Over (Mercury, 1997) Aside from its quota of musical sound effects, Twain's latest incarnation obviously has nothing to do with country. Setting out into the vast unexplored territory separating Garth from Madonna, she and husband-producer-cowriter Mutt Lange glance over at Gwen Stefani and take a few tips from Lange's old charges the Cars before arriving at a new pop formula that's all flirtatious ebullience and lively hooks. And miraculously, this discovery proves more exhilarating than a barrel of orgasms--the happy kind, none of your soul-shaking groaners. Not while this incarnation has juice, anyway. A-

22-Pistepirkko: Bare Bone Nest (Spirit, 1990) they have garages in Finland--speak English sometimes too ("Don't Play Cello") *

Twinz: Conversation (Def Jam/RAL, 1995)

2 Black 2 Strong: Burn Baby Burn (In Effect/Clappers EP, 1990) refuse and resist and revolt ("Burn Baby Burn") ***

2 Black 2 Strong: Doin' Hard Time on Planet Earth (Relativity/Clappers, 1991) Hard, harder, hardest--fuck America, fuck daisy age, fuck you. The music of this Harlem crew is loud beats anchored to spare guitar, the hip hop obverse of death metal if death metal didn't always strain for drama. In between the bleakest, strongest crack track ever and realest, losingest prison track this side of the Lifers Group comes the autobiography of some Nino Brown or other, only the last we see of him he's still counting his money; fuck Bensonhurst, he says, but that doesn't stop him from enslaving his own people, and the rappers append no warning, no moral. Without reveling in brutality for its own sake, they state the amoral facts as they understand them--or misunderstand them, if it makes any difference. B+

Two Kings and a Cipher: From Pyramids to Projects (Bahia, 1991) old-school beats, Egyptian mythology, looney tunes ("Daffy Wuz a Black Man") *

The 2 Live Crew: Banned in the U.S.A. (Luke/Atlantic, 1990)

Two Nice Girls: Like a Version (Rough Trade, 1990) I'm pleased to report that Karen Carpenter, Kim Gordon, Donna Summer, and--who's this?--Paul Rodgers provide fit company for the rowdy dyke anthem that threatens to swallow every other song they ever write. I'm impressed that I have no idea where the other two covers come from. I'm disappointed that I don't much care. B+

Two Nice Girls: Chloe Liked Olivia (Rough Trade, 1991) "The Queer Song"; "Princess of Power"

2Pac: Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. (Interscope, 1991) "Keep Ya Head Up"

2Pac: Me Against the World (Interscope, 1995) Tough-guy sentimentality is an old story in American culture, but self-pity this rank is usually reserved for teen romances and tales of brave avant-gardists callously rejected by the mass media. His I-love-Mom rings true because Mom was no saint, and his respect for old G's seems genuine, probably because they told him how smart he was. But whether the metaphor be dead homies or suicide threat, the subtext of his persecution complex is his self-regard. What's doubly galling is that these are essential hip hop themes--as Ice Cube and B.I.G. have made all too vivid, it is persecution that induces young black men to kill each other and themselves. That such themes should rise to the top of the charts with this witless exponent of famous-for-being-famous is why pop fans decry the mass media. C+

2Pac: Greatest Hits (Death Row/Interscope, 1998) or anyway, greatest myths ("God Bless the Dead," "Keep ya Head Up") *

McCoy Tyner: 44th Street Suite (Red Baron, 1992) Coltrane's soulmate plus Murray plus Blythe ("Bessie's Blues") ***

Type O Negative: Slow, Deep and Hard (Road Runner, 1991) "Unsuccessfully Coping with the Natural Beauty of Infidelity"

Type O Negative: World Coming Down (RoadRunner, 1999) "Day Tripper (Medley)"

T: Compilations

A Taste of the Indestructible Beat of Soweto (Earthworks, 1994) Knowing it would be a waste to raid the seminal mbaqanga compilation of the title, which is why his market niche might buy this one (and also why he has a market niche to begin with), Trevor Herman aims to match it out of the half dozen or so less perfect ones that followed. This is self-actualized and public-spirited, and damned if he doesn't come reasonably close. Steve Kekana and the Soul Brothers sweeten the mix, the Tiyimeleni Young Sisters show the Mahotella Queens how Shangaan women call their lover boy, and Mzwakhe Mbuli has the last word. A

Technosonic Volume 3 (Sonic, 1993) Only maniacs and ecstatics track techno subgenres, but since this comp is subtitled "A Journey Into Trance," figure it's in "ambient" territory--that is, "boring." It's from Antler Subway Records in Belgium, a famous label for what that's worth, and the reason it isn't "boring" is that this trance seems designed to bring blood to the erectile tissues: "Drive My Body," "Sensual Motion," "Just Can't Get Enough," done mostly with rhythm and texture rather than the porny spoken-word come-ons so fashionable in the Brussels we've come to know. With a little poetic license you could call the first half the build to a relaxed orgasm. Relaxed by techno standards, anyway--in real-time measure, only maniacs and ecstatics fuck this fast for more than 30 seconds. The rest is more traditionally trancelike, with occasional forays into afterplay. Brian Eno could do a lot worse, and has. A-

Telephone Lobi/Telephone Love (Original Music, 1995) medium-statured persons of Ghanaian danceband highlife (Red Spots, "Oya Kae Me"; Professional Beach Melodians "Uhuru No. 2," "Akwantu") ***

The Power of the Trinity: Great Moments in Reggae Harmony (Shanachie, 1997) Dancehall having relegated all classic reggae beyond Marley and the early dubmasters to the realm of specialist arcana, a concept that might have seemed obvious a decade ago now comes as essential pedagogy. Culture's Joseph Hill aside, not one of the leaders here commands a drop-dead voice, but whether they make themselves felt like the Itals' Keith Porter or remain as obscure as Israel Vibration's Skelly Spence, all find strength in unity. Nowhere else will you encounter the tragic intensity of the best of these tunes--and beyond Culture, whose Two Sevens Clash is an essential piece of popular music, the Wailing Souls' "War," the Mighty Diamonds' "Right Time," and the Congos' "Row Fisherman" are touchstones. The devotional aura is without parallel even in gospel or mbaqanga, both of which are far more upful, as Jamaicans used to say. It's the sound of conscious alienation, a pervasive longing for the motherland accessible to anybody who longs for anything--justice, or the chance to say goodbye one more time. A-

This Is Ska! (Music Club, 1997) Ska compilations are a puzzlement--once you get the ramshackle groove, the supply of likable stuff you'd never heard expands toward infinity as the roll call of undeniable classics remains as brief as ever. Island instigated the confusion with Intensified! and More Intensified! two decades ago, and finally solved it with the first volume of the four-CD reggae overview Tougher Than Tough. But this $10, 16-track, 44-minute alternative also strikes just the right mix of funky popsters (two Desmond Dekkers, one Jimmy Cliff) and loose-limbed groovemasters (their pace set by the Skatalites' "Guns of Navarone"). Prime MIAs: the unrepresented Prince Buster's "Al Capone" and Roland Alphonso's "Solomon Gundie," the latter available on Island's semiobscurantist new Ska's the Limit, which does unearth the archetypally out-of-tune sax solo of Lord Creator's "Independent Jamaica." Then there's Music Club's This Is Ska Too!, specializing (it says) in third-wave cover faves. Skank on. A

Tokyo Invasion, Volume I: Cosmic Kurushi Monsters (Virgin, 1996) Not counting the Boredoms, who have finally cracked the carapace of my utter disinterest, my knowledge of the 22 Japanese bands on this uproariously thrilling two-CD import is confined to the track listings. Disc two is too arty for anybody this side of the Boredoms, who in context sound weirdly middle-of-the-road and seriously funny, and yet the quiet stuff grew on me. "Martzmer" is almost pretty until the guitar kicks in at around 5:00, and on "Blood Stained Blossoms" even the guitar is pretty. But those are exceptions on a showcase for more ugly guitar than sane people think they want to hear--plus yelling and ranting and crooning and torture, funk song and distorto-metal and funeral march and noise experiments and riffs ad infinitum. Where other comps annoy by jumping from artist to artist, here the bands are so hard to take that each change comes as a relief--which instantly plunges the listener into yet another maelstrom of sensationalism. These carefully selected doses are probably all of this 'orrible stuff us rock and roll normals need. But need it we do. My thanks to Tony Herrington of The Wire for doing the dirty work. A-

Tom's Album (A&M, 1991) DNA Featuring Suzanne Vega: "Tom's Diner"

Totally Hits (Arista, 1999) Of course it cheats--every compilation cheats. Inferior Sugar Ray, Monica, and Madonna, ringer from the hapless Five, awful hit from the imitable Sarah McLachlan. But given its BMG-WEA limitations, this is premier radio fodder. It rescues Cher and LFO from their meaningless albums as it repackages ace Whitney Houston and Deborah Cox remixes, and from "No Scrubs" to "Bawitdaba" it establishes a flow that sets off "Smooth" and "Ray of Light" and the formerly execrable "(God Must Have Spent) A Little More Time on You" as the touchstones they are. The mood is hiply happy and humane--the exceptions, a would-be suicide and some heavy yearning, mean only to prove that this is the real world, troubling at times but always manageable. The stylistic signature is keyb/electric guitar as acoustic guitar, rippling its quiet riffs over the intricate rhythms of a body at peace with itself. As composition, I find it as convincing, if not as elegant or organic, as Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians or Franco & Rochereau's Omona Wapi. Note, however, that the only energy rushes come from Cher's Eurodisco and the show-topping Kid Rock, who's also the only true rapper here. It's a relief to know Arista needs him to put its lovely lies over the top. A-

Tougher Than Tough: The Story of Jamaican Music (Mango, 1993) Only residents and aficionados have heard half the 95 songs on this four-CD set, and I'm not going to tell you every one is an instant masterpiece. But I will tell you it doesn't much matter, because what's captured besides epiphanies, which are plentiful, are the homespun texture and limitless spirit of a musical culture that now stretches back 35 years. Lovingly or generously or just hegemonically, Island resists the temptation to overplay its own catalogue. Artists who were names on a page are brought to life by their moments in the sun, their place in the world of "Guns of Navarone" and "The Harder They Come" and "Police and Thieves" natural and secure, which in the end lends the classics a historical grandeur the label's earlier compilations don't suggest. What a miracle that one fucked-over little island should prove such a treasure house. And what a lesson. A

Towering Dub Inferno (Rykodisc, 1990) 21st Century Dub: "Beggars Suite Pt. I, II, III"

Township Jazz 'n' Jive (Music Club, 1997) Before mbaqanga's stomping bumpkin intensity swept the townships, small jazz-style ensembles played indigenous tunes with a South African beat you could jitterbug to. This is that music, the same urbane mode cherry-picked so infectiously on the Mandela soundtrack: the swinging jive of the '50s, when social dancing was a passion in every slapped-together apartheid ghetto. Far suaver than mbaqanga or kwela yet no less African, far simpler than Count Basie or the Mills Brothers yet no less artful, it implied an indoor space even if it couldn't always find one big enough for its spiritual ambitions. Its matchless buoyancy is mostly a matter of two learned rhythms coming together. But it evinces an unsinkability nobody would ever puncture. A

Township Swing Jazz Vol. 1 (Harlequin, 1991) Where the 18 Music Club tracks, four included here, are by 18 different artists, this 1991 Gallo Records anthology singles out just nine. With some luck I nabbed a used 20-track CD, but just as listening the 16-track MP3 version improves on it, because the four songs it eliminates are pretty generic. Then again, in township jive generic isn't always such a bad thing. Either way, think of this as a starter kit. B+

Trance 1 (Ellipsis Arts, 1995) Sagreddin Ozcimi/Neceti Celik/Arif Erdebil/Kemal Karaoz: "Perde Kaldirima"

Trance 2 (Ellipsis Arts, 1995) Moroccan Gnawas, Turkestanian Sufis, and Balinese Hindus, none carrying Discmen or coming down from humanmade drugs (Halimi Chedli Ensemble, "Touhami Dikr") **

Tresor II: Berlin-Detroit . . . A Techno Alliance (NovaMute, 1993)

Trespass (Sire/Warner Bros., 1992) why hard dies hard (AMG, "Don't Be a 304"; Ice-T and Ice Cube, "Trespass") *

A Tribute to Curtis Mayfield (Warner Bros., 1994) everyone's eyes stay on the prize (Bruce Springsteen, "Gypsy Woman"; Tevin Campbell, "Keep On Pushin'"; Narada Michael Walden, "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going To Go") **

A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan (Epic, 1996) he's dead, his band isn't (Jimmie Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Dr. John, Art Neville, "SRV Shuffle"; Bonnie Raitt, "Pride and Joy"; Robert Cray, "Lovestruck Baby") ***

Tricky Presents Grassroots (FFRR, 1996) respect his way with rappers, love his way with the ladies (Tricky & Laveda Davis, "Devils Helper"; Stephanie Cooke, "Live w/ Yo Self") ***

Tropicália Essentials (Hip-O, 1999) Relics of a cultural revolution--14 1967-1969 songs, all except the Tom Zé written by Caetano Veloso or/and Gilberto Gil and most performed by them. Although these songs outraged their world merely because they weren't Brazilian enough, what's striking at this distance is the Brit specifics of their internationalism, idealizing not the hippie '60s of spaced-out pastoral but the mod '60s of trippy pop. For all the deep rhythms and avant-garde sounds, the guitars are drunk on Revolver and Out of Our Heads, the orchestrations full of Blow-Up and Modesty Blaise. Decades later, we can hear how Brazilian their cheese and lyricism remained. But these particular Brazilians were the premier melodists of their generation, and they considered it trippy to juxtapose bright, rebellious music against grim antijunta fables. Translations provided--read them. A-

Turntable Tastemakers Issue No. 1: The Sound of Cleveland City Recordings (Moonshine, 1994) Rarely if ever has steady-state techno sustained so unfailingly for the length of a compilation. Jungle-ish in its body-friendly moderation if not its unexotic sonic range, a single U.K. label's telling hooks, medium-fast mean tempo, and simple, humane, faintly Caribbean beats pull in the impartial listener rather than beating the hesitant dancer over the tympanum. Let the fogeys snort when I say it kind of reminds me of Booker T. & the M.G.'s. A-

Two Rooms -- Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin (Polydor, 1991) Where most tribute albums hitch second-raters to the famous fans who've been sweet-talked into signing on, this superstar showcase aims to turn the tributees into de facto titans, minting much moolah in the process. Sinéad O'Connor was born to cover, and Rod Stewart is reborn for a day. But the material proves less than titanic--it's just plastic, inspiring or enabling Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Joe Cocker, even the Beach Boys and the Who to construct simulacra of their better selves. As for Sting, Hall & Oates, Bruce Hornsby, Jon Bon Jovi, Wilson Phillips, Phil Collins, and even George Michael, they don't have better selves--they have accidents, none of which happen here. B-

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