What's Roasting Who's Coasting. - Review - sound recording reviews

This compilation of Perry Farrell's greatest hits feels like a history of '90s alternative music, moving from the Lollapalooza-inspiring roar of Jane's Addiction through his underrated work with Porno For Pyros. Two new songs prove Farrell's not stuck on memory lane, however: The title track's kaleidoscopic rock features members of Rage Against the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, while the drum-and-bass dance-floor ecstasy revving up his cover of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" pushes it closer to "I Feel Love." Such radical sounds demonstrate Farrell wasn't just talkin' 'bout a revolution, but doing it. MATT DIEHL

NOTORIOUS B.I.G.

Born Again (Bad Boy)

If Biggie Smalls were indeed born again, chances are he probably would not have released this choppy album. However, he still proves that even in his life after death he remains the master painter of lyrical portraits of ghetto life--often times rhyming without ever having written clown a single word. Nas, Redman, Method Man, Too Short, and others make an appearance on this hodgepodge of previously unreleased tracks and remixes, rhyming around a wide range of beats varying from a sample of Prince's "Kiss" to the slow, blunt-smoking rhythm made classic on Ready To Die. NICHOLE BEATTIE

ALEX GOPHER

You, My Baby & I (Solid/V2)

The French pop invasion raves on with Parisian Alex Gopher's You, My Baby & I. Onetime cohort of that impossibly cool Gallic duo Air, Gopher's album debut co-opts more musical guises than Louis XIV had mistresses. "Time" is a gripping slab of '70s funk featuring original Funkateer Clip Payne; "The Child" audaciously flows spacey electro-pop over Billie Holiday's vocals; and the sizzling "Tryin" rides a monolithic disco-house groove. From its "ooohh baby" heavy breather turn-on to some mellow Moon Safari moments, this album packs gems for the party-hearty, and for the morning after. SARAH PRATT

JEWEL

Joy--A Holiday Collection (Atlantic)

LOW

Christmas (Kranky)

Platinum pop stars can force the sentiment in the name of the almighty dollar. But the best Christmas albums come from the hearts of artists who empathize with, actually feel, the childhood wonder of the season. This year, such purism pops up in the most unexpected places: in the piney, whispery warble of Jewel, and the ragged but inventive harmonies of indie trio Low. Both acts perfectly nail Noel, Jewel by opting for familiar Rudolph-Bethlehem-Wonderland turf, Low by authoring jingle-belled originals such as "Just Like Christmas" and "Taking Down The Tree." While Low's take winds up somewhat gothic and beautifully snowbound-bleak, Jewel's delicate phraseology--even on an Xmas version of her recent "Hands" hit--flickers with ember-glow warmth, communicating that certain intangible spirit you used to get when Johnny Mathis or Bing Crosby covered the same chestnuts. TOM LANHAM

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

The Battle of Los Angeles (Epic)

Rage Against the Machine's third album is full of deliciously inventive, ultra-agro noize for boys and girls. By now, their formula is as familiar as it is perfectly honed: Zach de la Rocha's adenoidal ranting of unrepentant leftwing--radical-chic politics are layered over guitarist Tom Morello's endless bag of Led Zep knockoff riffs. Somehow the whole raging shebang is more awesomely pleasureable and original than the sum of its parts. Purists may be heartened by the fact that all this sonic gristle was produced without the aid of a single synth. DIMITRI EHRLICH

DOLLY PARTON

The Grass Is Blue (Sugar Hill Records)

Ever since Parton went Dollywood on us, covering the Bee Gees and turning out dance remixes, it's been easy to forget that she started off as country music's Billie Holiday: On her ancient-sounding mountain songs, her small, pointed voice cut the heart like a razor and left it bleeding. Fortunately, Dolly has finally remembered, and gracefully turned her back on mainstream country radio with a full-on bluegrass record of almost unbearable beauty. Surrounded by classic banjo and Appalachian fiddles so keening they sound almost Middle Eastern, Dolly's unearthly soprano sounds like a mournful phantom, crying down the mountainside. DUDLEY SAUNDERS

BECK

Midnite Vultures (Geffen)

Call it his Becksploitation record. Loaded with cheeky lyrics, bumpin' electro-funk, and '70s porn soundtrack stylings, it's hard to tell if this is the ultimate form of parody or homage--and it might not matter all that much if it got the mojo working. But over the course of the record these oh-so-clever pastiches and slow jams start to lose steam. Hootenany guitars and horns-a-plenty spice up the opener, "Sexxlaws," and the falsetto-crooned "Debra" is pretty fly for a white guy. But for the most part, instead of getting all hot and bothered, you'll just feel sort of bothered. RAY ROGERS

CHORD PROGRESSION

DAVID CORIO AND VIVIEN GOLDMAN, WITH FOREWORD BY ISAAC HAYES

The Black Chord (Universe/Rizzoli Publications)

Trying to draw a cord around artists from eighteenth-century Africa to nineteenth-century America to twenty-first-century England may seem overly ambitious for one handsome coffee-table book. But in a virtuosic act of connect the dots, journalist Goldman and photographer Corio create an insightful homage to diasporic music. Compiling evidence such as the popularity of Max Roach's "Freedom Suite" among musicians in '60s South Africa, Goldman in. scribes a new cartography, one that flows from Monica to Papa Wemba to Miles Davis. Corio's faces--a watchful Cassandra Wilson. a scared Michael Jackson, an ecstatic Grace Jones--speak the other thousands of words.