MDFMK MDFMK (Republic/Universal) Suppose for a moment that, on the occasion of the first departure of David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen had announced that he was reforming the band under the new appellation Nav Nelah and that its sound and attitude and execution would be completely different. Would you…

Just about everyone has heard songs by Kimberly Rew, but chances are good that most of those people have never heard his name, or, if they have, probably think he’s a woman. In most instances this would be a great place to soapbox on the ignorance of the masses, but…

Violent Femmes Freak Magnet (Beyond) For nearly 20 years, Gordon Gano has been playing out his emotional and spiritual angst through the electrified alternafolk of the Violent Femmes, veering madly between Bob Dylan gravity and Jonathan Richman comedy, with shout-outs to everyone from Lou Reed to David Byrne to Fred…

Chappaquiddick Skyline Chappaquiddick Skyline (Sub Pop) As Joe Pernice moves in time and style further away from the body of work he helped create as a member of the Scud Mountain Boys, he moves closer to a brilliant evocation of his pop influences. With the Scuds, Pernice presented a glimpse…

Various Artists Magnolia (Reprise) Down through the ages, one art form has always had the potential to inspire another, and rock ‘n’ roll is no exception. Patti Smith’s obsession with Rimbaud, Bill Nelson’s fascination for Cocteau, Tom Waits’ idol-worship of Jack Kerouac — all of these musical talents have found…

Art of Noise The Seduction of Claude Debussy (Zang Tuum Tumb/Universal) British producer Trevor Horn’s avant-garde outfit, Art of Noise, was well ahead of the electronica curve in the early ’80s, using then-new sampling gimmickry to combine found sounds, electronic atmospherics, and synthetic beats to conjure the 1983 break-dance classic…

Guy Clark Cold Dog Soup (Sugar Hill) There are songwriters who are respected by fans, and there are songwriters who are respected by other songwriters. Then there’s Guy Clark, who earns professional respect like a banker compounds interest. The Texas-born song stylist has long been revered by his peers and…

Kevin Welch Beneath My Wheels (Dead Reckoning) Everything great about Kevin Welch is present on “Everybody’s Gotta Walk,” the first cut from Beneath My Wheels, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter’s masterful fourth album. His labelmate Mike Henderson lays down a blues-drenched slide-guitar riff, then Welch’s piercing Okie-twang tenor cuts through the groove,…

Tom Rush Very Best of Tom Rush: No Regrets (Columbia/Legacy) Tom Rush always has been saddled with that most deadly of labels: critics’ darling. Translation: popular failure. In a career that spans nearly 40 years, Rush has never achieved the kind of monster success enjoyed by his protégés Joni Mitchell,…

The Clash From Here to Eternity: The Clash Live (Epic) The Clash was as unlikely a band of influences and successes as were the Beatles just 15 years before them, two quartets of scruffy iconoclasts who changed the music world forever. While the Sex Pistols, immediate contemporaries of the Clash,…

Marshall Crenshaw #447 (Razor & Tie) For the past 17 years, Marshall Crenshaw has managed to turn his personal obsession with Buddy Holly into a moderately successful, pop-music cottage industry. Since his impressive 1982 eponymous debut, Crenshaw has interpreted and reinvented Holly’s tragically small but infinitely influential body of work,…

Lou Bega A Little Bit of Mambo (Unicade/RCA) Mambo has always been a mongrelized genre — a kind of catchall style that incorporates aspects of son, salsa, and danzón — the primary goal of which is to get bodies onto the dance floor. But the label, elastic though it may…

Richard Buckner Bloomed (Rykodisc/Slow River Records) You could say Richard Buckner plays alternative country, the so-called ’90s amalgam of alternative rock and country popularized by the likes of Uncle Tupelo and its offspring Wilco and Son Volt, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. Buckner isn’t exactly another wayward hillbilly playing…

Robert Palmer Rhythm & Blues (Pyramid) Robert Palmer is one suave so-and-so. Ever since leaving the funky and cool Vinegar Joe in the early ’70s and going the way of the solo artist, he has made a career out of reinventing himself on a regular basis. Like David Bowie, Bryan…

Those Bastard Souls Debt & Departure (V2) At their most brilliant, the Grifters were the best band to come from Memphis since Big Star. Now that the group is drifting in limbo, head Grifter David Shouse has more time to spend with his erstwhile side project, Those Bastard Souls. But…

Freedy Johnston Blue Days Black Nights (Elektra) When Freedy Johnston hit the chart jackpot in 1994 with “Bad Reputation” from his startlingly good third album, This Perfect World, no one was more surprised than he. He knew beyond a doubt that he was a good writer and performer and that…

Limp Bizkit Significant Other (Flip/Interscope) Considering the band’s fondness for macho funk-rock rhythms and masculine posturing, it’s a mystery why the members of Jacksonville-based Limp Bizkit elected to name themselves after a flaccid foodstuff. A band with such manly aspirations should have a tough, no-nonsense tag — something with hair…

The Chemical BrothersSurrender(Astralwerks/Virgin)At one time the Chemical Brothers were the biggest electronica band in the land. Before Fatboy Slim was heard in every commercial, before Ray of Light won a Grammy, before Prodigy had a number one record, the duo of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands had the biggest Big…

Learning Curve(Higher Ground/Columbia)It’s hard to state the obvious selling point of DJ Rap, also known as Charissa Saverio, and not sound like a cad. Put it this way: She has done some topless modeling in the past and claims that she looks even better now (and certainly better than Fatboy…

The Chemical Brothers Surrender (Astralwerks/Virgin) At one time the Chemical Brothers were the biggest electronica band in the land. Before Fatboy Slim was heard in every commercial, before Ray of Light won a Grammy, before Prodigy had a number one record, the duo of Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands had…

Smash Mouth Astro Lounge (Interscope) In the world according to Smash Mouth, the ’70s never happened. The group’s infuriatingly uneven 1997 debut album, Fush Yu Mang, was a blend of ’80s-style postpunk, new wave, and reggae informed by a curious ’60s lounge sensibility. Displaying an impressive talent for reconciling disparate…

The Boneshakers Shake the Planet (Pointblank/Virgin) The quality of a college is reflected in the quality of its graduates. With that analogy in mind, Was (Not Was) surely must have been in the Ivy League of rock ‘n’ roll, considering the caliber of its alumni. Setting aside the presence of…