Vs.
Unsettling images on race, sex and guns plus fierce guitars and Eddie Vedder's strapped-in-a-strait-jacket vocals make for garage grunge the way it oughta be: as keen-edged as it is kinetic. (Epic)

San Francisco Days
A mournful whisper, an undulant melody, a beguiling beat. The elements are familiar, but on his fourth album the retro-rocker raises them to a haunting new level of desire, regret and throat-catching beauty. (Reprise)

Symphony or Damn
If Jim Morrison were an Isley Brother, he might come close to matching this blazingly sexy blend of rock and R & B. Prince, eat your heart out. Lenny Kravitz, listen here. (Columbia)

Tell Me Why
Okay, we knew she could sing. But with this polished passel of blues, gospel, pop and country, she completes her high step out from mother Naomi Judd's shadow and Nashville's formulaic mainstream. (Curb/MCA)

Midnight Marauders
By refusing to follow the gangsta trend, Quest proved—in the wondrously funky and jazzy style the group calls abstract—that imagination still puts the hip in hip-hop. (Jive)

The Voice
Not resting on her soul-legend laurels, Staples sizzles in a resoundingly spiritual set. (Paisley Park/Warner Bros.)

Short Stories
Nine eclectic modern pieces, perfectly executed by the string quartet, stretch boundaries with every selection. (Elektra Nonesuch)

Last Splash
Four would-be punks trick you into thinking they're weird and inaccessible. Then you realize in the shower you're singing every hook. (Elektra)

Wild Kentucky Skies
With his gentle tenor and lyrics as honest as a best friend's handshake, country's freshest young traditionalist conjures up ghosts of old loves and lost times—and memories of Hank Williams Sr. (MCA)

It's Got to Be Funky
Andy Bey's crackling vocals and Silver's slithery brass arrangements make the veteran pianist's re-dux a rousing ride. (Columbia)

FURTHER WORTHIES

This Time (Reprise)

Vintage—The Very Best of Moby Grape (Columbia/Legacy)

So Near, So Far—Musings for Miles (Verve)

Fire of Freedom (SBK)

14 Songs (Sire/Reprise)