+  MICHAEL ROSS'S TOP TEN +











The Georgia boys continue their return to the
fearless rock they started with 1994's "Monster" — on an album that makes it 
clear they're looking in the mirror and coming to grips with their place in 
life's rich (but often tragic) pageant.



+  +  +







A seminal figure in the evolution of R&B music faces down his own crippling demons and wins on a startlingly honest record that celebrates the joy and pain of this thing called life.




+  +  +







This is his "Emancipation": a lush, lavishly produced collection of songs in which Michael links the end of a 
relationship with the dissolution of his old record company. Soulful sounds 
from another survivor, by turns painful and bumptious.



+  +  +







A musical maverick resurfaces with passionate music taking on everything from race relations to the 
always-thorny terrain where men and women tread — and never pulling punch 
one.



+  +  +



5. Republica, "Republica" (BMG)




Revamping the power-pop/techno formula that was 
Jesus Jones stock-in-trade, Saffron and the boys serve up a taut, frenetic 
blend with just the right estrogen/testosterone balance. If you can't dance 
to "Ready to Go," trade in your ass for another one.



+  +  +







Listening to "I'm Every Woman" and 
other chestnuts from the '70s and the '80s, you ask: "Where you been all 
this time?" A queen of the funk and disco movements proves her currency is 
still good heading to the millennium.



+  +  +







A stunning aural document 
of live music from the best band the so-called Generation X has produced. 
This is rock as primal scream therapy and a fitting epitaph to Kurt 
Cobain, a  life gone too damn soon.



+  +  +



8. Broun Fellinis, "Real Moments" (Moonshine Records)




A lapidary record of the acid jazz 
pioneers, blending bebop tropes, spoken word and God knows what else into a 
mix that celebrates the possibilities of the future of jazz.



+  +  +







Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy and other 
conspirators join forces in a live recording that underscores Mingus' 
compositional dominance in jazz.



+  +  +



10. Rolling Stones, et al., "Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" (ABKCO/London)




Solid rock from back when the dinosaurs weren't yet dinosaurs. The Stones, John 
Lennon, Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull and others (especially 
the Who) rock steady in a surprisingly powerful blast from the past.