Watch that man. In 1994, Quentin Tarantino set eyes apoppin'. Hot off the tough-talking neonoir flash of his debut, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction earned him a second directorial smash, and his screenplay for Natural Born Killers lent Oliver Stone a note that that colossal movie maker had seldom played – humor, albeit humor as savage as the grin of a shark. With pop culture itself one of Tarantino's obsessions, it's fitting that his films deploy pop music expertly; his soundtracks could fill the playlist of some eerie radio station dreamed up by a program director with a yen for shock.

For Killers, Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor is that programmer, and his 27 selections, overlapping bits of the film's dialogue, careen wildly from punk to Afro-pop, from Leonard Cohen, Duane Eddy and Patsy Cline to Dr. Dre and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Pulp Fiction isn't such a head spinner, but its terrific twang-bar rockers (the Tornadoes, the Revels) and '70s R&B (Al Green, Kool and the Gang) form the funky sun around which such campy planets as the Statler Brothers and Urge Overkill (singing Neil Diamond) revolve.

No stranger to the poetics of violence, Dr. Dre outdoes himself with Murder Was the Case. Music for an 18-minute film imagining the death of Snoop Doggy Dogg, Murder obviously isn't the trailblazer that Dre's The Chronic was last year. But it is rap very nearly as strong. Featuring West Coast stalwarts (Nate Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound) and new discoveries (note especially the 16-year-old wonder Danny Boy), Dre and Dat Nigga Daz present gangsta- and R&B-inflected fare that slams.

Finally, Disney's The Lion King commercially roared in '94. And the kids loved the music. Basically, with lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber's old mate, Tim Rice, Elton John seized the chance to pen the big-budget musical that has always threatened to emerge from his songs anyway. With a bit of sanitized African world beat thrown in and stars like Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy Irons singing, this is accomplished fluff. From it John reaped yet more hits: "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "Circle of Life." (RS 698/699)

PAUL CORIO