Nearly everything the Neptunes touch turns platinum. Their production on Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass," Ol' Dirty Bastard's "Got Your Money" and Jay-Z's "I Just Wanna Love U" ranks among the flyest, freakiest, funkiest hip-hop since the glory days of De La Soul and Public Enemy. But that didn't stop Neptunes' Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, plus cohort Shay -- collectively known as N.E.R.D. -- from scrapping their debut album. In Search of . . . had, by last summer, already received plenty of pre-release positive press (including a four-star review in this magazine). Nevertheless, the trio went back into the studio, removed the Neptunes' trademark machine beats and bumps, laid down live drums and bass, added guitars and keyboards, dropped the between-song skits and remixed the results.

What they didn't put out would've surely met with commercial success: Since re-recording their album, the Neptunes' sound has crossed over every which way via Britney Spears' "I'm a Slave 4 U," remixes for Daft Punk and Limp Bizkit, and more hits with Puff Daddy, Fabolous, Babyface, Busta Rhymes and 'N Sync. But the renegade funk rock of the new In Search of . . . is far riskier, particularly for a black-Filipino band: Pissed-off suburbanites playing hip-hop rhythms with rock instrumentation blow up big every month, but there hasn't been a major nonwhite rock band since Living Colour more than a decade ago. Last year's N.E.R.D. was something special. This year's N.E.R.D. is something else. The difference is clear from the first cut. The version of "Lapdance" that accompanied a stripper-festooned video in 2001 skipped along on skittering, programmed beats. Intensity and volume were steady throughout, and a seductive female carried the chorus. In the new version, live drums push a lot more tension and dynamics into the mix. Keyboard melodies barely audible in the original have been yanked to the forefront, and the verses' taut synth attacks now give way to metal guitars hammering the same riffs with far greater urgency. "Politicians soundin' like strippers to me," Williams spits, and the chorus pairing of female solicitation with macho power chords now embodies his simile -- particularly since the new version is so damn booty-friendly. Only the Neptunes could chop their hip-hop into rock and make it more danceable.

In Search of . . . is crazy with these kinds of changes. In the album's first version, "Things Are Getting Better" flew on a wildly intricate, inventive drum program. Now played live, those rhythms rattle with even greater complexity and resemble the truly old-school breaks that the original hip-hop DJs cut up decades ago. Credit has got to go to Christian Twigg and Eric Fawcett for supplying Search with dexterous, downright joyful bass and drums. When the full-on fury of the rap-rock establishment hears how far a contemporary band can go with conventional instruments and still sound hip-hop, they'll either try following or give up.

In the last few years, Williams has brought some melody back to hip-hop, singing on Jay-Z's "I Just Wanna Love U" and Mystikal's "Shake Ya Ass." Whereas R&B stresses smoove vocal virtuosity, Williams whines as if he's still in his childhood bedroom, hairbrush in hand, smirking in the mirror. His knowing, radical amateurishness is refreshingly low-fi, but it's also got a fuck-you edge, as though he just doesn't care that he'll never pull off Luther Vandross' slippery scales. With guitars now accentuating his mischievous vulnerabilities and masking his intonation shortcomings, Williams is an alternative-rock star waiting to happen. Just as Donald Fagen humanizes the perfection of Steely Dan (a Williams favorite) with his vocal quirks, this nerd turns his flaws into flava-rich assets. When he puts on a cocky pout for "Provider," what squeaks out isn't hard or thick enough to be entirely convincing. Instead it comes across as a critique, as theater, as the workings of a Clark Kent whose failings tug at our sympathies for the very reason that, like us, he'll never be Superman.

And that gets to the essence of N.E.R.D. An acronym for No One Ever Really Dies, N.E.R.D. is the triumph of spirit over brute force. Williams plays with the poses of bad boys, but his heart is clearly with the losers on whom hip-hop and metal ordinarily trample. On "Bobby James," he assumes the role of a high school runt who escapes into drugs and retribution dreams. As violins swell, he cries, "I'm high as hell and ready to blast/I'm just one hit away from being passed out," and the listener is left wondering whether Bobby is going to shoot up the class, the passers-by he mugs or simply himself.

For all its audacity and lyrical cleverness, Search is an album with insecurities as remarkable as its confidence, with desperate measures justified by sincerity of purpose. N.E.R.D. want to open your mind, and if doing so they jeopardize their relationships with the roughnecks that made their careers possible, at least their conscience is clean. (BARRY WALTERS)

Eels Souljacker (Dreamworks)

When the Eels debuted in the mid-Nineties, being a tortured artist in the slippery world of alternative rock implied some level of ironic distance. God forbid that an alt-rocker directly admit to having feelings -- at least not without a little wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Eels frontman E does his share of winking, but his real-life tragedies -- within a two-year period, he lost his sister to suicide and his mother to cancer -- have kept the singer and songwriter more honest than your average Nineties moper. In 1998, E dealt head-on with his personal loss on the Eels' stunning album, Electro-Shock Blues. On Souljacker, the band's fourth release, he takes a hard-rocking, no-holds-barred look at the moral bankruptcy of society at large. From the blues-based grit and spit of the opening track to the messy distortion throughout, Souljacker launches an all-out attack on familiar Eels themes -- insecurity, loneliness, despair -- but this time from a more universal standpoint. Over squalling guitars, fuzzy surf lines, loping break beats and lush strings, E spins tales of small-town misfits searching for meaning in a media-driven world. The hairy protagonist of "Dog Faced Boy" gets taunted at school and bitterly laments, "Ma won't shave me/Jesus can't save me." Behind a shuffling Bo Diddley beat in "Souljacker 1," E examines the mind of a fed-up, Columbine-like high school student: "Johnny don't like the teacher/Johnny don't like the school/One day Johnny's gonna do something/To show 'em he's nobody's fool -- oh, yeah!" There are some spare, delicate moments -- the lovely, string-drenched "Fresh Feeling," the folky "Woman Driving, Man Sleeping" -- but for the most part, the Eels have pulled out all the stops on Souljacker. (MARK KEMP)

Cher Living Proof (Warner Bros.)

Cher's "Believe" set off a trend for electronically tweaked vocals while bamboozling listeners into questioning their own trust in love. It was a revolutionary act for a fifty-something camp icon with serious credibility issues -- a bizarre and rather lovely accident. Living Proof endeavors to make lightning strike twice in the same place. Repeating the synthesized hiccups, stirring Europop tunes and anxious up-tempo digital beats of Believe, Living Proof gets the job done well. Unlike house music or modern R&B, Cher's twenty-first-century disco is built on fully fleshed songs and detailed arrangements, and the studio wizardry is even grander than before. But Living lacks its predecessor's unexpected impact. "Song for the Lonely" clearly intends to evoke September 11th, and other tracks such as "A Different Kind of Love Song" return to themes of tragedy, heroism and universal brotherhood. Coming from a willfully wiggy billion-dollar diva, this noble stuff feels calculated, particularly when it's presented in such a sparkling, showbizzy package. Cher believes in love -- no problem. Convincing us she's a selfless social commentator demands a much taller leap of faith. (BARRY WALTERS)

Bob Mould Modulate (Granary Music)

With his fifth solo release, Bob Mould reinvents not only his sound and songwriting but also launches Granary Music, his new independent record company. Thus, he throws his hat in an emerging ring of artists seeking to change the traditional paradigm of music distribution. He's been here before (Husker Du formed its own label, Reflex, back in the day), but this is a new DIY (Digitizing It Yourself, as well as Do It Yourself). As on the post-Husker Du bow, Workbook, Mould forges new ground and takes brave new strides. Modulate's first six electronic-based tracks sound like nothing that's come before, and the remaining eight songs (including the New Order-ish "Trade") split the difference between Mould's noise-pop roots and his burgeoning fascination with electronic music. The problem with the CD certainly isn't Mould's talents. He's returned to Husker-like prolificacy, with plans to release two more discs this year, and his lyrics are as personal and intense as ever. But he seems a bit misguided in places, confusing the message and the medium as he enters these uncharted waters. On tracks like "Sunset Safety Glass" and "Lost Zoloft," it literally sounds like Mould's vocals are drowning in the mix. Maybe that's the point -- the continued representation of the despair his music often contains -- but maybe it's time, once again, for Mould to see a little light. (MARK WOODLIEF)

Glenn Lewis World Outside My Window (Epic)

Comparisons to Stevie Wonder come thick and fast in any discussion about young Toronto singer-composer Glenn Lewis: The music on this extraordinary debut is relaxed soul with a jazzy edge, and Lewis sports a high, vibrant voice with a slight thickness around the talky parts. While it's true that Lewis' nature-given instrument is made for winning Wonder impersonation contests -- tracks such as "Lonely" vamp and stutter in vintage Wonder style -- his fluid, unstrained delivery recalls Donny Hathaway even more. Lewis' songs are compassionate and old-fashioned, "realistic" in the Seventies style and less booty-conscious than those of possibly any other soul artist today. He plays the levelheaded romantic innocent, stunned and sorrowed by the manipulative female of "Is It True," and by his own misdeeds on "Sorry." But, for the most part, the singer has uncynical words of encouragement to offer, insisting to the right girl that it's "Never Too Late," telling his lady to hold on throughout the glistening ballad "Something to See" and bucking up a girl overwhelmed by the demands of adult life on the breezily flowing first single, "Don't You Forget It." Neosoul has had its day; welcome, neoclassic soul, grease-free and offered with a smile. (ARION BERGER)

Candy Butchers Play With Your Head (RPM)

Some musicians are born to be mods, and others are born to be rockers. The Candy Butchers' singer, songwriter and producer, Mike Viola, is mod to the bone, turning out three-minute pop tunes so nattily tailored they make the rest of modern-rock radio sound decidedly off-the-rack. He masterminds the classicist power pop of Play With Your Head, the second full-length Candy Butchers album, specializing in richly textured guitar ballads in the tradition of Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Eric Carmen and Paul Weller. These eleven songs pack a real emotional wallop under all the sparkle, and Viola breathes life into each tune with his whisper-to-a-scream vocals, taking you by surprise with lyrical twists such as "Out of the interstate there's a man rushing home to you/Just like I did when I had something to rush home to." Despite the high-spirited likes of "My Monkey Made a Man Out of Me," the Candy Butchers really cut deep when Viola gets serious in ballads such as "Baby, It's a Long Way Down," "I Let Her Get Away" and especially "You Belong to Me Now" -- from the guitar chime to the tart chorus harmonies, it's three minutes and ten seconds of pure heartbreak. (ROB SHEFFIELD)

Soulive Next (Blue Note)

Soulive, a darling of the modern jam band scene, is known for pushing the boundaries of soul jazz by making music that shows respect to its forefathers yet expounds on their territory. With the ensemble's third album, Next, guitarist Eric Krasno, brothers Neal and Alan Evans on organ and drums, respectively, and new one-man brass section Sam Kininger, root themselves in the same ground they covered on previous albums, but then branch out and embrace their contemporary influences more than ever. Next is full of swaggering hip-hop beats, guitar funk, jazzy horns and guest artists. On the infectious slow jam "Clap!," Black Thought of hip-hop outfit the Roots lends his clever lyrical flow. Former Groove Theory singer Amel Larrieux croons about the simplicity of love in a complicated world on the dreamy head-bobber "I Don't Know." Hip-hop team Talib Kweli and Hi Tek spit rhymes over a leisurely reinterpretation of "Bridge to 'Bama" from Soulive's second album Doin' Something. For those who are more appreciative of the Soulive's instrumentals, the simple and soothing melodies of "Nay Nay" and the contagious rhythms of "Kalen" prove that this ensemble need not a word to speak volumes. (K.G. ROTH)

B2K B2K (Epic)

R&B upstarts B2K enter the urban music fray with this, their eponymous debut album. Following the trend of artists like Lil' Bow Wow -- whom they opened for on his 2001 summer tour -- this squeaky clean, scarcely pubescent outfit is out to melt the hearts of teen girls. And they may, undoubtedly in part due to this slick though less-than-distinctive recording. Think Jagged Edge and Silk -- then take three steps back. The grooves are smooth and the harmonies tight. Definitely worth a listen is "Why I Love You," the retro sound owes a lot vocally and melodically to Stevie Wonder, the debut single "Uh Huh," and the Jermaine Dupri-produced "Last Boyfriend." But don't expect any groundbreaking themes or stunningly cerebral. B2K is kind of banal and plenty sugary and obviously targeted at the G-Rated market. Considering their tender age, one would have to concede that there's promise here. Of course, now B2K has to face that eternal challenge of teenie idols: fulfilling that promise or outgrowing their demographic plenty fast. (ADRIAN ZUPP)

Indigo Girls Become You (Epic)

For Become You, Emily Saliers and Amy Ray did away with the guest stars and studio-hopping of 1999's Come On Now Social, and returned home to Atlanta to make a "back to basics" record. More acoustic guitar, less Joan Osborne cameos. Unfortunately, Become You lacks both the strummy, folk bombast of vintage Indigo Girls (1987's Strange Fire) and the engaging musicality that has made their last few albums worth spinning. The usual topics appear (racism, social injustice, the romantic pitfalls of being nice), and the harmonies are still top-notch and sparkling. Yet too often they're marred by a lack of hummable tunes and the occasional awkward love lyric ("I was born with a hole in my heart the size of my landlocked travels" on "She's Saving Me"). The spunky "Yield," propelled by a driving beat and some frantic mandolins, shows that there's still some spark left. But more compelling material would bring them "closer to fine." (EVAN SCHLANSKY)

Playgroup Playgroup(Astralwerks)

On this dubby, adventurous collection of dance songs, producer Trevor Jackson -- the English clubland and label honcho whose remix credits include U2 and Massive Attack -- poses as a hip Londoner taking cool pictures of American pop. Jackson's world is a wide-open place where Bikini Kill records jangle alongside Puffy's luxe, where the distance between new-soul early-Nineties Atlanta and Seventies singer-songwriter New York isn't far. "Pressure," a floaty reworking of a brilliant moment from soul songstress Joi's 1994 debut, sits comfortably next to "Bring It On," a track where Kathleen Hanna barks out girl-John Lydon. Perfect old-school hip-hop such as "Front 2 Back" -- on which KC Flightt, a scratchy-voiced New York DJ, walks away with the record -- and incandescent pop-funk such as "Number One" roll along as unstoppably as Shinehead, who takes Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" to the new Caribbean. Throughout, Jackson digs deep into his sources, and parties all the time. (JAMES HUNTER)

The Maroons You're Gonna Ruin Everything (In Music We Trust)

The essence of mid-Seventies rock (Sweet, T-Rex, The Kinks) permeates the Maroons' sophomore album, You're Gonna Ruin Everything. Guitarist Jim Talstra's Brian May guitar licks on "Can You Feel?" are spot on, while Mike Clark's Three Dog Night-inspired keyboards (on the clever "Dance Floor Flirt") leave plenty of hook residue in their wake. Add a lead singer, John Moen, who sounds like the gay reincarnation of Marc Bolan, and you've got a bunch of tunes that would be at home on the soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine. If the Posies wrote a rock opera about the life of a Guided by Voices fan, You're Gonna Ruin Everything might be the result. (GAIL WORLEY)

(March 11, 2002)