Ruff Ryders know what rap fans want. On its second group compilation, this platinum posse delivers hardcore hip-hop that's as shiny as ice and as street as cement. There are superstar tracks from Eve (who cooks like la diva loca over Carribean steel drums on "Got It All") and DMX (who barks on "The Great"). The lesser-known Ryders should also get fans to lose their minds up in here: Over the Uzi-like thump of "Ryde or Die Boyz," Yung Wun blasts gutter grime like a vet (key line: "I got heat to squeeze that'll make your face melt like pizza cheese"); Larsiny delivers a convincing ghetto growl on the same song. But studio Svengali Swizz Beatz is the real star here: On "Twisted Heat," he gets Drag-On and Twista to set land-speed records over a freaky beat that bounces like Mannie Fresh on mushrooms. (Swizz even shows he can get nice on the mike on "Fright Night," a duet with Busta Rhymes .) Featuring talent hailing from New York to Chicago to Texas, Ryde or Die Vol. II proves that Ruff Ryders aren't just an East Coast phenomenon; they're a state of mind. (MATT DIEHL -- RS 844/845)

Edwin Another Spin Around the Sun (Columbia)

Leaving major north-of-the-border stars I Mother Earth was a risky move that frontman Edwin pulls off successfully with this debut, an album that, instead of sitting in traffic bitching about gridlock, chooses to get out, amble along and enjoy the view. Sonically, he borrows a bit of his old band's attack -- muscular, riff-heavy rock with elements of tribal percussion and colorings of paisley and psychedelia. What he adds is some slight funk underpinnings and, on the opening "Theories," a touch of hip-hop. Everything is delivered by some of the most arresting pipes in rock this side of Chris Cornell. The lyrics are a bit slight, but Edwin isn't focusing on grand statements. Instead, the man optimistically notes overlooked simplicities best expressed on the Zeppelin-esque "Alive," complete with tugging strings. (TOM DEMALON)

Willie Nelson Red Headed Stranger (Columbia)

In 1970, Willie Nelson's Nashville house burned to the ground, and he decided he'd had enough of the land of the Grand Ole Opry. He hied himself back to his native Texas and set up shop in Austin at a club called Armadillo World Headquarters. Red Headed Stranger, released several years later, was the product of a new country scene -- equal parts redneck and hippie -- that Nelson catalyzed.

A spare song cycle that tells of a preacher who returns to his home to find that his wife has jilted him, Stranger established Nelson's outlaw persona and put some guts back into country music. Rather than gussy up his desolate tales with countrypolitan clichTs, Nelson set his resonant, reedy voice in the foreground over simple acoustic guitar and minimal rhythm-section arrangements. Listen to Nelson's quavering tenor hug the melancholy melody of "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and you know you're in the presence of a master; not since the early records of Ernest Tubb had a country voice sounded so naked.

It is no wonder Miles Davis considered Nelson one of the great American singers; while he was schooled in country, his supple phrasing and honest emotion recall the limpid stylings of the great jazz improvisers. Like Billie Holiday, Nelson toys delicately with time, hanging back behind the beat to tease out every rhythmic nuance lurking in a melody, as he does so gracefully here on Eddy Arnold's "I Couldn't Believe It Was True." And when Willie isn't singing, his crack band swings mightily on "Down Yonder," a rollicking instrumental number that sounds like the music of a prairie barroom circa 1920.

Made for just $20,000, Red Headed Stranger sold more than 2 million copies. It established Willie Nelson as an iconic figure; he would never be a stranger again in the world of American vernacular music. (ADAM BRESNICK -- RS 844/845)

Johnny Cash At San Quentin (Columbia/Legacy)

It's downright criminal that Johnny Cash has only ever had one No. 1 album, but it'd be hard to pick a more deserving album from his rich catalog than At San Quentin, recorded live at the California penitentiary in 1969, a year after his breakthrough At Folsom Prison set. Like the reissue of Folsom before it, this new expanded American Milestones edition features the entire concert, in which Cash received such a dangerously enthusiastic response to his then-new song "San Quentin" that he played it twice, back-to-back. Throw in his fine co-write with Bob Dylan, "Wanted Man," his debut of the riotous "Boy Named Sue" and fifteen more tracks of the Man in Black at his rocking best, and you'll almost wish you coulda been there. Well, at least until the show was over and it was back to lock-up. (RICHARD SKANSE)

Jeff Beck Truth (Columbia Legacy)

Jeff Beck Beck-Ola (Columbia Legacy)

The Jeff Beck Group's first two albums earned the guitarist a place alongside Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton as one of Britain's most influential players. With a stellar band that included Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass, John Paul Jones on organ and Keith Moon and Mickey Waller switching off on drums, Beck left behind the damaged blues-rock of the Yardbirds and confidently headed for stormier terrain. His efforts at inventing heavy metal were hampered by pop producer Mickie Most, but Truth remains a benchmark of British rock, including the classic sides "Shapes of Things," "Beck's Bolero" and "Rock My Plimsoul." Recorded in two chaotic weeks, Beck-Ola is the lesser album. But a pair of originals -- "Rice Pudding" and "Spanish Boots" -- still dazzles. (AIDIN VAZIRI)

Various Artists Music of Cuba 1909¡1951 (Sony/Legacy)

Thanks to the surprise success of the Buena Vista Social Club, everything Afro-Cuban is hot, hot, hot. This weighs in on the craze with a reissue of recordings Columbia made in Havana during the first half of twentieth century. Music of Cuba 1909¡1951 chronicles the development of modern Cuban music from the simple danz=n (the basis of son) to the more intricate workings of rumba and mambo. The recordings -- sometimes raw, often moving, always clear as a bell (due to pinpoint remastering)-- are on par with the scholarship of Alan Lomax's field recordings of the blues. Producer Dick Spottswood provides short histories on the bands, spotlighting the connections between the Latin music styles and the jazz and pop of the U.S. as he moves toward mid-century. Unfortunately, because of the arbitrary cutoff year, the great Cuban songwriter and bandleader ArsTnio Rodriguez is omitted (listen for the weaker work of Desi Arnaz, pre-I Love Lucy, of course), as is the groundbreaking work of Beny MorT. But perhaps the next collection will make up for those omissions. (MARIE ELSIE ST. L+GER)

Various Artists Jackie Collins Presents Lethal Seduction (Rhino)

News flash: Jackie Collins has good taste -- in music. She's compiled her favorite songs about "Sex! Passion! Danger! and Romance!" in a leopard print package to promote her latest page-turner, Lethal Seduction (talk about your marketing plans). Tried-and-true romance classics (Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By," Aretha's "Something He Can Feel" and Dusty Springfield 's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me") sit aside novelties (Eartha Kitt's "Where Is My Man") and a slice of soul, ( Ike and Tina's "Sexy Ida"). But there's enough pap (All Saints' "Lady Marmalade," Randy Crawford's Journey cover "Who's Crying Now") to give it the ugh factor. The final mood piece is -- get this -- "Lethal Seduction/Dangerous Kiss Suite" performed by Collins and featuring Joely Fisher and Clark Anderson. Luckily, Collins reads from her book while she leaves the music to those better qualified to handle it. (DENISE SULLIVAN)

George Jones I Am What I Am (Epic/Legacy)

"He Stopped Loving Her Today," which opens this reissued 1980 comeback album, is a country-music masterpiece -- a great little sad story about a man who spends two decades loving a woman who won't love him back. The twist is the man has died, and the only clue comes from a soft, almost nonchalant line George Jones murmurs towards the end: "They placed a wreath upon his door." After this performance, which subtly shades the Curly Putnam-Bobby Braddock lyrics with crooning climaxes, anything else might be a letdown. But I Am What I Am, recorded during peak "No Show Jones" mode, when Jones was in the throes of cocaine addiction and post-divorce funk, never loses its early momentum. The singer applies his impossibly smooth, whiskey-and-cigarettes baritone to sad country poems like "If Drinkin' Don't Kill Me (Her Memory Will)" and the subdued honky-tonker "His Lovin' Her Is Getting' In My Way." (STEVE KNOPPER)

Johnny Horton The Spectacular Johnny Horton (Columbia/Legacy)

Hokey Americana was bringing in the bacon for Horton at the time of this 1960 album, as heard on his No. 1 hit "The Battle of New Orleans" and the stilted gold-prospecting odes "Sam Magee" and "When It's Springtime in Alaska (It's Forty Below)." The country-popster could still muster rockabilly-tinged honky-tonk on occasion. On the self-penned "The First Train Headin' South" and the borderline un-PC "Cherokee Boogie," he digs into the lyrics like a hungry man wolfing eggs between shifts. Much of the rest of the album, unfortunately, is filled out by limp country-pop ballads of little consequence. This CD reissue adds two mediocre bonus tracks from 1958, and the bizarre England-only version of "The Battle of New Orleans," in which the rebels flee from the British rather than the other way around. (RICHIE UNTERBERGER)

(July 1, 2000)