Tanya Tucker's first rock & roll record, TNT, isn't the all-out hard-rock album the title and the ads promise: it's far too slicked up, overworked and cautious. But it's not the all-out disaster a lot of people were expecting either. Among noncountry audiences, Tucker is usually thought of as not much better than a novelty act. Despite its shakiness, TNT certainly explodes that notion.

Tucker is still too callow to be a particularly solid interpreter. Whenever a number demands any dramatic nuance, she tries to bull her way through on sheer sass and verve, and misses as often as she hits. The delicacy of John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery" is utterly beyond her: trying to express frustration, she's merely strident. Even "Not Fade Away" remains no more than a promising idea. Like Linda Ronstadt, Tanya Tucker doesn't quite understand that what made Buddy Holly's songs sexy wasn't their come-on but the marvelous combination of arrogance and innocence he brought to them. Tucker can be innocent and she can be tough, but she can't do both at the same time. Here, trying to sound like a good-time hot mama, she simply loses the song.

When she's dealing with material that's within her emotional range, however, Tucker comes across as a surprisingly spirited, funny and affecting singer. Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man" is perfect, while her uncluttered, achingly direct vocal saves the self-penned "I'm the Singer, You're the Song" from the potentially cloying sentimentality of its lyric.

On the basis of the new LP, Tanya Tucker could still turn into just another Los Angeles studio clone—there's plenty of mediocre stuff on TNT to back up that possibility. But the best of her work here would seem to indicate that if she can avoid that trap, she could emerge from this faltering crossover debut—and not so long from now either—as a major new pop star. (RS 287)

TOM CARSON