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Faith No More Who Cares A Lot: Greatest Hits (Slash/Warner) It's about time. One of the most adventurous bands of their time, the now-defunct Faith No More comes out with a double-CD of greatest hits, encompassing their 16-year career, plus four spanking new songs and a couple of live tidbits. But as always, it's the songs in between the hits that FMN truly shine on. My only gripes are that there are only two selections from their best album, Angel Dust, and that a live cover of a Portishead track is missing, but then again, they do do Burt Bacharach. 8/10 (Lateef Martin) Pansy Division Absurd Pop Song Romance (Lookout/Outside)
Various Red Hot + Rhapsody: The Gershwin Groove (Antilles/PolyGram) The "Red Hot" AIDS relief group came in back in 1990 with a mission-defining tribute to Cole Porter, so it's fitting that they round out the decade with interpretations of Porter contemporaries and popular-standard bearers George and Ira Gershwin. All of the pieces appear to be in place for tasty, radical reworkings of classics like "It Ain't Necessarily So" and "The Man I Love," but the mid-tempo tone of the comp is oddly homogeneous despite the ostensible diversity in collaborations between Bobby Womack and the Roots, Sarah Cracknell and Kid Loco, and David Bowie with Angelo Badalamenti. 6/10 (Chris Yurkiw) Various Digital Empire II: The Aftermath (K-tel/FusionIII)
Busta Rhymes Extinction Level Event: The Final World Front (Elektra/Warner)
Busta's back, but I've got to say I'm getting kind of tired of pre-apocalypse hip hop. This piece is wrought with Y2K songs and one of the scariest intros I've ever heard. While crying "The sky is falling" and "Take it off," "Keeping it tight" and "This means war" in the same breath, Busta sounds like he'll be having one hell of a party when the lights go out. 6.5/10 (Scott C)
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This is probably Steve Albini's closest flirtation with pop, but even he can't manage to pull this piece of fluff out of the fire. Pansy Division find themselves between rock and a soft place and can't figure which way to go. Their dreamy dreams set to a strummy strum-strum guitar is enough to make even the ponciest Morrissey fan puke. Saccharine-coated ditties like "Viscous Beauty," "Tinted Windows" and "Luv Luv Luv" are great when these guys finally get down to serious fucking, but the sentimentality and sensitivity that plagues this recording just turns the majority of this into predictable pop. Sappy, not sassy. 4/10 (Johnson Cummins)
K-tel has tapped into the dance scene and come up with the '90s answer to the Star Tracks and Solid Gold compilations of the '70s and '80s. Since breakbeat appears to be the music of the times in terms of crossover appeal, that's what you get here... artists like Propellerheads, Rabbit in the Moon and DJ Icey. If you like breaks, here's yet another CD with the right tunes, save maybe one or two. 8/10 (Krista)