Pop Music

The winter-and-spring mix of pop-music releases is never so blockbuster-packed as the holiday shopping season, but there are still some heavy-duty headliners on the way. Some of the world's biggest rockers and rappers reclaim the spotlight, while the ur-jam band comes back to life. And the returns of a smart-mouthed British wit and a sultry Philadelphia chanteuse are among the subtler musical pleasures in the months ahead. Lily Allen, It's Not Me, It's You. The smart-mouthed Brit who made a fabulously cheeky splash with 2007's Alright, Still comes back with another comma in her album title.

Major players in the black/urban music and radio business gathered recently at Bally's Park Place Casino Hotel for "Super Summit Conference," sponsored by the music-industry tipsheet Impact. Included on the "Trendsetter" panel were Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the hottest writing-producing team in - forget black music - the whole of pop music. The floor was open for questions. "Jimmy and Terry," queried a disc-jockey voice that could give a bullfrog pause, "can you clear up the rumors regarding the Time reunion and movie?

And now, here's something for the youngsters," Ed Sullivan used to say in his half-apologetic introductions for longhaired bands such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the Animals when they performed on his variety show. Nowadays, with those "youngsters" of yore sitting in the prime easy chair, American television no longer treats popular music as the pimply little monster only let out to play for a few minutes on weekends. Pop is the soundtrack of America's collective life.

Justin Timberlake is doing the anxiety-ridden post-9/11 world a huge favor. He's bringing "SexyBack. " Have the Sept. 11 attacks had as profound an effect on pop music as they did on geopolitics? Yep. They've made it sillier. Not exclusively, of course. Along with a parade of Pussycat Dolls and "Promiscuous" boys and girls, there have been serious responses to the tragic events of that clear blue day. The most impressive, by far, has been Bruce Springsteen's The Rising, which did its inspirational best in 2002 to make sense of the rubble left behind.

For a pop music lover, plugging into a good cause has never been easier or more entertaining. The biggest flurry of charity albums ever to be released in a single year is coming between now and the holiday season. Just buy, enjoy, and take your tax deduction (where applicable.) Music Speaks Louder Than Words (Epic) celebrates the spirit of glasnost, with a catchy collection of light rock and soul songs jointly composed in Russia (in November 1988) by seasoned U.S. writers and the best pop tunesmiths from the USSR.

Rage, it seems, is all the rage in pop music nowadays. Last month, the rap group Public Enemy released a controversial video titled "By the Time I Get to Arizona," which portrays rapper Chuck D leading a paramilitary force on a mission to kill Arizona politicians for opposing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The clip also features simulated footage of 1960s civil rights marches. Critics say the Public Enemy clip is representative of an upsurge in hateful lyrics and visuals in pop music.

No money that's why I'm mad Need a livin' that's why I rap . . . I'm cheap, can't brag about what I got My five-star meals come from IHOP. - Rugged N Raw, "I'm Broke and Proud" You're losin' your job, your house and your car Hittin' rock bottom don't feel that far Nothin' good is gonna come along All I can do is play this song. - Loudon Wainwright III, "Times Is Hard" Pop music escapism isn't about to go out of fashion, but hard times are back in style.

Check the United States Golf Association rule book. What does it say about a player listening to Pearl Jam on his Walkman in the middle of his backswing? That would be covered by Rule 14-3, "Artificial Devices and Unusual Equipment," which states that a "player shall not use any unusual equipment: (a) which might assist him in making a stroke, (b) for the purpose of measuring distance, or (c) which might assist him in gripping the club. " That is good news for Triton junior John Hagerty 3d, who resorted to musical assistance last week as a way to clear his head and break out of a rare slump.

Every year in mid-March, a horde of music-business types descends on this bursting-with-talent town for the South by Southwest Music & Media Conference (SXSW), and is amazed at the breadth of Texas music. There are conjunto accordionists. Red-hot blues guitarists. Left-of-center country pickers. Singer-songwriters of every stripe. Unencumbered by major- label recording contracts, they play Austin clubs year-round, refining their musicianship, developing their stagecraft and not making a whole lot of money in the process.

Pop music is by now so pervasive in the background of movies that few mass- market films do not yield sound-track albums. Ever since the massive success of the sound track to Saturday Night Fever in 1977 - a two-record set that sold more than 30 million copies - pop music has been used with increasing sophistication as popular art and as a marketing tool. The latest development in sound-track-album fever is the insertion of pop music into movies that might not necessarily seem appropriate vehicles.

@ In the Mix: Dan DeLuca writes about pop music and culture. www.inquirer.com/ inthemix @ On Movies Online: Steven Rea offers short takes, outtakes, information and interviews on films. www.inquirer.com/ onmovies @ ArtsWatch: Peter Dobrin tells you who's making news, noise and splash in the Philadelphia arts world and beyond. www.inquirer.com/ artswatch

Peter Nero has given listeners a lot of improvisation in the last three-plus decades. An instinctive showman and unlikely keyboard embodiment of jazz and classical traditions, Nero has constructed concerts with the Philly Pops without committing to a printed program of pieces. The mix could change from night to night - though you could always count on him to send you home with Sousa's "Liberty Bell March" in your ear and his own zany hand gestures dancing in your head. What can Philly Pops fans expect from Michael Krajewski?

THE LITTLE MONSTERS are in mourning this week. But will they soon start sniffing around for fresh meat to chew? Another icon to idolize and adore? These "monsters" are the rabid fans of dance-pop queen Lady Gaga. And, at the moment, these lovers of all things Gaga are hearing nothing but bad news. Last week, she reluctantly shut down her touring "Born This Way Ball," a huge hit on the arena circuit. (Tuesday's canceled show at the Wells Fargo Center was sold out.) The 26-year-old has been crippled by a long-festering hip ailment, which requires surgery and months of rehab.

Phantom By Jo Nesbø Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett Alfred A. Knopf. 400 pp. $25.95   I once suggested that some Nordic crime novels are Jackie Collins or Harold Robbins with enough mildly leftist musing thrown in to make readers feel intellectually respectable. One reply to that comment put it this way: "It's why I think Downton Abbey does so well in this country, too. It's basically an absurdly trashy soap opera, a notch or two down from the magnificent Days of Our Lives , but because it's on PBS and they're speaking with English accents, it's somehow thought of as being intelligent or classy.

There's no shortage of big stars - marquee names as disparate as Justin Timberlake and David Bowie are returning, alongside boldfaced names Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Rihanna. But   the coming months are more about medium-sized acts that, thankfully, aren't big enough to play the enormodome. Look for albums by alt-folkies Thao & the Get Down Stay Down ( We the Common , on sale Feb. 5, playing Underground Arts March 24), Richard Thompson ( Electric , Feb. 5), and the Mavericks ( In Time , Feb. 26)

Inquirer critic Dan DeLuca writes about pop music and culture at .

Hard-driving African music held court Saturday night at World Cafe Live. And though rhythms of Africa and its diaspora dominated the proceedings, drums had very little to do with this domination. Debo Band, from Boston, has gone all in on the Ethiopian pop music of the 1970s, a veritable golden age of creativity in that venerable land. Though other groups, including Either/Orchestra, Debo's Hub homeboys, have done homage to this music, none is as adventurous or unabashedly traditional as Debo.

Debo Band Founded by Danny Mekonnen, a Texas-raised Ethiopian American jazz saxophonist with an ethnomusicology master's degree from Harvard, Debo Band uses the late '60s-early '70s golden age of Ethiopian pop music as a starting point for its brassy, swaggering sound. The 11-piece outfit, based out of the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, is fronted by singer Bruck Tesfaye and takes its name from an Amharic word meaning "collective effort. " On its self-titled Sub Pop debut, one of the standout releases of last year, Debo pulled from a variety of sources, ranging from Addis Ababa singers such as Tilahun Gessesse and Alemayehu Eshete, to Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra to klezmer and other Eastern European styles.

You're going to hear sooner or later, and feel rather old when you do: The Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do," is now in the public domain, at least in Europe. How could that be? Though not the most durable Beatles song, it hardly seems to be from another time, though given the passage of 50 years, it most certainly is. Remember '60s hysteria? The kids who wrote "Beatles" on their contact lenses because they couldn't think about anything else? The girls who saved the Kleenex tissues into which they'd wept at the Shea Stadium concert?