Best-Selling CD's

2 weeks on chart

STYLE Impassioned, techno-tinged rock 'n' roll.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "To touch is to heal / To hurt is to steal / If you want to kiss the sky / Better learn how to kneel" ("Mysterious Ways").

OVERALL QUALITY Disc one, packed as it is with Grammy-winning hits, is entertaining and sometimes worth thinking about; disc two, with its interesting but not always successful experiments, is for collectors.

RIOT ACT

1 week on chart

STYLE Grunge.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL "Save You," "Help Help," "Full" (obscenities).

WORLDVIEW "To the universe I don't mean a thing" ("Love Boat Captain"), "Our world's an accident" ("Cropduster"), "Won't someone save the world?" ("Full"); meanwhile, the president is "not a leader" but a "Texas leaguer / swinging for the fence / ... born on third / thinks he's got a triple" ("Bu$hleaguer").

OVERALL QUALITY Droning, tedious.

SENTIMENTO

2 weeks on chart

STYLE The classic Italian songs of Tosti, Rossini, Offenbach, Liszt, Donaudy, et al.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "The title of the CD is Sentimento, for the texts are for the most part about feelings, feelings of tenderness, passion, melancholy, yearning, love" (from Lorin Maazel's liner notes).

OVERALL QUALITY Although there are probably better Fourth Tenors awaiting discovery, Mr. Bocelli will do for now, and this collection is his best.

IT HAD TO BE YOU

4 weeks on chart

STYLE Sinatra-era popular song.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW "For all we know this may only be a dream / We come and go like a ripple on a stream / So love me tonight; tomorrow was made for some / Tomorrow may never come for all we know."

OVERALL QUALITY Tasteful; but while Mr. Stewart is on top of the material, he's not inside it, and it's not inside him.

SHAMAN

4 weeks on chart

STYLE Jam-oriented rock, world music, fusion jazz, heavy metal, and pop.

OBJECTIONABLE MATERIAL None.

WORLDVIEW A "[s]haman is a spiritual healer who brings balance to mind, body, heart and spirit with colors, sound, herbs and song, creating unity and harmony in the world" (from the liner notes).

OVERALL QUALITY High, but not so high as to distract one from the obviousness of the celebrity-duets marketing strategy (Musiq, Placido Domingo).

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

The Best of 1990-2000 & B-Sides (Interscope/Island), the latest two-disc collection of highlights from U2, emphasizes the fact that, in terms of durability alone, the Irish quartet has earned a place among rock's elite. Now in their 22nd year, Bono, the Edge, Larry Mullen, and Adam Clayton have been recording and touring together longer than any single configuration of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, or the Who.

1990-2000 & B-Sides also emphasizes that, unlike their forebears, U2 has resisted the call of nostalgia: Each of the 30 cuts, bull's-eyes and duds alike, crackles with the enthusiasm of fresh discovery. So experimental, in fact, have Bono and Co. become at times that they occasionally seem bent on remixing themselves and their music into utter plasticity. That they retain a core of residually Christian moral credibility was evident in their moving 9/11 tribute at last year's Super Bowl and is audible in the best of The Best of ...