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9 HOLE Celebrity Skin (DGC) Much has been made of bandleader/provocateur Courtney Love's musical makeover. Her group's previous albums were raw and ragged, but this latest release is shiny and sometimes slick. Still, bleached hair has dark roots: beneath the polite production, this CD boasts galvanizing moments of rude, undeniable beauty.
10 DANILO PEREZ Central Avenue (Impulse) Perez, a pianist, is after a kind of musical Creole, mixing straight-ahead bop with motifs from Cuba, Brazil and his native Panama--all at once! Central Avenue may not be the year's most coherent album, but it's emblematic of the new, more supple, more eclectic brand of fusion that's enriching jazz.
AND THE WORST Boy Groups Backstreet Boys. 'N Sync. 98 Degrees. All-male vocal groups are all over the charts and all over MTV. But their vocals skills are limited, and they seem to spend way too much time styling what little facial hair they have. The Jackson 5 did it better. These jokers make one long for the relative authenticity of the Spice Girls.