GRAMMY WEEK REPORT : THE PASSAGES OF ROCK : THE EXTREME : From the Outside Looking In : The awards are now more open to rock’s agressive forces, but the academy still draws a line

When rock ‘n’ roll slammed into America in the ‘50s, the kids loved it, parents hated it and some wanted it banned. But now, closing in on 40, rock music permeates American society and has been exported and embraced throughout the world. Ironically, the record industry’s Grammy Awards were slow to fall under the spell. That too has changed. The passages of rock are charted in three stories:

The notorious beginnings, seen through a movie about one of its wildest forefathers, Jerry Lee Lewis.

An analysis of the Grammys and rock’s present respectability.

A look at the cutting-edge artists who are pushing into the future.

Thirty years ago the Grammys shunned Little Richard and Jerry Lee. Ten years later they ignored the Stones, Hendrix and the Who. A decade ago, the Sex Pistols and the Clash went unrecognized.

And in the ‘80s there’s been no place in the Grammys for Public Enemy, the Sugarcubes, the Pogues and Elvis Costello.

This might not seem like the crime of the century, especially at a time when the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences is changing its image from booster of the bland to champion of serious artists making serious social observations--as long as they sell a million records or so.

Well, better U2 than Christopher Cross. But does anyone think that if U2 had remained just a little cult band, “The Joshua Tree” would have been album of the year? The simple, hard fact is that if it’s not a hit, most of the voters don’t hear it.

But even if they were force-fed a diet of Suicidal Tendencies and Guns N’ Roses, academy members would be unlikely to change their tune; it’s not the nature of academies to welcome those dedicated to subverting institutions like academies.

Instead of reinstituting the rock ‘n’ roll and punk embargoes, the Grammys now acknowledge big-selling anti-heroes like Guns N’ Roses, Metallica and Public Enemy by creating ghettos--separate categories for hard rock, rap et al. Welcome to the back of the bus, from all the black and country artists who’ve been kept off center stage.

In assembling this voters’ guide to the most worthy extremists of the day, the idea wasn’t to scour the underground and enshrine the most obscure sludge. These 12 acts all claim significant fan and critical support, and are currently in fine creative form. These are the artists who are shaping things, taking chances, testing limits, expressing a vision, defining attitudes, opening possibilities.

It might not be at the top of the charts, but this music--on its own or filtered through its disciples--will figure strongly in the process of renewal that keeps rock ‘n’ roll forever young.

Just imagine a Grammy show that acknowledged this. . . .

“Now, to present the award for Best Inspirational Drone Band, please welcome one of the major influences on glam and punk, that minimalist man about Manhattan, Mr. Lou Reed. . . . “

“Thank you, Sheena. You know, I didn’t think we’d ever see a band that uses fewer chords and more feedback than we did in the Velvet Underground (thank you, thank you). Or a singer who makes me sound like Terence Trent D’Arby.

“OK, maybe on paper it doesn’t look so great. But if you’ve heard ‘Psychocandy’ or ‘April Skies’ or that killer take on Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love,’ you know you’ve experienced the majestic melancholy that only pure rock ‘n’ roll can attain. I know what it is to be mistaken for a joke, guys, so carry this award proudly--and stick it in their teeth if you have to. Ladies and gentlemen, from Scotland, THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN. . . .”

And so it would go. Here are the other 11.

PUBLIC ENEMY (Presenter: Gil Scott-Heron). Delivering their rhymes like Molotov cocktails, the New York rappers bring the ‘60s’ black militant stance into the ‘80s: It’s them against a repressive system full of corruption and conspiracy. Punching out their tough, assured rhythms, Chuck D and crew pump themselves up to archetypal proportions-- the Public Enemy, a rude intrusion on a kinder, gentler nation. The group spends much of its second album, last year’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” refusing to apologize for its first album--where it touted controversial black-power advocate Louis Farrakhan, and “sampled” other people’s music. Chuck D extends his challenge to black radio. His declaration of war: You singers are spineless /As you sing your senseless songs to the mindless / Your general subject of love is minimal / It’s sex for profit.

GUNS N’ ROSES (Presenters: Keith Richards and Steve Tyler). Forget the bad-boy antics. Forget the swagger and the leather. Forget the fact that it all sounds a little familiar. The Hollywood heroes have emerged from the glitter pack and become the rebel rockers of choice for the hard-rock fans who demand a true “us against them” mentality rather then empty posturing. GN’R casts a bloodshot, documentary eye on the wonderful life in their wonderful town. “Welcome to the jungle,” W. Axl Rose sings to open their hit album “Appetite for Destruction.” Strains of lost innocence sweeten the pot, and the stormy, Stones/Aerosmith/New York Dolls guitar attack is tough enough to blow the cobwebs off the central cliche--Hollywood as a seductress and corrupter. It’s also erratic and threatening enough to put Guns N’ Roses at the very edge of acceptability. (For many former fans, Rose’s rants against immigrants and gays on the current hit mini-album, “G N’R Lies” have pushed the band over the edge.) Like the punk innovators of the ‘70s, Guns N’ Roses marks the last stop for those who want to get off before things get too scary.

THE REPLACEMENTS (Presenter: Ian Hunter). The all-American misunderstood boys (non-metal division) play guitar rock that unfailingly gathers itself into a sweet melody line straight from the heart, no matter how chaotic and ramshackle the beginning.

Chaotic and ramshackle are the operative words on the concert stage, where the Minneapolis’ foursome’s unpredictability has made them the stuff of legend. Torn between the perverse impulse to throw it all away and the rock ‘n’ roll imperative to make it ( one foot in the door / The other one in the gutter, they sang on 1987’s “Pleased to Meet Me”), Paul Westerberg and company come off as rambunctious, melancholy, irreverent, wistful, romantic, bleary existentialists. Westerberg is a true natural, a Huck Finn/Jimmy Stewart innocent taking on the world with a Mott the Hoople defiance. He has some of the primal rock instincts and intensity of a John Fogerty--but with a different set of musical roots (‘70s hit pop, glam-rock), and a finely developed sense of irony.

THE POGUES (Presenter: Van Morrison). The Clancy Brothers on speed, the Chieftains in heat. The brawling Irish/English brigade was the first to exploit the similarities between traditional Irish folk music and punk-rock: the cries of alienation, the frantic slam-dance tempos. Singer Shane MacGowan is an unpredictable, eccentric singer, wobbly but concentrating, coarse but vivid--a bit like his buddy Joe Strummer. While they’re cleaning up the act musically--and dabbling amusingly in Middle Eastern and Mexican forms--they’re coming up with better songs. The last Pogues album, 1987’s “If I Should Fall from Grace With God,” moves from Irish death obsessions to ghost stories to race-track limericks to love laments to political protest. And now the advance single from the next album comes along sounding like a giddy lost Motown rocker.

JANE’S ADDICTION (Presenter: Iggy Pop). Sweet, elusive psychedelic reveries alternate with hard-rock revelry on “Nothing’s Shocking,” last year’s major- label debut by the latest great hope from the battlefields of the L.A. rock scene.

Confessional then distant, insistent then oddly distracted, the band can get pretty slippery, but Perry Farrell keeps you from giving up. The raspy-voiced urchin is a compelling presence at the center of the storm, confronting his demons in rock ‘n’ roll psychodramas like “Had a Dad,” then sketching an aching, sympathetic slice of Hollywood life in “Jane Says.” The band’s rambunctious reputation rests more on its arrogant image and anything-goes live shows than on this friendly and accessible record.

THE SUGARCUBES (Presenters: Nina Hagen and Grace Slick). It’s not as though Iceland is another planet--they do have radio and television there. Still, there’s a faintly alien tone in this Icelandic band’s dense but airy tone poems. It sounds like something that developed in isolation, cut off from rock’s major currents, and singer Bjork’s possessed vocals contribute to the Nordic mystery of the enigmatic songs. All of which might explain why last year’s debut album, “Life’s Too Good,” became the rage of the alternative market.

ICE-T (Presenter: Curtis Mayfield). The L.A. rapper’s second album, “Power,” opens with the sounds of an argument and a shooting over an advance tape of the album. That sums up a good part of Mr. T’s turf: self-promotion and urban violence. Even if you don’t buy the whole pose and package, it’s hard to resist the momentum and intense action of his L.A. gang scenarios. One narrative on “Power” scraps the common 4/4 rap rhythms and floats over a cool, jazzy background--a Tom Waits/ Raymond Chandler exercise that suggests new options for creative rappers. (The other part of his turf is sex, depicted in terms that might make Prince blush and infected with a deep misogyny. Needs work here.)

METALLICA (Presenter: Ozzy Osbourne). How do the kingpins of the “new metal” differ from the heroes of mainstream heavy metal? Their spare, scowling guitar rock has none of the craven melodies and grandiose cymbal-crashing of ambitious chart-climbers. They race along like a punk band, they shift rhythms like a fusion group. They don’t sing about girls, preferring to consider systems of oppression and symptoms of depression. They don’t dress in spangles and romp around like circus acrobats. They don’t grin and pretend to be your buddies, they don’t wear makeup and pretend to be the devil. Their guitar solos--which occupy much of their records and shows--are direct, with no electronic gimmickry. What Metallica does have in common with the old guys is a standing reservation in the Top 10.

BH SURFERS (Presenter: Roky Erikson, legendary Texas visionary and leader of ‘60s psychedelic band the Thirteenth Floor Elevators). If Guns N’ Roses are one of those “lock up your daughters” bands, the Surfers’ cry might be “lock up your dogs.” No quirks of human behavior are beyond the grasp of these Austin eccentrics, whose edge-of-chaos sound drills down to subconscious pools of depravity and scatology. They generate a hallucinatory state in which ordeals can be hilarious and cleansing as well as disturbing. The band’s live show, with its grim films, obsessed dual drummers, burning bass, brain-tapping strobe lights, bullhorn vocals and topless dancers, is unequalled for creating an air of imminent collapse.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES (Presenter: Pete Townshend). Few bands have articulated youthful alienation better than this Venice group, which has bridged the punk and metal worlds over the course of its three albums. The cult hit “Institutionalized” was just the beginning. The group’s recent LP, “How Will I Laugh Tomorrow . . . When I Can’t Even Smile Today,” is an interior journey from pain, madness, hopelessness, impotence and isolation to determination and action. It rides on a brisk, crushing barrage that’s not really out of the metal mainstream--but ST’s overall tone is a little rougher than the norm, and the gang trappings contribute to their threatening air.

ELVIS COSTELLO (Presenter: Bob Dylan). A lifetime achievement award for the elder statesman of this maverick delegation. From the new-wave upstart of “My Aim Is True” to the revitalized upstart of the new “Spike,” Costello has cut a monumental path through ‘80s pop music. Dissecting both love and politics with intricate imagery, moving restlessly from hard-rock to country to soul to torch song to folk, the bespectacled one has delivered the goods with true rage.