These Wordsmiths Are Really Worth the Bucks

From rock maverick Neil Young to country maverick Steve Earle, the emphasis is on songwriting in this edition of Calendar’s guide to keeping up with pop excitement on an album budget of $50 a month.

May

Steve Earle, “Train a Comin’ ” (Winter Harvest). In his most engaging and country-leaning collection since 1986’s “Guitar Town,” Earle goes from tenderness to bravado with enough individuality and conviction to make him the leading candidate if Willie, Waylon, Johnny and Kris ever decide to turn the Highwaymen into a quintet.

Polara, “Polara” (Clean). Ed Ackerson and his Minneapolis band balance strident music textures and seductively confessional songs in ways that establish him as one of the most promising figures in ‘90s rock. Imagine the studio smarts and Brian Wilson instincts of Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan merged with the songwriting eloquence of Paul Westerberg.

Ron Sexsmith, “Ron Sexsmith” (Interscope). This Canadian singer-songwriter turns to Leonard Cohen (the melancholy “Heart With No Connection”) to supplement his own tunes on this striking debut, which recalls the introspective innocence of early Jackson Browne and Fred Neil.

June

Jill Sobule, “Jill Sobule” (Lava/Atlantic). Sobule can be a touch too breathless at times, but you’ve got to forgive venial pop sins when someone can write character sketches that examine human rites and wrongs in such consistently appealing and surprising ways. “I Kissed a Girl” is the main, but far from the only, calling card.

Tricky, “Maxinquaye” (Island). The neo-punk version of Public Enemy’s “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos,” one of the ‘80s’ starkest expressions of black rage, stamps this hip-hop and dance influenced British production-songwriting mastermind as a serious contender in the international pop world.

Neil Young, “Mirror Ball” (Reprise). With Pearl Jam at his side, Young gives us, once again, an album of remarkable imagination and heart--a collection that reminds us that the failure of the ‘60s generation to live up to all its ideals doesn’t make the ideals invalid. An album of the year contender (see review, Page 62).