Holiday Gift Guide : Calendar’s little helpers offer suggestions in pop, jazz, holiday, family and classical music, plus videos, computer games and books. (Good news: They’re easy to wrap.) : POP MUSIC

* * * 1/2 THE BEATLES, “Anthology 1,” Apple. The most wide-ranging collection of new and never-before-released music from the Beatles in 25 years opens with the new “Free as a Bird,” but things get more involving as the album moves into the vintage material.

* * * GARTH BROOKS, “Fresh Horses,” Capitol Nashville. There are disappointing routine moments that keep this from being the knockout package you expect someday from an artist with such stage command. Still, it asserts an ambition and individuality rare these days in the flood of mediocre Nashville acts.

* * * 1/2 QUINCY JONES, “Q’s Jook Joint,” Qwest. There’s a huge cast of guest musicians, but the vision clearly belongs to Jones. The music suggests a journey from his big-band past to his current hip-hop admiration.

* * * 1/2 OASIS, “(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?” Epic. A teasing glimpse of what the Beatles might have sounded like in today’s musical environment. A welcome tonic for the despair of so much ‘90s rock.

* * * * BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” Columbia. In these stark, acoustic songs about the plight of immigrants, Springsteen takes an uncompromising look at the soul of a nation so overwhelmed by shifting social and economic demands that it is often numb to the cries of despair in its midst.

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (f a ir), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent).