For those who miss – or missed out on – the days when M/A/R/R/S, S'Express, and L'Trimm were all the rage, Fannypack feel your pain. On the Brooklyn hip-pop group's rousing debut, So Stylistic, Belinda, Cat, and Jessibel (ages 16 to 21) impressively replicate the bootylicious, late-'80s beats and electro-chintz of J.J. Fad and Technotronic with the help of their Svengali-DJs, Fancy and Matt Goias. The result – a perfect house-party mix with more bounce per ounce than J. Lo's ass – makes it clear these fly girls have one thing in mind: getting their groove/freak/fun on. For 45 straight minutes, they push it real good. They hang in a buffalo stance. Most important, though, they pump up the jam.

It's their first hit, "Cameltoe," however, that has pumped up Fannypack's profile. An anti-frontal wedgie anthem that finds the ladies shit-talkin' like seasoned vets ("Is your crotch hungry, girl? / 'Cause it's eating your pants"), the song has been garnering more radio requests than those by 50 Cent and Lil' Kim. It's one of the summer's finest dance-floor seductions – second only to Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" – but lest you fear such a hilarious number might make 'em fun-hit wonders on the novelty circuit, rest assured that So Stylistic has enough sure-shot singles – "Smack It Up," "Do It to It," etc. – to keep systems boomin' long after the "Cameltoe" epidemic fades. In other words, Fannypack gonna make U sweat. (Jimmy Draper)

Thorns
The Thorns (Aware/Columbia)

Who knew this easy-listening pop band would be such a guilty pleasure? Assembled by a supergroup of otherwise solo songsmiths – Matthew Sweet, Pete Droge, and Shawn Mullins – who are obviously tired of slaving toward a ripe AARP-ready age without the benefits of a retirement pension, The Thorns is a bit like that Crosby, Stills and Nash, Eagles, or even Traveling Wilburys-era Tom Petty CD that you inevitably shuffle into hiding when you're feeling particularly lame and insecure. There's almost enough pleasure here to offset the guilt – moments of immaculate, super-refined, sugary white roots pop embodied by the gentle, so-close Beach Boys harmonies of "Now I Know" and the resigned, mandolin-touched realism of "Among the Living." But then the shame comes rushing in – like watching your parents trot out their depressing macramé crafts gone wrong – thanks to songs like CSN-on-a-whoa-hella-bad-trip "Dragonfly" and its faux freak-out with Sweet, Droge, and Mullins crooning with alarm, "Cover it up, cover it up …" as the forces of darkness encroach on their hippiegrass idyll. But those are aberrations in the Thorns' mighty, monolithic composure. With nary a worrying crunch in earshot, apart from the spit-shined ELO glam of "Thorns," The Thorns is wus rock: proud and loud, with radio-perfect production. Now if they can just keep their Wilburys from traveling into self-parody – and hold on tight to their Brian Wilson-style instincts toward pure pop expressionism rather than their Wilson Phillips-ish will to thrive. The Thorns perform Tues/22, Fillmore, S.F. (415) 421-TIXS. (Kimberly Chun)

The Bad Plus
These Are the Vistas (Columbia)

New York trio the Bad Plus's major-label debut – and second album – has been getting an awful lot of press, basically anointing them as out-of-nowhere saviors of jazz, and not just from the usual jazz insiders. Not only have the Bad Plus headlined a full Herbst Theatre during the SFJAZZ spring season, but they've also played on network morning TV, while their disc has gotten raves from the fashion victims at Vibe and repeated mentions in Rolling Stone. So when I finally got a copy of These Are the Vistas, I was surprised to find essentially a no-frills acoustic piano trio album. No hippie funk jams, no smooth jazz fluff, and none of the other gimmicks usually required to win big press coverage for a jazz recording.

The fact that they "cover" Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" is the closest they come to being gimmicky – as if covering the most popular rock song from the last decade is something revolutionary – but the performance is legitimate. As covers go, though, their near free jazz rendering of Blondie's "Heart of Glass" is better (at least, up until the cheesy coda), as is their straighter take on Aphex Twin's "Flam," which has some nifty live drum 'n' bass-style percussion by David King and is really just about perfect. Most of their originals are as good, despite some iffy titles. "Keep the Bugs off Your Glass and the Bears off Your Ass," which recalls Blue Note pianist Herbie Nichols, is a highlight, along with "Boo-Wah," which opens with a tricky stop-start theme before erupting into another one of their tumultuous yet melodic group improvisations. (Will York)

London Elektricity
Billion Dollar Gravy (Hospital/UK)

Whereas many drum 'n' bass artists have emerged from a hip-hop or techno background, Hospital Records owner and artist Tony Colman was introduced to the genre via acid jazz bands and house music production. Both styles influence his work under the alias London Elektricity, but the marks that soul, jazz, and house make on his uplifting and melodic drum 'n' bass are love bites rather than welts.

Despite the whiplash snares and pounding kettledrums, each track on his latest album, Billion Dollar Gravy, manages to sleekly roll out in a wash of warm melodies and gospel-oriented vocal upswings, challenging listeners to define the difference between organic and electronic. Tracks like "Fast Soul Music" and "The Great Drum and Bass Swindle" play with horns, strings, and other live music conventions, but their thick, syrupy bass and lively drums keep them from being mere background fare.

Gone, too, are the airy, ethereal elements popularized by that other melodic d 'n' b artist LTJ Bukem. "We hate music that has waves, seagulls, and dodgy sax solos," Colman has said. Indeed, Billion Dollar Gravy, like the rest of the Hospital Records catalog, is blissfully free of "progressive" musical clichés, replaced instead by sensual vocal sensations and sinuously unexpected songwriting talent. (Vivian Host)

At the Spine
The Curriculum Is Never Neutral (Global Seepej)

At the Spine remember those final, fading days when vinyl was king and album spines could be counted on as the ace organizational tool in your music library. So mastermind and former Plains guitarist Mike Toschi indulges a love of AOR Ozzy vocalizing, via early-'90s grunge, on The Curriculum Is Never Neutral's dozen or so hearty tracks, a mixed bag that reflects Toschi's varied life experience as an educator, a laborer, a temp, and a recording engineer. Boasting an interest in the American landscape, Curriculum ranges widely – from tunes with an undeniably anthemic bent, as with the rousing opener, "Second Hand," and Toschi's dusty, banal version of "El Paso," "Cutter," to more impressionistic, meandering, and less successful, filler-like numbers (see "Sand in Your Teeth" and "Dark Days"). Perhaps this would have made a better EP than a stretched-thin album. Still, try as he might, this slacker can't disguise the elemental vitality underlying these songs; word has it that live, Toschi's power trio might even make you break out the flannel. At the Spine play Sat/19, Stork Club, Oakl. (510) 444-6174. Sun/20, Rooster's Roadhouse, Alameda. (510) 337-9190. Mon/21, Kimo's, S.F. (415) 885-4535. (Chun)

Rosanne Cash
Rules of Travel (Capitol)

An honest description of Rosanne Cash's talents is that she's a good songwriter with a slightly thin voice who's married a couple of good producers (Rodney Crowell, John Levanthal), and whose songs are sometimes so smooth and listener friendly that it's tempting to blame the entire saccharine country swamp of the '80s and '90s on her fabulous 1981 album, Seven Year Ache, even if she rarely slips into quicksand herself. So why have I loved every album Cash has released? Because of what happens when she puts her voice to songs that concentrate on the lowercase but no less enormous hurts and hopes of daily life and delivers them to listeners for whom three and a half minutes of release and redemption are as close to freedom as they get – which is another way of saying, Because she makes wonderful pop music.