POP/ROCK: Jay Farrar, Will Johnson, Anders Parker, Yim Yames, "New Multitudes" (Rounder)

"New Multitudes" is the latest work to mine the vast stash of some 3,000 songs that the great and prolific folk troubadour Woody Guthrie left behind when he died in 1967 at age 55. Most of the material now held by the Woody Guthrie Archives is just pages of lyrics, or fragments, with little or no indication of how he thought the music should sound, so this quartet of alt-rock musicians has been charged with creating original melodies and accompaniment, yielding a cross-generational realization of Guthrie's ideas.

Wisely, there seems to be little attempt to mimic Guthrie's style and sound. Instead, they've put his words into contemporized musical frameworks, creating a sense of what his work might have sounded like were he still around working and jabbing at social and political sacred cows today. These concoctions have inherent charm both from Guthrie's typically pithy, sometimes deceptively trenchant writer's eye and from the foursome's fittingly earnest musical settings. But they also reveal the musical lineage of which Guthrie is both a key disciple and an inspirational fountainhead for successive generations.

"Careless Reckless Love" reflects Richard Thompson-like folk troubadour trappings, "Old L.A." rides along on a fluidly propulsive rhythm echoing R.E.M., "No Fear" accesses the Velvet Underground's proto-punk minimalism and " V.D. City" mines the cragginess of John Mellencamp's heartland rock.

  • RANDY LEWIS, LOS ANGELES TIMES

HIP-HOP: Tyga, "Careless World" (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal Republic)

The most disposable hip-hop hit in recent months has been Tyga's "Rack City," a slinky, sleazy snake of a strip-club anthem, all vibrating bass tones and filthy come-ons. It's a grower -- empty on first listen, more and more primal over time. The beat, though, is the star; Tyga is merely percussive drizzle atop it.

This Compton, Calif., rapper has been on the B team of Lil Wayne's Young Money crew for some time, displaying the occasional flash of charm, as on the hit single "BedRock." "Careless World" is Tyga's major-label debut, and it sounds like it. Even though he remains a cipher, his surroundings are lush. A collaboration with Nicki Minaj with an unprintable name has a gyrating beat built on a sea of digitized giggles, and smooth gospelesque coos drive "Do It All." Those songs, and several others on this album, are produced by Jess Jackson, who proves a strong match for Tyga, supplementing his hollowness with density and feeling.

Tyga is a labored rapper at best, though he's capable of a variety of cadences. He's bouncy on "Potty Mouth" and pleasingly nasal on "Faded." But his method can't redeem his sometimes clunky word jumbles.

  • JON CARAMANICA, NEW YORK TIMES