SOUND CHECK : LATIN.

Enrique Iglesias/``Vivir''

You'll be hard-pressed to find a better new pop album than ``Vivir (To Live).''

Sung entirely in Spanish, it is filled with catchy, well-produced songs you'll find yourself humming after the first playing.

Enrique Iglesias (yes, he's Julio's son) gets solid support on this CD: percussionist Paulinho Da Costa, guitarist Michael Landau and veteran rock keyboardist Billy Preston. ``Vivir'' (Fonovisa) shows growth over its formulaic, ballad-heavy predecessor.

Iglesias co-wrote the bulk of the songs - primarily of the predictable ``I can't live without you'' variety - and he's upped the tempos, slipping biting guitar solos into power-pop ballads such as ``Al Despertar'' ``(Waking Up), Enamorado Por Primera Vez (In Love for the First Time)'' and the terrific ``Miente (Lie).''

In English, this would pass for Toto or Richard Marx. But pop can be both conventional and entertaining. Besides, note that Iglesias tries Europop (a bright, perky remake of Yaz's ``Only You'' titled ``Solo En Ti'' here) and even lite-African rhythms on ``Lluvia Cae (The Rain Falls).'' Four Stars

?13- Howard Cohen 

Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Alfredo Rodriguez/``Cuba Linda''

Paris-based Cuban pianist Alfredo Rodriguez traveled to the island last year to revisit the roots of Cuban music and record with local players. The results, as compiled in ``Cuba Linda'' (Hannibal), sound at once sophisticated and rough-edged, smartly designed but retaining the feeling of a casual, soulful neighborhood session among friends.

The title track opens as a jazz-influenced piano solo meditation and quickly turns into a backyard ``guaguanco.'' ``Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado'' (better known in the United States as ``What a Difference a Day Makes)'' is played here as a fast ``danzon,'' elegant but muscular. Even ``Drume Negrita,'' a classic lullaby, gets a rough-but-tender reading.

Rodriguez also takes chances in worthy experiments with mixed results. In ``Canto de Palo,'' an arrangement of ritual Afro-Cuban music usually performed by drums and voices, the piano simply feels superfluous. ``Tumba, Mi Tumba'' explores ``tumba Francesa,'' a drum-heavy style from eastern Cuba, and largely succeeds by taking a very percussive piano approach. ``Mercedita Ya Me Voy,'' freely alluding to several Cuban music styles, is delightful.

Rodriguez is on to something. Three Stars

?13- Fernando Gonzalez

Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

rock

Jonny Lang/``Lie to Me''

If only 16-year-old Jonny Lang's music was as interesting as his story, or as dynamic as his live performances. But on his sophomore album, Lang comes across as an overly diligent student of the quote-unquote blues tradition. And though ``Lie to Me'' (A&M) provides some benign bar-band amusement, it is more often than not an anonymous sampler plate of processed blues and rock.

Lang is a flashy, expressive guitarist and an emotive singer. But where there's smoke, there's very little fire: The material (by Bruce McCabe, Ike Turner and Kevin Bowe) is awfully tasteful - and written by men 20, 30 and 50 years older than Lang. Where are the songs about what it feels like to be 16 years old? So what if Lang ``sounds like a 35-year-old black guy''? Why we are to assume this is a good thing?

Lang's first record, ``Smokin','' concluded with a wonderful cover of Robert Johnson's ``Malted Milk,'' a clever acknowledgment of the kid's kid-dom. No such pranks on this big ``Lie.'' On ``Smokin','' Lang wrote or co-wrote four of the songs; his major-label debut contains two originals. That's a disturbing enough development, but more so is the fact that his own songs sound like old guys wrote them, too.

Which is why the next few years are crucial for Lang. He can either start writing from his own experience/sense of artistry and, in turn, push the limits of the blues the way the Stones, Beck, Jon Spencer and others have. Or he can continue mimicking his elders and end up, at the ripe old age of 21, as the Twin Cities' most gifted studio musician. Two Stars

?13- Jim Walsh

Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire

Mojo Nixon/``Gadzooks''

A compilation of 17 raucous rarities, ``Gadzooks 

'' is the mother lode of all albums for Mojomaniacs, if only because it includes ``High School Is Prison'' (his terrific theme song for the hideous sequel, ``Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever'') and the much-rumored, never-released ``Bring Me the Head of David Geffen.''

``David Geffen'' attacks the record industry mogul with a bluesy vengeance, but it's more of a rambling blanket indictment against rock's corporate mentality than a hilarious pointed character assassination such as ``Don Henley Must Die.''

Nixon has always been revered as a caustic commentator. But lost in his blustering tirades over the years has been the fact that his oddball mix of Howlin' Wolf, Wolfman Jack and Foghorn Leghorn is based on blues, country and rock at its basest and most basic.

That's why the biggest revelations on ``Gadzooks'' (Needletime) are two forgotten rarities cut with former washboard-playing partner Skid Roper - a crackling cover of Chuck Berry's ``Tulane'' and the Velvet Underground-influenced ``Death Row Blues'' - and an acoustic country-blues called ``Go Back Home.'' They prove that Nixon may be a proud nut case, but he takes rock 'n' roll very seriously. Two Stars

?13- David Okamoto

Dallas Morning News

soundtracks

Various/``Gridlock'd''

Not everything on ``Gridlock'd'' (Death Row) is gripping. The biggest disappointment is that the soundtrack leans heavily only on rap, and there's none of Stewart Copeland's score or much of the jazzier material from the film.

The one exception is Eight Mile Road's ``Life Is a Traffic Jam'' (co-written by the film's director, Vondie Curtis-Hall, along with the late rapper Tupac Shakur), a terrific, semi-spoken word, stream-of-consciousness blast. Two Stars

?13- Cary Darling

Orange County Register

Various/``Angel Baby''

After ``Michael,'' do we really need another soundtrack with Norman Greenbaum's 1970 hit ``Spirit in the Sky''? No. But, fortunately, there's much more here, as much of ``Angel Baby'' (Milan) consists of an exotic ethno-ambience. According to the liner notes, director Michael Rymer wanted to use music with ``warm ethnic textures to form a strong contrast with the stark urban visual look of the film.''

He has succeeded, thanks to the inclusion of works from Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (``Sea of Vapours,'' ``Tracery''), John Clifford White (``Escape,'' ``The Freak Out,'' ``Incantations''), The Grid (the gorgeous ``Angel Tech''), Shu-de (``Sygyt Khoomei Kargyraa''), Dave Clayton and Renaud Pion (``Astal''), and Peter Gabriel (``We Do What We're Told''). Three Stars

?13- Cary Darling

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Singer Enrique Iglesias ups the tempos on his second album, ``Vivir (To Live).''

(2) Tupac Shakur co-wrote ``Life Is a Traffic Jam,'' on the ``Gridlock'd'' soundtrack.

(3) Sixteen-year-old Jonny Lang makes his major label debut with ``Lie to Me.''