SOUND CHECK : SHOWTUNES.

1996 Broadway revival cast/``A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum''

Any cast recording is limited by the fact that it captures only the show's sounds, but the situation is especially pronounced when the show is as relentlessly visual as the vaudeville-flavored ``A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.''

The recording of the current Broadway revival (Broadway Angel, due in stores Tuesday) is useful as a sort of historical reference, but there's a lot you can't truly appreciate, such as Nathan Lane's Roman slave/vaudeville MC cheerfully announcing a comedy as the evening's entertainment, only to have the curtain go up on a scene of wailing tragedy, or a slave trader displaying his beauteous, long-legged merchandise in a deliriously sexy series of bump-and-grind routines (all you get on the disc, of course, is the racy music; the rest is up to your imagination).

Stephen Sondheim's 1962 score contains several charming songs (``Comedy Tonight,'' ``Love, I Hear,'' ``Free''), but nothing as complex or compelling as in such later shows as ``Follies'' or ``Sweeney Todd.'' Though skillfully recorded and lushly instrumented, these tunes, too, lose something in the translation, since the talented character actors aren't, alas, the world's loveliest singers. Yes, that goes for Tony Award winner Lane, whose nasal voice expressively conveys his character's playfulness, yet loses something without that Silly Putty face of his to go along with it. Two stars

SOURCE: - Daryl H. Miller

pop Patti Smith/``Gone Again''

Patti Smith sang ``Bye bye/hey hey/maybe we will come back someday'' on 1979's incantatory ``Frederick,'' a love song for her husband, Fred Smith. Who knew we were to take her seriously? Since then she has released one album (1988's underappreciated ``Dream of Life'') yet it's hard to imagine much of today's modern rock existing were it not for the influential albums she released between 1975-1979.

Sure enough, on the stunning ``Gone Again'' (Arista) she uses aggressive rock and gentle ballads to address her painful losses: the deaths of her husband, her brother Todd, her longtime keyboardist Richard Sohl, photographer pal Robert Mapplethorpe, and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, whose music she admired.

Despite the heavy subject matter, ``Gone Again'' is free of self-pity and is clearly focused. ``Gone Again's'' message is of hope and perseverance. We don't know when Smith will share her life with us again, but when she does, it's bound to fascinate. Three stars

SOURCE: -Howard Cohen 

Beck/``Odelay''

After his quirky, remarkably successful ``Mellow Gold'' (1994), his first release on a major label, avant-folk rocker Beck Hansen was often dismissed as the briefest of one-hit wonders. ``Odelay'' (DGC) proves he is not. Showing a vision at once playful and probing, the 13 songs here are pieced together from a jumble of musical references and a mouthful of screwball lyrics.

Beck's subject in ``Odelay'' is sound, not just pop hooks, a particular rhythm or the meaning of a line. In any given song there might be a few words in Spanish, a distorted slide guitar, a honky-tonk piano, a turn of '70s electric piano-organ grooves, a few bars of bossa nova guitar, an accordion. Hush Puppies-comfortable commonplaces have rarely sounded so intriguing or unsettling. Four stars

SOURCE: -Fernando Gonzalez

Slayer/``Undisputed Attitude''

Thrash metal band Slayer pays homage to its roots with a 14-cut CD (American) of hard-core covers. In a brisk 32 minutes, Slayer essays the brutal works of old acts Minor Threat, T.S.O.L. and Verbal Abuse with ferocious speed metal that moves like, well, a twister. ``Gemini,'' a visceral Slayer original, is a comparative crawl, but that's like saying you'd rather run from an approaching hurricane than a tornado. You're still going to get stomped. Four stars

SOURCE: -H.C.

JAZZ Richard Elliot/``City Speak''

There has to be a charm school somewhere for contemporary jazz saxophonists. It's a strict school, run with an iron hand by headmaster Ken E. Gee. Conformity is encouraged; originality despised. If caught playing a complex song, the offender must write 100 times on the blackboard: ``I will not challenge the listener.''

Richard Elliot was an ``A'' student, and that's why ``City Speak'' (Blue Note Contemporary) is so bland and soulless. It sounds like every other smooth-jazz CD.

And even when he takes a small step forward, Elliot, a former member of Tower of Power, plays it safe. His ``That's All She Wrote'' is ``the first pure jazz track he ever recorded,'' crows a press release. It's also the last cut on the CD. One star

SOURCE: -Al Hunter Jr.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) With ``Odelay,'' avant-folk rocker Beck tries to prove he's no one-hit wonder.

(2) Nathan Lane sings on ``A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.''

(3) Slayer turns its attention to punk covers on ``Undisputed Attitude.''