Noteworthy

Fleetwood Mac - Say You Will (Warner Bros.): Fleetwood Mac has changed lineups many times over the years. Missing from its latest CD is Christine McVie, whose smooth keyboard and vocal work has always contrasted nicely with the raspy-voiced Stevie Nicks. McVie retired while the band was touring to promote its 1997 album, "The Dance." But Mac has too much talent to let her absence slow it down. Along with more songs that feature the bewitching Nicks, "Say You Will" also contains more of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham's inventive songwriting. End result: an edgier, more guitar-based CD than previous records, but with an overall sound that is trademark Fleetwood Mac. - Vic Roberts

Madonna - American Life (Warner Bros.): On her 10th studio album, Madonna dissects her 20-year career and takes an introspective look at her life. In the album's first single, "American Life," she raps that she has three nannies, an assistant, a driver, and a jet, "but do you think I'm satisfied?" She reveals in "I'm So Stupid," that she was stupid because she once wanted to be like all the pretty people. Later, on the moving "Mother and Father," she sings earnestly that when her mother died, all she did was cry. Madonna can play the guitar and sing beautifully through all the techno blips and bleeps and slower-moving songs. There's even a beautiful chorus in "Nothing Fails." But please, no more rapping. - Lisa Leigh Connors

Lisa Germano - Lullaby for a Liquid Pig (Ineffable/iMusic): Some people unburden their innermost thoughts in diary entries. Lisa Germano commits them to microphone. "These are your secrets/ hidden inside/ wherever you go/ wherever you hide," she sings on her fifth album, a record about loneliness and, frankly, using alcohol as a crutch. It's bleak all right, but there are glimmers of healing and a new self-awareness. Germano's music sparkles with piano, music boxes, and fairground organs - all accompanied by an undertow of grainy reverb and swirling static. Elsewhere, violins sound like whales murmuring from the depths. The overall effect is spectral but lovely. - Stephen Humphries

Les Nubians - One Step Forward (Higher Octave): It didn't take long for sisters Héléne and Célia Faussart to sing their way out of Bordeaux, France, with their 1998 debut "Princesses Nubiennes." All of Europe was transfixed. Americans weren't so easily won over, but the duo's second release is pushing its way to the top of the Billboard charts. With lyrics in French and English, the appearance of soulful rapper Talib Kweli, and a mixture of bossa nova, jazz, Afro-beat, and reggae, "One Step Forward" is a masterly harmony of sexy tenor and spiritual soprano. LN and C-Lia, as they are known, recorded in Jamaica, Cameroon, London, and Paris with African jazz legend Manu Dibango and classical musician Benjamin Biolay. The result: an elegance uncompromised by their earnest call for peace. - Elizabeth Armstrong

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