NEW ALBUMS

Say welcome back to the Cranberries. For Irish pop-rockers, the 1990s were a very good decade. Lead singer Dolores O'Riordan's lilting, yodel-like vocals separated the quartet from the angst-filled alternative rockers filling the airwaves.

Their new album "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee" marks the return of producer Stephen Street, whose competent polish factored into the success of the band's debut and 1994's "No Need to Argue", and is filled with lazy lyrics penned by O'Riordan.

The incomprehensible "This Is the Day" is built around O'Riordan bellowing "faith will save you", like an evangelist, but there are a couple of nuggets among the clunkers. The first single, "Analyse" will please Cranberries fans used to O'Riordan's clear voice ringing out.



Elton John is a living legend. He's a man who gave us numerous pop classics in the 1970s, dropped a few hits in the 80s and spent much of the last decade concentrating on film and theatrical scores.

On "Songs From the West Coast", though, everything old is new again - the strings are under control and Taupin is back alongside the pianist/composer - and the result definitely is a breath of refreshed air.

Interestingly, this return-to-form affair is bookended by two songs that look backward wistfully.

"The Emperor's New Clothes", a stirring walk down memory lane, sets the tone by opening up with just John playing the piano and singing for about a minute. When the band finally does show up, producer Patrick Lenoard keeps John's vocal and piano pushed up in the mix and doesn't let them fade into the background for the remainder of the album.

Still rolling the stone The Rolling Stones are back on the road celebrating their 40th anniversary, but Mick Jagger's knighthood earlier this year almost brought things to a screeching halt.

Guitarist Keith Richards has told the British music magazine Mojo that he was so angry that Jagger accepted the honour from Queen Elizabeth II that he "threatened to pull out of the tour. "I went berserk and bananas...cold, cold rage at Jagger's blind stupidity," Richards was quoted as saying.

Richards said he felt that by accepting the knighthood in June, Jagger turned his back on the counter-cultural messages of much of the Stones' music and succumbed to the values of the British establishment.

Stones drummer Charlie Watts, meanwhile, is more charitable about Jagger's knighthood: "Blimey, some of the people who had those medals, or whatever you call them, are horrendous, so Mick certainly deserves one. If Paul McCartney got one, Mick should have got one. But if Mick got one, Keith should have been offered one, and that would have really been something else."

Knighthoods or not, the Stones are on tour and perform in the United States and Canada at the moment.

The group's "Forty Licks", a hits collection with four new songs, comes out October 1 in North America on Virgin Records and they have agreed to give their first live concert for an American television network, a show that will air on HBO in January.

The pay TV cable network will present the Stones at Madison Square Garden in New York City on January 18, one of the last stops on their "Licks" tour.

Fortune magazine ran last week a large feature on the Rolling Stones. The magazine explores the business behind the band's intense touring schedules.

There are many great quotes from the band, offering a peak into how they balance their own musical passion and fame with the hard edge of business.

"As with most thriving enterprises, the Rolling Stones Inc. runs on a combustible mix of talent and intense labour - the product of four decades of trial and error. The band downplays the effectiveness of the organisation: "I'm sure that if you looked at it and analysed it, you could say, "Well, that's fucked up," says Jagger. "That shouldn't be like that. No, of course it isn't run well. No show business organisation is run well. There's always too much money paid out." Keith, for his part, just shakes his head: "It's a mom-and-pop operation," he laughs. "Mick is the mom, and I'm the pop, and then we have these offspring that need feeding." Tina Turner highway

Tina Turner's hometown, made famous in her song "Nutbush City Limits", will be the site of a ceremony naming a highway for her.

On Saturday (tomorrow), a stretch of State Highway 19 near Nutbush will be designated "Tina Turner Highway". The Legislature approved renaming the road, which is mentioned in the 1973 song.

Turner lived Nutbush, a small community about 50 miles northeast of Memphis, until she was 17, said Sharon Norris, a distant relative and organiser of the ceremony.

The singer, who's 62 now and no longer has close ties to the area, is not coming to the event. But dozens of fans are expected to show up, tour Carver High where she attended school and see the house where she lived.

"She has been a positive inspiration for a lot of women and for people who were in poverty," said Norris, who has held an annual event honouring Turner and other local musicians since 1973. Just for the record James Brown in court If a new lawsuit is to be believed, James Brown, aka the hardest working man in show business, has sired the hardest working kids in show business.

Daughters Deanna Brown Thomas and Yamma Brown Lumar are suing their famous father for more than $1 million in back royalties. They say they co-wrote 25 tunes with Brown, including his funky 1976 hit "Get Up Offa That Thing" when they were just six and three years old.

The suit was filed in federal court in Atlanta, accusing Papa Brown of withholding royalty payments and seeking restitution for breach of contract, racketeering and negligence.

While a casual fan might wonder how Thomas, who works for a South Carolina radio station, and Lumar, a doctor in Texas, might actually have co-written the songs at such a tender age, their names have been on the copyright since day one, entitling them to their fair share of the royalties.