By GERRY GALIPAULT

(June 1999)

This week (June 27-July 3) marks two occasions: The year reaches its midway point at high noon July 1, just as you're munching on that grilled cheese sandwich at lunch - only 182.5 days till that big day everyone has been talking about but the reason escapes us - and Pause & Play is smack in the middle of its monthly countdown of the Top 100 essential albums of the 1990s.

Getting there has been half the battle.

Before the countdown continues, let's look back upon the first six months: The year, so far, belongs to Ricky Martin, nasty computer viruses, PokŽmon, Kid Rock, Austin Powers (again), "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" (again, for the fourth time), "The Sopranos," Blondie, Columbine High School, eBay, Cher, cargo pants, the Kosovars, "Behind the Music," Teletubby Tinky Winky, the euro, a merciful end to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and the swan songs of Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and John Elway. We also lost several icons: Joe DiMaggio, Dusty Springfield, Mel Torme, Shel Silverstein ... even Boxcar Willie, to name a few.

Here are the Top 10 songs and albums that stand out for P&P at mid-'99:

Songs - "Maria," Blondie (Beyond); "Somebody Loves You," Nik Kershaw (Pyramid/WEA); "In Love," Fear of Pop featuring William Shatner (550 Music); "No Scrubs," TLC (LaFace/Arista); "If You Buy This Record Your Life Will Be Better," The Tamperer featuring Maya Days (Jive); "Music Sounds Better With You," Stardust (Roule/Virgin); "Believe," Cher (Warner); "Praise You," Fatboy Slim (Skint/Astralwerks); "I'd Like That," XTC (TVT); "In Our Lifetime," Texas (Universal).

Albums - "Apple Venus, Volume 1," XTC (TVT); "FanMail," TLC (LaFace/Arista); "You've Come a Long Way, Baby," Fatboy Slim (Skint/Astralwerks); "Millennium Hip-Hop Party," various artists (Rhino); "Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too," New Radicals (MCA); "Dosage," Collective Soul (Atlantic); "Utopia Parkway," Fountains of Wayne (Atlantic); "15 Minutes," Nik Kershaw (Pyramid/WEA); "13," Blur (Virgin); "14:59," Sugar Ray (Lava/Atlantic).

And now, in the immortal words of Casey Kasem, "back to the countdown ...."

Every month, P&P is rattling off 10 significant '90s albums in its march toward the next decade. Volume 5 pops up in June. By the end of November, you will have read synopses of 100 LPs. These are, in one column's humble opinion, the Top 100 essential albums of the 1990s.

A trio of music authorities - Aston Harvey of the British dance group Freestylers; Kim Shattuck, leader of The Muffs, and Chris Cox, one-half of the remix team Thunderpuss 2000 - express their opinions on this month's selections.

The Freestylers, who were voted best band at the 1998 Muzik Magazine awards, have their sights set on America with its Mammoth debut album, "We Rock Hard," and the raucous single, "Here We Go." Shattuck and The Muffs, after several years with Reprise Records, bounced back June 15 with their fourth punk-packed LP, "Alert Today Alive Tomorrow," this time on the indie label Honest Don's M-M-Good Recordings. (Both groups will be featured in upcoming P&Ps.)

Cox and studio partner Barry Harris have had a remarkable string of success recently. Their reworking of Whitney Houston's "It's Not Right But It's Okay" topped Billboard's dance club play chart in January and now is poised to crack the Top 10 on the Hot 100 pop list. Their remixes of Amber's "Sexual (Li Da Di)," The Tamperer's "If You Buy This Record Your Life Will Be Better," Britney Spears' "Sometimes" and Abigail's "Let the Joy Rise" are lighting up the dance floors. They have more on the way from Houston ("Your Love Is My Love"), Donna Summer ("Love Is a Healer") and Jennifer Holliday ("A Woman's Got the Power").

(The following albums are not listed alphabetically, chronologically or in order of importance. Anything that came out in the 1990s - even greatest-hits packages, box sets and compilations - is eligible for inclusion. That's right, everything's fair game.)

VERY, Pet Shop Boys (EMI/ERG, 1993) - Dismissed as bubblegum synth-pop by critics from the outset, with "West End Girls" in 1986, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe finally won universal praise with this banner album. There were twinges of the Boys' trademark humor (notably "Dreaming of the Queen"), but elsewhere they masterfully voiced sexual and emotional fears in the AIDS era. Cox: "They've never really done me wrong as far as an album goes. That particular album, before it they had gone off and been a little experimental, and this was their foray back into classic Pet Shop Boys writing, like very clever lyrics and melodies and beats you can dance to. I don't know how you can be related to dance music and not have total admiration for the Pet Shop Boys for everything they've done. That was a classic album." Harvey: "I haven't heard anything from the Pet Shop Boys in a while, but they are pretty interesting for what they do, electronic pop. I'm not a major fan, but they've come up with some very good songs." Shattuck: "I went to a Pet Shop Boys record release party once, and I found it super vile. I don't like dance music at all, because I don't dance and when I see people dance I make fun of them, so the music that goes with it, I don't like. Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' is probably the closest thing to dance music I like." Prime cuts: "Can You Forgive Her?," "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing," "Dreaming of the Queen," "Go West."

INGENUE, k.d. lang (Sire/Reprise) - For years, the Canadian singer-songwriter embraced her country roots and reverence for the late Patsy Cline, but mainstream Nashville was leery of lang's butch haircut and penchant for wearing men's clothes. She didn't take it personally; she just moved on, crossing over to mesh pop with country on this critically lauded, award-winning album described by lang herself as "nouveau easy listening." Cox: "It's a beautiful album, texturally the way it sounds. There's some great writing and she does a great job vocally, but it was one of those handful of albums I found that you could listen to in its entirety over and over again. The entire album helped you forget all your woes and just indulge. It's one of the best albums to hear by candlelight." Prime cuts: "Constant Craving," "Miss Chatelaine," "Outside Myself," "Save Me."

(WHAT'S THE STORY) MORNING GLORY? Oasis (Epic, 1995) - Despite the boorish behavior of the Gallagher brothers and their ongoing feud with Blur, there's no denying that their sophomore effort was a sweeping rock epic. "Champagne Supernova" and "Don't Look Back In Anger," particularly, were the group's shining moments. Cox: "All Beatles references aside - so many people consider them knockoffs, but who hasn't been influenced by the Beatles? - yeah, they're playing loud and heavy, but there's melodic content within the music. Noel's writing is wonderful, fun and clever and sarcastic. That's a wicked album." Harvey: "It's a very good album, but there's a bit of a controversy between us and them. Originally, the first version of (the Freestylers single) 'B Boy Stance' used some of the melody from 'Wonderwall' with a change of lyrics. It got stopped and it hyped us up; it didn't do anything bad, but we had to rerecord it. Subsequently, I met Noel Gallagher at the Muzik Magazine dance awards, where we won best band at last year, and, in a very drunk state, I actually got the courage up to talk to him. He told me he never heard the record. I sent him a copy of the original. Aside from that, I do like Oasis; they have some very good melodies. I won't begrudge them for not letting us use their music." Shattuck: "I'm not much of an Oasis fan. They seem like dumb hicks. They're cocky, and I don't think their music is all that interesting." Prime cuts: "Don't Look Back In Anger," "Wonderwall," "Champagne Supernova," "Hey Now!," "Roll With It."

LED ZEPPELIN (box set), Led Zeppelin (Atlantic, 1990) - Put on a Led Zep record now and stack it up against today's hottest acts, such as Buckcherry, Creed and Lit. Clearly, it's no contest. Thirty-year-old songs by this legendary British rock quartet have more of an edge and spontaneity than anything that has come along since. This vital box set only confirms it. Cox: "I didn't bother getting it, because I already had all the original albums on vinyl. But every male turning 13 should be given Led Zep as a rite of passage." Harvey: "Their music is rock, but it's also funk. The sound they achieved, especially the drum beats, is amazing. Led Zeppelin influenced a lot of bands. Rock music came out of America, but a British band kind of did it better. They were brilliant, but they probably didn't know that at the time; they were just doing their thing." Shattuck: "I guess I don't like Robert Plant's voice that much, but the band is pretty good. I like Jimmy Page playing the violin bow, but he ripped that off from somebody and claimed it to be his own. He ripped it off from Eddie Phillips of The Creation; he did that in the mid-'60s. It's really cool, and I want to do it, too, but you know ... Led Zeppelin did it!" Prime cuts: "Stairway to Heaven," "Whole Lotta Love," "Immigrant Song," "Rock and Roll," "Black Dog," "The Rain."

TRAVELING WITHOUT MOVING, Jamiroquai (WORK, 1997) - This retro-happy British outfit owes a great deal to Stevie Wonder, disco and Me-Decade funk, but while it seems they were plucked out of a time machine, the group avoids being overly derivative by keeping it fresh and contemporary. Cox: "I played this album repeatedly for a solid year. I've referred to them as Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan's love child, mixed in with Isaac Hayes. It has so much soul." Harvey: "They have a classic soul sound. It's kind of dancey and it isn't, you know what I mean? They're very good live, very well orchestrated." Prime cuts: "Virtual Insanity," "High Times," "Cosmic Girl," "Alright."

E. 1999 ETERNAL, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony (Ruthless, 1995) - Straight outta Cleveland, this rap group combined funky hip-hop grooves with old-school samples. Their character studies were spiked with fervor and rapid-fire rhymes. Cox: "Not one of my favorites. I do listen to hip-hop. I can appreciate what they did in their rapping style, but this one wore on me really quick." Prime cuts: "1st of tha Month," "East 1999," "Land of the Heartless," "No Shorts, No Losses."

MCMXC a.D., Enigma (Charisma, 1991) - Romania-born producer Michael Cretu sparked a worldwide infatuation with Gregorian chants by backing the traditional sound with a dance rhythm. It was pure genius, though fleeting. Cox: "I thought it was an amazing, ground-breaking record to this day, but an entire album of that concept totally bored me to tears. As a producer, it was a brilliant move to take hip-hop beats and Gregorian chants with his beautiful wife, Sandra, doing sexy things on top of it, but the novelty wore off." Harvey: "I never liked Enigma. I hated them, actually. They're annoying. I know they had a No. 1 record and it did very well over here, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. It didn't touch a nerve with me." Prime cuts: "Sadeness Part 1," "Mea Culpa," "Knocking On Forbidden Doors," "Back to the Rivers of Disbelief Medley."

SEAL, Seal (Sire, 1991) - Trevor Horn's polished production was a big factor in this London-born singer's early success, but Seal distinguished himself with a unique, rock-fused soul vocal style. Cox: "Trevor Horn is a god of production. That album floored me. The layers upon layers of vocals and overdubbing creates this huge Phil Spector-like wall of sound; it's gorgeous, but it's perfectly clean. A very brief chapter of my life was spent in Tulsa, Okla., and when I was moving to L.A., that was one of the CDs I had in the car. For some reason, I had that CD on repeat through the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona at night. That's one of my desert-island discs." Harvey: "I really liked 'Crazy.' It's very slick sounding. Trevor Horn has been doing it for years with The Art of Noise." Shattuck: "I feel sorry for (Seal) for having those scars on his face. No wonder he's a musician; musicians don't have to be good-looking at all." Prime cuts: "Crazy," "Killer," "Future Love Paradise," "Deep Water."

MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT, L.L. Cool J (Def Jam, 1990) - Answering fans and critics who thought he had grown soft after hitting platinum status in the late '80s, the street-wise rapper talked tough on his fourth album and backed it up sonically. Cox: "I'm a sucker for his early stuff, but after he went into basically pop records, this was his comeback. He needed to show he was still real and still about hip-hop." Harvey: "Totally amazing. The actual track, 'Mama Said Knock You Out,' has got to be one of the Top Five all-time greatest hip-hop records. He had been getting a lot of flak for whatever he was doing beforehand, then he came out with this record and the delivery of the rap and the music, it's mind-blowing. It was a Marley Marl-produced album, and over the years, he's been a major influence on us." Shattuck: "That's a good title for a song. I like that. I imagine the music's good just from that title alone." Prime cuts: "Around the Way Girl," "Mama Said Knock You Out," "Boomin' System," "6 Minutes of Pleasure."

BLUE, LeAnn Rimes (Curb, 1996) - The second coming of Patsy Cline came in the form of a 13 year old girl from Garland, Texas. She was handed the title track, originally written for but not recorded by Cline, and with it made an indelible impression on country music. She fittingly won the 1996 Grammy for best new artist. Cox: "I'm allergic to country music; I just fall on the floor, convulsing. Seriously, I can admire what she has done in such a short lifespan; she's totally become a superstar and she does have an amazing voice." Harvey: "I prefer Shania Twain; she's well tasty. That LeAnn Rimes song, 'How Do I Live,' has been on the chart over here for like two years. That's all I know about her." Shattuck: "That voice, I love that voice. I wish I could do that yodeling thing she does; she's better than Slim Whitman." Prime cuts: "Blue," "Fade to Blue," "Light In Your Eyes," "One Way Ticket (Because I Can)."