A new move is afoot to change the cabaret laws -- but watch out for rave.

Missy Elliott, Miss E . . . So Addictive
R.E.M , Reveal
Various Artists, Wild Pitch Classics
Various Artists, Tommy Boy Essentials: Hip Hop Vol. 1

On The W, the famously inventive Wu-Tang Clan slows down for a victory lap around the old school, but their retread beats don't make the grade.

The hip-hop world is at war. Vicious rhymes are flying between 50 Cent and Ja Rule, both products of the mean streets of southeast Queens. Bullets are flying, too—50 was famously shot nine times—though no one can prove who’s shooting. All this violence has helped to sell records. But when is the price too high?

A proposed after-hours license looms like an apocalyptic last call over everyone from Lotus to Schiller's. Club owners' alternative: Let us have cops!

PJ Harvey is back to her old angry self, but she can’t quite hold our attention like she once could. Plus, the loner-loser roots of electronic music.

The production team Masters at Work have been injecting el ritmo Latino into dance music since Ricky Martin was in Menudo. Now that salsa rhythms have hit the radio, they're ready to glide from the clubs to the top of the charts.

New albums from Madonna and a mostly reunited Fleetwood Mac take aim at American foreign policy, making us wonder: What planet are they living on?

Rapper 50 Cent has seen his share of violence, a subject that imbues his debut album with an overwhelming grimness; Human League still has the power to surprise.