Rosanne Cash

If I can't claim to find any special hope in this record, I'll settle for pleasure. The catchiness of Rodney Crowell's production would seem manipulative behind a shallower singer, but Cash--like fellow roots renegades Tina Turner and the Nevilles--has the stuff to imbue the arrangements with some self. It's perverse to complain about the programmatic "Rosie Strike Back"--a hard-hitting pop song for battered wives is a wondrous thing by definition. And her romances are truer than most. (Grade: A-)