SIX GOOD POP CDS

Oasis: (What's the Story?) Morning Glory (Creation) Frightful oiks often make good rock records. QED.

Regina Belle: Reachin' Back (Columbia) Reachin' back to her Philly roots, indeed. Much her best record since the first one.

Garbage: Garbage (Mushroom) Indie fuzz meets trip-hop dynamics and bad babe attitude. Butch Vig gets it right again.

Shara Nelson: Friendly Fire (Cooltempo) Gloomy, monodic, ululatory rock- soul with clunky rhythms. Some folks love this kind of thing.

Eusebe: Tales From Mama's Yard (EMI) Homegrown hip hop with grooves and grain. Harlesden, here we come.

Bill Laswell: Silent Recoil: Dub System One (Low) Ambient emptiness without walls to launch the maverick NY producer's new label of marginalia.

Heavenly Creatures (18; Touchstone; rental) Shocking but compassionate true story of two murderous New Zealand schoolgirls.

Little Women (U; Columbia; rental). You'll laugh. You'll sob. You'll believe that Susan Sarandon is God.

Barcelona (15; 20:20 Vision; rental) Whit Stillman's crisply satisfying comedy about two abrasive Americans working in Spain in the 1980s.

Once Were Warriors (18; Entertainment; rental) Brutal depiction of modern Maori life - like Ken Loach going soap.

Blue Sky (15; 20:20 Vision; rental) Jessica Lange and Tommy Lee Jones together on screen. Ignite and stand well back.

Little Odessa (15; First Independent; rental) Grim drama with Tim Roth as a hit-man drawn back to his tattered family. It's a tough slog, but it's worth it.

Wagner: Overtures and Preludes (EMI) Roger Norrington sheds glowing new light on Wagner. All that and Jane Eaglen's Isolde.

Verdi: Requiem RIAS Orch cond. Fricsay (DG) A swift, dramatic and deeply devotional reading. A classic re-release. A mid-price winner.

Strauss: Don Quixote & Lalo Cello Concerto (EMI) Jacqueline du Pre cond. Boult and Barenboim. Miraculous, previously unreleased performances.

Verdi: Rigoletto (Sony) Renato Bruson, Roberto Alagna, Andrea Rost; Orch. La Scala Milan cond. Riccardo Muti. Stirring singing if not the most tear- jerking account.

Berlioz: L'Enfance du Christ (Hyperion) This choral masterpiece conducted by the ever-reliable Matthew Best. Alastair Miles and Jean Rigby are outstanding.

Dvorak: Slavonic Dances Op 46 & 72 (Supraphon) Karel Sejna and the Czech Philharmonic. A prize-winner in 1959 and still fresh and energetic.