Short Takes

MUSIC

Bringing Back Bedroom Ballads

WHEN END OF THE ROAD, A SOULFUL BALlad by the group Boyz II Men, topped the pop-singles chart for 13 straight weeks last fall, it did more than break a record held by Elvis Presley. It certified the arrival, among young black musicians, of a soothing yin to the rambunctious yang of rap. Now album after album is filled with street-corner harmonies and bedroom ballads from groups with names like Portrait and Silk. At the head of this wave is SHAI, a quartet of former Howard University students whose hot-selling debut album is called If I Ever Fall in Love. The group bills itself as neo-Motown, but its seductive lyrics and lush orchestrations owe an even greater debt to the pillow-talk serenades that Barry White and Isaac Hayes crooned back in the 1970s.

MUSIC

Animal Magnetism

APART FROM A MEATY ACTING ROLE, nothing attracts the big names of Hollywood like a high-profile disease or environmental cause. In a We Are the World- style tribute to the animal kingdom, Charlton Heston, Lily Tomlin and Lynn Redgrave are among the stars who lend their voices to a delightful new recording of Saint-Saens's CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS (Dove Audio), performed by the Hollywood Chamber Orchestra, with verses by Ogden Nash. Joan Rivers' ode to the kangaroo has bounce: "I could not eat a kangaroo./ But many fine Australians do." Betty White proudly defends the jackass. Even self-described animal hater Walter Matthau exudes empathy for the fossil. Proceeds go to various animal-rights groups.

AUDIO

Sound Samplers

BOOKS ON TAPE ARE SWELL COMPANions, but they demand prolonged concentration that's not always possible when driving, jogging or just puttering around the house. Not so with TRAIN OF THOUGHT (Com Audio; $49.95), a set of four audiotapes that invite repeated sampling. Available in bookstores, or via mail by calling 800-676-7166, each 90-minute installment is a lively melange of music and the spoken word. Readings are from authors as diverse as Truman Capote and Dave Barry; musical segments include European folk songs, Cajun ^ tunes and tribal drums. The varied length of the pieces is well suited to the rhythms of other activities -- but keep an eye on the speedometer during that mean New England fiddling.

BOOKS

Nastiness Tidied Up

JOHN MORTIMER'S NOVELS ARE COZILY old-fashioned, in a writerish sort of way. Nothing in them endangers the reader's psychological safety, because the author is always at hand, fussing about brewing tea, skillfully guiding his story to a tidy conclusion. Though this very English storytelling works well in Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey series, it jars in DUNSTER (Viking; $21). The title figure is an obnoxious journalist given to vindictive truth telling. His opponent in a libel trial is a decent, much admired corporate exec who, years before, may have committed a hideous war crime. What should be a powerful conflict between virtuous nastiness and flawed virtue is blurred by a weak narrator, the author's irritating surrogate.

CINEMA

Sex in the Head

HANDCUFFS, YES. HOT CANDLE WAX DRIPping on Willem Dafoe's naked torso -- that too. But the nipple clamps remain an unfulfilled promise. And so does BODY OF EVIDENCE, in which Madonna plays a woman on trial for murdering a lover by inducing a heart-straining sexual frenzy. It sounds like a promising part for the best-selling author of Sex. But movies get rated, and trying to stay on the sunny side of an R, this one turns into a static courtroom drama -- and not very well made or played either. Madonna's function is to irritate the decorous and titillate the impressionable. It's a waste of her time (and the moviegoer's) to, er, shackle her to a respectability on which neither party can get off.