Googoosh

It might be difficult to imagine today, but there was a moment in the pre-Khomeini Iran of the mid-1970s when miniskirts and rock music reigned, where a female pop balladeer wowed crowds of thousands and a man named Kourosh became a guitar hero on a par with Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the subsequent censorship of many of the country's artists, Iran's pop cultural past has taken on a dream-like quality -- more than 30 years of constricting government bans having had a dramatic effect on the country's creative output.

It might be difficult to imagine today, but there was a moment in the pre-Khomeini Iran of the mid-1970s when miniskirts and rock music reigned, where a female pop balladeer wowed crowds of thousands and a man named Kourosh became a guitar hero on a par with Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the subsequent censorship of many of the country's artists, Iran's pop cultural past has taken on a dream-like quality -- more than 30 years of constricting government bans having had a dramatic effect on the country's creative output.

To Iranians, she's simply Googoosh, a Marilyn Monroe beauty with a Barbra Streisand voice, a timeless icon whose timeworn ballads still inspire generations. So it's no less than a miracle to millions of adoring fans worldwide that this legendary diva, silenced by the veil cast upon her and other women in her Islamic homeland more than two decades ago, has finally resurfaced to launch an international tour.

To Iranians, she's simply Googoosh, a Marilyn Monroe beauty with a Barbra Streisand voice, a timeless icon whose timeworn ballads still inspire generations. So it's no less than a miracle to millions of adoring fans worldwide that this legendary diva, silenced by the veil cast upon her and other women in her Islamic homeland more than two decades ago, has finally resurfaced to launch an international tour.

It was, as many audience members kept repeating Saturday at the Great Western Forum, the performance of a lifetime in the comeback of a lifetime. Googoosh was back after more than 20 years of silence. Googoosh, the legendary Iranian singer whose appeal reached across generations, whose every move set fashion styles in the years before the revolution brought her career to a sudden halt.

ANAHEIM 8:30pm World Music Iranian singing sensation Googoosh was such a big hit at her back-from-retirement performance in August at the Great Western Forum that she returns to the Southland this week to play the Pond and then again Oct. 21 at Staples Center in L.A. Considered the Elvis of Iranian music for her hit records blending Persian poetry with Western pop rhythms, Googoosh nonetheless heeded the 1979 Islamic fundamentalist ban on female performers and retired.

* 'N Sync, right, invades the Southland for shows Nov. 26 at Staples Center and Nov. 27 at the Great Western Forum (both going on sale Sunday) and Nov. 30 at the San Diego Sports Arena (on sale Saturday). . . . Tickets go on sale Monday for Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's teaming Oct. 7 at Staples Center. . . . Also due at Staples is Googoosh, who plays there Oct. 21. Tickets will be available Friday. The Iranian star also sings at the Arrowhead Pond Oct. 7. Tickets are on sale now. . . .

The Irish republican rallying cry, "A Nation Once Again," has been named the world's favorite song ever, after a global poll by the BBC. The ballad, performed by the group the Wolfe Tones, was among a minority of Western songs in the top 10 list and only narrowly triumphed over Indian patriotic song, "Vande Mataram," the BBC said.

What a year it was! The Southland was a cornucopia of world music in 2000. It actually began, appropriately, in far wider fashion, via the millennium coverage on PBS, with its amazingly colorful sequence of music from every part of the globe. It was an impressive tribute to the great diversity that exists in the 80% or so of the world's music that is not American or English pop or European dance rhythms. Fascinating as it was, however, the telecast had its downside.

Shahrzad Sepanlou's cell phone rings. At her office desk on a Tuesday morning, the 28-year-old event coordinator at UCLA considers her silver Samsung. She usually leaves its calls to the answering service, but she's already checked her boss' e-mail, arranged his schedule, paid some bills and sorted the mail. She may as well see who's calling on the line she uses for her real business. On the other end is a man from Ahvaz, a large city in southwestern Iran.

It might not have been your typical party-time call and response, but the sold-out crowd at Cinefamily last week was as enthused as any frat house -- ready to thrust fists and shake hips in homage to Persia's pop past. "I say . . . 'Disco!' You say 'Iran'!" "Disco!" . . . "Iran!" "Disco" . . . "Iran!" Hundreds were at the Fairfax Avenue theater to celebrate both the Persian New Year and the release of "Pomegranates" -- an eclectic, infectious mix of long-lost Iranian pop -- 16 tracks culled from an era of both the shimmy . . . and the shah.