L L Cool J

You'd think that a singer who renamed himself Luka Bloom after the characters of Suzanne Vega and James Joyce, respectively--would have more of a sense of humor than Bloom (ne Barry Moore) evidences on "Riverside," his earnestly passionate but not exactly yuk-filled debut album. Luckily, the Gaelic groupies who packed McCabe's for the Irish folk singer's two shows Friday got to hear Bloom in laughter as well as Bloom in love.

"Duotones," the album by sax player Kenny G, vaulted into the Top 10 of the Billboard magazine pop chart--from No. 13 to No. 8. It's Kenny G's first appearance in the Top 10. Heart should be in the Top 10 next week. In just two weeks, the group's "Bad Animals" is up to No. 12. Just like the movie, the sound track from "Beverly Hills Cop II" is a hit. In two weeks on the chart, it's already No. 35. Rapper L.L. Cool J. debuted impressively on the pop album chart with "Bigger and Deffer" (No. 52).

While Taylor is certainly doing her job as a free-lance publicist by getting her essay printed, her rosy point of view ignores another reality of the media world. Taylor avers that " . . . young gangsters . . . grotesquely characterized by braided or excessively curled hair, menacing stares and sing-song tones of mispronounced English words and ghetto slang . . . are force-fed onto our television screens in the guise of giving the other side of the story." Be real, Ms. Taylor.

* * VARIOUS ARTISTS. "Less Than Zero" sound track. Def Jam. The sound-track music from the recent film of the semi-acclaimed cult novella about L.A. upper-class teen alienation is a mixed bag of rock, rap and remakes, paced by the Bangles' Day-Glo visions of sugar cubes dancing in their heads (their well-deserved hit version of "Hazy Shade of Winter"), a beautiful, neo-classic Roy Orbison number ("Life Fades Away"), Aerosmith's raunchy reworking of "Rockin' Pneumonia . . .