The connecting thread this month, I'm afraid, seems to be a perpetual state of being in love with the past. Nothing I planned, I swear. The major exception is pretty old himself -- and, making the best music of his career. Wonder how the others'll fare at 50-plus; hell, I wonder how they'll fare next year.

Ida: "Don't' Get Sad"/Vermont: "We Only Have Each Other in the Night" (Long Quiet Highway)

"Don't Get Sad" intends to get you just that, and it does, sort of -- at the very least it made me sad for the state of indie rock, particularly those branches that insist that slow and doleful precludes melodic construction and lyrical interest. Vermont fare far better, with an actual song that includes a Vocoder along its post-Uncle Tupelo, weary-at-25 wisdom. (117 Boylston St. #6, Boston, MA 02215.)

Pearl Jam: "Last Kiss" (CARE/Sony/Epic import)

Good thing these guys don't depend on vinyl sales for their chart position -- this would have never gone top five on a limited-edition, 3,500-copy, import-only pressing! On red wax -- in tribute to the blood on the windshield, I assume.

Stereolab: "Symbolic Logic of Now!"/Soi-Distant: "Glitterati (Cruise(r))" (Luke Warm Music)

Despite some attractive goings-on in the background, this is music you pretend to admire so that your more-hip friends don't look down upon you, and that you never want to hear again once it's finished. Particularly once you hear Soi-Distant's flip: Doing the same mood-music-from-Mars thing, they, unlike the band they're sharing vinyl with, sound unafraid of the concept of sustained pleasure. Or, dumb song title aside, maybe they're just more capable of providing it. (302 12th St. SW, Albuquerque, NM 87102.)

Tom Waits: "Hold On" (Epitaph Europe/Anti import)

A disappointing single choice -- they must've wanted the kind of AAA crossover they couldn't get from "Big in Japan." On the B, "Buzz Fledderjon" sounds like rustling, creaking old men on the porch playing the blues -- what Waits has been aiming for all along -- and "Big Face Money" is 0:38 of Tom and son Casey bashing the kind of throwaway groove that typifies his post-industrial bluesman phase.