Various Artists

July 25 - August 1, 1 9 9 6 [Off the Record]

*** Various Artists

DIVAS OF DANCE

(DCC/Sony)

This three-CD set matters a lot, thanks to the kind of patient attention to detail given it by compiler and Billboard columnist Larry Flick. It's attention that too few dance-music compilations get. The typical approach to dance-music sets is to go for a singer's hits -- popularity for its own sake -- even if she's done more exciting work. But not here. Robin S is represented by the deeply feline "Luv 4 Luv," not "Show Me Love," the big hit. Rozalla brings "Are You Ready To Fly" and "Faith (in the Power of Love)" -- small treats compared to the exultant "Everybody's Free" but more intimate. Black Box, too, gets the unjustly overlooked "I Don't Know Nobody Else" and "Strike It Up," not "Everybody Everybody" (though, unhappily, the even lustier and odder "Ride On Time" doesn't appear).

The CD also knows how to honor hearty divas like Paris Red ("Good Friend"), Alison Limerick ("Where Love Lives"), Shawn Christopher ("Another Sleepless Night"), and the incandescent India ("I Can't Get No Sleep," "When You Touch Me"), who never managed a hit except among a cult following, but all the better. Flick's selections look tiny but feel like spontaneous combustion.

-- Michael Freedberg