By TIM PADGETT

ho qualifies as a rockera? Most Latin music critics say the term can mean almost any singer who departs from mainstream Latin American pop. Even pop-rock can qualify, so long as it's written and performed artfully, intelligently and with a hint of nonconformity. The same goes for folk rock, glam rock, even Brazilian samba funk rock. Here's a sampling of the best of the rest of the region:

The Parra cousins, Javiera, 29, and Colombina, 23, are products of Chile's cultural aristocracy. Their grandmother Violeta Parra was one of the country's most renowned folk singers, while grandfather Nicanor is one of Chile's most revered poets. But the younger generation likes its culture louder. Javiera heads the band Los Imposibles, an exponent of more classic, '60s-style rock, which has scored such major hits as Humedad (Humidity) and Alacran (Scorpion). Colombina leads the more hard-rocking group Ex. She has cranked out such visceral CDs as Caida Libre (Free Fall) with the hit Saca la Basura (Take Out the Garbage), which rails at deadening female domestic routine: "I've lost half my life ... / But of course I'm a Taoist monk and/ it's not convenient for me to die yet."

Like Colombia's Shakira, pop-rock star Nicole (real name Denisse Laval Soza) is a makeover. A Chilean, Nicole, 21, is leaving a lucrative career as a pop sweetheart who recorded lilting hit albums such as Esperando Nada (Waiting for Nothing) when she was 16. New songs like the ironic Todo Lo Que Quiero (All I Want) from last year's smoldering rock album Suenos en Transito (Dreams in Transit) have hit the national Top 10.

Lima's Patricia Loaiza, 23, is one of the region's most touted pop-rock up-and-comers. Her album Mil Lunas (A Thousand Moons) earned critical acclaim this year with electric, bluesy hits like Loca Ciudad (Crazy City). Loaiza's mother was a ballad-style singer; the daughter turned to pop-rock after her family forbade her to travel to France at age 14 for music studies, a prize she had won in a talent contest. Loaiza writes her own elegantly harmonious songs.

The bittersweet songs of Soraya Lamilla, 28, the New Jersey-born folk-rock chanteuse of Colombian parents, have made her just as popular in Europe (she outsells U2 in Germany) as in Colombia and in Miami, where she lives. A trained violinist, Soraya counts among her fans Carole King, with whom she co-wrote and sang last year's European and Latin American hit Torre de Marfil (Marble Tower). "I passionately believe that audiences can smell a preconceived, marketed song," she says. Another folk-rock talent, Argentina's Soledad Pastorutti, 17, was just signed by Emilio Estefan. Soledad's 1996 album, Poncho al Viento (Poncho in the Wind), and last year's La Sole (a nickname for Soledad), each infused with rich Argentine folkloric sounds, have together sold more than a million copies.

Mexico's Rita Guerrero, 28, and her band Santa Sabina have produced such spooky albums as Simbolos (Symbols), and they enliven performances with ghoulish makeup and dead-black outfits. In Brazil, Fernanda Abreu, 36, is the queen of samba funk rock, which combines ebullient samba with the pulse of rap and funk. Abreu's sultry voice and the infectious beat of songs like Veneno da Lata (Canned Poison) make the fusion irresistible.

--With Reporting by Elizabeth Love /Santiago