Music: Pop Records

Boccaccio '70 (RCA Victor). The sinewy music written by Composers Nino Rota and Armando Trovajoli for the celebrated Italian peep show. In its several parts it manages to combine French swagger with Latin languor—an accomplishment that puts it several notches ahead of mail-order Hollywood prescriptions.

Palisades Park (Freddy Cannon; Swan). Hot dogs in the tunnel of love and passion on the roller coaster. Cannon recalls it all in the classic tradition—braying and honking against a clanking, socked-out beat. His message: "You'll never know how great a kiss can feel/ When you stop at the top of the Ferris wheel."

No Strings (Ralph Burns and Orchestra; Epic). Some composers' romantic fancies need the sheen of strings, and some do not. Dick Rodgers' ballads do. Conductor Burns, who orchestrated the show, here mixes in the strings that are missing on Broadway. The Sweetest Sounds, Nobody Told Me and the title song never sounded better.

Tammy Grimes (Columbia). Standards like I'm Just Wild About Harry, You Came a Long Way from St. Louis, Anything Goes, sung as never before by the most astonishing voice in show business. Songstress Grimes hollers, husks, lisps, wails, and occasionally scorches the walls, and nobody—least of all the bandleader—can anticipate which she will do next.

The Stripper (David Rose and Orchestra; M-G-M). A nostalgic salute to burlesque that surprisingly has become a top-selling single without the benefit of leerics. Composer-Conductor Rose's smeary brasses and sizzling cymbals seem to come down the runway in an almost visible bump and grind.

Sheb Wooley: That's My Pa and That's My Ma (M-G-M). Saga songs by one of Nashville's slickest practitioners. Composer (Purple People Eater) Wooley often sounds closer to Tin Pan Alley than to the hills, but his triple-tongued comic turns—Google Eye, Sweet Chile—have their own daffy, off-center charm.

The Newest Sound Around (Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake; RCA Victor). And the strangest. Songstress Lee has a foggy, seductive voice that occasionally strikes interesting effects from such laments as Laura and Lover Man. But for the most part, her pace is too languid. Pianist Blake, on the other hand, is a real find—wry, big-toned, and unfailingly inventive.