By Jim Sullivan, Globe Staff, 07/17/2003

In the flavor-of-the-hour world of pop music, there are very few things you can rely on, but one of them is Marshall Crenshaw. The singer-songwriter is one of America's best and most durable tunesmiths, and for more than two decades he has continued to drop one top-shelf record after the other without much fanfare. The latest, "What's In the Bag" (Razor & Tie), is one of his most focused and diverse sets, featuring 11 songs overflowing with the magical melodies and taut arrangements one has come to expect from Crenshaw. "I've been doing a lot of things in the past on this record and delved into some genres like country and R&B, but finally here I think that I'm working at a level I've always aspired to," says the 49-year-old singer from his home in Brooklyn. "The songs reflect where I've been emotionally over the past two to three years. Many of them were spontaneous, but I was particularly meticulous in making sure that they expressed exactly what I felt. That meant a lot of rewriting and rethinking of things in order get to my best work."

Crenshaw says that a lot of the songs, many of which are melancholy and tinged with sadness, were written just after 9/11 and they reflect some of the emptiness he felt at the time. "I don't write about external things, and I don't write about politics and current events," he says. "That's not what I do --there are better people to do that. But the external world does influence the mood and shape of the songs and they did here especially. These songs are much darker than anything I've done in quite some time."

Also included is a cool cover of Prince's "Take Me With U," on which he's helped out by the delightful harmonies of Mary Lee Kortes of Mary Lee's Corvette. "Let's face it, if the guy never did anything but dance, he'd still be great," Crenshaw says laughing. "He's one of the best songwriters we have and the song always reminded me of good times and we try to capture that on our version. It's sort of a trailer-trash version with a little hillbilly thrown in."

Crenshaw's career has been marked by ups and downs as he emerged as one of the brightest young talents in the early '80s with his hits like "Someday, Someway," "Whenever You're On My Mind" and "Cynical Girl." Throughout the next decade he released a string of solid, if unspectacular discs while branching out into film scoring and a writing a must-find book on rock 'n' roll movies called "Hollywood Rock & Roll." He has never achieved the kind of success he's warranted -- heck, the guy was cheeky enough to title a live record "I've Suffered For My Art, Now It's You're Turn" -- but he's not bitter about his lack of commercial payoff.

"I love making records and going out and supporting them," he says. "That's been my ambition and it's great that I'm still able to make the kind of albums I want with creative control. I can't ask for more. Would I like to sell a million records? Sure, because that means a million people hear your music, but I don't. So I get over it."

When Crenshaw plays the House of Blues on his current tour, it will be a solo show, a format he says that he enjoys as much as playing with a full band.

"I just have to make sure my chops are together because there is no room for mistakes when you're out there by yourself," he says. "But I'm now playing with an electric hollow body Gibson electric, which I've never done before and it's changing the dynamics of the show. I've enjoyed playing solo in the past, but now it's even more of a blast."