12 Area Standouts to Watch for in ’92

T he top 1991 freshmen of Southern California come from all over the musical map--from rap to country to Beatle-pop to grunge-rock. Here’s a look at the 12 new area acts who’ve made the biggest splash this year.

Nymphs: Singer Inger Lorre has a white-hot onstage intensity and a superb, throaty voice, and she can out-shimmy Axl, stare down a crowd of guys with cherry-red Mohawks, and do things with a feather boa that you wouldn’t believe. But the Nymphs’ overproduced debut album captures neither Lorre’s angry presence nor her band’s grinding post-metal groove.

DJ Quik: Not only an articulate rapper but the most effective Southland rap producer since N.W.A’s Dr. Dre came up with the Compton sound. Quik came up with a compulsively danceable album that’s as popular with the 13-year-old girls who watch “Pump It Up” as it is with hard-core aficionados--even if his beer ‘n’ booty-centered rhymes tend to be on the scurrilous side.