POP MUSIC : The Midyear Envelope, Please . . .

We’re 18 months into the ‘90s, yet the pop scene--musicians as well as fans--still can’t quite decide whether to return to the comfort of the ‘60s and ‘70s or move on.

There may be a way out of the dilemma. Many of the most invigorating moments on albums so far this year are by groups--including Jesus Jones, Fishbone and Son of Bazerk--that mix and match influences as varied as the Beatles, James Brown, the Who and Parliament-Funkadelic into freewheeling rock, rap, funk, metal or soul.

The aim is to forge some sort of breakthrough ‘90s synthesis, and the results have been enticing.

Despite the imagination and energy of these records, however, few of the artists have picked up much radio airplay because stations don’t know just how these sonic experiments fit into their rigid formats.

Some of the albums have also sputtered commercially because mainstream pop fans become uneasy when they can’t figure out just where artists are moving. One reason so many fans settle for such bestsellers as Phil Collins and Michael Bolton is that they don’t go anywhere musically.

Meanwhile, Sting stepped forward with the most distinguished album of the first half of 1991. “The Soul Cages” is an album by a man who is absolutely certain of his direction.

The work--which grew out of the singer’s confusion and grief after the death of his father in late 1987--is an uncompromising display of pop artistry and maturity, built around the belief that there is an audience for music that combines deep emotion and high sophistication.

If Sting’s album is a remarkable display of clarity and thematic precision, the runner-up on this list is by a band that reflects opposite qualities.

With its “Green Mind” album, Dinosaur Jr. takes R.E.M.’s place as the band that best articulates youthful uncertainty and wonder.

The following albums--my choices for the 10 best works at the midway point in 1991--differ considerably in ambition and tone, but each speaks with an individuality that makes it stand out from the hundreds of other releases of the last six months.

1. Sting’s “The Soul Cages” (A&M;)--The material on the singer’s first album in three years--and his most accomplished ever--isn’t as relentlessly autobiographical as John Lennon’s “Plastic Ono Band” or Sinead O’Connor’s “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” two albums whose intimacy and intensity this collection recalls.

Yet it too touches on all sorts of demons and desires--from the personal obsession of “Mad About You” to the lonely self-examination of “Why Should I Cry for You?”--in ways that make almost every aspect of the album sound like the direct result of deep self-inventory.

In a pop age greatly in search of a compass, it’s only fitting that a work of such power and purpose takes place, symbolically, at sea--a journey in search of understanding and faith.

2. Dinosaur Jr.’s “Green Mind” (Sire/Warner Bros.)--This Amherst, Mass., group is the latest step in a rock tradition--from Eddie Cochran through the Replacements--that specializes in youthful frustration. To reach closer to the emotional heart of the subject, Dinosaur Jr.--whose style reflects Neil Young’s blend of guitar fury and lyric sensitivity--assumes a posture that can almost be described as willful inarticulateness.

The lines of songs seem strung together in a stream-of-consciousness manner and the vocals get lost in the sound mix, so at times you can’t quite be sure what J Mascis is saying. Most of the material involves questions on subjects as baffling as relationships or as basic as whether it’s worth getting out of bed in the morning.

3. De La Soul’s “De La Soul Is Dead” (Tommy Boy)--After expanding beyond rap’s hard-core, inner-city focus in the acclaimed “3 Feet High and Rising” (1989), this Long Island, N.Y., trio steps back from the innocence and suburban charm of that album to the reality of the street. This leaves us with a work that isn’t as immediately disarming but that continues to exhibit the intelligence, wit and masterful grooves that made De La Soul such a valuable new voice.

4. Jesus Jones’ “Doubt” (SBK)--You may have to see this British rock quintet live to fully appreciate it. The group’s danceable hard rock mixes punk, hip-hop and anything else that comes to mind so forcefully on recordings that it sometimes sounds as if there are three competing bands in the studio. It’s a collision of sound that makes it easy to overlook the considerable songwriting gifts of lead singer Michael Edwards. In concert, however, it’s Edwards’ songs that command attention and establish the group as a possible contender in the ‘90s.

5. R.E.M.’s “Out of Time” (Warner Bros.)--”That was just a dream,” Michael Stipe sings in “Losing My Religion,” the first hit from this album, and there continues to be a trace of dreamlike haze around some of this richly resourceful band’s music. Yet the curtains have been pulled wider than ever on the lyrics and themes, pushing these college-alternative rock mainstays closer to the pop articulation of Sting. Adding a Brian Wilson-meets-George Martin instrumental lavishness to its sound, R.E.M. has found a creative second wind.

6. Fishbone’s “The Reality of My Surroundings” (Columbia)--In by far its most ambitious and accomplished album, the spirited Los Angeles funk-rock band unleashes an explosion of ideas and sounds, from a series of under-a-minute tirades against such targets as TV brainwashing to nearly six-minute anthems for social outsiders. Elsewhere the band can be as witty and playful as the Coasters (“Homework”) and as emotionally rich as Sly Stone (“Sunless Saturday”).

7. Son of Bazerk’s “Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk” (SOUL/MCA)--From the exclamations on the album cover (including “Soul Brother 1” and “Amazing, Sensational, Thrilling”) to the nonstop revue feel of the music itself, this scorching hip-hop debut salutes the spirit of James Brown. The rhythms, rhymes and style changes (doo-wop to reggae) come at you with such speed and authority that it may take two or three listenings before you can even focus on the themes. Produced by Public Enemy cohorts Hank and Keith Shocklee.

8. Joni Mitchell’s “Night Ride Home” (Geffen)--In her most appealing and finely crafted album in more than a decade, the artist who may have done more than anyone else except Bob Dylan to elevate pop songwriting in the ‘60s and ‘70s offers a series of songs about familiar topics of heart and honor but with an added sense of experience.

9. Happy Mondays’ “Pills ‘N’ Thrills and Bellyaches” (Elektra)--Here is the reverse situation of Jesus Jones. For all the talk about this group’s magic in concert in its hometown of Manchester, the British outfit was disappointingly lackluster earlier this year at the Ventura Theatre. On record, however, the band’s psychedelic-edged rock and dance rhythms seem to be a virtual blueprint for ‘90s pop imagination.

10. Anthrax’s “Attack of the Killer B’s” (Island)--The range of material on this delightfully informal collection of odds and ends extends from remakes of Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” and the Ventures’ “Pipeline” to the metal band’s own wacky lament about no “Milk” for the Cheerios and a notorious outburst against censorship (the foul-mouthed “Startin’ Up a Posse”). A savvy change of pace after last year’s thoughtful and unbending “Persistence of Time,” the album is a useful reminder that metal bands can have imagination and humor.