Michelle Shocked: Short Sharp Shocked (Mercury Records)

MICHELLE SHOCKED is the latest example of this year's primary trend (three or more of anything in the music business constitutes a trend): the female singer-songwriter who wears her integrity artfully on her sleeve. But the circumstances which led Shocked to the majors conjure up visions of a fairy-tale bubble in grave danger of being popped by the cynicism of the real world: nomadic expatriate wanders the world in search of justice, off-handedly records a cache of tunes into an anonymous tape deck, tape becomes best-selling release in the U.K. indie charts, singer winds up with a major label deal and Next Big Thing status in the U.S.