The Atlanta duo of D-Roc and Kaine, better known as the Ying Yang Twins, has built its reputation on raunchy strip-club anthems and catchy shouted-and-growled hooks along the lines of “shake it like a salt shaker,” and “to the window to the wall” (from Lil Jon’s “Get Low”). But “Wait,” the first single from their new album “U.S.A. (United States of Atlanta)” (TVT), is a sotto voce seduction. And, supplying more Ying to their usual Yang, much of the rest of the album goes out of its way to show the duo’s thoughtful side.

The album has 23 tracks in all, and there are two distinct albums here. The first is an old-style Ying Yang crunk album meant to get the strip club poppin’. “Wait” is likely the crudest song to ever break the Billboard Top 20 Singles Chart, far too crass to attempt to quote here. But its success owes as much to its beat as to its dirty, dirty talk. The lily pad-bounding bass notes and finger-snaps, compliments of longtime crunk producer DJ Smurf (aka Mr. Collipark), echo the spacey minimalism of the Neptunes.

Thematically, “Pull My Hair” picks up where “Wait” leaves off, as dirty talk becomes dirty sex. But the lines are so outrageous it’s hard to take offense: “I got a 10-foot pole, go in your hole, take your soul, make nut come out your nose, fall all on your clothes” raps Kaine. “The Walk,” a hot-stepping blend of synth and flute, is billed as a “ghetto electric slide,” but it’s not exactly wedding and prom material.

Like fellow Atlantan Lil Jon, the Ying Yang Twins are better hype men than rappers, and they get a lot of help here. Suddenly ubiquitous Houston MC Mike Jones sings the praises of freaky women on “Badd.” And TVT label-mate Teedra Moses does her best Ciara impression on the catchy Lil Jonproduced Crunk&B track “Put That Thang Down.” Both are good Ying Yang songs, if a bit predictable. But no one could have predicted the album’s first half, which ranges over topics such as faith, war, and incarceration.

Even the sound is different: Instead of crunk synth, bass, and hand-claps, there are live instruments and unlikely cameos. “Long Time,” an interpretation of Al Green’s gospel song “Belle,” opens with piano, picked guitar strings, and a heavenly choir. “God was in Jesus / God is in us / But God ain’t in the barrel of that pistol that you got,” raps Kaine between choruses by soul singer Anthony Hamilton.

Casting the net even wider, “Live Again” features Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine in a sympathetic portrait of a stripper trying to go to school, raise a child, and find love – all while suffering the abuse of the thugs in the club. The Ying Yang Twins have always made music for strippers to dance to; now they make music for strippers to cry to.

The song includes what amounts to a mission statement for the album: “From the point when a child is torn from a mother’s umbilical cord / No one really enforces that life is gonna be hard,” explains Kaine. “It’s kinda left up to the teacher / But the teachers leave it up to the preachers / The preachers ain’t feeling the bleachers / It’s the rappers say it ain’t it.”

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Norwegian electropop princess Annie (nee Anne Lilia Berge Strand) finds herself in an interesting spot: adored by the Internet cognoscenti for music aimed at the masses.

To readers of certain tastemaker blogs and Web sites, she’s been a star for the better part of a year now. But even after the domestic release of her album “Anniemal” (Big Beat Record) earlier this month, she remains virtually unknown to everyone else. For a performer who five years ago titled her first song “Greatest Hit,” this result must be a disappointment.

And it’s also a little surprising considering her pitch-perfect single “Chewing Gum,” a wickedly sassy song about disposable men. “I’m just a girl that’s only chewing for fun / You spit it out when all the flavor has gone / Wrap him ’round your finger like you’re playing with gum,” she sings in her lightly processed adolescent voice. The music is full of bleeps, hand-claps, and sonar pings – the sonic equivalent of Pop Rocks exploding in your ears. With the right marketing, it could easily be the next “Hollaback Girl.”

But the remainder of the album misses the mainstream target on all sides. “My Heartbeat” was voted 2004’s no. 1 single by Internet zine Pitchfork, but its bland, Fischerspooner-style dance beat holds little commercial appeal in America (as Fischerspooner has so thoroughly demonstrated).The same can be said of “No Easy Love,” which, with its breathy ESL delivery, sounds like Yoko Ono riding over a Dr. Dre beat. The tiddlywink dance and submarine funk of the album’s title track tries too hard; it’s Royksopp on a sugar high.

Upon closer examination, Annie’s reception is perfectly explicable: Her unabashed pop is just much better suited to the Bjork set than the Britney set.

Annie is playing the Hiro Ballroom at the Maritime Hotel tonight and Scenic tomorrow(363 W. 16th Street, 212-727-0212; 25 Avenue B, 212-674-0984).