AMERICA HAS ALWAYS escaped through pop music. Imported African slaves sang while working to alleviate the pain and make sport of their masters. Through the Wars and the Depression, jazz provided hope and release. In the '50s, rock-and-roll developed as a merger of black and white music and helped loosen old prejudices as well as restrictive morals. In the '60s, music became an outlet for political protest and drug experiences.

Today, Americans are confronted with so much that relying on music might be futile. Unemployment, inflation, draft registration, the decline of democracy, the power of the archaic Moral Majority, reincited racial and ethnic tensions, and terrorism combine to leave the average individual reeling. Recently, rock music has fragmented, reflecting the various attempts to escape: Middle of the road music, power pop, reggae/ska, new wave, disco and experimental music have divided record buyers as sharply as society has split. There is no longer a single "trend" in pop music. New albums from new groups proliferate, making demands on consumers, who need relief, not intellectual experiments. Of course, they don't need schlock either.

Garland Jeffreys has a new album that avoids both these routes, while creating a style that puts the rest of American pop music to shame. Jeffreys is an NYC street poet-songwriter who has to his credit three highly praised albums, Ghost Writer, One-Eyed Jack (now a cut-out), and American Boy & Girl, all commercial no-sells. His sound is reminiscent of Lou Reed, but with an essential divider: Where Reed's influences lie in jazz and his vocals tend to be experimental (sometimes to the point of irritating), Jeffreys thrives on another form of Black music--reggae. On One-Eyed Jack, a couplet declares: "Here comes the One-eyed Jack, sometimes White, sometimes Black; Jeffreys uses his mulatto heritage to make the best of both worlds, bringing together white and Black musicians and music. The reggae-pop fusion leaps off his discs in a style similar to Graham Parker's, but in a vision more distinctly American.

On his latest work, Escape Artist, Jeffreys proves to be just that: He has escaped the trappings of American pop music, solved the difficulties of uniting his Black and white heritage and also avoided the faults inherent in using studio musicians. Jeffreys employs the talents of such varied strummers and hummers that one would expect the album either to compromise the individuality of the artists involved or to quash any originality on his own part. Not so. Instead, through members of two of the tightest bands in rock, Springsteen's keyboardists and the Rumour's rhythm section, he brings coherence to music from both sides of the Atlantic. He also employs guitarist Adrian Beiew and vocalist Nona Hendryx, fresh from sessions with the funk-ified Talking Heads, and David Johanssen and Lou Reed, two of New York's most influential throats, and Big Youth and Linton Kwesi Johnson, reggae's premier "toasters" (talk-over men).

The production, by Bob Clearmountain, is a bit too slick; on first listening, the styles just don't seem to jibe. Some songs sound like Graham Parker's guitar-led love letters, some like Lou Reed's wry, insightful epics, others like ethereal reggae. Yet repeated play reveals a unity: the "sounds" are all Garland Jeffreys.

The album can be divided into three segments; the two sides and the included e.p. "Escapades." The first side provides a pop foundation for later innovation, opening with "Modern Lovers," in which Jeffreys frolicks along the well-travelled path of love's difficulty. At its close he lets the music usurp power from the words and merely chants "L-O-V-E-R-S" over and over, affirming the struggle to love in today's hard times without getting heavy-handed.

Continuing on the lines of love, he reveals his braided roots in the pop-reggae "Christine." He growls lasciviously.

She said to me, she must go back to Paris

I said to her, please don't you do it to me

She said to me. I got another boyfriend

I said to her, why didn't the hell you tell me, Christine?

The rat-a-tat of the last, overcrowded line conveys his bitterness, while the sympathetic, smooth reggae guitar soothes and strengthens him.

Despite the change of musical pace, the guitar plays the same role in the remake of? and the Mysterians' 1960s hit, "96 Tears," which Jeffreys endows with more vigor and spite than? ever mustered. Throughout these songs' changing moods, his voice assumes a stance recalling James Dean; compassionate, yet aloof; willing to take risks, encounter disappointment, and give his all again.

The first side closes with "True Confessions," taking its title and cue from one of those schlock-romance magazines, but transcending them, as the images cut through the melodic hypnotism: "You keep rollin' around my head/like a magnum that repeats." As the song fades, the drummer pummels an incessant jungle-cum-Bo Diddley beat, the guitars chime in, and then suddenly the musical avalance cascades out of hearing. This portends of things to come. The first side is tame, love-centered pop; this closing hints of the underlying energy to surface later.

THE SECOND PART of Escape Artist's trilogy, side two, provides moving anthems for Jeffreys' street heroes. "R.O.C.K." begins with a compelling piano solo by Roy Bittan, and, in epic style, thumping drums and guitar twangs descend. "R-o-c-k rock, it's sweeping across the nation," declares Jeffreys, again using the spelling tactic. "It's rescued me from a fate that's worse than death: just like a destiny, it gives me new breath." Music is inextricable from his existence; it is his escape art. The kids who have nothing else to live for play a battered instrument or sing, dreaming of being in a rock-and-roll band, and Jeffreys romanticizes this dream's cleansing powers, which are dwindling with the new diversity and problems in the record business.