The ninth annual Latin Grammy Awards, which take place Thursday night in Houston, are looking like Ladies Night, though not in the usual sense. Instead, this year's nominations feature an unprecedented number of non-traditional and powerful women, several of them in the top categories.

All except Mexican star Julieta Venegas are relatively new or little known. All are singer-songwriters, artists who've charted their own course and write their own songs, who bring an emotionally gutsy, highly personal and distinctively female point of view to their music.

Together, they suggest the rise of a more independent and self-defined kind of female artist in the mainstream of Latin music.

''Although each one of us has her own distinctive personality, there's many things in our music that are very connected to who we are, with being women and with the moment that we're living and the century that we're living in, with trying to be visionary and modern at the same time,'' says Kany García, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter whose debut album, Cualquier Día (Any Day), earned her nominations for the top categories, Album and Record of the Year, as well as Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Album.

In addition to García, the women in this year's Latin Grammys include Buika, an uncategorizable and exhilaratingly unconventional Spanish-African singer up for Album of the Year for her gut-wrenching flamenco-jazz recording Niña de Fuego.

Four out of five nominees for Best New Artist are women, including 22-year old Mexican actress Ximena Sariñana, whose original melodies and strangely haunting lyrics on her debut CD, Mediocre, have attracted considerable attention in Mexico and the U.S. Latin Alternative scene. Sariñana also is nominated for Alternative Song and Producer of the Year. Colombiana Adriana Lucía, another newcomer, is up for Best Contemporary Tropical Album for Porro Nuevo, her take on an obscure Colombian folk style.

JULIETA VENEGAS

The godmama of the crew is Venegas, whose music has shifted from dark and challenging alternative music to beautifully crafted, commercially successful pop, but whose intelligent, emotionally layered lyrics and happy individuality have paved the way for this new class of female artists. Venegas' MTV Unplugged CD garnered four nominations, including Record and Song of the Year.

''It's cool and amazing that the industry is recognizing women's work in all styles,'' Venegas said after the nominations were announced in September. ``It used to be really hard for the industry to recognize female songwriters . . . It shows the position of women in music is changing naturally, women songwriters are doing their own personal thing and putting it out there.''

HER OWN WAY

Alih Jey, a young Dominican singer-songwriter who made two pop albums with Universal, is celebrating the nomination of her independently produced CD Necia (Stubborn), for Best Rock Solo Vocal Album. That her former label pushed her toward bouncy pop and a Britney Spears look only makes the recognition for the passionate rock sound and outspoken emotion of Necia sweeter for fans of alternative artists like Regina Spektor and PJ Harvey.

'I don't want to say `I told you so,' but I would say, 'Hey, it's important to listen to the artist,' '' Jey, 25, said from her home in North Bay Village. ``To be recognized for something you really are proud of is the biggest gift.''

The title Necia (Stubborn) comes from Jey's realization that being a nice girl doesn't always pay off. ''You have to be stubborn to survive,'' she says. ``If you want something you have to keep insisting and you have to be sure it's what you want and not give up.''

``I would give in and give in. I just thought these people know what they're doing. But if you're an artist, there's a lot of essential things you have to determine.''

One element these very different artists have in common is their attitude toward love.

Instead of the simpler ''I'm-so-happy or I'm-so-sad (but I'm moving on)'' take on romance usually offered by pop music, they have a more ambivalent view. Although they definitely need love, these women wrestle with its compromises and risks, and with the questions it raises for their independence and identity. It's an outlook that's been present for a long time in the less commercial areas of mainstream pop, but is much less common in the Latin world.

''Solitude is a final step that I haven't been able to make myself take,'' sings Sariñana in Normal, nominated for Alternative Song of the Year. In García's Hoy Ya Me Voy, which is up for Song of the Year, she tells the lover she's leaving: ``I know very well that I meant to love you. And I said no to being happy because I was only thinking of you.''

Says García: ``Yeah, I think something most of us have in common is that we get complicated with love. At the same time we all want to do something different. And as female singer-songwriters we know that if you want to talk about love, you have to find a way to do it differently.''

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