Random access memory: Pulp torching their fan-base with This Is Hardcore; Chumbawamba, Cornershop and the exbass player from The Housemartins disturbing the Billie-led poptastic consensus; Nye Bevan soundbites, Spanish Bomb rewrites and scary Welsh poetry combining as The Manics deliver their best set of tunes since Generation Terrorists; Massive Attack scowling their way through Mezzanine; Not drowning but waving - the estimable Brian Wilson gets it together long enough on Imagination to suggest that he's close to Surf's Up songwriting mode. Brian's back.
And what's with all this Dylan and Springsteen old stuff being released? Would someone somewhere please collate and put out the greatest album that never was, Smile; Hole playing electric guitars the way lippy American malcontents can on the ferociously good Celebrity Skin; Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach doing Toledo; despite my having put a curse, on him, Beck still coming up with the hippy-dippy goods (see below); Mercury Rev coming up on the inside lane to win the album of the year award (and that's official) with Deserter's Songs (they also got this column's vote in 1995 for the brill See You On The Other Side).
Enough already. Here's a bunch of people with the platters that mattered to them this year. They were asked to pick five albums (Donal Dineen got six, because he asked nicely) and remember they are in no particular order.
Brian Boyd:
Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs
Hoe: Celebrity Skin
Brian Wilson: Imagination
Asian Dub Foundation: Rafi's Revenge
Massive Attack: Mezzanine
Dave Fanning:
Smashing Pumpkins: AdoreMercury Rev: Deserter's Songs
Ifang Bondi: GisGisFat Boy Slim: You've Come A Long Way Baby
Beastie Boys: Hello Nasty
Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy)
Ash: Nu-Clear Sounds
Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs
Pulp: This Is Hardcore
Beck: Mutations
Yann Tirrsen: Le Phare
Tom Dunne:
Gomez: Bring It On
Fatboy Slim: You've Come A Long Way Baby
Air: Moon Safari
Elliot Smith: XO Sinead Lohan: No Mermaid
Donal Dineen:
Pullman: Turnstiles And Jumpiles
David Gray: White Ladder
Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs
Leila: Like Weather
REM: Up Mutations
Beck: Mutations
