The year's 20 best albums

By RUSSELL BAILLIE and GRAHAM REID

1. DIMMER I Believe You Are A Star

(Columbia)

Shayne Carter freed himself from the image of his former band Straitjacket Fits with this superb, unexpected and dense album. Songs of brooding, latent power, a pepper-pot of bittersweet lyrics, some low rolling funk, just enough distortion to keep the edges rough, and then scattered around are melodies of quiet charm and seduction. It's been Carter's year in many ways - he picked up most outstanding musician at the b-net awards, and the album was voted the best rock release - but what is most remarkable about Star is that it effectively blurred the arbitrary distinctions of rock and electronica and played equally well to both camps. A dark wonder, as we called it back in May. Mr Carter, we always knew you were a star.

2. PETE YORN Music for the Morning After

(Columbia)


It may have been the year of Ryan Adams (see below) when it came to American roots-rock singer-songwriter types, but we rated this debut album by New Jersey-ite a little higher. A heartache-heavy but vibrant mix of rustic pop-rock and alt-country and containing occasional echoes of the Pixies and Lemonheads, Yorn's first outing was a scuffed, scrappy delight.

3. PLUTO Red Light Syndrome

(Antenna)


A feverish pop imagination and musical creativity abounded in this debut album by the Auckland outfit centred on the singing and songwriting partnership of Tim Arnold and Milan Borich. The angular, acoustic-based Red Light Syndrome could be heard as a distillation of a couple of generations of left-field Kiwi pop - with tracks reminding of everyone from the Clean, early Split Enz to the Swingers - and showing a band that could art-rock heartily when the mood took them.

4. NELLY FURTADO Whoa Nelly

(Dreamworks)


As we said back in March "Very soon, there will be no avoiding Nelly Furtado." While some fun-challenged reviewers dismissed as just more product off the girlpop conveyor belt, the 21-year-old Portuguese-Canadian songstress delivered a kaleidoscopic wonder on her debut album, a Beck-like collision of R&B, hip-hop, latin, folk and hooks you didn't mind having lodged in that part of brain where tunes - good and bad - take hold. As they say, it's all good.

5. ED HARCOURT Here Be Monsters
(Heavenly)


Yes, there were a fair few moody, introspective English singer-songwriters about this year but the delicately voiced, piano-based Harcourt was the best of the bunch. His ambitious, sophisticated album brimmed with fiercely lovely songs, acerbic lyrics, lilting Nick Drake-like tunes and the occasional big noise freakout.

6. TURIN BRAKES The Optimist LP

(Source)


And while there were also quite a few young Englishmen with an acoustic guitar case full of angst, the London duo of Olly Knights and Gale Paridjanian made it sound far better than a musical complaints department with a trippy-rootsy swagger, Knights' slightly androgynous, keening voice and a lyrical approach which leavened its melancholy with an askew, black wit.

7. CHE FU The Navigator

(Sony)


The second solo album from the former Supergroover carried on where his classic 2b S.pacific debut left off, delivering an engrossing, uplifting set with a deft mix of Pasifikan soul - including the chart-worrying single Fade Away - strident hip-hop, reggae flavours and sweet balladry. Powered by possibly the greatest set of pipes in the local pop business, The Navigator's songs melded the personal with the political.

8. SPARKLEHORSE It's a Wonderful Life

(Capitol)


The third album by rural Virginia-based Mark Linkous - aka Sparklehorse - was captivating for its gorgeously unhurried, heartbreaking tunes set against a backwoods atmosphere. If Neil Young and Tom Waits (who guests on one track) had log cabin on timeshare, something like this might have been the result.

9. LUCINDA WILLIAMS Essence

(Lost Highway)


Over a series of albums Williams' dark folk-influenced songs and languid jangle-pop made her that rarity, an alt-country artist who can marry soul, sorrow and sexuality. This highly personal outing with superb musicians may begin with some world-weary yet oddly radiant gloominess, but with its folk-rock, country-pop, some neo-psychedelic guitar and its raw emotions it rewards repeated listenings and reveals itself over time.

10. RYAN ADAMS Heartbreaker

(Cooking Vinyl)


Adams effectively had three albums out this year - this solo debut, its follow-up Gold in the latter part of the year and a posthumous collection from his disbanded American alt-country rock outfit Whiskeytown, which foundered at the third album stage. They all come recommended but we like liked this one the best for its intimacy, its emotionally bruised ballads and its dust-storm rock'n'roll.

11. THE STROKES Is This It

(BMG)


New York's finest. The Strokes rode a wave of hype and an outgoing tide of backlash but they still left us with a great album. A strangely exciting, scuffed-up blast of Big Apple punky art-rock that says what it has to say in just 36 twitchy, brittle minutes. Yes you could play spot the influence - Iggy Pop, Television, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, The Fall, The Smiths, and Wire are all in there somewhere - but it came with such raw-boned urgency that it remains one of the year's most exciting American rock releases.

12. CLOUDBOY Down at the End of the Garden

(Cloud)


Dunedin collective Cloudboy were yet another local outfit to embrace electronica, but didn't rely on it alone to deliver an album of noir-ish downbeat pop of foggy atmospheres and beguiling melodies care of the dreamy vocals of frontwoman Demarnia Lloyd.

13. RADIOHEAD Amnesiac

(Parlophone)


The friendlier sister album to last year's Kid A was still a sonically jagged affair of paranoid and anxious mood. But while the crackling echoes of Kid A's electronic experimentation remained, many a track saw the English band regain its sense of melody, majesty, while frontman Thom Yorke emerged as less of a ghost in the machine than he was last time round.

14. NEIL FINN One Nil

(Parlophone/EMI)


A warmer, more relaxed and romantic affair than its predecessor - Finn's post-Crowded House solo debut Try Whistling This - One Nil came with many a moment of heart-in-the-mouth loveliness - like his Apra Silver Scroll- winning song Turn and Run. A dreamy, hazy, attractively effortless quality ran throughout much of the rest of the dozen tracks.

15. SALMONELLA DUB Inside the Dubplates
(Curious/Virgin)


Having made something of a breakthrough on 1999's Killervision, Christchurch dub-dance outfit Salmonella Dub upped the bass, the brass and the energy levels for a thrilling throb-athon of an album and still topped the local album charts, although single Love Your Ways showed they hadn't lost their way with a harmonious and hooky reggae chorus either.

16. GOODSHIRT Good

(Cement/EMI)


There was something quite New Wave about the sound of this debut from the Auckland quartet, but the songs themselves still rose above the reference points, care of their oddball lyrics, warped popcraft and occasionally wistful tunes. Clever, quirky, and zany yes, but sensitive and meaningful with it.

17. INTERNATIONAL OBSERVER Seen

(Loaded Sounds )


Planet dub has been getting pretty crowded these past few years but this local duo of Tom Bailey and Rakai Karaitiana stake a powerful claim at the ambient end with their sensual, warm and smart meltdown of memorable but minimalist melodies, nods to formative reggae figures such as Augustus Pablo, Indo-dub gestures, a Morricone-like awareness of space and quirkiness, and damn fine thoroughly relaxing dub for all seasons.

18. NEW ORDER Get Ready

(London)


The comeback (from the dead) was New Order with the surprisingly vibrant Get Ready, an oddly undated record of memorable songs that rocks infectiously in the band's once influential circuitry-assisted sleek and simple way. Order, restored you might say.

19. BJORK, Vespertine

(Universal)


The only person to feature on both our best movies and best album list, Bjork's fourth solo album was oddly compelling for the singer's new-found sense of restraint, its emotional frankness, and for its airy, languid semi-electronic music. Pure enchantment.

20. R.E.M Reveal

(Warners)


It sounded as if, after a few unloved albums, R.E.M. felt the need to celebrate what made R.E.M. sound like R.E.M. in the first place.

In this case, that's the band which recorded Document, Out of Time and particularly Automatic For the People - there are hints of the latter's epic balladry and big strings throughout this. But it's an album of summery pop, aching ballads and exultant anthems.

2001 – The year in review