The readers' best albums of 2000

Well, we did ask. A couple of weeks ago we compiled our list of last year's 20 best albums and invited you to tell us in 100 words or fewer the great album we'd overlooked. The best entry would scoop up copies of our top 20 and Big Day Out tickets.

We faithfully read your neatly printed letters, wondering all the while if anyone knows joined-up writing any more. It was a largely depressing experience because in the first batch of replies 80 per cent were for albums in our selection. Your entries went into the round filing cabinet.

Some of you couldn't decide on one album so threw us a list. Not what we asked for.

People who e-mail - even if they don't use the spellcheck - read instructions better.

While Moby's Play perhaps "captures the essence of love's emotional roller coaster," it has been doing so since 99, Craig. And Pat, the Buena Vista Social Club was released two years before that. And was that Beatles collection "music from the year 2000"?

Writing about the same album in two different but essentially similar letters doesn't do you any good at all, Mrs G. of Glen Eden. It's a bit like shouting at foreigners. You also insisted Radiohead's Kid A "needs to be on that list. It deserves to be on that list." It was.

That disqualified your entry, too, Natasha. And yours for our No 1 choice - Coldplay, Michael.

Michaela liked U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind. But so had we.

Mostly what impressed us was the diverse, catholic taste of TimeOut readers: it went from D'Angelo to Limp Bizkit.

Primal Scream's xtrmntr was favoured by M-People (Michael and Matthew) and Alina thought we should have included Zed's Silencer. Jacki liked Placebo's Black Market Music (although we were confused by her kiss-off line, "if only every sugar pill was as sweet") and the scholarly Matthew who wrote of its "symbiotic fusions of musical mastery with writer Brian Molko's unsurpassed lyrical eloquence."

Graham offered an alluring argument for Bat-man Robert Scott's The Creeping Unknown. He heard it through headphones as he walked barefoot at sunset on a beach in Rarotonga with a bottle of duty-free Hawkes Bay chardonnay. We suggest impaired judgment, Graham, although we envied you.

Where you hear things obviously influenced opinions. Jonathan first caught Pitch Black's Electronomica while in the back of a Nissan Skyline travelling to the Vietnam Cafe in Otahuhu, apparently, but now especially likes it in the bath, occasionally lowering his ears underwater to feel the booming vibrations. We'll take that under advisement, although we enjoyed your line "made with machines but touched by the hand of bloke." We're going to use that and claim it as our own soon.

Alistair concluded his nod to the For Carnation's self-titled album with the phrase "steeped in grace and gravitas." We'll have that line, too, Alistair.

Jason made us curious about Jack Off Jill (although he prefers their previous stuff), and the appetisingly named BLT gave the thumbs-up to Yo Lo Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out.

Chris said J. Mascis and the Fog's More Light was perfect for thirty-somethings to play air guitar to, and while Brad liked OutKast's Stankonia he wondered "has everyone forgotten Aimee Mann?"

They have, Brad, but Marcus remembered Kylie's Light Years, Tom was down with Madonna's Music, and Vincent considered Bjork's Dancer in the Dark "the unquestionable [sic] album of the year."

Amelia hailed Savage Garden's Affirmation which has "meaningful lyrics about more than sex." SG spoke of accepting people and "is that not what we should be teaching to the younger generation?" Indeed it is, Amelia, and that's why we have schools.

There were articulate votes for Dave Dobbyn's Hopetown from Matthew ("its diversity bespeaks an ecstatic sense of liberation and release detailed in the record's adventurous textures and unexpected but always stimulating juxtapositions") and from Geoff: "a black cloud of cultural exhaustion hovers over contemporary popular music" - but not over Dave's album.

Glen, you kneecapped your argument for Green Day's Warning when you said it was a change of pace from their last couple and more like 94's Dookie. So they've gone back to their old style? Hmmm.

Sarah considered the Cure's Bloodflowers "easily as great as any previous album," Karen reckoned Gomez' Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline album of b-sides was better than a lot of bands' a-sides, and Sue said the songs on the live Tim Finn-Bic Runga-Dave Dobbyn album "set me on fire and fill me with love."

Some equated commercial success with artistic merit. The two needn't be mutually exclusive, but selling heaps doesn't necessarily make for greatness. Gee, we put Merle Haggard and local electronica outfit Phase 5 in our list and they wouldn't have sold a sliver of what the Holmes album did. Come to think of it, maybe they did.

In fact, Mr Holmes' aural effort elicited the wittiest entry. Russell of Papakura wrote: "His new album has provided hours of pleasure at many a bar, club, party and even over the family dinner table, not so much in the listening but in the discussion of its existence. The best thing about this album? You don't even have to have heard it to derive enjoyment from it."

Excellent. A near-new copy of Holmes is on its way to you, sir. That'll teach you to be a clever Johnny.

So we read your letters with interest, gut-damaging mirth ("dulcet tones" is a phrase to avoid) and, sometimes, astonishment.

We didn't mind what album you liked as long as you wrote convincingly about it and made us want to hear it.

Our winning entry came from Dominic Johnson of Grey Lynn whose tidy thumbs-up to Irish band JJ72 covered the bases: a little history and context, contemporary reference points and some information, and a convincing opinion. On ya, mate.

Thanks to all who entered, but should we do this again remember the old adage: if in doubt, read the instructions.

THE WINNER IS ...

JJ72

JJ72

(Lakota)

Review: Dominic Johnson

This eponymous debut sparked a kind of maturity and experience rarely seen by a teenage band. The dark undertones of Joy Division coupled with Jeff Buckleyesque vocals give this Dublin trio a unique sound. Mark Greaney has the power in his voice to echo like an angel in one moment, yet snarl devilishly the next.

October Swimmer, Oxygen and Snow were all obvious singles while Broken Down and the sublime Improv offer subtlety.

It is perhaps the final tracks, Algeria and Bumble Bee, which point to a deeper future for this band, escalating and spiralling out of control, tortured guitars allowing a more intense listening experience than Coldplay.

If only they'd tell us what their name meant.