| Afghan Whigs / 1965 |
| Greg Dulli takes his obsession with sex to very enjoyable extremes. |
| Air / Moon Safari |
| Air was already assured of its place as an album of 1998 as long ago as Dec '97. A promo of the album was doing the rounds of the Baggage offices, and over a year later I'm still not bored of listening to it. You'll know 'Sexy Boy' - a silly song with a space-faring monkey as its unlikely hero, all submarine blips and crunchy basslines - but there's more here than monkeys. The overriding mood is one of laid-back , am-I-dreaming-about-candyfloss relaxation, but you'll be left feeling strangely seedy by the time 'Le Voyage De Penelope' ushers in a press of the repeat button. It's beautiful, some of it sounds like Last Of The Summer Wine, and it's quite, quite fantastic.
If you love someone, and you want to tell them so, don't play them 'You Make It Easy' - it'll express everything you want to say, but will end up being more beautiful and downright French than they can ever hope of being. Split up with your partner? Listen to Air. Struggling with your studies? Pop it in the stereo. Having great sex? Then chances are you're listening to Moon Safari. This CD is 12 centimeters of the most exquisitely relaxing Frenchness you'll ever hear. |
| Ash / Nuclear Sounds |
| They got a girl in so they could make a record with balls. |
| Beastie Boys / Hello Nasty |
| They even managed to make steel drums sound funky. |
| Beck / Mutations |
| The low key album that hit a chord. |
| Beta Band / 3 EPs |
| Not strictly an album but brilliant nonetheless. |
| Black Star / Mos Def & Talib Kweli are... |
| The year's underground hip-hop sensation. |
| Boards Of Canada / Music Has The Right To Children |
| Electronic music with a very human heart. |
| Boo Radleys / Kingsize |
| Not pop, not rock but somewhere in between. |
| Jeff Buckley / Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk |
| He will be greatly missed. |
| Dakota Suite / Songs For A Barbed Wire Fence |
| Bleak, tragic, desolate and windswept.. |
| Fugazi / End Hits |
| Hardcore with tunes. |
| Gastr Del Sol / Camofleur |
| Jim O'Rourke at his best. |
| Grooverider / Mysteries Of Funk |
| Mammoth drum 'n' bass masterpiece from the Metalheadz don. |
| Gomez / Bring It On |
| Swampy blues by ten year olds with very deep voices. |
| The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion / Acme |
| Where the Rolling Stones collide with hip hop and decide to have a party. |
| Jurassic 5 / Jurassic 5 LP |
| About ten years ago, Tommy Boy Records released a record called '3 Feet High And Rising'. It made stars of De La Soul and was the first, and until recently only, radio-friendly rap album that you would also find in every diehard hip-hop heads collection.
But now it has been joined by 'Jurassic 5 LP'. Little more than the band's eponymous EP with a couple of extra tracks and a couple of uncleared samples edited out, this is a lesson in old-school hip-hop given by six young upstarts with a refreshing lack of clichˇ, either lyrical or musical. J5's two DJs, Cut Chemist and Nu-Mark are at the forefront of the turntablist renaissance, but appear reluctant to simply fall back on the same old samples that recur throughout so many other turntable-based cuts. As for the MCs, think Wu-Tang on Prozac. The four of them have completely individual styles, as distinct from each other as they are from anyone else, and in Chali 2na they have their very own Method Man, a hip-hop pin-up with a deep baritone voice as smooth as his flow. Check out 'Improvise', where the four of them effortlessly meld into one, passing the mic mid-sentence, sometimes mid-word. You need this album. If you haven't already bought it, you will eventually. Witness the birth of a classic. |
| Massive Attack / Mezzanine |
| Survived middle class coffee table acceptance with some panache. |
| Mercury Rev / Deserter's Songs |
| The best album of year that features a saw. |
| Photek / Form & Function |
| Sparse drum 'n' bass from St. Albans. |
| Placebo / Without You I'm Nothing |
| The difficult second album. |
| Plastikman / Consumed |
| Dense electronica where the beats go to hide. |
| Pulp / This Is Hardcore |
| Jarvis exploring his inner psyche and porn. |
| REM / Up |
| Stunning return to form. |
| Scott 4 / Recorded in State LP |
| Stetson, drugs and rock and roll. |
| Elliott Smith / XO & Either/Or |
| This year Elliott Smith has released 'Either/Or', followed it up with 'XO' and also re-released his two early albums on Domino. Within these four releases he constantly combines brilliant lyricism, searing emotional intensity and delicate melodies. He effortlessly avoids all the singer/songwriter clichˇs and tells complicated tales of bitterness, recriminations and love.
His strength lies in his ability to swiftly move from |