Bleeps, sweeps, creeps: the best of '98

Nathaniel Rich: Top five music highlights of 1998: 1) Belle & Sebastian's The Boy With the Arab Strap. Everybody's favorite Glaswegians get groovy. 2) The music video for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's "Talk About the Blues." Look for John C. Reilly doing the robot. 3) The Wedding Present hasn't broken up, despite frontman David Gedge's new solo career (Cinerama). 4) Ol' Dirty Bastard renames himself Big Baby Jesus. 5) The Beastie Boys in NYC, Aug. 21. Biz Markie croons "Benny and the Jets," Q-Tip guests on "Get It Together," and a guard manhandles me as I jump over him into the floor section.

Andrea Lynch: Quite a year, 1998. As pre-millennial madness puts down firm roots in our collective consciousness, I find that even the century's imminent turn can't compel me to check out that much music released after 1975. But I really dug all three of the CDs I bought that were released this year, so they certainly deserve some props. We'll go in order of purchase: first, kudos as usual to Mike D, Adrock, and MCA for continuing to cut decent records after all these years. Hello Nasty may not be as fresh as Paul's Boutique or Check your Head, but it certainly didn't leave my CD player for at least two weeks after I bought it and has enjoyed frequent return trips since. Second, another solid effort from an old standby in Elliott Smith's XO. "Baby Britain" is delightfully Beatles, and Mr. Smith's characteristic somnambulant sadness in "Waltz #2" still brings a wee tear to my eye. In the more recent department, how could I forget Hole's Celebrity Skin? Yes, Courtney is silly, but she's also amazing, and I wake up in my makeup often enough to grant Ms. Love credit where credit is due for an awesome title track, if nothing else.

Jessica Winter: What made Jessica happy in '98: Best show: Magnetic Fields' lovely, drumless set at the Knitting Factory in September, nearly upstaged by openers Kiki & Herb, who killed with their signature tune "Kiki You're Ugly." ("Kiki you're ugly/ What the hell gave birth to you?") Best record: Arab Strap's Philophobia (Matador). Seamy songs about shagging, delivered in a Scottish burr. Makes a girl feel all dirty inside. Best single: Hole's "Celebrity Skin." When she wakes up in her makeup, Courtney goes and kicks your ass. Best TV: NewsRadio's beautifully calibrated farewell to Phil Hartman: funnier, sadder, and truer than anything on the big or small screen this year. Best movie: Happiness. A two-hour meditation on passive aggression is all right by me any day.

Sean Collins: The six best albums of 1998: 6) Gary Numan, The Mix. Technogoth remixes from an early prophet of premillenium tension. Dance, android, dance! 5) The Smashing Pumpkins, Adore. Billy Corgan minus Big Rock Sound still equals Best Songwriter in Rock Today. Wonderfully bleak. 4) Hum, Downward Is Heavenward. Beautiful melodies emerge from walls of guitar. Done before, but rarely better. 3) Pulp, This Is Hardcore. Sex, disillusionment, rock 'n' roll. 2) Marilyn Manson, Mechanical Animals. Glam Manson revels in pop detritus while fragile Marilyn bemoans its emptiness. Both Monroe and Cha-rlie would approve. 1) Massive Attack, Mezzanine. Trip-hop's finest hour, full of dark pleasures and drugged paranoia. The music of dope dreams. A masterpiece.

Sam Frank: I'm sick of pop music (it's a hard knock life for us critics, you know). Therefore, the Art award goes to Farmer's Manual, Explorers We. Metal machine noise for the 21st century. Journalism to Jad and Yo La, tabloids and monkeys, what more do you need? (Rock) Opera to Vaganza, "Rock 'n' Roll Apocalypse," drag queens and children singing. Technology award is a tie, between the Atari beat on the Indelible MCs, "Weight," and Pole, "CD1"'s computer dub hiccups. Diamanda Galas gets the athletics award for her back-flipping vocal cords, but Amon Tobin is a close second for training jazz samples into drum 'n' bass contenders. Dance goes to I-F, "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass," onward electro soldier! Drama award to Pulp, since Meredith demanded and Jarvis asked nicely. Blackstar get the Science prize, sending hater players back to Chem 113. Fine, No. 1 pop award, because Elliot Smith, XO is nothing but.

Jason Heller: A&E's Godfather of Soul presents the eight from '98 guaranteed to be good to your earhole. Blackstar, Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Blackstar. Tribe's progeny. Chocolate Genius, Black Music. A postmodern Al Green who can dash off witticisms like, "In New York, there are no unique dilemmas." UNKLE's Psyence Fiction, What Blade Runner would sound like on CD. Various Artists, The Perfect Beats: New York Electro Hip-Hop and Underground Dance Classics 1980-1985. This is what Afrika Bambaataa gave to mankind. Use it well. Out of Sight soundtrack: 'Cause it sounds so cool. Curtis Mayfield, Superfly 25th Anniversary Edtion. Don't wanna be dead like Freddie, now. Prince (The Artist), Crystal Ball. His Royal Badness lets us into his time machine. Madonna, Ray of Light. Just because.

Saul Austerlitz: Top 10 1998: 1) Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The most outstanding rap/R&B hybrid ever recorded, by a woman who clearly knows the meaning of the word heartbreak. 2) Pulp, This is Hardcore. Jarvis Cocker is the coolest, most literate songwriter in the world, and this is his grand statement on Why Life Can Be Good. 3) Tori Amos, From the Choirgirl Hotel. A huge leap forward for Tori, whose "Playboy Mommy" is an epic four minutes of loss, longing, and People magazine reportage. 4) Hole, Celebrity Skin. Courtney said it best: "This record is dedicated to all the stolen water of Los Angeles and anyone who ever drowned." 5) Beck, Mutations. One last time, for all of you in the cheap seats: he's not a hipster postmodern smartass, he's the new Bob Dylan--for real. 6) Method Man, Tical 2000. Judgement Day. The best Wu-Tang album since Raekwon's solo release, featuring Meth's gritty, grimy lyricism front and center. 7) Elliott Smith, XO. 8) Outkast, Aquemini. 9) Garbage, Version 2.0. 10) Lucinda Williams, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.

Daniel McGarry: Best album: Frank Black and the Catholics. Buy it now. Pearl Jam and Pulp both lived up to their own high standards on Yield and This is Hardcore. Local H's Pack Up the Cats also must not be missed. The award for coolest album name goes to San Francisco's own Creeper Lagoon for I Become Small and Go. Spacehog takes the prize for best album cover, on The Chinese Album. And their music's damn good too. Son Volt's Wide Swing Tremolo is the best surprise of the year. Best albums of the year that I haven't heard yet/joint award for most fucked band names: Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel. And a curse on Dave Matthews and his fans: go back to New Jersey, please, and leave our ears alone.

Daniel Silk: 1998 marked yet another year in which groups like Third Eye Blind continued to enjoy commercial success despite a stupefying lack of talent. At this rate, rock music will be a corpse floating under the millennial bridge. There were glimmers of hope: Pulp's This is Hardcore proved that a pop band can be intelligent. UNKLE's Psy-ence Fiction was an odyssey of Homeric proportions. Spiritualized's Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997 was louder than Sonic Boom and spacier than three spacemen. If England had won the World Cup, I'd still be singing along to The Lightning Seeds' "3 Lions." And in the metal porn world, Vince Neil of the Crüe demonstrated that despite hung drummer Tommy Lee it's not size that matters, it's how (and for how long) you use it.

Meredith B. Gordon: Best album award (of course): Brit-pop superstars Pulp--This Is Hardcore. Was there ever any doubt? Best almost-Brit-pop superstars award (even though they're really from grunge-incubator Portland): The Dandy Warhols--The Dandy Warhols Come Down. And they get extra points for a crazy-pretentious name and a we're-cooler-than-fuck real rockstar attitude. Best follow-up to a killer debut/ album to listen to when you're depressed as fuck award: a tie between Elliot Smith--XO and Belle & Sebastian--The Boy With the Arab Strap. Clown car award: UNKLE--Psyence Fiction, for somehow squeezing more "Oh, he's cool" names onto one CD than I ever thought possible. Best concert (and simultaneously worst concert, because I had to miss it): Pulp at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. Please come back. Please. P.S. I love you Jarvis.

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