Music 2000

12. England's Damon Gough is better known as Badly Drawn Boy and his beautiful debut record, "The Hour of Bewilderbeast," received a much-deserved buzz after being awarded Britain's Mercury Prize for best new album. There's something of a laid-back hippie vibe to many of Gough's songs -- he can come across as a Donovan for the slacker electronica age -- but his writing is far more interesting and the lush arrangements and production give this record an imposing, full sound. If you're not convinced, he's the guy who sings that pretty song in the new Gap commercial.

13. Björk may be Iceland's best-known pop export, but Sigur Ros are closing in. Their album "Agaetis Byrjun" is a creation of spare, breathtaking beauty with lyrics that sound like slow-motion banshee wails. It's a record that feels like it was deposited from another planet. Or Iceland.

14. The steamy confluence of soul, R&B and hip-hop hit its peak early in the year with D'Angelo's "Voodoo." The sexiest release of 2000, the funky pleasures here are as sultry and mysterious as the album's title suggests. D'Angelo might not yet be mentioned in the same breath as Sylvester Stewart or Al Green, but songs like "Devil's Pie" and "Chicken Grease" are going to get him there.

15. No one explores America's decrepit spiritual underbelly with results as fascinating as Modest Mouse's. Despite jumping to a major label, the band remained true to its indie-rock roots with "The Moon and Antarctica," a captivating and eerie follow-up to their breakout album "The Lonesome Crowded West." Led by enigmatic frontman Isaac Brock, the Seattle trio creates music that is disconcertingly disconnected -- and disconcertingly good.

16. Hailing from Long Island, N.Y., Wheatus are a guilty pleasure. The trio's eponymous debut combines full-on Fountains of Wayne-style pop with humorous Ween-esque lyrics. In other words, they're funny and they rock. "Teenage Dirtbag" is a classic loser anthem.

17. Who knew P.J. Harvey was such an optimist? The good feeling shines through on her sparkling new album, "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea," a superior work filled with crystalline hard-rocking tunes that are as aggressive as they are accessible. There have been pretenders before her, but Harvey's vivid imagery and raw vocal intensity make her the legitimate heir to rock-poet Patti Smith. When she howls, on the opening track, "Look out ahead/I see danger come," it sounds like an invitation for a wild ride you wouldn't think of turning down.

18. Musical expressions, both ancient and futuristic, are woven together on Tabla Beat Science's "Tala Matrix," a fascinating recording conceived of by producer Bill Laswell. The tabla -- the two-headed Indian drum -- has found its way into the background of Western recordings of all kinds over the past couple of years. Here, though, it is the featured instrument. Traditional tabla players collaborate with electronica musicians and there is an almost spiritual quality to the hypnotic, deliriously percussive results.

19. A number of compelling oddities are included on Billy Bragg and Wilco's "Mermaid Avenue II," their overlooked second collection of performances of songs by Woody Guthrie. Mixed in with the socially conscious material are flights of fancy not normally associated with the Dust Bowl balladeer, including a hymn to flying saucers and a tribute to Joe DiMaggio's hitting streak. Bragg and Wilco's interpretations are superb, but Natalie Merchant's charming delivery on the wonderfully nonsensical "I Was Born" steals the show.

20. For those not familiar with him, Damien Jurado is a much, much sadder Elliott Smith. That may seem impossible, but Jurado's newest release, "Ghost of David," and last year's "Rehearsals for Departure" are two inconsolably grieving records. While that sort of unabashed misery is not for everyone, Jurado's haunting voice is so intimate and imperfectly pure, and his songwriting so jaggedly despairing, that he makes melancholy start to feel like its own reward.

21. Rob Garza and Eric Hilton, the Washington electronica duo better known as Thievery Corporation, have developed quite a reputation as avatars of trip-hoppy dance grooves. Their stylishly seductive "The Mirror Conspiracy" borrows beats from the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean and South America and mixes them to create an international lounge of cool.

22. The problem with consistency is that it gets taken for granted. Sleater-Kinney, one of America's most reliably excellent rock bands, delivered their fourth stellar album in five years when they released "All Hands on the Bad One" in May. The now veteran trio of Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss put their two-guitars-and-drums approach to the task on an album that bristled with energy and emotion. "You're No Rock & Roll Fun" should have made them millionaires. Or at least earned a place in Rolling Stone's Top 100 pop songs.

23. Lambchop, the off-kilter Nashville collective, returns with "Nixon," an odd and laconically beautiful album inspired by the late Richard Milhous. Seriously. The liner notes even provide a reading list on the dead prez.

24. Glamorous and grand, the Dandy Warhols' "Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia" is a rock album dense with images and stories that could be pulled from Lou Reed's songbook: "Bohemian Like You" is a snarky poseur putdown and the opening 16-minute trilogy of "Godless," "Mohammed" and "Nietzsche" must be some kind of epic-rock statement.

25. The Brit-pop throne has been vacant since the implosion of Oasis, but if there is a band ready to ascend to that vaunted seat it is Coldplay, whose full-length debut, "Parachute," is sublimely melodic and artful. There may be no replacing the hype that surrounds the feuding Gallagher brothers, but Coldplay's sweeping and smart harmonic pop is, along with Badly Drawn Boy's "Bewilderbeast," the best of Britain's musical exports this year. And yes, that includes Radiohead's "Kid A."

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