All revved up

Random access memory: Pulp torching their fan-base with This Is Hardcore; Chumbawamba, Cornershop and the exbass player from The Housemartins disturbing the Billie-led poptastic consensus; Nye Bevan soundbites, Spanish Bomb rewrites and scary Welsh poetry combining as The Manics deliver their best set of tunes since Generation Terrorists; Massive Attack scowling their way through Mezzanine; Not drowning but waving - the estimable Brian Wilson gets it together long enough on Imagination to suggest that he's close to Surf's Up songwriting mode. Brian's back.

And what's with all this Dylan and Springsteen old stuff being released? Would someone somewhere please collate and put out the greatest album that never was, Smile; Hole playing electric guitars the way lippy American malcontents can on the ferociously good Celebrity Skin; Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach doing Toledo; despite my having put a curse, on him, Beck still coming up with the hippy-dippy goods (see below); Mercury Rev coming up on the inside lane to win the album of the year award (and that's official) with Deserter's Songs (they also got this column's vote in 1995 for the brill See You On The Other Side).

Enough already. Here's a bunch of people with the platters that mattered to them this year. They were asked to pick five albums (Donal Dineen got six, because he asked nicely) and remember they are in no particular order.

Brian Boyd:

Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs

Hoe: Celebrity Skin

Brian Wilson: Imagination

Asian Dub Foundation: Rafi's Revenge

Massive Attack: Mezzanine

Dave Fanning:

Smashing Pumpkins: AdoreMercury Rev: Deserter's Songs

Ifang Bondi: GisGisFat Boy Slim: You've Come A Long Way Baby

Beastie Boys: Hello Nasty

Neil Hannon (Divine Comedy)

Ash: Nu-Clear Sounds

Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs

Pulp: This Is Hardcore

Beck: Mutations

Yann Tirrsen: Le Phare

Tom Dunne:

Gomez: Bring It On

Fatboy Slim: You've Come A Long Way Baby

Air: Moon Safari

Elliot Smith: XO Sinead Lohan: No Mermaid

Donal Dineen:

Pullman: Turnstiles And Jumpiles

David Gray: White Ladder

Mercury Rev: Deserter's Songs

Leila: Like Weather

REM: Up Mutations

Beck: Mutations