Giving It Five

A year of drums and basses, being here now and being there then, of candles and wind, pop tarts and marts, smacking people up, general INXS, Whoo Hoos!, floating in space (ladies and gentlemen) and the beautiful lone voice of a boatman's call. All of this and the Teletubbies too. Rave on Tinky Winky.

Lessons to be learned? Only this: the four most eagerly awaited, and earnestly hyped, albums of the year - U2 (Pop) Oasis (Be Here Now), The Prodigy (Fat Of The Land) and The Chemical Brothers (Dig Your Own Hole) - didn't move the earth the way we were told they would, but did succeed in sending more than a few tremors. Interestingly, not one of them featured in our end-of-year poll of polls (so much for marketing budgets, boys).

On an obvious level, the two critical and commercial hit parade pacemakers were The Verve, doing all the running with their Suedelike reincarnation on Urban Hymns, while Radiohead prog rocked their way (in the best possible taste) through OK Computer. The two surprise packages, though, were the blissed-out layers of mellifluous music that Spiritualized plucked out of the ether, and Roni Size and Reprazent doing as their album title said on New Forms. A most deserving winner of the Mercury Music Prize it turned out to be, particularly in these days of stodgy R'n'B masquerading as British Pop. In from the left-field came good ol' fashioned stars'n'stripes pop music in the shape of Fountains Of Wayne, while the Wu Tang Clan served it straight up without a mixer. Two excellent compilations of The Replacements' and The Pixies' greatest moments made up for what was lacking elsewhere - but keep an eye and an ear out for Wilco, who do things to new country for which Gram Parsons laid the blueprint all those years ago.

English-wise, Blur U-turned to great effect, while Portishead and Supergrass kept on the relative straight and narrow - and welcome back Prefab Sprout, whose Andromeda Heights was the slowest of burners but contained some of the richest of rewards - "we were quoted out of context, it was great". It wasn't quite Steve McQueen but then what is, this or any other year?

Welcome back, too, despite it all, Bob Dylan with Time Out Of Mind his first really decent piece of work since Desire - and about time too. Irish-wise, there was the long overdue Frank and Walters album, Grand Parade and rather excellent it was too. It was bye bye to A House and no more apologies from them, while Sack punched in with the resonant Butterfly Effect - and there was some great stuff from Decal. Watch out for The Marbles in the new year, and expect fireworks from the London-based Dublin band The Hormones around about next April.

Good to see a sense of playfulness at large, particularly in all the French "Yellow Stereo" stuff - a very particular highlight being Dimitri From Paris's Sacrebleu - cocktail music never sounded so good. Folk-wise, in the wake of Norma Waterson, another grand old lady of olde worlde style, the one and the only June Tabor, excelled herself on Aleyn. Elvis Costello once said of June Tabor that if you didn't get what she was at you knew nothing about music; and we concur on that one, Declan.

Assembled below you'll find some people who know what they're talking about (and me) selecting their top five platters that mattered of the year and you'll find the only albums some of us could agree on were Spiritualised, Nick Cave, Radiohead and The Verve. Noel Gallagher managed to get a mention in for his support bands, which was nice of him, Dave Fanning gave us six, not five albums (there's a particular reason for this but I've forgotten it); Donal Dineen includes his traditional hidden delight - this year in the shape of Arvo Part - and Tom Dunne also supplied us with an all-Irish chart which we'll be talking about in the very near future.

Enough already: out of the way Noel, I'm going first.

1. Spiritualized: Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.

2. Nick Cave: The Boatman's Call.

3. Wilco: Being There.

4. June Tabor: Aleyn.

5. Teenage Fanclub: Songs From Northern Britain.

Noel Gallagher, Oasis

1. The Verve: Urban Hymns.

2. Travis: Good Feeling.

3. Paul Weller: Heavy Soul.

4. Various : Hip Hop Don't Stop, Volume 1.

5. Various: Hip Hop Don't Stop, Volume 2.

Dave Fanning, DJ

1. Eels: Beautiful Freak.

2. Death In Vegas: Dead Elvis.

3. Nick Cave: The Boatman's Call.

4. Supergrass: In It For The Money.

5. Radiohead: OK Computer.

6. Palace Music: Lost Blues And Other Songs.

Tom Dunne, Musician/DJ

1. The Verve: Urban Hymns.

2. The Pixies: Death To The Pixies.

3. Fountains Of Wayne: Fountains Of Wayne.

4. Mike Scott: Still Burning.

5. Texas: White On Blonde.

Donal Dineen, DJ

1. Spiritualized: Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space.

2. Radiohead: OK Computer.

3. Arvo Part: Fratres.

4. Bjork: Homogenic.

5. Howie B: Turn The Dark Off.

Until next year, pop pickers.