Best of Music 2001

5. Bruce Springsteen
Live in New York City (Columbia)
In less cautious moments, I'm calling this Springsteen's best album. The themes and narratives that have driven his career for a quarter century crystallize here as never before. He carries us, and his band and audience carry him, from the idealism of "Prove It All Night" to the harsh realities of "Atlantic City" -- and still he finds reason to believe in a "Land of Hope and Dreams." Neither The E-Street Band nor Bruce's strangled guitar solos has ever sounded better on record. No wonder. A few studio masterpieces notwithstanding, live performance has always been Springsteen's real medium.

6. Nick Lowe
The Convincer (Yep Roc)
Now this is pure pop for now people, and for future ones, too, if they're smart. Elegant and slyly soulful, delivered with uncommon craft, unexpected sincerity and, as always, an unrivaled sense of humor, The Convincer is the sort of heartbreakingly beautiful pop record fans figured Lowe had in him all along.

7. Bob Dylan
Love and Theft (Columbia)
You can't repeat the past, someone insists, to which Dylan replies, of course you can. He makes this point throughout, looting melodies and licks from minstrelsy, Tin Pan Alley, and the Chicago and country blues. Still, his repetitions never descend to mimicry, thanks (finally!) to a band he deserves. The sonics are a tad thin -- as a producer, Dylan makes a great singer-songwriter -- but that hardly matters because of his singular voice, by turns hilarious, sweet and horribly prescient. How did he know to write Judge says to the high-sheriff, 'I want him dead or alive/Either one, I don't care'?

8. Shea Seger
The May Street Project (RCA)
Shea Seger's debut is an unusually adult summation of adolescent heartaches. With state-of-the-art pop arrangements and production -- all R&B drum loops and swirling strings, skipping synthesized bleeps and brooding acoustic licks -- The May Street Project features some of the year's most beguiling soundscapes. Even better, it proves that you needn't sacrifice emotional intimacy to move the crowd.

9. Scott Miller
Thus Always to Tyrants (Sugar Hill)
Leaving home behind, this former V-Roy sets off to become a brand new man, and his solo debut recounts the messes he creates along the way. The occasional old-time diversion aside, his narratives are presented as fierce rock and roll. The cataclysmic "Across the Line," for instance, includes menacing electric guitar fleshed out by crashing organ fills and hyperventilating violins. But the best moment is "Daddy Raised a Boy," a father-son saga that elucidates the seeds of a young man's rebellion (Every drunken word was his command/The standing order was to understand) and the stirrings of reconciliation.

10. Etta James
Blue Gardenia (Private Music)
On this follow-up to 1994's Grammy-winning Mystery Lady, Etta James doesn't rock the house. Instead, she makes it swing and sway, swoon and sweat, with a subdued collection of standards. Yet Blue Gardenia's dusky ballads are no hothouse flowers. She renders "He's Funny That Way" chillingly ironic, as if her guy might just be crazy about her, literally. And her five-and-half minute "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" is so confidently dismissive of a lover that Etta only needs to raise her voice once.

11. Angie Stone
Mahogany Soul (J)
12. Alejandro Escovedo
A Man Under the Influence (Bloodshot)
13. Pernice Brothers
The World Won't End (Ashmont)
14. Webb Brothers
Maroon (Atlantic)
15. Ian Hunter
Rant (Fuel)

Top Five Songs

1. The Soggy Bottom Boys
"I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow," from O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Mercury Nashville)
A symbol of 2001's most unexpected success story: With virtually zero assistance from country radio and not much more help from its less-than-popular parent film, the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack went triple platinum. When Dan Tymisnki moans the opening line I've seen trouble all my days, he's not just playing some poor sap down on his luck. Rather, this is a statement of the human condition, the hard and ineluctable reality of any life, fully engaged.

2. Alicia Keys
"Fallin'," from Songs in A Minor (J)
In the video, Keys often comes off as one more stunning, stylish diva gesticulating wildly at the camera because that's just what people in R&B videos are supposed to do. But catch this piano-based, gospel-inspired single on the radio, free from the tyranny of image, and it instantly announces itself as emotionally complex, musically distinctive and even idiosyncratic. Back in the day, they called that soul.

3. White Stripes
"Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," from White Blood Cells (Sympathy for the Record Industry)
Jack White rips through shrieking, snarling, feedback-laced electric guitar while ex-wife Meg White bangs out primitive bass and snare drum parts that, bless her heart, are in time almost always. If you can hear a piano falling, you can hear me coming down the hall, Jack offers, which is a pretty swell description of the Stripes' energy and sound. It's been said before, but it bears repeating: One way to shape up rock when it has turned flabby is to work out in the garage and bring it all back home to the blues.