The Year in Pop

Artists on the verge

[AP photo] SWEET SWEDES: The success of the Hives prompts a question: Why are all the interesting new bands coming out of Sweden?

We at Team Pop take these Best of the Year lists seriously. We meet, break out the charts and diagrams. We scribble fiercely on slides and display them with overhead projectors. We measure data, do complicated math. It's very scientific.

Which is how Team Pop breaks down exactly what we've all experienced in the past 365 days in popular music. It's also why we present our own categories. Sure, we cover the year's best albums and singles. Then we get on to important stuff, like hairdos, and ask compelling, topical questions:

If Eminem and Moby get into a fist fight, who will win?

Who keeps giving Michael Jackson babies?

Why does Christina Aguilera dress like a tramp?

Team Pop also pinpoints trends: Why are all these interesting bands coming out of Sweden? The Hives. Soundtrack to Our Lives. The all-girl Sahara Hotnights. Will Abba again top the charts again? We hope and pray.

Also, was everyone in pop music competing for our first annual Mariah Meltdown Award? How else to explain the antics of R. Kelly, he of the videotape and alleged sex with an underage female? Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses is a contender for the mood swings and concert no-shows that led to the cancellation of the Chinese Democracy tour. Michael Jackson dangling that baby over the balcony of a German hotel room. (Michael, no, no! No dangling of babies!)

Then there's Whitney Houston, on television with Diane Sawyer, promising she's kicked drugs, but appearing oh-so-wasted. Team Pop asks, is it now mandatory for a musician to be mad?

Mariah Carey actually seems sane now. Carey recovered from that emotional breakdown last year to release Charmbracelet, which she mostly wrote herself, and to do rounds of press and television interviews. To which we advise, Slow down. You move too fast. Don't do it again, sister.

[AP photo] WHOA: Nelly’s single Hot In Herre helped rock our world.

Another trend: Why, in a year so rich in excellent singles, were we bombarded with so many uneven albums? Team Pop had trouble picking out 10 contenders for Best Album. Actually, Team Pop found plenty to love from lesser-known performers, which is why we separated albums into those from the mainstream and those from the undercurrents.

Tireless Team Pop leaves nothing out. So, in the immortal words of Pink, let's get this party started.

BEST ALBUMS, THE MAINSTREAM: Not necessarily in order, these are the 10 albums from well-known artists that struck chords with us this year: Dixie Chicks, Home; the Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious; Missy Elliott, Under Construction; Tori Amos, Scarlet's Walk; Elvis Costello, When I Was Cruel; Pulp, We Love Life; Sonic Youth, Murray Street; Ryan Adams, Demolition; Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; and Queens of the Stone Age, Songs For The Deaf.

[Photo: Sony Music] SOUTHERN COMFORT: The Dixie Chicks didn’t fiddle with our expectations. Their Home was one of the mainstream album highlights of 2002.

GUILTY PLEASURE: Snoop Dogg, Paid the Cost to Be The Boss, in which Snoop raps about everything Team Pop socially abhors -- violence, cheap sex, objectification of women -- with a wink and nudge, and Snoop's unique humor, suggesting he knows as well as anyone that rapper bravado is a put-on. With homages to Parliament and Bootsy, the Sopranos and Snoop's wife, Paid The Cost is the funkiest, funniest album this year.

BEST ALBUMS, THE UNDERCURRENTS: From the lesser-knowns, hands down, the album of the year was the brilliant and beautiful Faces Down from 19-year-old Norwegian wunderkind Sondre Lerche. Filled with smart, sophisticated pop, wry lyrics, and bouncy melodies, Faces Down reassures us that not all teen pop is soulless and manufactured.

Other music from the undercurrents we dug included Sleater-Kinney, One Beat; DJ Shadow, The Private Press; Imperial Teen, On; Simian, We Are Your Friends; Clinic, Walking With Thee; Spoon, Kill The Moonlight; Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots; Pretty Girls Make Graves, Good Health; DJ Spooky, Optometry.

SINGLES ONLY: As we said, a smorgasbord of hot singles filled radio and MTV airwaves this year. We were most rocked by No Doubt's Hella Good; the Hives' Hate To Say I Told You So; Nelly's Hot In Herre cq; Missy Elliott's Work It; the White Stripes' Fell In Love With A Girl; the Strokes' Someday and Norah Jones' sublime Don't Know Why.

SOMEONE TO WATCH: Mark our words, you'll be hearing much more about the Streets next year. The Streets is actually one guy, 23-year-old British rapper Mike Skinner. Original Pirate Material, filled with zesty samples, good nature and clever wordplay delivered in a British accent that makes for a new genre of rap, was a breath of fresh air in the same-old same-old world of hip-hop.

BEST OF SHOWS: We enjoyed some mighty good live performances in the bay area this year, beginning in February with a flawless Bob Dylan show at the St. Pete Times Forum. Other great shows at the Forum: Billy Joel and Elton John together, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Aerosmith, and, the year's best concert, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

Elvis Costello put on a bristling show at Ruth Eckerd Hall, the same venue that Heart rocked during the summer.

Some of us were lucky to catch an impromptu Prince gig at the Lakeland Center. Funky soul singer Meshell Ndegeocello, another musician who likes to drop by at the last minute, made fans swoon during an intimate last-minute gig at Goldstar in St. Petersburg.

It was worth the trek to Orlando's House of Blues to see the much ballyhooed Strokes. We jumped back into the jalopy to ramble to that city's Hard Rock Cafe to catch the brilliant Alicia Keys.

RAD REISSUES: Team Pop spent weeks getting to know the music of the Specials, early 1980s ska-poppers, through three excellent discs reissued by EMI/Chrysalis. Several discs reissued this year paved the way for alternative rock. These discs were groundbreakers in their era and are crucial to any alt-rocker's collection. From the 1960s: the Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground and Nico (Polygram); The 1970s: David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (EMI); The 1980s: the Violent Femmes, The Violent Femmes (Rhino); the 1990s: Pavement, Slanted and Enchanted (Matador).

Jazz lovers relished terrific reissues of Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong on the Sony/Legacy label.

MARIAH CAREY MELTDOWN AWARD: Team Pop picks Michael Jackson for the dangling baby incident. But don't forget Jackson's wild, off-the-mark attack of Sony head Tommy Mottola. Mottola's a racist? He's the devil? That's why Invincible flopped? Dude, your album stunk! Plus, hello: YOU'VE GOT NO NOSE!

ANTIBRITNEY AWARD: Nothing any marketing genius says will convince Team Pop that bland, ordinary Avril Lavigne is the antithesis of bland, ordinary Britney Spears. Lavigne's music is as mundane as her stupid tie. Edgy? Please. We elect Pink, clearly a girl that is passionate about her music, her idols, and living life a little unglued. Pink's music is catchy, but tough. Best of all, she changes her hair color constantly. Sure sign of a creative gal with too much energy.

Honorable mention: Little Kelly Osbourne. The teen-age bitchy Brit is America's Little Sweetheart for her off-the-cuff remarks and strong sense of herself. Is Osbourne's album any good? Who cares!

BIGGIE VS. TUPAC AWARD: What's up with the ridiculous feud between Eminem and Moby, the little boy wonder of electronica? Em's a thug from the bad streets of Detroit. Moby's a passive vegan pacifist. You do the math. Truly, it seems like this is Em's baggage. Moby only called him a racist homophobe misogynist, like once. That probably sold more records for Em.

THE SAD THING IS, THE GIRL CAN SING AWARD: Christina Aguilera, honey, put some clothes on. You look like the fella from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, but sluttier. You can sing. You are talented. It's not "empowering" to show the world your private parts, as you keep saying in interviews. It's gross. Sing. Sing, girl. And, put some clothes on!

THEY CAN ACT? AWARD: First Beyonce knocked our socks off with comedic chops in Austin Powers In Goldmember. Then Eminem does a dramatic turn with Oscar buzz in 8 Mile. Who knew?

ODDEST AWARD SHOW MOMENT: How many folks guffawed when Jack White, leader of the formerly underground blues-rock garage band the White Stripes, said, "Thanks, Mary Kate and Ashley," as he and faux-sister Meg accepted an MTV Music Video Award? The Olsen twins meet the White siblings? It's like Godzilla meeting Mothra.

That odd moment -- and many more during this wacky year -- made members of Team Pop ask ourselves the musical question, "Well, how did we get here?"

And the days go by. Only 365 until we tackle it all again.

-- To contact Gina Vivinetto, e-mail gina@sptimes.com .

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