(THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JORDAN HOFFMAN)
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JODY BETH ROSEN
(THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO WILLIAM S. REPSHER)
(THE MOST EMBARRASSING ALBUM OF THE YEAR)

10. The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group "Sniff"
Rudimentary nuevo-wave that tips a fedora to foppish romanticism (a la Jonathan Richman) and coy Parisian pouting. It’s rock-by-Playskool, like Beat Happening set to a Casio samba beat.

9. Sandy Denny and Friends "Gold Dust: The Final Concert"
This 1977 concert by the late Sandy Denny has finally been released as an album. Cynical and saucy, with a traveler’s sense of weary resolve, Denny belts out chestnuts from her Fairport Convention years and her later solo folk dirges, anchored by moody, sustained piano chords. Her voice hovers outside of charted space and measured time.

8. Jeff Buckley "Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk"
Our generation sees only a few Jeff Buckleys come and go, and the most important one has gone. "Sketches" is an accidental masterpiece, a doodle drawn in private. If 1998 produced a better song than "Vancouver," it’s news to me.

7. Pernice Brothers "Overcome By Happiness"
Joe Pernice’s songs are startlingly reserved; the use of the word "ass" in the title track’s refrain manages to muster up shock value, while other artists’ compulsive profanity invites one super fucking yawn. The Pernice Brothers’ shy-boy rural-glam-pop may be a drop in an over-saturated ocean, but it’s bound to be a classic among fans of low, airy, spacious orchestral confections.

6. Charming Hostess "Eat"
That’s "eat," in the imperative, as uttered by Jewish hausfraus who’ve spent hours in front of a cutting board. Charming Hostess serves as a sort of Smithsonian Folkways for the digital age. The group layers multi-part vocal arrangements over prog-punk, interpreting klezmer, Moroccan wedding songs, and music of Bulgarian women’s choirs. Similar treatment is given to The Residents’ "Won’t You Keep Us Working", bringing Charming Hostess’ flashy esoterica to a throat-mangling apex with brash, high, Broadway-style counter-yelping, and big, flatulent horns.

5. Pee Shy "Don’t Get Too Comfortable"
Cindy Wheeler drawls in rhyming puns over fuzz bass arpeggios, clarinet solos, and surf-folk guitar. Hearing Pee Shy's sketchy first album, "Who Let All The Monkeys Out", makes me appreciate the amount of work these Floridians have put into fine-tuning their craft for their second album. This rates No. 5 because Jenny Juristo-Morrison's songs, which can be reminiscent of Alanis Morissette's more embarrassingly overwrought material, aren't as top-shelf as her bandmate's: Wheeler is a pro. She's cool, sexy, unaffected; she's got the stuff Shirley Manson wants, and she's really too funny to be a woman in rock and roll these days.

4. REM "Up"
You know, when I heard the title, Patti Smith's "Birdland" came to mind immediately. In her song, from the 1975 album "Horses", she sings "Up, up, up, up, up, up". Mike Stipe owes his whole shtick, his verbal dada-diarrhea, to Smith and her meta-posturing. I guess Ani Difranco does too, because from what I hear, her "up"coming album title cribs all six of "Birdland"’s "up"s. Is there no originality? It’s not to be found on REM's latest album, but the lyrics are splendidly-worded playlets of the martyred and exhausted modern man, and the influences are respectable by a Trouser Press Record Guide yardstick (Leonard Cohen, Brian Wilson, Radiohead). Stipe can still hit the high notes, and even the bleakest tracks on "Up" show salvation through his soaring tenor. You fill in the harmony.

3. Son Volt "Wide Swing Tremolo"
Jay Farrar kicks his humorless Hootie-ness up a notch, deferring to Hootie's REM fixation with nods to the Berry-Buck-Mills-Stipe catalog from "Murmur" to "Monster" (and staying pretty much within the sonic bookends of '83 and '94). Here we see the middle part of our nation driving its student-loan Honda Prelude through cow towns, graveyards, past the house of its suicidal girlfriend, with The Replacements’ "Let It Be" on the tape deck. "Wide Swing Tremolo" is so American it sounds like a Japanese knockoff. You'll want pie after hearing it.

2. The Gourds "Stadium Blitzer"
Yodel, whinny, bleat, holler, croon, whistle, stomp, plink, jangle, jingle, thump, squeeze, strum, pick, blow, rock, rock, rock, y'all.

1. Hole "Celebrity Skin"
It's not necessary to pick nits over the writing credits. There is a noticeable Smashing Pumpkins sound here, but props are in order for the instrumental oomph of guitarist Eric Erlandson and drummer Patty Schemel. Hole is tight (I'm sorry I had to articulate it that way), confident, arrogant, and the singer is the missing link between Exene Cervenka and Metallica's James Hetfield. "Celebrity Skin" gives punk a nose job and socks it one before the bone has a chance to heal.