ALBUM OF THE YEAR
A Camp
A Camp
Nina Persson, that petulant little girl who fronted The Cardigans, has torn down the pop posters from her bedroom wall, dyed her hair black, moved out of her parent's house and gone to the big city where she's had her heart broken by a string of bastard men. At least that's what this album sounds like. With Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse at the controls, Nina made a proper grown-up record (more Single Malt than strawberry milk shake) with easily the best collection of songs I heard all year. Her bruised and aching voice is a perfect fit for the my-man-done-left-me, twangy country music stylings that hover in the background like an old jukebox playing in the corner of an empty bar. Blondes might have more fun but give me a moody brunette any day of the week.

SINGLE OF THE YEAR
Crystal
New Order
This blistering tune comes at you like a rush of adrenaline, pulling you along on a tidal wave of hammering drumbeats, glassy guitar noise and a vicious bassline that slaps you about the head like Mohammed Ali. If you've ever been in the middle of a crowded dancefloor, dripping with sweat, loaded up on booze or pills, surrounded by hundreds of other people all grinning like happy idiots you'll know exactly what it feels like to lifted up by a soaring, anthemic track like this. If you don't know what it feels like, what the hell have you been doing with your youth you sad bastard? As an added bonus the lyrics probably only make sense to someone out of their mind on drugs.

SERIOUS YOUNG MAN OF THE YEAR
Herbert
Unless "Das Kapital" was published with an accompanying album I think it's safe to say that pop records don't often come with their own manifestos. Herbert's "Bodily Functions" however, was produced in accordance with the 12 rules of what he calls his Personal Contract For The Composition of Music. Now this might make it sound about as groovy as Al Gore on the dancefloor but it's actually one of the most beautiful albums of the year, a sublime electronic-organic-Jazz-House creation that mixes a sexy late-night torch song feel with uptempo numbers that sound like Ella Fitzgerald drinking cocktails with Frankie Knuckles. Luckily there aren't any rules about how you listen to it.

COMPILATION OF THE YEAR
Dave Godin's Deep Soul
Treasures Vol.3
Dave Godin is a British music journalist who's been writing about soul music since Stevie Wonder had the word "Little" in front of his name and, like a lot of Brits, his obsessive love of classic 60s soul leads him to seek out obscure gems with all the fervor of an archeologist searching for the city of Atlantis. "Deep Soul Treasures" is a series that blows the dust off some of the most magnificent and intense soul ballads you will ever hear, containing more passion, tears, heartache and infidelity than in a whole season of "Dallas." If these tracks don't make your knees turn to jelly I'd seriously consider a visit to the doctor to check to see if you're actually a living human being.

GLOOMY SWEDES OF THE YEAR
Club 8
With their third album the boyfriend-girlfriend duo of Johan and Karolina established themselves as the Sonny and Cher of downbeat Europop, making a beautifully-crafted record with a soft pastoral tone that wrapped itself around Karolina's sexy whisper like a blanket and the bittersweet feel of watching a perfect snowflake melt in your hand. For such a lovely young couple Club 8 sounded awfully sad about something. You wouldn't figure the Swedes to be a particularly depressed people but they did give the world Ingmar Bergman, and what is "Knowing Me, Knowing You" if it isn't an existential lament about the tragedy of human nature?

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO'S THE FAIREST OF THE YEAR AWARD
Alicia Keys
I really wanted to dislike Alicia Keys, she has the air of the perfect little girl in school who took ballet and piano lessons, won all the talent shows, sat in the front of class, never misbehaved and was generally loved by all the teachers and hated by all the kids. Just the fact that her album contains a song she wrote when she was 14 (a really crap one at that) should be enough to inspire loathing, but even though it’s waaaay too long and dissolves into a bland soup toward the end, the first half of "Songs In A Minor" is actually pretty darn great and I have to admit that the girl has something. Having talent is one thing, but how dare she be so good-looking too? Isn’t there a rule that pretty young singers who sell truckloads of albums aren’t supposed to be any good?