[Top 10 Albums]

[1. Foo Fighters "The Colour and The Shape"]

I love this album. It's connected with me more than any other rock album ever has. It showcases Dave Grohl's knack for mixing punk, rock, metal and acoustic ballads with some great writing. It shows how much promise the Foo Fighters have for rock 'n' roll today.

[2. DMX "It's Dark and Hell Is Hot"]

It's dark, hellacious, brooding and angry...and that's just the first track. DMX tore up the rap with this album and for very obvious reasons. In a time where money, cars and hoes were taking over, X went against the flow and brought rap back to the streets (i.e. "Ruff Ryder's Anthem", "ATF"). His spitfire flow and ultraviolent, profane lyrics were written over some of Swizz Beats' rawest beats. He proved that materialism wasn't the key to stardom, being real was much more important.

[3. N*E*R*D "In Search Of"]

When you think of an album coming from producers of artists like Britney Spears and *nsync you'd probably think something along the lines of uncreative, disposable pop trash right?
For N*E*R*D (a.k.a. The Neptunes) it is a completely different story. "In Search Of" is probably one of the most musically creative albums of 2002 with the srange combinations of hip hop, rock, new wave and funk.
Pharell and Chad are obvious genuises when it comes to coming up with vivrant, catchy beats and also mixing deep lyrics ("Provider", "Run to The Sun") with some not-so-deep sex drenched mainstream songs ("Brain","Tape You").
The live version of this CD is certainly a bigger improvement over the never-released-in-the U.S. European version which contained the usual Neptunes synthersizers and pre-recorded drums and most of the songs were too long.
With the U.S. version of "In Search Of" the sound is much more colorful and less pop-infused and they also did listeners a favor by cutting down tracks that were too long and not-so-funny skits.
It's hard to find an album to really compare to this to musically and that's much more of a gift than it is a curse.

[4. U2 "The Joshua Tree"]

To quote Rolling Stone, "The Joshua Tree was the most beautiful thing to come from a decade of s---."

[5. Incubus "S.C.I.E.N.C.E."]

Long before girls were wooing over Brandon Boyd and long before Incubus was selling out arenas and had CDs selling off the racks, thier was SCIENCE. The album is,for a majority of Incubus fans,considered thier best work. A mixture of Primus-type funk/hard rock, Faith No More-type rap, and underground DJ records this album is a diverse classic.

[6. Outkast "Stankonia"]

Probably the most intelligent and diverse mainstream rap record lyrically and musically since rap was dominated by the likes of Public Enemy.

[7. Prozzak "Hot Show"]

Call this the best album you've never heard of. In a way it's a blessing that this album never popular in the states because you'd never hear the end of it. On the other hand this is an album should be heard by anyone that enjoys a mixture of dance, pop and pop-rock.

[8. Hootie & The Blowfish "Cracked Rear View"]

10 Million albums. Ranks as one of the highest selling CDs of all time. Yet you hardly see anyone that listens to this classic album anymore.
It's unfortunate that such a great CD is considered so forgettable. It has some of the msot beautiful mixtures of instruments ever composed in mainstream rock.

[9. Green Day "Dookie"]

Possibly one the biggest albums of the 90's, "Dookie" is definitive album of both the time and what punk rock was all about. Unlike today's current punk bands whose songs mainly focus on sophomoric humor and problems with women, Green Day dealt with regular every day issues shown from a very destructive and angry perspective. You'll probably never hear very many rock songs about women abusing men ("She"), never leaving the house ("Longview"), killing people and blowing stuff up (the long, fantastic "F.O.D.", "Having A Blast") because either the subjects are taboo today or many bands couldn't find a way to make the songs interesting.

[10. Blink 182 "Dude Ranch"]

Although this album isn't quite up to par with Green Day's straight-faced "Dookie" it does excel at doing what Green Day doesn't do, which is write good love/hate songs that are accessible and basically anybody can relate to you (Who can't relate to "Enthused"?). Although Blink's moderately mature writing style on this album only shows up very little on thier more current songs ("Going Away To College","Party Song","Everytime I Look For You") they still show signs of maturity that's breaking through with Tom and Travis' Box Car Racer side project. For now fans have this fun, punk classic to enjoy.

What's that? More you say?