POP AND ROCK

1 ROBERT PLANT AND ALISON KRAUSS Raising Sand (Rounder/Decca) The pitch for this album – screaming rock god meets bluegrass fiddle-player – wouldn’t convince anyone. So how did it emerge as such a sumptuous musical feast? The impeccable taste of the producer T Bone Burnett, the intriguing song selection, the masterful band and the unexpectedly gorgeous marriage of those two voices.Click here to listen

2 LCD SOUNDSYSTEM Sound of Silver (DFA/EMI) On his second album, James Murphy dug deep into the vaults to relocate the core values of dance music and electronica, emerging with a sequence of songs that nailed for ever the lie that machine music is incapable of emotion. Sound of Silver courses with it. A masterpiece.Click here to watch the video for Someone Great

3 ARCTIC MONKEYS Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino) Difficult second album? I don’t think so. The Monkeys made light of following up the fastest-selling debut of all time, creating an album that plays to their strengths, but also manages to move their sound on and even to drop intriguing hints about where they might be off to next. Click here to watch the video for Brianstorm

4 CLIPSE Hell Hath No Fury (RCA) This long-delayed second release from the Virginian brothers was a claustrophobically edgy account of drug-dealing and paranoia, whipped up by the Neptunes into a storm of sonic inventiveness no other hip-hop release in 2007 came close to matching. Click here to listen

5 SUPER FURRY ANIMALS Hey Venus! (Rough Trade) Pardon the hyperbole, but the last time we had a band who put together albums with this level of melodic invention, lyrical wit, eclectic bravery, sheer charm and peerless quality control, it was the 1960s, they were from Liverpool, and there were four of them. Click here to listen

6 MAVIS STAPLES We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti) The gospel queen’s latest is a collection of songs that inspired the civil-rights movement in America, but if that makes it sound dry and worthy, don’t be misled. Staples’s passion combines with Ry Cooder – producing and playing guitar – to create a subtly funky soul treat. Click here to listen

7 DAVID FORD Songs for the Road (Independiente) Salvaging the male singer-songwriter tradition after years of abuse by less talented but more successful rivals, Ford provided a devastating reminder that an artist with a keening voice, an ear for melody and a willingness, lyrically, to wrestle with demons can still take the breath away. Click here to listen

8 FEIST The Reminder (Polydor) The use of her song 1234 in an iPod ad may have given her a long-deserved breakthrough, but this spine-tinglingly talented Canadian chanteuse was already a hit with many music-lovers, who wondered if she could equal the magic of the jazz- and soul-tinged Let It Die, and discovered, to their relief, that she had. Click here to listen

9 STEVEN LINDSAY Kite (Echo) This beautiful album is an antidote for all those suffering from “they don’t write songs like they used to” syndrome. Steven Lindsay does. Classic pop songwriting – somewhere near Blue Nile territory – topped off by a brilliant reworking of Pixies’ Monkey Gone to Heaven. Click here to listen

10 BRITNEY SPEARS Blackout (SonyBMG) Most chart pop plays it safe, but we can only assume that Britney’s producers reckoned there was nothing to lose on this one, and just went for it. The result is the most sonically exciting dance-pop album of the year (against, admittedly, some fairly uninspiring competition). Click here to watch the video for Gimme More

Mark Edwards and Dan Cairns

NEW ACTS

1 ST VINCENT Marry Me (Beggars Banquet) Annie Clark blasted her way out of Texas on a debut album of breathtaking ambition and diversity. Indebted to Bowie, Kate Bush and others, Marry Me still announced an enormous, distinctive new talent.

2 FLYKKILLER Experiments in Violent Light (FlyKKlr) Wonderful sonic spookiness from the more crepuscular corners of the dancefloor, with twisted techno-soul from the Polish singer Pati Yang and David Holmes’s associate Stephen Hilton. Sure, you can dance to it. But you’ll be dancing on your own.

3 JAMIE T Panic Prevention (Virgin) His glottal-stopping street poetry divided opinion, but Jamie Treays’s sheer dexterity, pellmell enthusiasm and ability to ambush the listener with sudden shafts of raw emotion, to a mash-up of garage, folk, ska and punk, was just too powerful to resist.

4 GOLDSPOT Tally of the Yes Men (Fontana) From LA came the Indian-American songwriter Siddhartha Khosla and his band, with an album that reaffirmed the viability of jingle-jangle guitar music, with the confidence to thrum with alt-pop cadences and the potential to conquer the mainstream.

5 KLIMA Klima (Peacefrog) The French singer Angèle David-Guillou made a debut all fans of Cocteau Twins, early Björk, Nina Persson or the Knife should buy, if they haven’t already. Her introspective, confessional songs have a magical, haunting quality.

Dan Cairns

BESTSELLING ROCK/POP ALBUMS

1 MIKA Life in Cartoon Motion (Casablanca/Island) 2 TAKE THAT Beautiful World (Polydor) 3 ARCTIC MONKEYS Favourite Worst Nightmare (Domino) 4 KAISER CHIEFS Yours Truly, Angry Mob (B-Unique/Polydor) 5 SNOW PATROL Eyes Open (Fiction/Polydor) 6 NELLY FURTADO Loose (Geffen/Polydor) 7 JAMES MORRISON Undiscovered (Polydor) 8 THE FRATELLIS Costello Music (Fallout/Island) 9 THE KILLERS Sam’s Town (Vertigo/Mercury) 10 LILY ALLEN Alright, Still

JAZZ

1 BASQUIAT STRINGS Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford (Fire) Mercury-prize jazz nominations usually have a whiff of tokenism about them, but not this time. The string ensemble led by the cellist Ben Davis, and powered by the unobtrusive drumming of Seb Rochford, create a genuine jazz-classical fusion. Clever originals jostle with the likes of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman.

2 MARK MURPHY Love Is What Stays (Verve) Not going gently into the night, the singer who has long been a favourite of the hipsters delivers a stunning meditation on the passing of the years. His voice is craggier now, yet the rough edges only add to the poignancy.

3 PINK MARTINI Hey Eugene! (Wrasse) Thomas Lauderdale’s quirky West Coast retro orchestra embarks on another world cruise, stopping off in the Middle East, Japan and dimly lit corners of old Europe. The musicians are anything but naive tourists, however.

4 LIANE CARROLL Slow Down (Splash Point) Year in, year out, no singer-pianist gets better reviews from British fans, and here is a laid-back studio set that truly does her justice. Carroll is a heart-on-sleeve musician whose influences extend beyond the jazz mainstream to embrace 1960s R&B and the singer-songwriter tradition.

5 COUNT BASIE At Newport (Verve) The ultimate swing machine, humming at maximum revs in a high-spirited live date, repackaged for its 50th anniversary. Lester Young steals it. Wish you were there?

Clive Davis

FRINGE

1 PETER CASE Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John (Yep Roc) Case fronted 1970s punks the Plimsouls, but this is his career high: folk-blues protest songs, sharpened by personal experience and a poetic gift way beyond most of his contemporaries.

2 WILLIAM PARKER/ RAINING ON THE MOON Corn Meal Dance (AUM Fidelity) Leena Conquest’s soulful vocals (Regal) might excite even Michael Parkinson’s antique jazzometer, but William Parker’s combo set them within blistering improvisations. A new take on The New Thing.

3 RICHARD YOUNGS Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar) Richard Youngs meshes minimalist drones with the textures of traditional music, suggesting English folk music filtered through a 1960s New York loft.

4 DEREK BAILEY Standards (Tzadik) Two years since he passed away, a steady trickle of unreleased sessions threatens to make Derek Bailey the Tupac Shakur of free jazz. These solo guitar sketches are skewed enough to delight converts, but so beautiful they should win new followers.

5 ALASDAIR ROBERTS The Amber Gatherers (Drag City) Alasdair Roberts, backed by various Scottish indie micro-stars, crafts original songs that sound like sinewy standards. They do write them like this any more.

WORLD

1 SIMPHIWE DANA The One Love Movement on Bantu Biko Street (Gallo/Warner) A 21st-century take on Miriam Makeba, if you will, as the charismatic South African singer glides through an ethereal song-cycle that blends township soul with black-consciousness slogans and dreamy mysticism. Dana’s ingeniously layered vocals create their own utterly individual soundscape.

2 BUIKA Mi Nina Lola (Warner Jazz) If you can imagine Billie Holiday or Nina Simone being reincarnated as a flamenco artist, you have some idea of the intensity of Buika’s fusion of Andalusian fire, sleek jazz and upmarket R&B. A voice to die for. The sultry piano-based arrangements are flawless too.

3 TARAF DE HAIDOUKS Maskarada (Crammed Discs) Have the wild men from the Romanian hinterland finally been tamed? Not at all. This high-spirited assault on the classical repertoire – from Bartok to Khachaturian and Manuel de Falla – is a million miles from bland crossover. The reckless spirit of the gypsy strings sweeps all before it.

4 IBRAHIM FERRER Mi Sueno (World Circuit) Farewell, old friend. The valedictory performance from the great Cuban singer, his ballads given exemplary backing by that young keyboard firebrand Roberto Fonseca. Ferrer’s wistful duet with the great Omara Portuondo on the standard Quizas, Quizas is simply heart-stopping.

5 MAYRA ANDRADE Navega (Stern’s) Just pipping the delightful album by her Cape Verdean rival, Lura, the youthful Paris-based vocalist celebrates the multifaceted heritage of the islands, and throws in a hint of chanson for good measure. The lissom Andrade briskly upstaged Angélique Kidjo at the Barbican recently. Remember the name.

Clive Davis

CLASSICAL

1 MONTEVERDI Orfeo, Furio Zanasi, Concerto Italiano, dir Rinaldo Alessandrini (Naive) The first opera to survive in the modern repertoire had its premiere in Mantua 400 years ago. It’s hard to imagine a finer anniversary present than Alessandrini’s superbly theatrical and brilliantly sung version, with an all-Italian cast headed by the noble-sounding Zanasi.

2 BEETHOVEN Hammerklavier Sonata et al, Mitsuko Uchida (piano) (Philips) Magisterial playing from the Japanese pianist in the pinnacle of Beethoven’s achievement for the keyboard – a Hammerklavier to rank with the greatest.

3 HANDEL Semele, Cast, Early Opera Company, cond Christian Curnyn (Chandos) With Rosemary Joshua’s enchantingly ditzy heroine, Richard Croft’s romantic Jupiter and Hilary Summers as Ino/Juno, this is the most complete and idiomatically sung account on disc of Handel’s closet English opera.

4 SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concerto No 1; Piano Quintet; Concertino, Martha Argerich, Lilya Zilberstein (pianos), Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, cond Alexander Vedernikov (EMI) Argerich’s Lugano festival invariably ignites sparks. These live Shostakovich performances, her first on disc, crackle with the Argentinian’s accustomed virtuosity and musical repartee.

5 HANDEL Italian Cantatas, Vol 2, Emanuela Galli, Roberta Invernizzi (sopranos) La Risonanza, cond Fabio Bonizzoni (Glossa) Volume 1 of this series, featuring Invernizzi, was an award-winning hit, but this collection of Handel’s early cantatas, fabulously sung by Galli, is better still.

6 HAYDN Die Schöpfung, Soloists, Les Arts Florissants, cond William Christie (Virgin) Haydn’s great Enlightenment oratorio comes up as fresh as a restored canvas in the hands of Christie’s wonderful period orchestra and choir. The crack team of youthful soloists is headed by Genia Kühmeier, Toby Spence and Markus Werba.

7 ROSSINI La donna del lago, Cast, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, cond Maurizio Benini (Opera Rara) This excellent account of Rossini’s Walter Scott-based romantic opera introduced the brilliant Carmen Giannattasio as the titular Lady of the Lake, with Patricia Bardon, Kenneth Tarver and Gregory Kunde, all stylish Rossinians, as the men in her life.

8 SCHUMANN/BRAHMS Piano Quintets, Leif Ove Andsnes (piano), Artemis Quartet (Virgin) Andsnes and the Artemis are regular collaborators at the Norwegian pianist’s chamber-music festival in Risor, and their rapport in these great quintets is total. Elite music-making at its awe-inspiring best.

9 BEETHOVEN Symphonies Nos 1-9, Scottish Chamber and Philharmonia Orchestras, Charles Mackerras (Hyperion) This cycle – recorded live at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival with the SCO, in Nos 1-8, and the Philharmonia, in the Choral – is one to live with, as Mackerras lavishes the wisdom of a lifetime on these imperishable scores.

10 GLENN GOULD Original Jacket Collection (Original Jacket) This 80-CD set of one of the iconic figures of 20th-century pianism is a beautifully produced and comprehensive restrospective, controversial in some of the German classics, but always stimulating, and the original LP sleeves make this a collector’s item.

Hugh Canning

CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS

1 TIPPETT Piano Music, Steven Osborne (Hyperion) This is Tippett’s complete piano oeuvre, including the luminous Concerto and the early, concerted Fantasia on a Theme of Handel. Tippett’s keyboard manner is ferociously demanding, but Osborne consistently transforms difficulty and oddity into radiance and vision.

2 STOCKHAUSEN Stimmung, Theatre of Voices, dir Paul Hillier (Harmonia Mundi) Stockhausen’s most famous work and his superficially simplest: a single chord intoned by a vocal sextet for 70 minutes, producing a fascinating, ever-shifting texture of tones, overtones, hums and “magic names”.

3 CAGE AND OTHERS Fantaisie_Fantasme, David Greilsammer (Naive) In this enjoyable piano montage, 16 items are arranged symmetrically round Mozart’s Fantasy in C minor, among them Cage Sonatas for Prepared Piano, Janacek’s Sonata “1.X.1905” and Jonathan Keren’s Fantasie and Fantastrophes. It’s as though the alienation effect of piano “preparation” has been applied to a whole disc.

4 PANUFNIK Four Works, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, cond John Storgards (Ondine) Fresh and vivid performances giving a concise impression of Panufnik’s oeuvre: the early Heroic Overture, the Sinfonia di Sfere, the brief, plangent Landscape and the grand, visionary Sinfonia Sacra.

5 DAVID SAWER From Morning to Midnight Symphonic Suite, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, BBC Symphony Orchestra, cond Martyn Brabbins (NMC) Along with the half-hour suite from his Coliseum opera, the disc includes The Memory of Water, for strings, the orchestral, Bentham-inspired “the greatest happiness principle”, and the surreally brilliant ensemble piece Tiroirs.

Paul Driver

CLASSICAL REISSUES

1 BRAHMS Violin Sonata Op 78, Horn Trio, Busch (violin), Serkin (piano) (Appian) Busch and Serkin, stylish, passionate Brahms interpreters, play like a single mind and sensibility in this vivid account of the G major sonata from a 1936 BBC recital (finer even than their 1931 studio recording). The horn trio, with Aubrey Brain, uses unpublished takes from the famous 1933 sessions.

2 PUCCINI La Bohème,RCA Victor Chorus & Orchestra (Naxos Historical) Beecham’s understanding of the work, at once instinctive and deeply studied, remains incomparable in this ageless 1956 recording, with Jussi Björling a glorious Rodolfo and Victoria de los Angeles the touching Mimi.

3 VERDI Aida, La Scala Chorus & Orchestra (Naxos Historical) One or two wobbly top notes are as nothing beside Callas’s intensity, emotional conviction and matchless phrasing in this 1955 studio Aida. Tucker, Gobbi and Barbieri sing their hearts out, with Serafin and the Scala orchestra on glowing form.

4 MOZART Piano Concertos, K482, K595, English Chamber Orchestra (BBC Live) Sviatoslav Richter, Benjamin Britten and the ECO are ideal partners in these exciting performances from 1960s Aldeburgh festivals. The great E flat concerto, K482, is particularly satisfying.

5 MENDELSSOHN Piano Trios in D minor and C minor , David Oistrakh (Doremi) The violinist David Oistrakh’s devotion to chamber music has tended to be forgotten, such was his fame as one of the great concerto soloists. In this 1948 recording, he and colleagues Knushevitsky and Oborin give fiery, wonderfully tender performances of the two Mendelssohn trios.

David Cairns

BESTSELLING CLASSICAL ALBUMS

1THE FRON MALE VOICE CHOIR Voices from the Valley (UCJ) 2KATHERINE JENKINS Serenade (UCJ) 3LUCIANO PAVAROTTI The Ultimate Collection (Decca) 4HAYLEY WESTENRA Treasure (Decca) 5VARIOUS Classic FM At the Movies – The Sequel (Classic FM) 6KATHERINE JENKINS Second Nature (UCJ) 7BLAKE Blake (UCJ) 8RUSSELL WATSON The Voice – The Ultimate Collection (Decca) 9KATHERINE JENKINS Premiere (UCJ) 10KATHERINE JENKINS Living a Dream (UCJ)

DUDS OF THE YEAR

1 IAN BROWN The World Is Yours (Polydor) Railing against politicians is admirable; doing so with the lamest lyrics of 2007 is unacceptable.

2 HARD-FI Once Upon a Time in the West (Atlantic) Supposed to be their breakthrough, but dull songs and zero subtlety proved a turn-off. The album nose-dived out of the charts.

3 DEBORAH HARRY Necessary Evil (Universal) She’s adored and copied by a new generation of singers. So what does Debbie do? Makes the worst album of her career, of course.

4 KYLIE X (Parlophone) Making your coldest and most disengaged album when your public is cheering your recovery and looking for some heartfelt emotion: that’s weird, isn’t it?

5 PRINCE Planet Earth (NPG) Despite the Purple One’s successful month-long London residency, this wasn’t Prince’s brilliant new album; it was his latest bad one.

6 PATTI SMITH Twelve (Columbia) Great cover versions can enhance, transform or even surpass the original. Smith’s dour, banjo-pocked take on Smells Like Teen Spirit (and the rest) is not one of them.

7 JOSS STONE Introducing Joss Stone (Relentless) Actually, we’d met, twice, and this dire third encounter, far from being the moment when Stone finally came good on her promise, instead nailed her as the overhyped cruise-ship singer she is.

8 SHIRLEY BASSEY Get the Party Started (Lock Stock & Barrel) The Dame with the big voice is swamped by horribly flat-footed clubbers’ arrangements, in a venture that gives “camp” a very bad name.

9 WYNTON MARSALIS From the Plantation to the Penitentiary (Blue Note) He may have some valid points to make about the commercialisation of pop culture, but the trumpeter spends too long on the soapbox.

10 GREAT HANDEL Ian Bostridge, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, cond Harry Bicket (EMI Classics) Bostridge makes a weak case for purloining music intended for mezzo-soprano castrato. His voice lacks the gravitas for heroic Handel.

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