They Left the Trends to Others

In a year when music-industry power brokers turned to everyone but the weatherman in a desperate search for the next trend, it’s fitting that Bob Dylan once again told us which way the wind should blow.

“Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum,” Dylan sings in the opening track of his “Love and Theft” album, and he could well be mocking the way much of today’s best-selling music--whether rock, teen pop, hip-hop or country--sounds as if it were designed by sales department committees.

Besides sheer craft, the factor that distinguished Dylan’s album--and the others in this survey of the year’s most notable works--is individuality. Rather than looking around to simply duplicate what is selling, these artists looked inside for something truly worth saying.

1. Bob Dylan, “Love and Theft,” Columbia. This is the first time since “Highway 61 Revisited” that the music in a Dylan album is likely to catch your attention before the words. The arrangements--flavored by pre-rock strains of country, blues, folk and even supper-club styles--are about as far from 2001 as you can get, and all the more delightful for it. Not that Dylan has ignored the words. The lyrics serve as a wondrous, deceptively casual jigsaw puzzle of wit and wisdom that sometimes teases but more often jabs.

2. The White Stripes, “White Blood Cells,” Sympathy for the Record Industry. “Dead leaves and the dirty ground,” Jack White wails on this Detroit duo’s album, and it pretty much defines the ragged emotional landscape covered by the most promising rock arrival since Kurt Cobain, Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor burst onto the scene a decade ago. The Stripes deal in a sort of rock-noir that moves among explosive rock energy, Rolling Stones spice and Brian Wilson sensitivity. These are raw, immensely personal tales of romantic torment and desire.

3. Angie Stone, “Mahogany Soul,” J. Although many of her neo-soul contemporaries simply salute the legacy of such greats as Curtis Mayfield, Al Green and Marvin Gaye, Stone is so true to the tradition that you feel the spirit of the masters in the studio with her.

4. Lucinda Williams, “Essence,” Lost Highway. The Nashville singer-songwriter certainly gave us atmosphere in 1998’s acclaimed “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road,” but this is a more satisfying and haunting set of songs. From the depression of “Blue” to the isolation of “Lonely Girls,” she speaks more directly and more personally.

5. Jill Scott, “Experience: Jill Scott 826 +,” Hidden Beach/Epic. In the live half of this two-disc offering, Scott, another of the neo-soul stars, revisits many of the key songs in her much admired 2000 debut, “Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds, Vol. 1.” But she infuses them with so much more intensity and drama that the original album is obsolete. The second disc is new material.

6. The Coup, “Party Music,” 75 Ark/Tommy Boy. At its best, this Oakland rap entry’s politically charged commentaries remind you of Chuck D.’s old observation that hip-hop is the CNN of black America, a forum for ideas and debate that aren’t found in the mainstream media. The Coup’s language gets rough in places, but the dialogue is important and the beats are frequently explosive.

7. B.R.M.C., “Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,” Virgin. This California trio writes about obsessions and demons in an anxious, feverish style that combines white-hot aggression with beautiful melodies that relay darkness without abandoning hope.

8. Mercury Rev, “All Is Dream,” V2. There is such an orchestral sweep in places that you could be listening to the soundtrack from a ‘50s biblical epic, then the band switches to the high-pitched, lonesome feel of acoustic Neil Young. Reminiscent at times of the isolation and wonder of Grandaddy’s music, “All Is Dream” invites you to step away from life’s hectic pace and reflect on some of the things that really matter.

9. Radiohead, “Amnesiac,” Capitol. This is still closer to the moody sound collages of “Kid A” than the more traditional song structures of “OK Computer,” but the music is so artfully layered and emotionally filled that you find yourself willing to meet the British rock band halfway. In its thrilling live shows this year, Radiohead merged its styles into a rich fountainhead of sound that was both enchantingly cerebral and stubbornly visceral.

10. Alicia Keys’ “Songs in A Minor,” J. This 20-year-old singer-songwriter’s debut album is uneven, but the highlights are extraordinary, in both their range and their musical command. There is such authority and grace to the soul-accented hit “Fallin’” that it could well win a Grammy nomination as record of the year, while the sensual, funk-driven “Why Don’t U Call Me Anymore” is the most striking version of a Prince song since Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

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Robert Hilburn, The Times’ pop music critic, can be reached at robert.hilburn@latimes.com