Real big deals

The record industry keeps pointing to downloading and piracy as the reasons it is in crisis, but some blame should also go to the way companies spend more time and money marketing mediocre talents than finding visionary ones.

The strategy in mainstream pop for years now has been to hire hotshot producers who tailor music to the demands of contemporary radio. And the marketing is easier if the producer can work with TV celebrities, such as the “American Idol” crowd and Hilary Duff, or with self-promotion machines such as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

Nothing symbolized this marketing calculation more than Spears kissing Madonna at the MTV Video Music Awards in August. You could imagine the cheering at Jive Records, Spears’ label, as they pictured all the publicity that was sure to follow.

The moment was as artificial as Spears’ music, and you couldn’t help but cheer yourself this month when the new album by Alicia Keys, a young artist with restraint and talent, outsold Spears in their first weeks in the stores. Kiss that, Britney.

In this disheartening musical climate, it’s nothing less than miraculous that albums as thrilling as the White Stripes’ “Elephant” and OutKast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” could not only sell more than a million copies each but also get Grammy nominations for album of the year.

The two works are so far ahead of everything else in 2003 that it is tempting to declare them the three best albums of the year, a move that is all the more reasonable because “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” is really two solo albums.

“Speakerboxxx,” the album by OutKast’s Big Boi, is traditional OutKast, an exuberant, funk-driven work in the grand, eccentric tradition of James Brown, George Clinton and Prince. Andre 3000’s “The Love Below” mixes OutKast daring with R&B;, jazz and rock influences in a set of loosely autobiographical songs about having trouble finding, or believing in, a lasting relationship.

It’s an extraordinary CD, but “Elephant” is even more commanding -- my choice for album of the year.

Reflecting the classic songwriting values and intelligence of earlier rock eras, the CD celebrates rock’s explosiveness and acknowledges music’s ability to be tender and even humorous. The album’s “Seven Nation Army” was the record of the year at college and alt-rock radio.

At a time when many in the music business worry that youngsters are no longer interested in albums, just singles, the White Stripes and OutKast gave us music so invigorating that you didn’t want to miss a minute.

The remaining albums on my Top 10 list don’t reach those standards, but they too contain individuality, craft and passion.

In no particular order, they include works by veteran folk-rock artists (Lucinda Williams’ emotionally naked “World Without Tears” and Neil Young’s far from perfect but heartwarmingly personal “Greendale”) and rock newcomers (the sweet innocence of the Thrills’ “So Much for the City” and the guitar-driven, fun-packed rock noir of the Raveonettes’ “Chain Gang of Love”).

On the hip-hop front, two major label debuts stand out: the stark storytelling in Eminem sidekick 50 Cent’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin’ ” and the smart social commentary of Ms. Dynamite’s “ A Little Deeper.” Kudos too to Rufus Wainwright’s evocative look at emotional impulses and needs in “Want One” and Alicia Keys’ updating of the ‘60s and ‘70s soul music tradition in “The Diary of Alicia Keys.”

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