At long last, No Matter What You Heard has reviewed the year in music and herewith presents to you, dear reader, its Top 10 albums of 2002. This year, by Top 10, we really mean Top 11 — it is kind of like the Big 10 conference in sports, you see? Happy New Year to all and visit our website — all music, all the time.

10 (tie). Casino Versus Japan — Whole Numbers Play the Basics (Carpark). Pure electronic gorgeousity. This album, not Boards of Canada's Geogaddi, is the best electronic release of the year, with its echoey electronics and intoxicating atmospherics. Most importantly, though, the album doesn't overlook melody. The first single, Summer Clip (download here) is one of the catchiest singles of the year of any genre.

10 (tie). Add N to (X) — Loud Like Nature (Mute). Though its first single, Take Me to Your Leader left something to be desired, taken as a whole, Loud Like Nature eeked into the NMWYH Top 10 because of the band's knack for fashioning its unprecedented brand of rock — no guitars, no bass; just vintage keyboards, a theremin, a vocoder and live drums — into a noise brew of analogery, pulsating drumming, and theremin that is ... well ... poppy. Loud Like Nature is overflowing with spine-tingling and hook-laden melodies, immaculately transcending musical genres just as you fix to classify them.

9. And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead — Sources Tags and Codes (Interscope). Austin's Trail of Dead crafts epic punk rock songs that boast mindnumbing percussion and inventive time changes that prevent the longwinded tracks from going stale. Indeed, having added strings and brass to the hardcore/indie mix, this album is as layered and complex as any released in 2002. Tracks like How Near, How Far and Another Morning Stoner match the best songs off ToD's exemplary first two Merge releases. Trail of Dead will be the next sensation in "alternative" rock, and that's okay by me as long as they avoid overproduced softies like Baudelaire, the third track and only weak point of the album.

8. Clinic — Walking With Thee (Domino). With its 2002 U.S. release date, Walking with Thee wiggles its way into the NMWYH Top 10. Though No Matter What You Heard has harped on the flaccidity of Clinic's live performance, their 2002 studio release has the band situated squarely in the sweaty hands of the major music labels in quest of the next big "in" music (see The Strokes in 2001). Now distributed by Universal after its initial Domino release, Walking With Thee is fully worthy of the hype, exhibiting influences that range from the Velvet Underground to dirty garage rock. Most of all, it is difficult to categorize accurately Clinic's rock: no doubt it is very artful, both in song structure and in instrumentation; but it is also diverse as Clinic member, Brian Campbell, has pointed out: "[Clinic's sound is] eclectic, a bit experimental. We want to make it so that you can't switch off at all, so that just as you think you understand Clinic we change it up. Maybe sometimes in a song or sometimes between the different songs."

7. Radio 4 — Gotham! (Gern Blandsten) Radio 4's sophomore effort is an impeccable dance rock album that matches the intensity and danceability of 2000's New Song and Dance. Dirty staccato lead guitar melodies and bouncy basslines surely recall post-punk legends, Gang of Four, a resemblance that doesn't relegate this album to the status of a tired copycat. One other comparison, however, that critics inevitably overlook is to Look Sharp!-era Joe Jackson. Whereas other dance rock outfits (including Hot Hot Heat's latest album) have missed the boat being awkwardly glossy, the superb production on Gotham! does not conceal the band's rock lifeline — that is, the guitars and bass are without sheen; they are raw and sexy. Calling All Enthusiasts, The Movies and Save Your City (with its Peter-Hook-like bassline) are excellent illustrations of this album's catchiness.

6. Sleater-Kinney — One Beat (Kill Rock Stars). With a supreme live show, Sleater-Kinney has amassed quite a loyal following of fans nationwide. And Corin Tucker, Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein, the most accomplished women in independent rock bar none, did not disappoint with their best album since 1997's Dig Me Out. Faraway and Combat Rock are two of their most rocking songs to date and anchor the third best rock album of the year. Download the first single Oh! and others from prior releases here.

5. Godspeed You Black Emperor — Yanqui U.X.O (Constellation). Canadian ninesome, Godspeed You Black Emperor, have matched the success of 2000's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven with their amazing album of epic chamber rock, Yanqui U.X.O. The album, recorded by Steve Albini of Big Black fame, bears an unequivocal anti-corporate motif as the album title refers to unexploded ordnance-landmines and its art layout blasts large music labels for their connection to warmongering. The music, in contrast, is simply beautiful, not swaying from the majestic crescendos and dynamic instrumentation of the groundbreaking 2000 release.

4. Sonic Youth — Murray Street (DGC/Interscope). Please do not dismiss Thurston, Kim and Company as geezers just because of their age. Thankfully for rock fans everywhere, Sonic Youth has not ceded to the groundless demand of 20-year-old Village Voice "critic", Amy Phillips, who embarassingly pans Murray Street. Fear not, Murray Street is undoubtedly Sonic Youth's best album since the release of 1995's Washing Machine and can safely be placed on the mantel of Sonic Youth's greatest musical achievements next to Sister, Daydream Nation, and Washing Machine. While Jim O'Rourke's production and accompaniment might have been responsible for the muting of Sonic Youth's best characteristics on the terribly boring NYC Ghosts and Flowers, Murray Street, which marks O'Rourke's first appearance as a permanent band member, aptly highlights the musical talents of the original band members and O'Rourke himself.

3. DJ Shadow — The Private Press (Universal/Island). With Private Press California's DJ Shadow has realized his second brilliant full-length with a work that, though not as original as his first studio album, the instant classic Endtroducing, proves remarkably accessible in its focus on melody. That said, Private Press does not veer from the unmatched style of turntablist trickery that has made DJ Shadow a household name in DJ/electro circles. The companion disc on the special release, though not essential if you are an audiophile with a tight budget, is an interesting live DJ set that demonstrates Shadow's mad skills, resembling his work with Cut Chemist on the 45 rpm marathon LP, Brainfreeze.

2. El-P — Fantastic Damage (Def Jux). In the vein of Dr. Octagon's Dr. Octagonycologist and rap supergroup Deltron 3030's self-titled album, El-P's first solo album is a devastating masterpiece of sharp rhymes, nontraditional beats, impregnable turntablism, and biting lyricism that mercilessly crushes any other mainstream hip hop act. Fantastic Damage no doubt announces El-P's arrival as a solo artist (though he has been involved with Company Flow, as well as the production of releases by Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock) and establishes him as one of the premier artists in today's hip hop scene. In this respect, El-P could very well prove to surpass the single album (to date) achievements of the aforementioned acts in that El-P (both as a producer and as a solo musician) not only manifests a strong devotion to independent, anti-corporate hip-hop, but also infuses this ideology into social-conscious lyricism. A verse from Dead Disnee (stream a brief, but worthwhile, excerpt here) serves as a good example: "Standing on a precipice holding hands with Gepetto the lecherous / Manipulator of oak, the sick joke liars want to be real and conceal the nose growth in the first row o' the show ... Brainwashed badly, the propaganda had me / When the design of modern culture is modeled after new (Sodom) / Bottled and packaged with emotions for kiddies to get robotic / I come with damage that's fantastically uncomfortable / Kill the paradigm, vomiting rotted language addict, thorns for Brer rabbit. When the city burns down I'm gonna go to Disney World..." Generally pointing out track "highlights" would be a grave disservice to this truly awesome album.

1. Interpol — Turn on the Bright Lights (Matador). Turn on the Bright Lights, Interpol's first full-length release, is gorgeously lush and dense with layers of guitars, effects, and occasional keyboards. A perfect album from beginning to end, Turn on the Bright Lights welds elements of traditional indie rock (Merge, Matador, Touch and Go, etc.) and the NYC retro-rock fervor (whether it be the VU influence of the Strokes or the equally, if not more, fascinating "post-punk" sounds of Radio 4 (see above), the Ex Models, or Kill Rock Stars' The Seconds). Most notably, though, Turn on the Bright Lights evokes late-80s college rock/neo-psychedelia with its traces of the Church, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Psychedelic Furs, or even The Mission (U.K.). Comparisons to Joy Division are also somewhat accurate given Paul Banks' frequently haunting vocal style. Interpol's first full-length, however, cannot by any means be cast aside as derivative. A step above other albums released in 2002, Turn on the Bright Lights is a cohesive unit, not just a collection of excellent songs; it will long be remembered by music fans as one of the best rock albums of the early 21st century.

Honorable Mention: Black Heart Prcession — Amore del Tropico (Touch and Go), Sigur Ros ( ) (Fat Cat), Beck — Sea Change (Geffen), Flin Flon — Chicoutimi (TeenBeat), Girls Against Boys — You Can't Fight What You Can't See (Jade Tree), Pretty Girls Make Graves — Good Health (Lookout!), Wilco — Yankee Foxtrot Hotel (Nonesuch).