Spite shots aside, every album I listened to this year paled in comparison to fra-foa's sophmore effort. Their first album promised us the world by bringing the distortion aestetic to new highs- and ended up a magnificent yet very difficult album. Their second album fulfills all of the potential of the first by fusing the power and beauty of Mikami's vocals with hooks and melodies that put this year's top artists to undignified shame. It sinks it's claws in and demands nothing short of total devotion. This it deserves- in spades. One open-minded listen is all it takes.

Dir en Grey score again this year with another abrasive 74 minute album. Kyo's voice is still absolutely amazing. Add to that the fact that the band has once again surpassed itself in terms of musical prowess, and this is an album that you simply must own. It makes ears bleed. In a good way.

Special mention must go this year to Utada Hikaru's Deep River, an absolutely amazing pop masterpiece, and easily her best work yet. Don't be fooled by the fact that it doesn't appear above; it's not to be missed.

Minmi appeared from nowhere and tore up the charts this year with her first single "The Perfect Vision" as well as her second (and equally good) "TTT". "The Perfect Vision" gets the nod for coming first. This song puts an nice rap/R&B melody on top of a pretty simple backing drum track, yet somehow ends up addictive beyond what one would expect. Give it a listen.

Heartsdale's first single after their fun album Radioactive proves once and for all that Verbal is a great producer. "Body Rock" features a terrific hook and contains everyone's favorite lyric- 'Get Down and Daaaa-ty'. I'm willing.

Hajime Chitose's voice came out of nowhere. It's terrifically unique and seems to inspire the typical 'love it/hate it' dychotomy in most people I've met. I love it. Her song "Kono Machi" is great stuff.

Minmi's test date is set this year: 2003.03.19 is the release date for her first album. If the album tracks live up to the singles in any way, expect this newcomer to be around for the long haul.

Glay's new album sucks.

In december of this year, fra-foa announced that they will be taking a 9 month hiatus due to the lead singer's pregnancy. In addition, their contract with Toy's Factory is over and they are looking for a new label. And their albums combined have sold around 15,000 copies. They sound positive, but this looks damn shakey to me.

Although not strictly music, Cocco definately is 'music-related'. While watching Music Station, I saw that she was set to release... a children's book. I thought 'neat, I'll check that out'. It's on it's 12th printing last I checked. It's in English and Japanese. I gave a copy to my mother for Christmas. It's beautiful. Buy it.

Tsunku was considerably more 'on' with the satellite projects this year, pumping out 3 solid singles for Aya, one for Fujimoto Miki, two for Sonim, one for Gomatou, but nothing worth much of a listen for Morning Musume. Better check the gameplan, son. If the farm goes to pot, so does the product.

Top 10 albums:

Top 10 singles: