4 PLAY Moby (V2) Had it been first released this year instead of late in '98, Fatboy Slim's spirit-lifting "Praise You" (and its brilliantly warped, Spike Jonze-directed video) would be on this list. Instead, the slot is awarded to Moby's continually beguiling album, which expands upon the same recontextualizing concept as Fatboy's single. In lifting old blues and gospel chants, field hollers, and old-school raps from their original surroundings and setting them down on beds of clubland pulses and post-blaxploitation grooves, Moby risked making a patronizing novelty album. But the results are just the opposite--Play is music of radiance, power, and grit. At a time when sampling has replaced the guitar solo as de rigueur on records, the ghosts in these machines never sounded so inspirational.
5 "NO SCRUBS" TLC (LaFace/Arista, single) Before they started taking swipes at each other, these dysfunctional divas took unified aim at the hangers-on and hitters-on in their lives. In a year in which pop women (from Shania and the Dixie Chicks to Eve, and even Christina Aguilera) strutted their assertiveness and pliant males (Marc Anthony, Tal Bachman, the somewhat reformed Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) were happy to let them, "No Scrubs" was very much a zeitgeist moment, inserting new slang into the national vocabulary and even inspiring an answer record (Sporty Thievz's "No Pigeons"). Thanks to producer and cowriter Kevin Briggs, it was also a smooth, silky hang glider of a single. "Unpretty," the Top 40 follow-up from TLC's otherwise spotty FanMail album, was a worthy successor.
6 BEAUCOUP FISH Underworld (JBO/V2) Cynics can scoff at the so-called electronica revolution of several years back, but anyone who dismisses this British trio's addictive third album deserves to be saddled with the sadly eviscerated remains of alternative rock. (Solving every Y2K computer glitch must be a less laborious process than plowing through both discs of Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile.) Like the fish of its title, Beaucoup makes you feel as if you're drifting pleasurably in an undercurrent of sound. And not merely the usual techno whirs and bleeps: Seamlessly blending hooks, balladry, and vocalist Karl Hyde's seductive growl into its pulsating-heartbeat soundscapes, the album is ambient but perpetually grounded. It also stirs up a machine-clanging racket when it wants to. Underworld more than fulfill the promise of their "Born Slippy" single (from Trainspotting); they search for an even braver new-music world and find it.
7 "LADYFINGERS" Luscious Jackson (Grand Royal/Capitol, single) This is the delicious cream puff they've always had in them, bringing together their rap-singing style, hip-swaying sense of melody, and girl-group harmonies straight from the urban jungle. With Emmylou Harris adding a few luscious oohs and aahs of her own, lead singer and guitarist Jill Cunniff drops her armor just enough to flash a few displays of heart--while still reminding the object of her affection that a suitcase is standing by just in case he makes any wrong moves. Post-smirking sincerity from the Beastie Boys' Grand Royal label; if that's not a sign of the times, nothing is. (Other notable summertime radio treats: Len's "Steal My Sunshine," Basement Jaxx's "Red Alert," and Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger.")
