2001 will forever be remembered as the year George W Bush came to power and presided over the biggest tragedy to befall the US when the World Trade Centre was destroyed on September 11.

But we're here to talk about the music of 2001, which was a pretty good year in our book. Here are five of our favourites.

Is This It - The Strokes

SOUNDING like a sonic relic found buried in a disused tape deck left behind in a '70s rehearsal room, The Strokes showed that great songs don't need multi-million-dollar-sounding production to still sound great - something bands seem to have forgotten. With a narrow, overdriven edge and bursting with barely contained distortion and youthful exuberance, this very-New York album melds CBGB sounds and sociopathic tendencies into nifty three-minute pop-rock songs, like Television's intertwining guitar tunes filtered through The Velvet Underground and their dirty-sounding amps. Julian Casablancas' off-hand croon is passionate and careless at the same time, just as the band's sound ranges from methodical to raw, making for an album that is both effortless and calculated. Upon its release, lo-fi guitars were out of fashion, as was this kind of simple songwriting, with its direct melodies and progressions and total lack of pretention, and that's what makes Is This It both refreshing and instantly classic. Plus when you've got this many perfectly formed little rock-pop songs on one album - ie. every track - it's hard not to fall in love with this lovingly crafted return to the rough-and-ready days of garage-rock. And, as with Franz Ferdinand, their second album is almost as good, but with added keyboards.

Liquid Skin - Gomez

AS good, if not better than, they're Mercury Prize-winning debut, this is more of what Gomez do best - sift beautiful Americana sounds through a British pop filter and some of the best home-spun production you've ever heard. With it's three distinctive-voiced singers and a fearless approach to arrangement, Gomez make every song feel fresh and different to the next, despite a focus on acoustic guitars and gentle mid-tempo rootsy-pop. The electronic experimentation of next album In Our Gun is hinted at here, notably on the kitchen-sink barnstormer Bring It On, one of many highlights on the record. Others include their first serious rock anthem in the apocalyptic stirring strings of We Haven't Turned Around, the swampy Fill My Cup, their modus operandi Rhythm & Blues Alibi and the closing bluesy-funk epic Devil Will Ride. Part of the trick is that they manage to sound like everything and nothing else all at the same time - the familiar and the fresh rolled up in sweetly sung package.

Origin Of Symmetry - Muse

WHERE their debut was filled with razored guitars and the raucous sound of three guys making more noise than they had any right to make, Origin Of Symmetry unveiled Muse's prog leanings and love of classical music. Bellamy, it turned out, could play piano as good as he could play guitar and demonstrates it on the Rachmaninov-influenced mini-opera Space Dementia, dramatic closer Megalomania and a deliciously over-the-top cover of Nina Simone favourite Feeling Good. He still fires up his axe, soloing like a jackhammer on New Born, conjuring up some dirty future-funk on Hyper Music and riffing with the best of them on Plug In Baby.

Lateralus - Tool

LESS liquid than previous outing Aenema (pardon the pun), this was a mechanical monster of a metal album, filled with pummeling and grinding polyrhythms and seemingly impossible time signatures. Between the barrages of carefully constructed bombast, there were moments of beautiful eerieness, like the machine cooling down before another blast. Maynard Keenan's voice soared again, as well as taking on a new savageness on Ticks & Leeches, while Danny Carey's drumming remained breath-taking. An album of mathematical and biological complexity, Lateralus is a pleasantly puzzling combination of man and machine.

One Nil - Neil Finn

NEIL Finn is the Southern Hemisphere's best melody writer. With Crowded House and Split Enz he had a knack for taking the simplest of chord progressions and gliding his voice over the top to create a stack of imminent hits. He does the same thing here with some impressive production to back up the remarkable songwriting. The deceptively simple Turn And Run, the bittersweet Hole In The Ice and the summery Rest Of The Day Off are just a couple of examples on this under-rated gem that is as good as anything he did with the Crowdies.

Honourable mentions: Rockin' The Suburbs - Ben Folds, Buck Fever - Extradasphere, Music To Make Love To You Old Lady By - Lovage, Tomahawk - Tomahawk, Tenacious D - Tenacious D, Asleep In The Back - Elbow, White Blood Cells - The White Stripes, Amnesiac - Radiohead, Exciter - Depeche Mode, The Director's Cut - Fantomas, Gorillaz - Gorillaz, The Argument - Fugazi, Reveal - R.E.M., Shangri-La Dee Da - Stone Temple Pilots, All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2, A Funk Odyssey - Jamiroquai, Echolalia - Something For Kate.