1 SMASHING PUMPKINS Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (Virgin). Raucous and sweet, pretentious and populist, this Chicago-based alternative rock group's hubristic double CD soared as high as its lofty ambitions, an Icarus with wings that worked. Bandleader Billy Corgan is adept at turning out swift, radio-ready hits, yet he also excels at creating epic art-pop songs that explore enigmatic ideas and twisting melodic pathways. For listeners looking to take a journey, not just a joyride, this is a trip that shouldn't be missed.

2 ALISON KRAUSS Now That I've Found You (Rounder). With this greatest-hits CD, the mass audience found Krauss, a fiddle and viola prodigy with a soprano voice as clear and invigorating as a mountain stream. Her taste ranges from country spirituals to pop standards by the Beatles and the Foundations. No gimmicks here, just down-home virtuosity.

3 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN The Ghost of Tom Joad (Columbia). Drained of the arena-rock testosterone and bourgeois guilt that have marred Springsteen's recent work, this serene album explores the lives of steelworkers, illegal immigrants and migrant farmers. The Boss is gone, and Bruce is back among the proletariat.

4 THE CHIEFTAINS The Long Black Veil (RCA). Ireland's favorite sextet comes to call, the pipes and flutes and fiddles and all, with a breakthrough album after only thirtysomething years together. Paddy Moloney's charts for vocalists from Ireland (Van Morrison), England (Sting), Wales (Tom Jones) and Scotland (Mark Knopfler) do more than revive a splendid set of ancient airs. They are delicious dirges that could wake the dead. Keen music!

5 VARIOUS ARTISTS Color and Light: Jazz Sketches on Sondheim (Sony Classical). High-energy Broadway show music meets low-key cool jazz on this sleek, satisfying album, as such top performers as bassist Christian McBride and trumpeter Terence Blanchard sensuously redefine and rejuvenate the work of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim.

6 ERNESTO LECUONA The Complete Piano Music, Vol. 1 (Bis). Everybody knows Lecuona's most famous composition, Malaguena. But there's much more than that to the prolific Cuban composer, who died in 1963. Fingers ablaze, pianist Thomas Tirino eloquently makes the case.

7 SKUNK ANANSIE Paranoid & Sunburnt (Epic/One Little Indian). This British quartet, one of the few hard-rock bands fronted by a black woman, boasts a scaldingly bold sound, mixing chunks of punk, bits of R. and B. and even a dash of gospel in its joyously fierce debut album.

8 MARIAH CAREY Daydream (Columbia). Carey is a hitmaking, money-generating corporation; her sometimes overemoted songs have in the past sounded like a musical interpretation of a bull market. Her new album is different: the vocals are subtler, the melodies more restrained, the lyrics more artful. Carey may be big business, but artistically her stock is on the rise.

9 PUCCINI La Boheme (Erato). Conductor Kent Nagano restores the freshness and bloom to Puccini's heart-tugging tale of young love won and lost. Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa as Mimi and tenor Richard Leech as Rodolfo are with him every step.

10 JACKY TERRASSON Jacky Terrasson (Blue Note). Seated at the piano, this 30-year-old Parisian import doesn't just play a song; he seizes it, takes it through his own looking glass and refracts it in ways that squeeze fresh thrills out of old Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter jazz standards. Terrasson's debut served notice that here is a star in the making.

...AND THE WORST

PJ HARVEY To Bring You My Love (Island). This utterly graceless singer is a favorite of the rock press. But her hopelessly mannered CD--with its distorted vocals and theatrical emotionality--is for musical masochists only. In the world of experimental pop, Bjork's whimsically wonderful Post and The Rebirth of Cool: Vol. 3, featuring Portishead and Tricky, are more daring and eclectic.