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4. Thee Undertakers, Crucify Me (Grand Theft Audio). Recorded in 1980 but never released until this year, Crucify Memay get these morbid E.L.A. punk rockers the recognition they deeply deserve.

5. Gretchen Wilson, Here for the Party (Sony). The Redneck Woman single-handedly explodes the Nashville girl-singer standard with this set of impeccably delivered hard-country moderne.

6. Go Betty Go, Worst Enemy (Side One Dummy). Debut five-song disc from rad punk rucas GBG came off a bit too squeaky-clean, but even the most mall-punk-courting production can’t screw up an extraordinary song like "Son Mis Locuras."

7. Johnny Cash, Life (Legacy). Personally compiled and sequenced by the Man in Black just before his death, this collection of vintage classics ("Country Trash," "Wanted Man") rates as one of his greatest-ever albums (and he managed it without any help from Bono or Quentin Tarantino).

8. Pete Anderson, Daredevil (Little Dog). Although best known for his long association with Dwight Yoakam, Detroit-born guitar chieftain Anderson’s second solo instrumental set stays far, far away from the back hills and instead charts some evocative, atmospheric and previously undiscovered rock & roll geography. Dazzling.

—Jonny Whiteside

Sounds of Music: The 2004 CollectionBy Alan Rich

The loudest: On June 3 at Walt Disney Concert Hall, four brass bands, four sets of kettledrums and some 200 choristers greet the Day of Judgment as envisioned in Hector Berlioz’s Grand Mass of the Dead under Esa-Pekka Salonen’s death-dealing baton.

The softest: On November 11, many seconds of a silence that nobody seemed to want to break greet Thomas Quasthoff’s harrowingly beautiful singing of Gustav Mahler’s Songs on the Death of Children, with the Philharmonic led by visiting conductor Christoph Eschenbach.

The most extraneous, outdoor: the new echo at the Hollywood Bowl that greets all the short, sharp notes from the orchestra with exact mirror images of themselves — twice for the money!

The most extraneous, indoor: Disney Hall’s new pipe organ, out of tune with its surroundings, and with the orchestra. Great for silent movies, though.

The fastest: Leila Josefowicz’ violin barely touching ground, airborne in John Adams’ mercurial Violin Concerto, with the Philharmonic on November 5.

The slowest: Philip Glass, solo and with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, at Royce Hall on November 10. With so little happening at such great length, maybe it just seemed that way.

The most alluring: Robert Wilson’s conceptualized mounting of Madama Butterfly for the Los Angeles Opera on February 12 — a stage bare of the usual clutter but alive with the intensity of Puccini’s drama.

The least alluring: tenor Richard Leech’s agonized stab at the B-flat in the "Flower Song" from Carmen, October 22 on the same stage, symbolic of the level of opera Wilson’s work rises above. (Top ticket: $190)

The least comforting: the amplified cell-phone imitation at the start of every Disney Hall event, as an exhortation to turn off your own damn things. There are nicer ways, folks.

The most comforting: the quiet gurgle of the rose-shaped fountain in Disney Hall’s garden.

Song titles from Cambodian Rocks, Volumes 1 and 2

Quando, My Love

Cry Loving Me

I’m So Shy

I Recogize [sic] That Face

Don’t Be Mad

Waiting To Dance With You

Wicked Husband

Pink Night

Since When You Know Me

I Love Petite Women

Have a Caramel

Whiskey Whiskey

I’m Still Waiting for You

Brokenhearted Bachelor

If You Wish To Love Me

Woman of ’72

Hippie Men

Missing Tender Care

Bachelor Without Worry

Sweet Sixteen

Monkey Dancing Monkey

I Love Women

Wolly Polly

Do You Remember

Haircut

Rainy Night

—Amir Zakaria

15 Unacceptable High School Band Names

I Have To Go to the Bathroom Right Now

Empty Shot Glass

The Rolling Stones

The Cokeheads

The Cockheads

Kill Yourself

We Hate School

The Ron Jeremy Experience

The Implants

Candied Resin

Cystic Fibrosis

The HIVes

The Foreskins

Statuatory!

Stimulated Nuns

—Flannery Lunsford and Martin Hirschland,John Marshall H.S.