The White Stripes Elephant An extended mixtape of the year's most vital music -- i.e., the list you're about to read, comprising discs, singles, and album cuts -- must start here. ''Elephant'' (Third Man/V2) is where Jack White becomes a star -- a modern-day ''Clockwork Orange'' droog with a guitar. But it's also where he transforms himself into a one-man repository of American music at its most untamed and poetic. From the wire-brush rawness of White's six-string attack to his excursions into hillbilly duets, yowling power ballads, uneasy-listening folk, and unhinged blues vamps with his drummer and ex-wife, Meg, ''Elephant'' thrashes about without ever losing its nerve, verve, or focus. If ''garage rock'' once seemed the pithiest way to describe the White Stripes, this volcanic album establishes that the term, with all its connotations and stylistic limitations, is no longer sufficient. For two people -- especially one whose percussive chops are clearly limited -- they create an avalanche as forceful as just about any other band in pop: ''Seven Nation Army'' and ''There's No Home for You Here'' sound like the work of an ensemble. Beyond liberating themselves from genre restrictions, the Stripes also manage to accomplish something that seems unimaginable at a time when rock has devolved into either retro-nostalgia conservatism or ugly, brutal aggression: They remind us how volatile, unpredictable, raggedly beautiful, and exuberantly alive the music used to, can, and should be.

Basement Jaxx Kish Kash (album; XL/Astralwerks) Electronica is in a slump, but no one bothered to tell British mixmasters Felix Burton and Simon Ratcliffe. Insanely dense and creative, the Jaxx's third sonic adventure is that rare creature -- a DJ-driven, multiple-vocalist album that, thanks to the duo's ever-churning grooves and nonstop left turns, magically coheres. They even make JC Chasez sound funky.

Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z ''Crazy in Love'' (single; Columbia) The last thing we need is another diva paired with a prominent rapper and a conspicuous oldies sample. But no single shook up that tired formula harder than this storming-the-gates hit from Knowles' solo debut. Beyoncé swoons, Jigga glides, the recycled Chi-Lites horns vroom -- and Destiny's Child seem like a distant memory.

The Shins Chutes Too Narrow (album; Sub Pop) Shins auteur James Mercer can sure be a pensive sentimentalist: In one track, for instance, he compares a crumbled relationship to two intertwined kites that fly apart. But he's also self-aware enough to mock his tortured, underground-balladeer ways in other songs. And he and his band are sharp enough to set Mercer's radiant tunes and keening, affectless voice to the crispest and meatiest of indie rock.

IN DA CLUB Ms. Dynamite enlivens the neo-soul movement with sensual grooves that have become dance-floor favorites

Kelis ''Milkshake'' and Kylie Minogue ''Slow'' (singles; Star Trak/Arista and Capitol) Dance-floor minimalism that's everything Britney and Madonna wanted their cold, mechanical singles to be this year but weren't -- slinky, seductive, striking.

Zwan ''Mary Star of the Sea'' (album; Reprise) It was too good to last, and it didn't: Months after this album came out, Billy Corgan announced that his first post-Smashing Pumpkins outfit was no more. What a shame. With its lyrical guitar interplay and rousing songs, Zwan's one -- and now only -- disc makes the antiquated concept of ''anthemic guitar rock'' seem not so quaint anymore.

Ms. Dynamite ''A Little Deeper'' (album; Interscope) The record we thought Lauryn Hill would make after ''The Miseducation Of...'' (yet never did), ''A Little Deeper'' is stern and pedagogic. But don't let that scare you. Whether she's condemning scrubs, drugs, or gangsta rap, Ms. Dynamite -- a.k.a. 22-year-old English club sensation Niomi McLean-Daley -- employs reggae, dancehall, pop, and sensual retro R&B in songs whose hooks simmer rather than overpower. She's done something few of her American neo-soul peers have achieved: livened up a genre burdened by its self-importance.

Jeff Buckley ''Live at Sin-é: Legacy Edition'' (album; Columbia) Buckley's 1993 debut EP only hinted at the breadth of material the late, great male chanteuse played at his preferred New York venue. This double-disc expansion finally allows us to hear more: rapturous covers of Dylan (''If You See Her, Say Hello'') and Zeppelin (''Night Flight''), a mesmerizing ''Calling You,'' between-song wisecracks, and to-the-bone renditions of his own tunes. A welcome reminder that in the reality-TV-pop age, covers can be personalized and passionate, not just slavish karaoke.

Caesars ''Sort It Out'' (track, ''39 Minutes of Bliss [In an Otherwise Meaningless World]''; Astralwerks) Every young punk band wants to write a new classic, but these Swedes actually did it on this lost gem, recorded five years ago but issued here only this year. Great riff, great whiny grousing, great un-PC opening: ''I wanna smoke crack/'Cuz you're never coming back.''

OutKast Assorted album tracks (''Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,'' Arista) Wading through these two wedded-together solo projects can be exasperating, since Andre 3000 and Big Boi have a tendency to sound overly self-conscious and conventional, respectively, without the other around. Best to burn your own compilation boiling down the snazziest of the double disc's combined 39 tracks. From Big Boi's wired ''Speakerboxxx'': the creamy, sarcastic ''Unhappy,'' the mack-daddy strut ''Bowtie,'' the hip-hop summit ''Flip Flop Rock,'' and the nuevo-Curtis Mayfield ''Knowing.'' And from Andre 3000's passion play ''The Love Below'': the swooning ''Prototype,'' the creepily compelling ''Pink & Blue,'' and ''Hey Ya!'' -- the most jubilant song ever written about a relationship gone south.

LAST GOODBYE ''Keep Me in Your Heart'' serves as Zevon's graceful swan song

Damien Rice ''O'' (album; Vector) He's the type of coffeehouse folkie who writes and sings painfully earnest lines like ''Love taught me to lie/Life taught me to die.'' Thankfully, he's also the type to steep his songs in chamber-pop arrangements and a searing intensity that avoids the coyness of so many current male singer-songwriters. He may be ripe for a Starbucks CD, but don't hold that against him.

Northern State ''At the Party'' (track, ''Dying in Stereo''; Star Time) Don't call it a comeback of the Beastie Boys sound. Okay, do call it that. But the emphatically old-school rhymes and beats of these three female New Yorkers take us back to the day when rap was, you know, fun. (Runner-up, same category: Fannypack's ''Cameltoe.'')

Nelly Furtado ''Folklore'' (album; DreamWorks) You name the instrument or mood, and it's here. Few acts this year made music as vibrant and audacious (from plucky hip-hop pop to meditative balladry) as that on Furtado's sparkling sophomore record.

50 Cent ''In da Club'' (single; ''Shady''/ Interscope) Da club in question feels claustrophobic, rambunctious, and a little dangerous on the most vigorous track from the uneven ''Get Rich or Die Tryin'.'' 50 isn't the world's most lucid rapper, but with backup from Dr. Dre -- orchestral hip-hop at its most potent -- he needn't be.

Warren Zevon ''Keep Me in Your Heart'' (track, ''The Wind''; Artemis) An accepting and beyond-poignant goodbye from someone who knew how important it was to get it right one last time. He'll be missed, and not merely for lines like ''You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse.''

FADING 'IDOL' Clarkson's ''Miss Independent'' grated

Kelly Clarkson ''Miss Independent'' (single; RCA/19) The sheer number of ''American Idol'' recordings unleashed this year could fill an iPod from hell: Clay Aiken's defiantly middlebrow ''Measure of a Man,'' the mewly soul of ''Justin Guarini'' and Ruben Studdard's ''Soulful,'' the abominable collections of Christmas tunes and standards assailed by the various graduates. But this strident, overbelted, ersatz-hip-hop contrivance embodies the most grating aspects of the show and the too-eager-to-please stars it created.

The G-Unit ''Beg for Mercy'' (album; Shady/Interscope) Isn't it too early for 50 Cent to be exploiting his success with a set of dumbed-down gangsta by his side project? He should have called the band Pennies.

Lisa Marie Presley ''To Whom It May Concern'' (album; Capitol) Faux Sheryl Crow, faux Alanis, faux No Doubt. This dreary coming-out has everything but faux Elvis. Maybe she inherited her voice from Priscilla.

Elvis Costello ''North'' (album; Deutsche Grammophon) ''Someone took the words away,'' he sings at one point. Someone also took away the melodies, the tension, and the drive of ''When I Was Cruel'' and replaced them with an interminable barrage of lugubrious cabaret jazz. There's music to clear the room, and then there's this -- music to make the room fall into a deep slumber.

Barbra Streisand, ''The Movie Album,'' and Rod Stewart, ''As Time Goes By...The Great American Songbook Volume II'' (albums, tie; Columbia and J) Where boomer pop stars now retreat: soggy discs of over-orchestrated film songs and standards, reduced to Muzak that would embarrass elevators. There's more to come, folks.