This year we've asked some of our favorite writers and editors to tell us what albums stood out in '98. Today, SonicNet's Greil Marcus supplies his top 10.

1. Counting Crows, Across a Wire: Live in New York City (DGC):

Familiar material in the process of discovery: Adam Duritz can barely keep up with his own songs.

2. Unkle, Psyence Fiction (London/Mo Wax):

This DJ Shadow + stars package -- Richard Ashcroft, Thom Yorke, etc. -- struck me as flat for months. Then Shadow's characteristically dark, sampled chords, in which whole movies are caught in a few movements, took over, and the guest singers became just another virtual instrument.

3. Elvis Presley, Tiger Man and Memories (RCA):

The '68 comeback jam sessions, whole. Real life as it's never been lived before and hasn't been lived since.

4. Elastik Band, "Spazz," on Nuggets (Rhino):

The all-purpose '60s high school insult, yet rendered so strangely -- "Spay-azz," more or less -- that I couldn't imagine what strange part of the country the band came from. Turned out to be about eight miles from where I grew up.

5. Come, Gently Down the Stream (Matador):

Thalia Zedek could be holding hands with P.J. Harvey, guiding her through the forest, if she weren't too busy trying to burn down her own house.

6. Tom House, This White Man's Burden (Checkered Past):

A literary Nashville, Tenn., barroom singer who's interested in the spaces he can open up in a lyric and in the way a melody can imply almost-finished stories in a hesitation. In other words, country music.

7. Big Sandy, Dedicated to You (High Tone):

Unbelievably faithful re-creation of one of the most ignored and seductive of all rock 'n' roll genres, early '50s L.A. doo-wop. And really sexy.

8. PJ Harvey, Is This Desire? (Island):

Yeah.

9. DJ QBert, Wave Twisters (Galactic Butthair):

Soundtrack for the current Jackson Pollock show at the New York Museum of Modern Art.

10. Bob Dylan, Live 1966 (Columbia):

I take back what I said about real life as it's never, etc. Dylan got there first.