At least I think that Eliza Carthy's 2001 album, Angels and Cigarettes, was better than anything else I heard. Carthy, the scion of British folk artists, moved from her earlier folk-influenced recordings, to create something akin to what Kate Bush would sound like if she had the attitude of Liz Phair or Alanis Morissette. The production is somewhat lavish (the Bush influence) with a number of tracks having the over-dubbing that threatens to drown the songs in sound. The lyrics are sometimes brutally honest (the best example being from my least favorite track, where Carthy sings about "giving blow jobs to men on couches" who no longer want her). What I like about it is how infectious the songs are, in the sense that after listening to the album I'm constantly going around singing the songs.