Copyright 1993 Associated Newspapers Ltd. Mail on Sunday December 19, 1993, Sunday SECTION: Pg. 32 LENGTH: 800 words HEADLINE: Year we go, year we go; POP BYLINE: Tom Hibbert BODY: Ho-hum. 1993 - another year in the giddy world of pop, ticked off and (almost) gone forever. Should we shed a tear? Should we rejoice? It's so very hard to say. Perhaps you have noticed that some years ending with the digit 3 are blessed with a particular significance where pop music is concerned. Take 1953, which saw the death, on New Year's Day, of Hank Williams, country and western m agnificent without whom rock 'n' roll could never have been 'discovered'. Or 1963, the year in which a nation went Beatles bonkers and the Rolling Stones made their first record. But you may have also noticed that some years ending with a 3 aren't much cop at all. I mean, what can you say about 1973, except that the Sweet were always on Top Of The Pops in their spangly high-rise boots and Abba hadn't even won the Eurovision Song Contest yet? And what was 1983? The year of Kajagoogoo and that's about all. And I very much fear that, when the history books are written, 1993 will be filed away under 'Ho Hum' or 'Tawdry'. It will be remembered, if at all, as the year in which Michael Jackson fell from grace and the hirsute, pipe-smoking disc jockey Dave Lee Travis bade farewell to the BBC; as the year in which yet another British band - Suede - was tipped as the Next Big Thing and promptly wasn't; the year in which comedy ('the new ro ck 'n' roll', as Melvyn Bragg and Janet Street-Porter and other media folk never tire of telling us) was invented by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer via imitations of Slade (big in 1973) doing the Hoovering and having their tea. Best LPs of 1993: on Belly's Star (4AD), the girl group from the Americas make a wonderful noise on their guitars and singer Tanya Donnelly always sounds so jolly miserable about everything, poor thing, you can't help sympathising. 'It would be nice if t here were a space for me on people's walls next to Take That,' said Tanya in March. Regrettably, not much hope of that. NB Belly have the best frocks in rock. Jellyfish's Spilt Milk (Charisma) was utterly bracing, too. 'Pooh!' snarled the dour critics of the music press, 'Jellyfish (boy group from the Americas) are so retrograde, man, what with all their sneaky quotes from old Badfinger and Moby Grape records. ' Yes, but if you're going to nick, nick from the best, say I - and the light-fingered 'Jellies' (as they are known to their millions of fans - that is me and the other two people who bought the record) do it so well. Nostalgia never felt or sounded so gr and. Kate Bush's The Red Shoes (EMI) is quirky, English and marvellous. I cannot recommend this madcap 'newcomer' to the recording 'scene' highly enough. Worst LP of 1993: Sting's Ten Summon-er's Tales (A & M). He is trying to 'lighten up'. It doesn't work. He sounds as pompous as ever. NB he can't sing for toffee, and never could. Back to the rainforests in a jiffy and a dunce's cap for you, silly sausag e! Best newcomer of 1993: Tasmin Archer. Best old codger of 1993: Neil Young. Best use of popular music in a motion picture of 1993: well, disgusting as it is, it has to be that bit in Reservoir Dogs where, dancing to Stealer's Wheel's 1973 (mark the year) hit, Stuck In The Middle With You, the psychopath cuts the policeman's ear off. Hasn't it?