By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Bob Dylan takes on Shaggy, Elton John challenges Robbie Williams -- the Brit Awards Monday had the generations clashing for Britain's top pop prizes.

And when nominations were announced for the industry's most influential awards, the music business harked back to its golden days when Britpop ruled the world.

The ceremony was staged at Abbey Road, the world-famous studios where the Beatles changed the face of music, and on the day George Harrison's ``My Sweet Lord'' was re-released as a tribute to the Beatle who died of cancer last month.

The nominations for the 14 different Brit Award categories left the judges choosing between the old and the new for the industry's big night out of the year on Feb. 20.

Sir Elton John, the grand old man of pop who sang to the world at Princess Diana's funeral, bids to be British Male Solo Artist in competition with flamboyant upstart Robbie Williams, the ex-boy band idol who now sings Sinatra classics.

Sixties icon Bob Dylan seeks to be crowned International Male Solo Artist of the year -- but he will have to fight off today's stars, Dr. Dre and Shaggy.

Australian Kylie Minogue, who enjoyed a major revival in 2001, is pitted against eccentric Icelander Bjork for the International Female Solo Artist title.

As a tongue-in-cheek antidote to manufactured bands, Blur's front Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett created the cartoon band Gorillaz. Monday they were rewarded with a record six Brit nominations, the most for any group this year.

Next in line with four nominations apiece came Williams, Minogue and British songwriting chanteuse Dido, whose debut album sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

The music industry had a miserable year in 2001 as the September 11 attacks in the United States depressed already struggling sales hit by the economic downturn, rampant piracy and a fall-off in fans replacing music collections with CDs.

However, a flood of new albums including Robbie Williams' ''Swing When You're Winning'' gave the UK industry a much-needed lift over Christmas, taking over-the-counter album sales eight percent higher year-on-year in the last two weeks of 2001, according to industry trade magazine Music Week.

Britain is the world's third-biggest music market after the United States and Japan. While international acts got good play in Britain in 2001, Robbie Williams ended the year topping the album and singles charts.

But it was a Beatles compilation album of their number one singles that ended the year as the biggest overall global chart-topper ahead of Shaggy's ``Hotshot'' and the Backstreet Boys (news - web sites) ``Black & Blue,'' according to trade paper Billboard's year-end poll.