Usual disclaimers first: Lists like this are, as you know, intensely personal, coloured by factors like, time, moods, memories, personal taste, etc. If you feel like I've left out anything, that's because I probably have. But these are the albums I grew to love most this year, a year that was really good for music. A lot of the usual suspects, some new additions. Let's get to them, shall we?
 

10 Bonfires on the Heath by The Clientele


This is just another great album from what is looking to be like a long list of great albums from The Clientele. Over the years they've defined their sound, establishing themselves as one of 2000's finest pop acts. Bonfires on the Heath is full of delicate piano, shivering tremolo guitar and surrealist poetry. Alastair Maclean's impressionistic lyrical approach gives these tales of lost love and half-forgotten reminiscences a warm and haunting quality.

09 Embryonic by The Flaming Lips


The Flaming Lips return to Crazy and everything is good. Yes, it still sounds like they're making a soundtrack of The Future, mostly because they have still found ways to push the boundaries of making a song. Few songs in the album follow the verse/chorus structure, and even those that do become more like great big booming mood pieces than individual rock songs. Embryonic might not be the kind of album you can listen to everyday - you'd have to be in the right mind set. But when you do find yourself in just the right mood for it, it'll be perfect.

08 The Ecstatic by Mos Def


This is it. This is the Mos Def album we've been waiting for. Easily his best work since Black on Both Sides, The Ecstatic brings us Mos Def at his most progressive, most experimental and yet least gimmicky. It feels like he brought everything he's learned and loved, including righteous samples from the likes of Turkish psych songstress Selda Bagcan and rhymes from old friend Talib Kweli, to build an epic narrative about the past and the present, about the great big cities full of wonder and terror, to bring a message to "penthouse, pavement, and curb," alike.

07 Sometimes I Wish I were an Eagle by Bill Calahan


In the very strange Eid Ma Clack Shaw, Bill Callahan is haunted by the memory of a lost love, unable to forget no matter how hard he tries. Then one night, he dreams of the perfect song, one that holds the answers he was looking for. He scribbles it down in the middle of the night and reads it in the morning, only to find that he's written down gibberish. "Eid ma clack shaw, zuproven del ba." What could have easily become another 'break-up' album instead turned into an odd but mesmerizing adventure in solitude. Add to this Callahan's gentle, sober voice and you might start to feel as if things were metaphysical. You won't find any bitterness in him, despite everything that may have happened, just a quiet searching. "I used to be sort of blind and now I can sort of see." He's got a long way to go, but that's okay. He's a patient kind of guy.

06 Middle Cyclone by Neko Case


Neko Case is constantly refining her act. Her albums always demonstrate how bigger she gets, in terms of vocals and song-writing. In Middle Cyclone, she may have realised just how big she can go. She becomes the force of nature we always knew her to be. She opens with the song This Tornado Loves You, singing, "My love, I am the speed of sound. I left them motherless, fatherless. Their souls they hang inside-out from their mouths but it's never enough. I want you". It is most assuredly the strongest song in the album (if not in her whole repertoire) - a love song from the point of view of an actual tornado, tearing up trailer parks and cutting a 65-mile swath in search for the one it loves It's also one of the most ambitious, and perhaps one of the most effective, especially when she sings defiant, demanding and completely convinced that destruction is her truest demonstration of love. You may get knocked over while listening to this storm, but you will love every single moment of it.

05 Get Guilty by A.C. Newman


Newman is one of the best songwriters we have today and I think a listen to this album might prove that. We're so used to thinking of him as a power pop musician, thanks to the simplicity, energy and force of The New Pornographers, but he shows in his solo projects that he can be gentle, deep and romantic (even somewhat meta). "She led the modern sunset to your window, gestured with a plain-Jane hand, she said 'Let's go.", goes The Heartbreak Rides, suggesting the start of our adventure, leaving us to fill in the blanks for ourselves. He knows how to catch your attention, but more importantly he knows how to keep you there. Get Guilty isn't just the kind of record you listen to; it's the kind of record you can live in and find something new every time.

04 Lungs by Florence + The Machine


In a year where we were flooded by young UK Pop ingenues, the lovely Florence Welch and her incredible Machine managed stand out so very, very, very well. Might be because the load is shared 50/50 here; whereas lesser talents rely too heavily on stylistic changes, producers and their trumpets (we're on to you, Ronson), Welch has the talent to shine above the added trimmings. The girl has got lungs and she sings like she's not afraid of anything. Is it any wonder that silly things (like matters of the heart) suddenly seem like great big cosmic events in her hands? "The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out. You left me in the dark." Showy, yes. Spooky, maybe. Beautiful, certainly.

03 Hazards of Love by The Decemberists


Hazards of Love is such a Decemberists album. In fact, I think of Hazards of Love as THE Decemberists album - and by that I mean it feels like the record they have been destined to make. I mean, come on. A heavy narrative prog-rock-folk album? It makes perfect sense. The whole thing was orginally conceived as a musical. At times, it does feel like they might have needed more time to build the story but then the music also takes part in story-telling duties, and fortunately it's strong enough to take us from scene to another, not to mention some pretty great heights.

There's a great interview up on the AV Club with Colin Meloy. It reveals him to be a thoughtful, hardworking and simply talented musician who not only knows his strengths and weaknesses but embraces both, something that obviously helps him create something brave and unique. There aren't many bands on major record labels who are going to attempt a full rock opera. Thank goodness for the Decemberists.

02 Hospice by The Antlers


There is no lack of emotion in Hospice, as is perhaps fitting of an album that is centered on the story of a man and a dying loved one, a terminally ill child whose entire world is now nothing but a series of hospital beds, hopeless conversations with doctors, terrifying dreams about falling and dying. There is no irony, no cynicism behind these songs. There's plenty of artfulness (there are occassional intrusions of/by Sylvia Plath) but never a lack of prayer, anguish and bleeding. Not necessarily in that order, but always in a cycle.

01 Years of Refusal by Morrisey


Somebody forgot to tell Morrissey that you're supposed to mellow out with old age. He's just turned 50 this past year and he's moved on all right, just not in the way a lot of other people would have. This album (aside from being one of the only three of which he remains proud) is an angry, angry album, filled with post-love letters and greeting cards of not so very fond wishes. He opens the album with Something is Squeezing My Skull, singing, "I know by now you think I should have straightened myself out. Thank you, drop dead." It's hard to imagine leading with such a song, but he manages to keep up the ferocious levels of energy throughout the entire album. I think my favorite song is It's Not Your Birthday Anymore, where he sings, "Did you really think we meant all of those syrupy, sentimental things that we said yesterday?" Ah, resentment, dissolution, passionate but truthful cruelty - Morrissey in his top (and very quotable) form.