10. Lily Allen - Alright, Still

Ms. Allen quickly defined the nature of 21st century pop-stardom with her debut album Alright, Still, inverting tabloid media and becoming her own favorite worst paparazzo.  If you’ve ever read her sometimes painfully honest blog on MySpace, you know that the line between performer and audience is gone, perhaps for good.  And unlike her decidedly retro rival Amy Winehouse, you don’t even have to feel bad about liking her.

9. Hard Fi - Once Upon a Time in the West

Bursting out of the gate with “Suburban Knights” and the splendidly effervescent “I Shall Overcome,” Richard Archer and Co. subsequently plot a course from shameless fist-pumping to tales of loneliness and despair that more or less accurately describe a West that is desperate to be optimistic.  They do so with more ease than they have any right to.

8. Wax Poetic - Istanbul

Led by Turkish-born jazz cat Ilhan Ersahin, this New York based outfit defies classification with Istanbul, a mesmerizing snapshot of ethnic jazz, drum n’ bass, and electronica inspired by the city of the same name.  Check out like-minded albums Copenhagen and Brasil.

7. Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare

Defiant, vaguely psychedelic surf-rock from England’s latest seminal guitar band.  Favorite Worst Nightmare does everything their debut did but with more force, flavor, and insight.  Alex Turner has said in interviews that they'd like to release an album every year and make each occassion a "bank holiday."  He may be on to something there . . . .

 6. M.I.A. - Kala

2007’s most outlandish record almost didn’t happen.  Maya Arulpragasam’s plans to record with mega-producer Timbaland hit a snag when she was denied entry to the States due to some “visa issues.”  Luckily for us, she instead became our favorite ethnomusicologist, touring the world and collecting beats on a record so diverse you probably need a passport to get through it.

5. Air - Pocket Symphony

As the title suggests, the French-duo’s latest is equally inspired by Debussy as it is the cosmopolitan electronica they helped invent.  Their most alluring work since The Virgin Suicides soundtrack.

4. Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Even Before the Ship Sank

Isaac Brock still thinks we’re doomed, but times being what they are, we can be a little more certain of why he thinks so.  His outfit’s fifth proper studio album is a thrilling hot air balloon ride over a world that is rapidly flooding with war, water, ideas, disgruntled constituents, and guitars.  Johnny Marr (The Smiths) ads bristling energy to songs like “March Into the Sea,” “Florida,” and “Invisible,” automatically making We Were Dead a contender for guitar album of the year (if people still care about such things as “guitar albums”).  They sound more like insomniac Talking Heads by the minute. 

3. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Reports that Arcade Fire was recording album number two in an old church with a massive pipe organ accurately predicted Neon Bible’s aesthetic: deep-as-a-well reverb, funereal arrangements, and fever-dream images.  It could easily have been a carbon copy of their debut Funeral, but this Montreal circus doesn’t seem like the kind of band to make the same record twice.  Just when you think they’re about to drown in their collective sorrows, they go ahead and affirm life with “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” or “No Cars Go” and make the hairs on the back of your neck stand.  Plenty of bands aimed for transcendence in 2007 (that’s you, Bloc Party!), but only Arcade Fire resoundingly succeeded. 

2. Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

The Followill’s bring the pain and find their souls on their risk-taking follow up to Aha Shake Heartbreak.  It’s as turbulent as it is assured, which is to say that it positively rocks!  I hereby nominate “Knocked Up” for Song of the Year.

1. The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen

Supergroup projects aren’t supposed to turn out this well, but then TGTB&TQ isn’t your average supergroup; it was forged in ideas.  Members Damon Albarn (Blur, Gorillaz), Paul Simonon (The Clash), Simon Tong (The Verve), and Tony Allen (Fela Kuti) boast an impressive pedigree between them, but it’s their willingness to subject themselves to a singular vision of post-millennial London, playing itself out like a cross between an Illustrated Classics Secret Agent and a carnival engulfed in a bewitching fog, that is most impressive.  Albarn reportedly intended the album to be a “really British” sequel to Blur’s “really British” epic Parklife, but its murky soundscapes have much more to do with his former band’s Think Tank, Protection-era Massive Attack, and early R.E.M.  It all adds up to the most beautifully restrained, reluctantly moving album of the year. 

Honorable Mention:

Radiohead - In Rainbows

After nearly a decade of running from itself, Radiohead finally sounds comfortable with idea of just playing great tunes.