1. Shrunken Heads - Ian Hunter (Yep Roc): Dylan comes close, but I’m not so sure any aging rock’n’roller has passed the years as gracefully as Mr. Hunter has. He’s put out a string of excellent records over the past decade and a half and now he’s released a classic.

2. Graduation - Kanye West (Roc-A-Fella): On which the Paul McCartney of hip hop becomes its David Bowie. Always brash, completely contradictory, and absolutely a pop genius of the highest order. Can anything stop him?

3. Shoffers Nation - Babyshambles (Astralwerks): The first four tracks here are the finest music of this year bar none. And "UnBiloTitled" is Pete Doherty’s finest moment, revealing him to be - gulp - a human being with human emotions. The other eight tracks are only damn good.

4. Left for Dead - Wussy (Shake It): On which Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker stake their claim to being the new alt George Jones and Tammy Wynette. The songs are as sharp as can be, the vocal performances flawless and positively (David) Lynch-ian.

5. The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter (Sony/BMG) - Pseudo-folkie Josh Ritter emerges as a spot on popster of the highest order on the this, the most pleasantly surprising record of the year.

6. Piano Vortex - Matthew Shipp (Thirsty Ear): Sounding as assured and steady as he ever has, Shipp’s energetic trio delivers jazz back to its golden era with this glorious collection of someday-ought-to-be standards.

7. CrazyBabe Movie Soundtrack - Bob Coulter (crazybabe): Everyone knows the old jokes about corny porn flick music. Bob Coulter’s heard them all too. So when it came time to make his own movie based on his popular website (crazybabe.com) and erotic photography the former musician/producer/engineer decided to do it himself. The result is an insane collage of weird music snippets culled together to create a strange but cool as shit Dukes of Hazzard on acid effect. If the kid from Deliverance had Pro Tools and a computer instead of a banjo this is what he’d have played.

8. We Belong to the Staggering Evening - The Ike Reilly Assassination (RockRidge): Perhaps the only true true-believer and rock and roll prophet out preaching to the people these days. Here he is as brilliant as he’s ever been and better than he ever was.

9. Back to Black - Amy Winehouse (Universal Republic): Soulful, jazzy, bold, ballsy, and apparently fucked up nearly 24/7. Hate to say it but - if she keeps making great trend-defying music like this I’ll but her the next round.

10. 45:33 - LCD Soundsystem (DFA Records): Supposedly a toss off done for Nike for runners to run to or some such shit, 45:33 is, well, forty-five minutes and thirty three seconds of uber-genius James Murphy outdoing his own "proper" record he’d released this past year. It’s so cool and so weird I don’t even know what to make of it.