Year-End Music Top 10

I've digested my Christmas music, so it's time for my top CDs of the year. I've written about some of these choices before, here and here. I'll add some commentary on the previously uncommented. In case you're wondering, this should be considered the metaphysically correct list of the year's best music.

1) M. Ward, Post War

2) Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Ballad of the Broken Seas: Campbell used to be in Belle & Sebastian and Lanegan was the lead singer for Screaming Trees and did a stint with Queens of the Stone Age. A very sexy and hypnotic album, featuring one of the best singles of the year, "Honey Child, What Can I Do?" Imagine if Barry White replaced Lindsey Buckingham in Fleetwood Mac for Rumors.

3) Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

4) Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass

5) Beck, the Information: very underrated, probably because there was no killer single on the order of "Loser," "Lost Cause" or "E-Pro." Just a really good CD, probably the equivalent of Guero, and I'd say better than Sea Change.

6) Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

7) Bob Dylan, Modern Times

8) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Show Your Bones

9) the Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers

10) TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

Honorable Mention to Josh Rouse, Subtitulo; John Mayer, Continuum; John Legend, Once Again; Gomez, How We Operate; and the Decembrists, the Crane Wife. The Decembrists may climb once I hear it more. They always take a while to grow on me: I didn't fully appreciate how good Picaresque was until I'd had it for a long time. I also need to add a caveat. I haven't heard Tom Waits's Orphans yet, which is supposed to be excellent. I'm a Waits fan, but haven't shucked out the $45 for the triple CD set. So it hasn't been part of the judging process. I also haven't yet heard My Morning Jacket's new live CD. Otherwise, my list stands as final.