1. Taylor Ho Bynum and Tomas Fujiwara, "Wisdom" (from True Events, 482)
2. Lucinda Williams, "Are You Alright?" (from West, Lost Highway)
3. Youssou N'Dour, "4-4-44" (from Rokku Mi Rokka, Nonesuch)
4. Stephen Marley ft. Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley, "The Traffic Jam" (from Mind Control, Republic)
5. M.I.A., "20 Dollar" (from Kala, Interscope)
6. Juan Carlos Cacéras, "Cumtango" (from Think Global: Tango, World Music Network)
7. Gogol Bordello, "Dub the Frequencies of Love" (from Super Taranta!, Side One Dummy)
8. Amy Winehouse, "Just Friends" (from Back to Black, Republic)
9. Curtis Stigers, "As You Turn to Go" (from Real Emotional, Concord)
10. The White Stripes, "Icky Thump" (from Icky Thump, Warner Bros.)
11. Fanfare Ciocarlia, "Que Dolor (Kaloome)/How It Hurts" (from Queens and Kings, Asphalt Tango)
12. Terence Blanchard, "Ghost of Betty" (from A Tale of God's Will [A Requiem for Katrina], Blue Note)
13. Robert Glasper, "G&B" (from In My Element, Blue Note)
14. Andy Milne + Grégoire Maret, "Moon River" (from Scenarios, ObliqSound)
15. The Nels Cline Singers, "Caved-In Heart Blues" (from Draw Breath, Cryptogramophone)

Lucinda Williams didn't make a standout album this year, and I'm not just saying that because she got the mag I work for (and, by extension, the piece I'd written about her) vociferously boooooed! at a concert I attended last fall. What I think is one of her finest songs is near the top of my mix, and here's a confession: Including it has been kinda therapeutic, because doing so upends a geezered-out bias that's been ruining the MP3 Age for me. Put simply, I'm still so into the idea of albums and the creative scope they're s'posed to signify that at first assembling a year-end mix made me feel dirty. This guilt is palpable in other ways, too: After acquiring a receiver with a fancy USB input this year, I later bought a turntable—the deck being my first in over two decades. Realized two things: 1) how much I miss cover art that's larger than a coaster, and 2) that the one saving grace about that mega-large band I hate enabling its fans to pay anything or nothing for its latest snoozefest is that the buzz seemed to keep the idea that the whole is much, much more than the sum of its parts on the table.

OK, so of the 15 things here, only five came from albums strong enough to make my Top 10 (M.I.A., Gogol Bordello, Amy Winehouse, the Romanian brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia, and Juan Carlos Cacéres, the ringer from a wonderfully idiosyncratic tango compilation). Frankly, I don't know what they say about anything in the music industry, but I will offer that M.I.A., Gogol Bordello and Amy Winehouse are the line-up's patron saints, primarily because each made albums that seem globalist, beat-conscious and expansive enough to be compatible with jazz and whatever else I wanted to throw in. (I'm still kinda floored by this kitchen-sink rundown of Kala's sources.)

Elsewhere, special shout outs to Jack White for channeling the real Led Zeppelin in order to thumb his nose at anti-immigrant sentiment; crooner Curtis Stigers for allowing me to rethink Stephen Merritt; Fanfare Ciocarlia, for assembling a veritable European Union of Gypsies; and the assorted jazzers for continuing, against all commercial odds, to push that rock up the hill with such grace.

K. Leander Williams is a staff writer in the music section at Time Out New York, where he has covered various creative and performing arts. He has contributed to numerous publications, among them Rolling Stone, Blender and The Nation.