ALBUMS
1. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - 15
2. Lil Wayne - The Carter III - 14
3. PJ Harvey - White Chalk - 13
4. Lucinda Williams - West - 12
5. Britney Spears - Blackout - 11
6. Kanye West - Graduation - 9
7. Rihanna - Good Girl Gone Bad - 8
8. Ha Ha Tonka - Buckle in the Bible Belt - 7
9. Brad Paisley - 5th Gear - 6
10. Carrie Underwood - Carnival Ride - 5

TRACKS
1. M.I.A. - Jimmy
2. Rihanna featuring Jay-Z - Umbrella
3. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow ((Hey Oh))
4. Timbaland featuring D.O.E., Keri Hilson, and Sebastian - The Way I Are
5. 50 Cent - I Get Money
6. Taylor Swift - Our Song
7. Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole - Last Night
8. Andy Samberg featuring Adam Levine - Iran So Far
9. Kylie Minogue - 2 Hearts
10. Feist - 1234

ARTISTS
1. Lil Wayne
2. Miranda Lambert
3. Brian De Palma
4. Britney Spears
5. Avant and Bloodshy

COMMENTS
So, this year I wrote more about music more than ever before, (not coincidentally) worked the fewest amount of paid hours of any year in my adult life, moved to a foreign country (okay, Canada), and—just a few days before submitting this ballot—discovered that by this time next year, I'm going to be a parent. My album of the year? Miranda Lambert's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, no content. Of course, it's been my tough-to-top frontrunner since it dropped this past Spring, but it's a fitting choice, at any rate.

As I've settled into the groove of married life and adapted my concerns and instincts accordingly, I've found myself more drawn to country music than ever. Maybe it's that ideas like family, integrity, and commitment are nearer to the front of mind, and they're also ostensibly high priorities for Brad and Kenny and Carrie, too—if not, necessarily, Miranda or Taylor. But it's hard to tell. 2007 was a fantastic year for country music, entirely apart from my personal preoccupations; I suppose it's possible, then, that the dominance of country titles among my favorite releases of the year is merely indicative of Nashville-and-beyond's banner annum. (After all, my no. 2 album is by Lil Wayne, who, whatever else you care to say or write about him, hardly embodies the ideas I'm grappling with these days.)

Either way, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is some kinda masterpiece. Every track's a classic or close, and, yeah, it sounds even better in December than it did back in May, which leads me to both hope and suspect that, some seven months from now, it'll make for a hell of a soundtrack for diaper-changing.