ALBUMS (descending points)
1. Eluvium - Copia
2. Explosions In the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
3. Matthew Dear - Asa Breed
4. Horseback - Impale Golden Horn
5. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
6. Panda Bear - Person Pitch
7. Sean Kingston - Sean Kingston
8. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline
9. Paul Hartnoll - The Ideal Condition
10. The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand

TRACKS
1. Jichael Mackson - The Grass Is Always Greener
2. Arcade Fire - Windowsill
3. Nelly Furtado - All Good Things (Come to an End)
4. Panda Bear - Bros
5. Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around ... Comes Around
6. Rihanna - Umbrella
7. The Go Team! - Doing It Right
8. Low - Violent Past
9. Scion and Vainqueur - Resonance
10. Sean Kingston - Beautiful Girls

ARTISTS
1. Eluvium
2. Animal Collective
3. Arcade Fire
4. Matthew Dear
5. Spice Girls

COMMENTS
I was really ambivalent about singles this year, and I have no idea why. I freely admit that my singles/tracks list is boring — you know, too many hits that have been hyped and re-hyped all year by virtually everyone and too many tracks from the albums on my Albums of 2007 list. So, nobody is under any obligation to listen to me when I recommend that you stop whatever you're doing and listen to Jichael Mackson's "The Grass Is Always Greener" because it's a creepy, dubbed out mindfuck of a techno record that completely melts your mind even before the Chris Isaak samples swoop in from out of nowhere.

My Bloody Valentine are coming back (or so they say ... the skeptic in me still wants to hedge his bets) and the My Bloody Valentine of techno *did* come back this year. I'm talking about the healthily underhyped return of Vainqueur, who, in partnership with Substance, released a succession of new singles during the past 12 months. Although all the fundamental elements were still present (thumping beats, gratuitous use of echo and delay, whooshing sounds, etc.) there was still something missing, something that didn't quite click. Maybe it's because it felt like Lowe + Kuschnereit were trying to faithfully reconstruct their past records completely from memory, rather than aiming to use their formidable skills to forge something new and original. See, these guys have more in common with MBV than you might think. As much as you (and me) would like to think that Kevin Shields has another "Loveless" in him, it's more likely that we'll end up with a facsimile of a 1997 Flying Saucer Attack album with added vacuum cleaner-esque feedback.

Like many people, I presume, I'm torn between rubbing my hands with glee in anticipation of the next Amy Winehouse drug-addled public humiliation/fuckup, and begging for it all to stop so that the poor girl can get some help before she dies.