ALBUMS (10 each)
1. The National - Boxer
2. Okkervil River - The Stage Names
3. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
4. Bodies of Water - Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink
5. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
6. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
7. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
8. Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
9. v/a - I'm Not There OST
10. Sally Shapiro - Disco Romance

TRACKS
1. Rihanna - Umbrella
2. UGK - International Players Anthem
3. Familjen - Det snurrar i min skalle
4. Yeasayer - 2080
5. Still Flyin' - The Bird Is Aware
6. Ida Maria - Oh My God
7. The Broken West - Down in the Valley
8. Spoon - You Got Yr Cherry Bomb
9. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
10. M.I.A. - Bamboo Banga

REISSUES
1. v/a - The Big Stiff Box Set
2. The Traveling Wilburys - The Traveling Wilburys Collection
3. v/a - Eccentric Soul: Twinight's Lunar Rotation
4. v/a - The Heavy Metal Box
5. Karen Dalton - Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes: Live at Boulder 1962

ARTISTS
1. Miranda Lambert
2. The National
3. M.I.A.
4. Spoon
5. Rihanna

COMMENTS
Event of the Year: Moving from Delaware to DC and not only discovering live music again, realizing that I can get on guestlists, feeling a bit country-come-to-town but not caring, seeing Bodies of Water at the Black Cat back room

Biggest musical disconnect: Hearing R. Kelly's Double Up between sets by Bodies of Water and Phosphorescent. The cynic in me immediately figured they were playing it either as kitsch or as some outre post-irony hey-we-like-black-music-too stance, but watching both Meredith Metcalf and preposterously bearded Matthew Houck sing along gleefully as they took down and set up their equipment convinced me that the album was most likely a van fave they were recommending to the audience. All six of us.

A casualty of my earlier year-end lists, where it ranked #2 behind "All My Friends," Rihanna got knocked up to my #1 spot on the singles list after I realized how deviously sexual the song is, despite being as lyrically remedial as Justin's "My Love" and barely even coded as deeply as "Shake, Rattle & Roll." It's not just Rihanna singing "come into me," but more convincingly it's the way she sings the word umbrella, deconstructing it to ella ella and then to its essential Canadian syllable - eh eh eh - a linguistic striptease. It's the most sexually intimate moment in music this year.

If country is now taking its cues from rock, then Miranda Lambert is crossing over by a.) actually rocking (which, of course, makes her a punk in Nashville. Granted, so does covering Gillian Welch), and b.) by rocking with historical precedent. Instead of sounding like New Jersey-era Bon Jovi, Lambert wants to sound like Skynyrd by way of Steve Earle. I'm not sure how that will translate locally, and it's certainly not worth her while pursuing an indie audience, but I'd still love to hear her record with the Drive-By Truckers or the Tennessee Three.