ALBUMS (descending points)
1. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3
2. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
3. Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta!
4. M.I.A. - Kala
5. LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
6. Against Me! - New Wave
7. James Murphy & Pat Mahoney - FabricLive 36
8. Pig Destroyer - Phantom Limb
9. Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English
10. Radiohead - In Rainbows

TRACKS
1. Lil Wayne - We Takin' Over
2. UGK w/ Outkast - International Players Anthem
3. Journey - Don't Stop Believin'
4. The-Dream - Fast Car
5. Rihanna - Umbrella
6. Tinariwen - Matadjem Yinmixan
7. The New Pornographers - Challengers
8. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
9. Marnie Stern - Every Single Line Means Something
10. Miranda Lambert - Famous in a Small Town

REISSUES
1. Culture - Two Sevens Clash
2. Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
3. Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
4. Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On
5. Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

ARTISTS
1. Lil Wayne
2. Radiohead
3. Miranda Lambert
4. Journey
5. Prefab Sprout

COMMENTS
Everyone keeps talking about what a terrible year it was for hip-hop, but from where I sit & listen, with two top-notch Lil Wayne mixes, very good records from Ghostface, Dizzee, & the Wu, a left-field wonder from Prodigy, & jaw-meets-floor tracks from UGK & Rihanna (is she hip-hop? if not why not?), the year in rap sounds a lot more appealing than the monolithic coos of Arcade Fire (& thank you, Jesus, for keeping the Decemberists from releasing an album this year).

But I spent most of the year, for weird personal reasons, listening to eighties power-pop & postpunk: the dB's, Prefab Sprout, the Vulgar Boatmen, Aztec Camera, the Feelies, the Go-Betweens, the Mekons: these were my artists of the year, just as they were two decades ago. Inherent to the "danger in frustration" (as a country singer who came closer to this music than anyone else in 2007 has it) is, it would seem, nostalgia, which probably also explains the geekout I suffered as I watched the closing minutes of _The Sopranos_. "Nostaliga," T. J. Clark writes: "that most realistic of interpretative tropes." Can I borrow your yacht?