ALBUMS (10 each)
1. M.I.A. - Kala
2. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
3. Carbon/Silicon - The Last post
4. Underworld - Oblivion With Bells
5. Felice Brothers - Adventures of the Felice Brothers Vol. 1
6. Busdriver - Roadkillovercoat
7. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
8. Youth Group - Casino Twilight Dogs
9. Various Artists - Drive XV (Stereogum R.E.M. Tribute)
10. Arctic Monkeys - Favorite Worst Nightmare

TRACKS
1. Dan Le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill
2. Bruce Springsteen - American Land
3. Okkervil River - The President's Dead
4. Jarvis Cocker - Running The World
5. Dizzee Rascal feat Lily Allen - Wanna Be
6. Graham Parker - Stick to the Plan
7. Hearing Double & JCB Soundsystem - London, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down
8. Carbon/Silicon - Buckethead
9. Amy Winehouse - Rehab
10. Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night

REISSUES
1. Three Colors - One Big CD
2. Dexys Midnight Runners - The Projected Passion Revue
3. Pylon - Gyrate Plus
4. Bongos - Drums Along The Hudson
5. Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth

ARTISTS
1. Bruce Springsteen
2. LCD Soundsystem
3. Carbon/Silicon
4. Underworld
5. M.I.A.

COMMENTSSECOND ALBUM SYNDROME

Compiling my Top 10 albums for a couple of magazine polls - because I want my vote to count - I've been struck by how many second albums have shown up on my list. Typically, the second album is the one that gets made in too much of a rush, after a lifetime to prepare the debut. In America, they even have a term for it: the sophomore slump. But this year was more like the sophomore summit: the second albums by LCD Soundsystem, M.I.A., the Arcade Fire and Arctic Monkeys all made my list.

I've been making lists since I was a kid, when I used to compile my own weekly Top 10, so I have fun with the annual polls, even if a part of me opposes trying to define the "Best Of" anything. After all, taste is subjective, right? Well, to some extent it is, but it's amazing all the same how easily the human race reaches consensus. Take almost any album you've enjoyed over the last year, and chances are, you will have most enthused over exactly the same tracks as other fans of that album and chances are, equally, that those tracks will have been or become the singles.

For my part, I always try and make sure my Top 10 list is balanced. That means that these may not be the albums or singles I played the most over the past year; rather, my list is meant to reflect what I always hope to be my wide-ranging (but ultimately, I admit, western and conservative) tastes. Therefore, every one of my top ten is itself a competition. For example, I loved the new albums by both Underworld and Chemical Brothers this year; I find each act continually consistent. But I can't justify putting both in my Top 10 list when there's so much other great music out there, so it's Underworld gets the nod (in part because the Chemical Brothers "We Are The Night" contains not just some of their best dance instrumentals, but also their worst collaboration ever, "The Salmon Dance.") Bruce Springsteen released two great albums this year, but does he really need my vote on either when everyone else has put "Magic" on their top ten lists - or should I find room for a new act that perhaps picks up on his recent jug band spirit, like the Felice Brothers? Certainly, I like to ensure there's a couple of albums on my list that aren't on other peoples', less out of elitism than out of a desire for people to go discover them, and for the artists and labels involved to know that someone out there really did think that much of them: I talk here about not just the Felice Brothers, but Youth Group and Busdriver too, both of which were released on the ever-consistent Anti- label.

Then there's the influence of other writers, and various tastemakers and DJs. Had not the world been raving about M.I.A.'s second album "Kala" - and had I not heard the singles on All Songs Considered, my Podcast of the Year - I might well have passed it up; it's not like I heard or saw enough at the Siren Festival to make me feel that she was the Queen of everything hip (and hop). But now that I own it, I believe that "Kala" is the most sonically astonishing album I've heard in the last five years. It is, perhaps, the only truly 21st Century record on my list. Whether or not I find myself playing it relentlessly through next year is somewhat moot: for sheer musical mash-up global digital creativity, it deserves my nod.

At the same time, I refused to be bullied into agreement. Radiohead's "In Rainbows" is, surely, the best album they've released in a decade, and were it any other act's debut, it may well have made my list. But I'm still on that side of the fence that doesn't quite understand Radiohead. Fortunately, I'm not alone: I quote Carrie Brownstein, formerly of Sleater/Kinney, and now a contributor to All Songs Considered, who discussed it as follows when she chose it as her disappointment of the year:
"The disappointment is not in Radiohead as much as it is in myself. And Radiohead always reminds what a letdown I am because I never really get it. I cannot be the only person who eels that way. I like music that is difficult and challenging but there's this blankness that I can't get over."

Her opinion, however, did not stop All Songs Considered's listeners voting In Rainbows album of the year - or readers, listeners and critics at many other media outlets. As for the incredible fuss about making it available online - and I do applaud the move - I prefer to laud Stereogum webzine's tribute to Automatic For The People, Drive XV, and the Sounds Like Silver LCDRemixed project: each was made available online for free download or streaming, each is still available, and neither asks you to put money in the producer's bank account.

A couple of those online albums individual cuts show up on my Songs of the Year - because that's what that list is there for. It's a chance to highlight the innovative, the unusual, the ephemeral, the throwaway, the single that completely dominated its parent album - and the occasional new classic, like "American Land," hidden away at the end of a double live Bruce Springsteen album.

To be absolutely honest, I did not hear as many new albums this year as usual. In large part, that's because I've been working on a book about old music, which has provided its own long list of newly treasured discoveries. I've also dropped off a number of mailing lists over the last few years, which is equally okay up to a point; I have enough music in my collection that I've never heard properly to last me many lifetimes. But still, as I've looked at other writers/DJs/personal lists, and as I've revisited the lone tracks by said artists that have made it to my iPod or online radio shows, I realize just how many complete albums I'd love to get in my stocking next week. As long as you're not judging it by Grammy nominations, it seems to have been a great year for music of all stripes.

But that brings me to my last major point: that 2007 has seen, at long last, a return from the lengthy album to the "song," increasingly made available for distribution or purchase via MP3. As long as my iPod continues to self-load with KEXP and Indie Feed's Songs of the Day, with All Songs Considered, with the Brilliant show, with the Shortwave Sessions, Music That Matters and the Tripwire Podcast, I feel as well connected to new music as I ever have. And if, in the process, I only get to hear a single great song or two from the best of the new albums, that's okay - because there will be an equally great song or two to hear tomorrow. Goodbye CD store, hello new radio. I love it.

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