Not every track on this album is amazing, but a goodly number of them are, and it hangs together as an album better than anything else released this year.

I love BRMC! Another totally solid, totally rocking album from them, with no bad tracks on it.

Clever, funny, filthy lyrics over amazing beats. You can hate Kanye, but you can't deny, the man has talent.

The Roots pretty much get a free pass onto my top ten list, too. I just can't get over how good this band is. Almost every track they put out has me instantly grooving the first time I hear it.

It's Spoon, man. If Spoon puts out an album in a year, it's pretty much guaranteed a spot on my top ten list for that year. Spoon rocks. This album is their usual collection of songs that are either great or merely very good.

There's something about the way Girl Talk mixes together pop music - even bad pop music - that I find irresistible. Their latest is more of the same: bits of tunes you've heard on the radio keep popping up in strange new contexts while you bop your head. Girl Talk is meta-music: the music you know, rewoven into something new and brilliant.

I'm cheating a bit here and bundling two amazing techno soundtracks together. Trent Reznor can sometimes go wrong when he's writing lyrics, but when he's doing instrumental, he's golden. His work on The Social Network is evocative and moving. I haven't had a lot of time to mull over the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, as I only just downloaded it, but I've been listening to pieces of it for some time, and at this point I find it impossible to believe I'm suddenly going to come across a really awful track that I just can't stand. It's the perfect backbeat to a trip through a technological fantasy land.

I've got a soft spot for fast-paced metal with lots of shouting, and that's what this is. Quality!

Danger Mouse + The Shins' frontman = the collaboration responsible for one of this year's catchiest tracks, "The High Road." There are plenty of other great songs backing it up here, too.

I'm not a huge fan of the mellow indie rock of Dr. Dog, but this is such a solid album full of so many catchy songs, especially the title track, that I couldn't deny it a spot on my list.