Best of the top 10s
The final votes are in, from Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound and The Guardian, and AnyDecentMusic can at last give the final word on the definitive Albums of 2009, in the Best Of The Best Ofs conclusive listing.
We've rounded up the ratings from a series of Best Ofs. The end result, we reckon, provides a comprehensive reflection of what's been providing the maximum musical pleasure in the widest number of reviewers' headphones for the past 12 months.
For anyone who's been paying attention, it's no surprise to see Animal Collective a million miles ahead of the competition. If you were a bookmaker, you'd have stopped taking bets on that sometime around late spring.
And the odds on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wild Beasts and Grizzly Bear being up there would have been pretty short.
But there have been surprises. The XX came out of nowhere with their debut album, as lauded in America as on home soil in the UK.
And who could have foreseen electronic noise manipulators the Fuck Buttons conquering all and sundry - even after they'd teamed up with super-producer Andy Weatherall.
Eclectic pop of a variety of shades is well represented in the upper reaches of the list, and it's probably fair to say that on this evidence, indie pop has been the most fertile ground during the past 12 months.
British rock also retains a healthy presence, with The Horrors, the Manics and Kasabian flying the flag.
It's not been a vintage year for hip hop, however, with the most respectable showings coming from a couple of veterans, Raekwon and Mos Def, and similarly, fans of extreme guitar noise will have to scour the list to find material to their liking.
Who knows, it could all change next year. That's why we love it.
Top 10: Uncut, Mojo, Q, Music OMH, Clash, NME, The Quietus, Spin, Sunday Times, Pop Matters, Pitchfork, Drowned in Sound, The Guardian, Line Of Best Fit, Rolling Stone
(10 for 1st place, 9 for 2nd etc)
- 112 Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion
- 57 The XX XX
- 52 Grizzly Bear Veckatimest
- 51 Wild Beasts Two Dancers
- 49 Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz
- 44 The Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca
- 42 Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Pheonix
- 36 Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport
- 33 The Horrors Primary Colours
- 26 Manic Street Preachers Journal For..
- 25 Fever Ray Fever Ray
- 23 Florence & The Machine Lungs
- 17 St Vincent Actor
- 12 Bob Dylan Together Through Life
- 12 U2 No Line On The Horizon
- 10 Kasabian West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
- 10 Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II
- 10 Sunn O))) Monoliths And Dimensions
- 09 Bat For Lashes Two Suns
- 09 Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were...
- 09 Neko Case Middle Cyclone
- 09 Noah And The Whale The First Days Of Spring
- 09 Nneka No Longer At Ease
- 09 Bruce Springsteen Working On A?Dream
- 09 Super Furry Animals Dark Days/Light Years
- 08 The Avett Brothers I And Love And You
- 08 Richard Hawley Truelove's Gutter
- 07 The Flaming Lips Embryonic
- 07 Girls Album
- 07 Jay-Z The Blueprint 3
- 07 Madness The Liberty Of Norton Folgate
- 06 Green Day 21st Cebtury Breakdown
- 06 HEALTH Get Colour
- 06 Tinariwen Imidiwn: Companions
- 05 Arctic Monkeys Humbug
- 05 Jamie T Kings And Queens
- 05 Oneida Rated O
- 04 Gyratory System The Sound Board Breathes
- 04 Mos Def The Ecstatic
- 04 The Big Pink A Brief History Of Love
- 04 The Hidden Cameras Origin: Orphan
- 04 Muse The Resistance
- 04 The Twilight Sad Forget The Night Ahead
- 04 Wilco Wilco (The Album)
- 03 The-Dream Love Vs Money
- 03 Gnaw Their Tongues All The Dread...
- 03 Lily Allen It's Not Me, It's You
- 03 Mastodon Crack The Sky
- 03 Micachu And The Shapes Jewelry
- 03 Monsters Of Folk Mosnters Of Folk
- 03 Sonic Youth The Eternal
- 02 Andrew Weatherall A Pox On The Pioneers
- 02 Drake So Far Gone
- 02 Japandroids Post-nothing
- 02 La Roux La Roux
- 01 Cold Cave Love Comes Close
- 01 Dave Rawlings Machine A Friend Of A Friend
- 01 The Dead Weather Horehound
- 01 Miranda Lambert Revolution
- 01 Paramore Brand New Eyes
And the ADM top 20
- 8.4 Animal Collective
- 8.4 Sun O)))
- 8.3 Grizzly Bear
- 8.3 Fuck Buttons
- 8.2 Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- 8.1 The XX
- 8.1 Tinariwen
- 8.1 Raekwon
- 8.0 Dave Rawlings Machine
- 8.0 The Dirty Projectors
- 8.0 Fever Ray
- 7.9 Manic Street Preachers
- 7.8 HEALTH
- 7.8 Micachu And The Shapes
- 7.8 Sonic Youth
- 7.7 Girls
- 7.7 Madness
- 7.7 Mos Def
- 7.7 Wilco
- 7.7 Wild Beasts