Of all the things that inspired me to start writing here, the incredible output of music this year was not the least. I had to expand my end of the year list to 15, because any other collection would have been arbitrary (well, more arbitrary than making Best Of lists in the first place).

For me, there was a 3-way tie for album of the year, simply because I was equally obsessed with all of them. (I will leave the principled prioritizing of music to the critics, of which I have no desire to be one). Each of these albums would have been the best album in almost any year of the decade.

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

Coming in behind them, but, I think, still in a category of their own:

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
The xx - The xx

And the best of the rest, in no particular order:

Girls - Album
The Antlers - Hospice
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below
Cotton Jones Basket Ride - Paranoid Cocoon
Dark Was the Night - A Red Hot Compilation
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Atlas Sound - Logos
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Flaming Lips - Embryonic

There were a ton of albums that I had to cut that are still heavy in the rotation. As was the case above, a number of vets - Yo La Tengo, Wilco, Camera Obscura, Andrew Bird, DOOM, Robyn Hitchcock, The Thermals, Califone, The Clientele, Sonic Youth, Sunset Rubdown, Deerhunter, Mirah - kept their streaks alive, while some youngins started their own - Bowerbirds, Jack Peñate, St. Vincent, Bibio, Lightning Dust, Times New Viking, Fuck Buttons, Thao, and (by all accounts, though I haven't heard all of it yet) A Sunny Day in Glasgow.

But the debuts this year were particularly outstanding. Fever Ray, Cut Off Your Hands, Washed Out, Suckers, Fool’s Gold, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Neon Indian, Real Estate, Janelle Monae, Delorean, Wavves, and JJ pretty much all came on the scene fully formed, original, and awesome.

For the record, I drafted this up before all the critics lists came out, but looking around at them now, it's exciting to see so many differences of opinion and dozens of albums that I didn't even sniff out this year - which just means more quality sh!% coming our way. Moremoremore. Good times in the music world.

It also means that all these artists need our support more than ever. Go to shows, support artists and your local music scene. Everybody wins.