20. Dizzee Rascal: Showtime (XL)

“Dizzee whooew?” I’ll be damned if Rascit’s dirty London accent will get tired, but the revelation of Showtime is that his inventive production keeps up with the MC’s smart rhyming. While the actual meter and rhyme schemes of Showtime’s songs aren’t always as easily brilliant as those of Boy in Da Corner, the improved eye on production makes up for it on ingenious tracks like “Stand Up Tall,” (Showtime’s answer to Boy’s “Fix Up Look Sharp”) and the incomparably tight, hook-ruled “Imagine.”

19. A.C. Newman: The Slow Wonder (Matador/The Blue Curtain)

It’s hard to say why Carl Newman’s compositions tend to have a short half-life. I’ll readily concede that it may be a matter of my personal taste as opposed to Newman’s songwriting ability, which is endlessly impressive. But something about those melodies grows grating, perhaps in their na’ve innocence. Nonetheless, it’s certainly maintained a greater deal of lasting power than either of Newman’s New Pornographer’s records, and a number of its hooks are pure gold ’ be it the famous cello hook of “Town Halo” or the three ingenious hooks of “Miracle Drug.” One moment, “Christine,” stands out for me above the rest for its one moment of semi-darkness on an album brimming with light. Then again, that might just mean I’m a sadsack.

18. Secret Machines: Now Here is Nowhere (Warner)

Speaking of men from Texas and “mandates,” I’ve got a mandate for you…ah fuck it. So they relocated to New York, but Now Here is Nowhere sounds nothing like any of the rest of the New York scene. Relatively, the Secret Machines’ brand of space-rock is pretty unique, and Now Here is Nowhere expands it handily from its already-impressive birth in September 000. Growing outward and upward into a powerhouse of a three-man band, NHIN is massive and precise, a chugging monolith of grinding rhythm, laser-beam guitar lines, and celestial keyboard work. Yet for all its mechanized grandeur, NHIN has a full beating heart, brimming with love and rebellion. On the duck’s-ass tight “Sad and Lonely,” the group hits emotional chord after emotional chord while hammering down hooks to boot, and on the epic “Chains,” a heart-wrenching melody pervades its slow build. But it’s “First Wave Intact” that embodies the Secret Machines best: a relentless beast full of tension and release, the likes of which has no semblable in cold, cool New York.

17. Brian Wilson ’ Smile (Nonesuch)

I’ve never liked the Beach Boys (gasp!), and Smile is not going to change that. But out of sheer respect for Wilson’s ability to compose melodies like almost nothing else, and produce arrangements of the finest caliber, it’s got to have its spot on this list. To me, it sounds rather dated, and I find most of the Beach Boys’ output made period-pieces with time. But despite my notions of the group’s irrelevance, you have to give compositional skill its due, even if it doesn’t particularly resonate with you.

16. The Dreadful Yawns: Early (Undertow)

Early is one of those “slow-burners.” You, and the album itself, begin without really knowing where it’s going to go, and so it lingers in the field of pretty folk before blooming like an orgasm into an ecstasy of psych-folk that’s both daring and cleverly wrought. “Was I Just Struck by Lightning?” is my bid for folk track of the year, and “Circles” comes in a neck-and-neck second, glazing the most melancholic of melodies with smooth, beautiful instrumentation. Far from being what their name suggests, The Dreadful Yawns are exciting as hell.

15. The Icarus Line: Penance Soir’e (V2)

File under: delightful sleaze. The Icarus Line sleazes all over your ass, and then your girlfriend’s ass, and then your mom. Penance Soir’e is plain uninterested in taking prisoners, indiscriminate in who it tears to pieces. But for all its apparent chaos, it’s packed with skill, deft time-signature changes, and more parent-scaring riffs than your bewildered brain can count. This band wants to make you think they don’t give a fuck, but the fact is that while they’ll throw beer all over your hubbie, they won’t be too drunk to beat the shit out of him with some seriously precise kung fu if he tries to start something. I’ll be damned if I won’t comply when the album closes with that infamously ridiculously appropriate chant “Take off / All your clothes.”

14. Illogic: Celestial Clockwork (Weightless)

I’ll leave the more astute hip-hop commentary to Mr. Chet Betz or Sir Peter Hepburn; but Illogic has the kind of sick flow and smart production that can appeal to even a casual hip-hop fan. Not merely literate, but genuinely insightful, Illogic’s handy brand of sampling and intelligent rhymes blow away all but Madvillain in the hip-hop department. Celestial Clockwork is the kind of landmark hip-hop album that’s bound to resonate for a long time to come—carefully personal, but broad-minded, it’s a nearly flawless m’lange of flow style and musical substance.

13. We Versus the Shark: Ruin Everything! (Hello Sir!)

Out of Atlanta Georgia, We Versus the Shark crash to earth on the tail end of the dance-punk flame-out, an unexpected kick in the pants from a “genre” from which we’ve come to expect failure. But WVS is so successful precisely because they’re not really dancepunks ’ they’re just a bunch of maniacal skill-freaks who happen to love a deep groove or five. Ruin Everything! plays like its title suggests, but in a good way; the group hardly ever lets any particular musical phrase or passage live longer than a minute or so before pummelling it and moving onto their next idea. The result is an album that’s often startlingly melodic (“As Good as it Gets”), and equally often a punch in dancepunk’s lazy face (“This Graceless Planet” clusterfucks the entire horde of kids who think a disco beat means a dancepunk tune). It’s a piece of genius—a genius which, refined and made less schizophrenic, could result in a future album for the ages.

12. Madvillain: Madvillainy (Stones Throw)

MF Doom has released something like two hundred and fifty-six various efforts this year, but of all of them only Madvillainy, with partner in crime Quasimoto, seems nigh-insurmountable. Doom’s flow is positively disgusting on some of these tracks, and the crackling, dusty sampling and production throughout sneakily invites you into what seems an innocuous to be flattened by the skill involved in its construction. So hot it can hardly be touched.

11. Stars: Set Yourself on Fire (Paper Bag)

Surprise, surprise. Stars have made another pop gem. The Canadian pop group have an uncanny knack for melody and hooks that only improves from release to release. On Set Yourself on Fire, it’s expanded with a good deal more sound, some sheer noise, and an eclectic songwriting ethic that ranges from the spare (“Celebration Guns”) to Manitoba levels of lovely lushness (“He Lied about Death”). The articulate range of pop-songwriting on Set Yourself on Fire not only improves upon Heart’s more string-heavy pop, but suggests a number of messier directions in which the band could go. Isn’t it nice to consistently have great expectations met and exceeded?