The start of a new decade brought a literal sprawl of exciting and excellent new music to desk of MXDWN this year, arguably more than we’ve ever seen before. This final list, picked and ranked by our various writers and editors, captures what we feel to be the cream of the crop of what we heard and enjoyed over the last twelve months, both in quality and diversity. Hopefully you will either agree for discover a new favorite for yourself. Either way, we give you MXDWN’s 40 Favorite Albums of 2010. Enjoy!

40. Twin Shadow – Forget

Despite its misleading title, George Lewis, Jr.’s debut is seeped in memory, both of great love and even greater music past. Catchy but thoughtul, danceable yet sophisticated, this album sports ’80s pop nostalgia in a way that’s thoroughly of the moment, and in the instances of songs like “I Can’t Wait” and “Slow,” even timeless. In “Castles in the Snow,” Lewis asserts “you’re my favorite daydream.” This year, and likely for years to come, the feeling is 100% mutual.

By Robert Huff

39. Surfer Blood – Astro Coast

Surfer Blood make guitar rock look easy – or should that be breezy? The Florida quintet, led by singer/guitarist John Paul Pitts, separate themselves from the ongoing surf/beach craze a bit by actually knowing how to play their instruments. No indie rock album had so many melodic guitar lines this year – check out the effortless riff that opens “Floating Vibes” or the bouncy solo in “Fast Jabroni” that could go on ad infinitum. And which hook in breakout hit “Swim” is the actual chorus? Who knows, but each reverb-soaked one is better and catchier than the last. Here’s hoping for more soon – the group just signed to Warner Bros. Records.

By Dan Wisniewski

38. Girl Talk – All Day

Gregg Gillis’ DJ business model simultaneously cheapens and enhances dance music—he exemplifies a democratized ideal of production and promotion, yet you half expect “so easy, a caveman could do it” sloganeering stamped on the downloadable album cover. Still, this mix does exactly what his previous ones have done: forwarded the ideas of DJs as tastemaking stars and mashups as not dead.

By Adam Blyweiss

37. Intronaut – Valley of Smoke

Adding vocals to an accomplished instrumental band is always a gamble. Fortunately, Intronaut draws talent from within for Valley Of Smoke, featuring lead guitarist Sacha Dunable stepping up to the microphone. It’s clear that the instrumentals still come first, as Dunable slides his new bellow in between Dave Timnick’s guitar-scapes, Joe Lester’s agile fretless bass work, and Danny Walker’s jazz-inflected drumming. It may have begun as a gamble, but now it’s a sure thing. Don’t miss “Elegy,” “Above,” and “Core Relations”.

By Josh Neale

36. Deadmau5 – 4×4 = 12

Though the title may indicate a certain suckiness at math, the lastest floor-filler from Canadian producer Joel Zimmerman sounds no less calculated for it. Though unmixed, this throbbing, pulsing, snapping non-stop set flows as well as any modern DJ set, with an energy, abandon and confidence that rivals anything from Daft Punk or Ed Banger. Not bad for someone who walks around sporting a giant illuminated mouse head.

By Robert Huff

35. The Gaslight Anthem – American Slang

If Joe Strummer and Bruce Springsteen somehow co-fathered a child and then raised him on a consistent diet of Tom Waits albums and Ben E. King singles, that child would go on to make this album. With a proportional mix of enthusiasm, melancholy, regret and hope, The Gaslight Anthem offers up sincere accounts of their views of the American Dream. As TGA’s third full-length, American Slang reveals a more confident, mature group of Jersey boys that have learned to be deliberate in every musical choice they make.

By Nick Vadala

34. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – The Brutalist Bricks

If you’ve never been on the Ted Leo bandwagon, now would be a good time to find some room. The Midwest-born, New Jersey-bred rocker has always created rough-hewn art that’s equal parts lovestruck and angry, heroic and drunk. This band’s ninth album also manages to split the difference between power-pop’s British roots and the weirdest of West Coast punk.

By Adam Blyweiss

33. Robyn – Body Talk

Swedish dance pop sensation Robyn had the equivalent of a super-release in 2010. She released Body Talk in three discrete and unique versions named Body Talk Pt.1, Pt. 2, and Pt. 3. All three contain polished dance anthems with throbbing bass and modern electronic effects. Robyn’s beautiful and deceptively innocent vocals soar over pounding electronic grooves, pop noises, and even classical instruments like piano and strings. She also reaches out to other genres with “Dancehall Queen,” featuring the dubstep wobble of Diplo, and Snoop Dogg appears on “U Should Know Better.”

By Ryan Hill

32. The Dillinger Escape Plan – Option Paralysis

Vocalist Greg Puciato has come into his own on The Dillinger Escape Plan’s newest, Option Paralysis. Ranging from the harshest, aneurysm-inducing scream to the softest, friendliest croon, Puciato puts the perfect bow on DEP’s trademark style of dark-prog- avant-garde-latin-jazz-math-insanity. The entire album, as well, ranges from nonstop headbangers like “Good Neighbor” to the sweet piano strains of “Widower.” Don’t miss “Farewell, Mona Lisa,” “Endless Endings,” and “Widower.”

By Josh Neale

31. Baths – Cerulean

As warm or chilling as his namesake may suggest, so much of Baths’s debut plays like a glorious accident, like Will Weisenfeld literally sat down and shit out every beat, every glitch and somehow stuck the landing. However true the rumors of improvisation may be, Cerulean’s seeming sloppiness gives it a welcome sense of spontaneity and sincerity that too often gets lost in this genre’s cold calculation.

By Robert Huff

30. Sleepy Sun – Fever

Delving into the darker pieces of psych and blues rock, San Francisco’s Sleepy Sun found their groove on Fever. The band wowed us at SXSW this year, bringing an epic series of rock tunes to their set and then playing with an entire children’s orchestra. The group’s two singers Bret Constantino and Rachel Fannan share harmonies while the band weaves mounting sonic tapestries. “Marina” and “Wild Machines” manage to undulate through numerous styles evoking dark times, tremulant tension and bombastic success all at once. It’s a shame that just as they were getting going Fannan has already departed the group as of late October.

By Raymond Flotat

29. Sufjan Stevens – The Age of Adz

After favoring an orchestral meditation of the decidedly un-poetic Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, an EP, and a set of outtakes, the prolific Sufjan Stevens seemingly returned to form for the first time since his 2005 hit, Come On Feel the Illinoise, with The Age of Adz. But oh what a change! Gone are the fluttery vocals, choral work, and gentle homespun warmth usually supplied by banjo, strings, and chipper horns that won over audiences. In their place, Stevens has created a challenging disc of electronic art that is both fascinating and, at times, a difficult listen. While this isn’t the first time a traditionally “acoustic” artist has gone electronic (recent memory brings to mind Bright Eyes’ Digital Ash in a Digital Urn), one is hard pressed to consider an artist who has so completely embraced an alternate sound and made it his or her own.

By Alyssa Fried

28. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma

Flying Lotus defines the Los Angeles electronic scene today, and Cosmogramma proves why. Here, Steven Ellison is untouchable, a Mozart of blips and bleeps and this is his masterpiece concerto. Tempos come and go as quick as lightning and layers stack higher than a Jenga tower. The flow builds stronger and stronger to the point of no return. Then he drops “Do the Astral Plane,” and it’s all over.

By Ann Coates

27. Caribou – Swim

Another peak effort from an artist who tops himself with each release. Just as Andorra’s lead off track “Melody Day” perfectly summed up that album’s swirling, psychedelic beach pop, “Odessa” perfectly encapsulates this record’s haunting, headphone-friendly dance pop. Dan Snaith cribs from Arthur Russell’s avant disco and Junior Boy’s squelching electronica and manages to trump the best work of both in the process. The sun is still here (“Sun! Sun! Sun!”) but it’s being used for a mirrorball now. It’s shines prettier in the dark anyway.

By Robert Huff

26. Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family – Good Children Go to Heaven

Underneath the flurry of babble across the “blogosphere” about the “it” bands of the moment, seven-piece Parisian group Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree gracefully brought an outside look to the greatest traditions of American music. With varying vocalists (and a guest turn from TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe on “That Song”) and dexterous, maleable skill, the band’s debut album Good Children Go to Heaven was a revelation. Alternating in subject matter between songs about love and the attempts to find an audience in adversarial music industry, this album brims over with ideas and ambition. Check out the crescendo on “Brooklyn” and “Time” for a real treat.

By Raymond Flotat

25. Nas and Damian Marley – Distant Relatives

Nas and Damian Marley teamed up to produce a resounding piece of work in Distant Relatives. The son of Bob, Damian Marley’s roots and reggae influences create a grooving musical backdrop to Nas’ lyrical onslaught. The use of live instruments sets this album apart from the typical hip-hop album and adds an earthy feel. The political message is conveyed that we are all ‘distant relatives’ from Africa and therefore brothers and sisters.

By Ryan Hill

24. Spoon – Transference

It can be easy to take a band that has been around for as long as Spoon for granted, particularly when they remain as engaging and consistent. Shame on those fair weather listeners who may overlook this latest outing from the indie rock vets, which pairs the accessibility of their past two efforts with the sloppy spontaneity of their earlier outings. The result is a record that proves Spoon won’t be going anywhere anytime soon, nor should they be forgotten.

By Robert Huff

23. Tweak Bird – Tweak Bird

Tweak Bird stand out immediately due to their “power duo” format. Lesser acts would falter, but brothers Caleb and Ashton Bird (on baritone guitar and drums, respectively) make it sound as if there are 100 people on stage. Their unique brand of concise stoner- pop-rock displayed on Tweak Bird has catapulted them into the spotlight, where they’ll hopefully remain for a long time to come. Don’t miss songs “The Future,” “Tunneling Through,” and “Distant Airways.”

By Josh Neale

22. Liars – Sisterworld

With “Scissor,” Liars opens with the strongest intro to the most underrated and overlooked album of the year. Sisterworld, a collection of mind-fucking drone and psyche-bending fuzz, haunts the deepest trenches of the dark soul. “Scarecrows On A Killer Slant” splits thoughts in half as the repetitive guitar-and-bass combo terrorize better than any Saturday night B-movie slasher marathon. Sisterworld scars listeners, in the best way possible.

By Ann Coates

21. The Roots – How I Got Over

Just when music fans had counted The Roots out, they dug deep and delivered their best album in years, How I Got Over. Making a day-to-day highlight reel out of their role as the house band for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the band amazingly found time to record this record all the while, drawing extra inspiration from some of drummer/bandleader ?uestlove’s favorite guests from the show. In addition to Jim James and the rest of Monsters of Folk, Joanna Newsom, members of Dirty Projectors, John Legend joined the standard guests of P.O.R.N. and Dice Raw. How I Got Over is true hip-hop soul. It’s an endearing and thoughful look at the world encapsulated by a band that can really play.

By Raymond Flotat

20. The Black Keys – Brothers

The Keys don’t necessarily reinvent the wheel with this album—and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—but they do make it work a little more efficiently. In a return from 2008’s Danger Mouse-produced Attack & Release, Brothers represents a tighter, more inspired version of what fans the Keys’ fuzzy blues-rock have always come to expect. With tighter guitar and drum work and a marked expansion in vocalist Dan Auerbach’s range, this album sets itself apart from the rest of the Black Keys catalog while maintaining the duo’s signature tone.

By Nick Vadala

19. Vampire Weekend – Contra

Given the breakthrough success of their debut album, and the ominous loom of the dreaded “sophomore slump,” Vampire Weekend played it safe by sticking to the sound that made them famous. Their plucky guitars and cute-pop sensibility work with the Graceland-like perfusion of cross-cultural rhythms and Ezra Koenig’s delicate voice. Add a dash of The Police’s post-punk adventurousness on tracks as varied as the adrenaline-induced single “Cousins,” the charming calm of “Taxi Cab,” or the quirky “I Think Ur A Contra,” and VW reveals itself as a band carefully evolving before our eyes.

By Alyssa Fried

18. Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here

Almost 16 years since his last album Gil Scott-Heron return suddenly in 2010 with I’m New Here, an album where he dabbled playfully with the genres he helped to influence all those many years ago. Scott-Heron recounts a heartfelt story of his upbringing by his grandmother Lily Scott and how her care for him still effects his decisions to this day. The results are ominous, as numbers flirt with brooding trip-hop, piano ballads and minimilist hip-hop beats without ever descending into mimicry. All the while Scott-Heron either emotes with broken longing or recites spoken words with nuanced poise. They sure don’t make ’em like this anymore, and thank goodness Gil Scott-Heron is still here to show us how it can be done.

By Raymond Flotat

17. Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles II

If the first Crystal Castles was grade school, then Crystal Castles II is the Ivy League equivalent simply for the fact that duo Ethan Kath and Alice Glass graduated from noisemakers to songwriters. For the first time, Glass breaks out of her robot exoskeleton and finally becomes human (“Celestica”) if only for a brief, beautiful moment, a label never before thought possible for Crystal Castles. A first, yes indeed, but even the ruckus of “Doe Deer“ and “Baptism” carries a noticeable human element left out, perhaps deliberately, before. Mature may not be the sound Crystal Castles are looking for, but sure enough they’ve found it.

By Ann Coates

16. The Glitch Mob – Drink the Sea

The line between electronic and rock music continually fades as Drink the Sea marches toward the finish line. The Glitch Mob trio command high-tech gadgetry and live electronics just as hard as any given front man or axeman. And that’s what sets Ooah, Boreta, and edit apart from the slew of laptop-based producers and DJs. They play songs. The Glitch Mob perform. And Drink the Sea is their coming out party.

By Ann Coates

15. Evelyn Evelyn – Evelyn Evelyn

An old-time radio play for the 21st century, Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer and Seattle busking veteran Jason Webley construct a musical mythology that’s an American Gothic capital-O Odyssey. Conjoined twin sisters are both the subjects and bards of a tale of abuse and survival told most appropriately against a backdrop of accordion, fiddle, and prepared piano, the theatrics of country and conceptual rock crashing into each other.

By Adam Blyweiss

14. Hot Chip – One Life Stand

The British quintet continue to make the most unlikely electro-pop albums ever. This one ping-pongs from midtempo pensiveness in “Alley Cats” to pounding grooves in work like the title track and “Hand Me Down Your Love.” Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard are the meekest dancefloor vocal duo going today. Cripes, the unifying sonic element on here is steel drum, of all things. Even more curious? This fourth entry in the Hot Chip catalog is as nicely paced as and even more exciting than their 2006 breakthrough The Warning.

By Adam Blyweiss

13. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

This is Big Boi’s tour de force. An extremely musically and lyrically layered album, Sir Lucious Left Foot sees the oft-overlooked second half of the legendary Outkast claim his spot head-and-shoulders above his spacey counterpart, Andre 3000. With guest spots from Jamie Foxx, Yelawolf and Vonnegut, Big Boi builds up a thoughtfully weird, hilariously perverted vision unlike anything else he has ever released.

By Nick Vadala

12. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest

It may be getting harder and harder to tell Bradford Cox’s musical endeavors apart, but it’s also gotten damn near impossible to resist either. And his latest Deerhunter Digest may just be his best yet, which is truly saying something given how much shit he puts out there nowadays. Spawned from the memories of the great music of his youth, this gorgeous effort is both memorable and dreamlike, enveloped in a gorgeous haze of yesteryear while twinkling with new possibilities for both Cox’s sound and sound in general. And Lockett Pundt remains ever his secret weapon, delivering two of the best songs of the band’s career in the perky “Memory Boy” and the mammoth “Desire Lines.”

By Robert Huff

11. The Melvins – The Bride Screamed Murder

Unlike any of their contemporaries, almost 30 years into their existence The Melvins musical output just gets better and better. Their newest album The Bride Screamed Murder is a epic evolution of the band’s increasing strength, taking the brutal efficiency of (A) Senile Animal and nuanced wackiness of Nude With Boots and blending them together for some of their best no-nonsense songwriting yet. There’s real drama in these songs too. “Pig House,” “The Water Glass” and “Electric Flower” each show an uncanny knack for musical ebb and tide. It’s not that the left turns are so shocking, but moreso that just about any given one can knock you right off your feet. Music loving word: it’s time to give The Melvins the respect they deserve!

By Raymond Flotat

10. Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me

OK. I’m not going to go into the whole labored process of trying to defend Joanna Newsom’s merit as an artist here. You either love her or you hate her at this point, and lord knows she’s given people plenty of reason to do both. What I will say, however, is that this is undeniably her best album to date, merging the strengths of both of its predecessors with none of their weaknesses. Nowhere near as daunting as they may seem on first glance, these songs breath and flow without an ounce of padding or pretense, length be damned (and yes, “Go Long” and “Baby Birch” have every right to be that damn long). Additionally, Newsom continues to push and expand her virtuosic skills as a musician as well as her breezy grace as a songwriter, giving her work simultaneously more warmth and more whimsy than it has ever had before. If you love her, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you hate her, your loss.

By Robert Huff

9. Daft Punk – TRON Legacy Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

The duo comprising one of France’s greatest musical exports sure know how to apologize. For five years they’ve been making up for Human After All, their toss-off of a third studio album, by doing what all good suitors do: showering us with gifts. In that time, the helmeted minds of Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter delivered a tour and live album merging monstrously upgraded bedroom production, the keen on-the-fly arrangement sensibilities first found in hip-hop’s blends, and stagecraft not seen in the best Broadway dramas, let alone the dancefloor. They even wrote and filmed their own art-house movie, the experimental robot buddy flick Electroma. Now, still unsatisfied with their efforts to satisfy music, tech, and storytelling geeks worldwide, they combine those to develop a proper film soundtrack for Tron: Legacy, a sequel to Disney’s 1982 cult classic Tron. While nobody’s going to mistake these guys for John Williams or Henry Mancini, the pair more than hold their own when it comes to this type of composition. Wrangling overtures and adagios, merging orchestral elements with electronic ones (as in the pulsing “The Game Has Changed”), embracing their digital side from exposition through end titles, even squeezing out a single of sorts in “Derezzed,” Daft Punk manage to legitimize electronica’s presence, well, pretty much everywhere.

By Adam Blyweiss

8. The National – High Violet

Middle-age apathy should be a tough sell – which makes The National’s continuing success so welcome. The Brooklyn group has spent the last decade honing their I’m-a-depressed-guy-in-a-suit brand of baroque pop/rock, and High Violet highlights a band at the top of their game. No one does bitter frontman better than baritone head guy Matt Berninger, and here, as on lurching finale “Lemonhead” and lyrical showstopper “Conversation 16,” he continues to find clever yet heart wrenching ways to rifle off his midlife insecurities. And drummer Bryan Daendorf, ousted long ago as the band’s secret weapon, still writes the hookiest drums lines in indie rock – his stutter-stop timekeeping “Bloodbuzz Ohio” propels the tune to tense heights. Maybe middle-age apathy isn’t such a tough sell after all – the album managed to hit #3 on the Billboard 200.

By Dan Wisniewski

7. The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards

The sophomore release from Jack White’s newest project is a sonic assault organized behind the façade of muffed-out stoner rock gone completely fucking crazy. It often sounds as if White and co-vocalist Alison Mosshart are tearing each others’ hearts out in a vicious lover’s spat, with both singers running the gamut from low-end growls to high-pitched sneers. Primarily a guitar driven album, and gloriously so, the lo-fi, roughed-up Sea of Cowards sporadically gives way to scorching keyboard parts that rival the fury and swagger of Dean Fertita’s beautifully discordant guitar solos. The frequently disconnected, macho bluesy lyrics are reinforced by the rest of the groups nonchalant, natural playing, resulting ultimately in a completely engrossing aural acid trip.

By Nick Vadala

6. Beach House – Teen Dream

Though apt in many ways, the title of Beach House’s triumphant third album is something of a misnomer. Though the latter part is a perfect summation of the gossamer sounds created and feelings evoked, the album oozes a maturity years beyond its former qualifier. Alex Scally’s sonic textures have finally freed themselves from the fog that weighed past efforts down from true greatness, while Victoria Legrand’s increasingly iconic vocals simultaneously sound clearer and rougher than ever before. Those exposed edges to her performance only make the longing and mournfulness in songs like the smoky “Silver Soul,” the slinky “Lover of Mine,” and the soaring “10 Mile Stereo” at once more visceral and more sexual, more human and more otherworldly. You know, like those dreams you always remember fondest.

By Robert Huff

5. Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

Newcomer Janelle Monáe has brought the concept album back with her first full-length that defies genre categorization and is refreshingly creative. Janelle sounds like a lounge singer from outer space with stunning vocals and The ArchAndroid has a cinematic feel, similar to a movie soundtrack. The album’s theme is based on the 1927 German silent film Metropolis. Even the album cover goes along with this theme. Monáe’s clappin’ rhythms have a fast lyrical onslaught, island beats, and stellar guitar licks and solos. The album has world music influences with a Shakira-esque sound, disco beats and jazzy elements that add spice to the mix. There are also Lauren Hill soul ballads and, occasionally, a touch of Madonna. There are even a few ‘intermission’ tracks of classical overtures. Big Boi is a featured artist on the song “Tightrope,” which is a James Brown-influenced standout. Overall, The ArchAndroid is a stellar debut worthy of praise for its artistry and originality.

By Ryan Hill

4. The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

The Arcade Fire continued to carefully construct their catalog with the release of their highly acclaimed third album, The Suburbs. As per usual, the songs grow intertwined, connected to a theme: in this case a discussion of brothers Win and Will Butler’s childhood in the outlying areas of Houston, Texas. Bandleader Win Butler’s famed perfectionism is clear from the start as every note, swell, or collapse fits to the whole of the album without sounding overwrought, or ever drifting from its thematic purpose. Whether evoking hope, regret, alienation, or offering confession, The Suburbs connected this year with the countless mass of suburbanites identifying with being raised adrift in the sprawl. The result? This French-Canadian/American seven-piece became the most popular indie band of 2010, and by building a legacy of thoughtful albums – rather than chasing hit singles – they’re liable to stick around.

By Alyssa Fried

3. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

There’s no question that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is Kanye’s best work yet. ‘Ye is no stranger to unleashing his all on every release, but for the first time ever, we see him reaching his fullest potential; there’s no holding back. Kanye takes the game to the next level because he’s a next-level artist. Similar to the ache behind 808s and Heartbreak, Fantasy bares much of Kanye’s pain. And this is when he shines best. The beauty behind “Runaway” is more than palpable. It’s real. It’s a rare occasion when hip-hop artists reveal so much about them selves, flaws in particular, but Kanye has never been known to follow trends. He creates them. Fantasy is exactly what it claims to be and more: beautiful, dark and very twisted. Kanye’s flaws and haunted soul take center stage to create perhaps the most introspective album ever. Fantasy is the full package. Everyone laughed when Kanye claimed to be the voice of our generation. With Fantasy, Kanye has the last laugh.

By Ann Coates

2. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening

Somewhere in the laundry list of venues and bands recited by James Murphy on “Losing My Edge” in the mid-Aughts, the claim was made first and loudest that his shambling dance-punk crew LCD Soundsystem were arbiters of good taste and celebrants of/in New York City, despite the lingering dust and demons of 9/11. On 2007’s Sound of Silver the public embraced the claim as fact, partying and commiserating to grooves with Berlin and London bloodlines. This is Happening, their third and likely final proper album, trades in prior naked emotion for the cool disaffectedness of Roxy Music and Talking Heads’ Afropunk period. If there is any drawback to this, it seems like something of a victory lap—you sense that LCD Soundsystem would give your record collection a Fonzie-like thumbs up or down if you asked, given time. This position is a well-deserved one. They, and we, need only point to sales, concert crowds, and a clutch of singles and sounds defining the century (so far) and say, “Scoreboard.”

By Adam Blyweiss

1. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

In 2010–a year over crowded with excellent music–Damon Albarn’s semi-cartoon concept band Gorillaz delivered the defining piece of thoughtful expression. Stepping a bit more out from behind the shadow of the once-prominent characters, Albarn meticulously crafted an encompassing series of songs blending genres and world-conscious styles with effortless ease. From a Lebanese string section to a British grime rappers, all the way to iconic punk legends, Plastic Beach had the goods. The soulful inclusions of newcomers Little Dragon, hip-hop luminary Mos Def and Bobby Womack help make this record a pristine example of how pop music can matter. It makes us dance and think deeper, relax and open up, and question without aggression. In many ways, this is what music fans knew Damon Albarn had in him his entire career.

By Raymond Flotat