It’s that monster under your bed, that memorized face surfacing in a crowd…

Music should have the power to haunt in all the old familiar places, in the corners of your mind. And what a year of obsessively catchy albums it has been - from the claustrophobic (Humbug) to the expansive (The Eternal), from the bravely pop (Sorry, Sorry) to the stubbornly thoughtful (Through the Devil Softly), each one of these albums is glorious in its excesses.

12. First Love – Emmy the Great



Love is in the details: a car crash and the song that was playing, Jack Bauer’s accomplishments in 24 hours, and a Magnetic Fields EP that was never returned. Delicately swaying from reflective to resolute, First Love is wildly articulate, even when love gets in the way.

11. Sainthood – Tegan & Sara



Short and sweet, Sainthood breezes by too fast, but what a rush to the heart. The familiar power pop is only heard on two tracks - the rest, deliciously nodding to Raspberry Beret.

10. Sanmon Gossip – Shiina Ringo



Jpop enigma and genius Shiina Ringo is fearless. Her latest effort is heavily jazzy, with spiky punk, in epic 5-minute experiments. Purring and wailing, Ms. Ringo revises pop music to something dangerously unpredictable, and sharply sexy.

9. Through the Devil Softly – Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions



Smoky lullabies… there’s nothing quite like Hope Sandoval and her warm inventions. Mazzy Star was one of the most underrated bands in the 90s, and the decisive stillness of the band remains to be loudest statement of Through the Devil Softly. When Ms. Sandoval murmurs the blues through cold-blooded acoustic guitars, give in.

8. Abnormally Attracted to Sin – Tori Amos



Forget the ‘archetypal female personae’ that each of the songs represent - this is Tori unedited, in the springtime of her voodoo - excessive, manic, and illogically musical. Her piano continues to be a background to a rediscovered 70s funk-soul psychedelia that even pushes well past the Wuthering Heights barometer.

7. Humbug– Arctic Monkeys



Deliberate, like a long panning shot, Humbug is contemplative. There is no rush to the soaring end and there is no need for it - the brooding middle of most of the songs carry the genius of Turner’s stories.

Next Page