Eric Church/Dirt Drifters

1. "It's Not Me, It's You," Lily Allen (EMI)

Having been driven to the wall by the hype surrounding her debut, Allen reemerged with a surer grasp of what's important in her life and how to make her point musically. Once you get over how good the songwriting is you can relax and laugh at her jokes, none of which are at her own expense.

2. "Welcome to Mali," Amadou & Mariam (Nonesuch)

Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia have too much experience as professional musicians to fall victim to some producer's idea of "crossover," and they treat the rock guitars, the synths, even the occasional English lyric as if all of it were theirs to begin with. Then they casually blow everyone away. 

3. "Fortress 'Round My Heart," Ida Maria (BMG/Sony)

This Norway-to-Sweden transplant makes punk music about the largeness of emotions. There's as much meaning in the way she inserts a hearty chuckle into a chorus as there is in her references to God as someone she talks to as an equal. She's not larger than life, but she seems more full of it.

4. "The Eternal," Sonic Youth (Sonik Tooth/Hostess)

As if to reassert their priorities, the greatest noise-rock band returns to indieville with their most commercially accessible album since the first one they made for Geffen. All the usual touchstones seem fresher. Could it be the new bassist? Kim Gordon not only sounds liberated, she sounds out there.

5. "Revolution," Miranda Lambert (Columbia)

Nashville's best album artist continues to keep one foot planted in Music City and the other in that suburb where country journeymen like John Prine and Julie Miller toil. But her own songs are getting better, funnier, more piercing, especially the one about being prettier than the Republican debutante.

6. "Black Diamond," Buraka Som Sistema (Fabric/Hostess)

The best dance album of the year may, in fact, be impossible to dance to for most people. Angolan kuduro, which this Lisbon-based trio plays, features intense club rhythms, intense sonics, and intensely concentrated raps. When the beats and lyrics flow at the speed of thought, the feet haven't got a chance. 

7. "In Love & War," Amerie (Def Jam/Universal)

In which American R&B's most rhythmically interesting singer busts out the loud guitars and does unholy damage to her vocal cords in order to vent her frustration at a music scene determined to keep her hidden. Most telling line: "Wonder what it takes to be my lover? First you gotta be my drummer." 

8. "Wilco (The Album)," Wilco (Nonesuch/Warner)

No matter how much he hates the term "alt country" it's Jeff Tweedy's to do with as he pleases since he invented the genre. If this album's title sounds like a bid at reinvention after years of experiments, its directness as a collection of well-written, well-played songs makes it an extremely successful one. 

9. "Fever Ray" (Rabid/Hostess)

Since Karin Dreijer Andersson is from Sweden, where the sun doesn't shine so much, it's natural to expect a darker soul-searching sensibility, but just because her spare electronica is slow doesn't mean it isn't playful. She can sing a haunting siren song about dishwasher tablets and make Bjork sound like a tightass.

10. "Light of X," Miranda Lee Richards (Nettwerk/Imperial)

This new millennium flower child is overly fond of late afternoons, wide fields of grass, sandy beaches, and men who smile a lot, but the beauty of her immaculate soft-rock melodies and limpid voice conveys these images with alacrity and no vacuous emoting. It's an album you bathe in.

Honorable mentions: "Seya," Oumou Sangare (World Circuit); "Crack the Skye," Mastodon (Reprise/Warner); "Troubadour," K'naan (A&M/Universal); "Sainthood," Tegan and Sara (Vapor); "Art Brut vs Satan," Art Brut (Cooking Vinyl)