All this talk about the end of the decade (including our own in the next couple of weeks) has obscured the usual year-end superlatives that give critics a reason to live in December. The decade at large has brought us many gifts, yes, but here is a look at our favorite music of 2009. Check out our favorite TV of the year on Dec. 14, and movies on Dec. 21.

Paul

Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Present: Dark Night of the Soul

As far as I’m concerned, you can’t buy the best album of 2009. No, I mean it exists, but you really actually can’t buy it. Sure, you can buy the book for Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s Dark Night of the Soul, and sure, it will contain a hundred or so pages of David Lynch’s photography, and what looks like a track listing… and a blank CD-R, along with a note that the CD contains no music, suggesting it to use as you see fit. The musical portion of the project is suspended, perhaps forever, in legal limbo. But you can stream the album from NPR’s story on the thing, and a motivated listener can certainly find a copy to download. Which download they damn well should, this hypothetical motivated listener. Soul reminds me of the best aspects of Unkle’s 1998 album Psyence Fiction—except Soul uses an even deeper talent pool, with vocals and creative input from (but not limited to) The Flaming Lips, Frank Black, James Mercer, Suzanne Vega, and—yes—David Lynch. It could be a mess, but it is not. With its obsessively thick and layered production, the album is a journey through bad country, but in the best possible way; dark, yes, but eminently listenable. Highlights include “Revenge,” “Insane Lullaby,” and “The Man Who Played God.”

Honorable Mentions
Ringo Shiina is the greatest rock musician of the decade, and while her first solo album since 2003 doesn’t break ground in the way that Karuki Zamen Kuri no Hana did, Sanmon Gossip is still a joy from start to finish. And yes, the album’s song titles are still palindromic. On “Roudousha” she seems to be channeling the Jackson Five, and I am just fine with that.

I’m sure all sorts of conclusions are going to be drawn about me when I say this, but I loved every absurd second of Mika’s The Boy Who Knew Too Much. Mika’s freakish vocal range and his tendency toward the fabulous mean that when the anthemic album opener “We Are Golden” comes on, it’s almost impossible not to put on roller skates and swoop around the roller rink like you’re princess of the city. I mean—not that I would know. Just, you know. Hypothetically.

Scott

Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion

Like many, I entered 2009 an Animal Collective hater and left it literally calling them “the most forward-thinking and original band of the decade”. And like many, I made that conversion because Merriweather Post Pavilion is warmer and more accessible than any of their previous work. But one of my favorite things about this remarkable album is that it contextualized that previous work when I gave it another try and made me appreciate music that once drove me bonkers. When it comes down to it, MPP really isn’t that different from 2000’s Spirit They’re Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished; both are attempts to reflect the light and dark of life and the world around us with expressionistic sonic experiments. It’s just that Spirit They’re Gone does it with… ahem… abstraction, and MPP does it with gorgeous songs that somehow manage to sound familiar and completely new all at once. And what songs they are: I can’t really forsee a day when I’ll stop compulsively listening to the poppy “My Girls”, the anthemic “Summertime Clothes” or the romantic “Bluish”.

Honorable Mentions

Raekwon: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. II (joins the pantheon of classic Wu-affiliated releases), U2: No Line On The Horizon (half is the best music they’ve made since Zooropa, half is filler or downright embarrassing), The Juan MacLean: “Happy House”, The Very Best: “Warm Heart of Africa”, Grizzly Bear: “While You Wait For The Others”, The Big Pink: “Dominos”, Chain and the Gang: “Interview With The Chain Gang”

Ellen

Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

In this hyperconnected age, I still haven’t found a hub for music news I completely trust. At least that’s my excuse for not being aware that French band Phoenix had a new album on the brink before I saw them on Saturday Night Live in April. The first awesome thing about Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, the group’s fourth album, is its title, and the second is everything else. This fizzy, sparkling disc provided the soundtrack to my year, from the playful ostinato of “Lisztomania” to the dreamy falsetto of “Fences” and the crashing crescendo of “Love Like A Sunset.” My iTunes informs me that I’ve listened to “1901″‘s driving guitars the most, but my personal standout track is “Rome,” an oblique tale of lost love — Thomas Mars’ lyrics often resemble blank verse more than well-worn pop songcraft — which collapses in the middle of its 4:36 to build itself back into a monument to longing with the urgency of a steady beat underneath. (Didn’t hurt that weeks before I heard it for the first time I took my first trip to the city in question.) When I finally saw Phoenix at a sold-out show in Central Park in September, Mars’ voice cracked from exhaustion but seemed to feed off the thousands of people who filled the spaces in “Rome” with cheers.

Honorable Mentions
Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys: “Empire State Of Mind”, Lady Gaga: “Poker Face”, Matt & Kim: “Daylight”, Avett Bros.: “Kick Drum Heart”, Beyoncé: “Video Phone”

Honorable Mention, Cover Category
Killian Mansfield: “If I Can Dream”

Robert

Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!

From the opening notes of “Zero”, it becomes clear that in the three years since Show Your Bones Yeah Yeah Yeahs have gone to a very different place. The live-wire audacity of their past albums gives way to a synth-driven sound on It’s Blitz!, but with that change comes an evolution in the NYC trio’s emotional depth. Once again Karen O shines with a simultaneous strength and vulnerability that has never sounded more intimate or more personal. The entire album is a tightly knit ball of emotional yarn that can be a challenge to work through but it’s pulled off spectacularly. To get personal for a moment, driving home one day listening to the lullaby-esque “Soft Shock” with my three year old daughter peacefully asleep in the back seat sent me on a heartbreaking-but-optimistic wave of anticipation over the possibilities of the future, over her eventual anxieties as a young woman, over relationships—including our own as father and daughter—that must eventually change with time. And that’s just one song. It’s Blitz! is frightening and beautiful all at once, just like life can be. Of all the music I’ve heard in 2009, It’s Blitz! stuck with me through it all, and as it turns out, I’m also in a very different, better place because of it.

Honorable Mentions
Eminem: Relapse (Slim Shady returns with just as much venom, mischief and twisted lyrics as ever), Caspa: Everybody’s Talking, Nobody’s Listening (impressive full-length set from the star London garage/dubstep producer), Jakes: The Jakes Project (veteran D&B MC brings Bristol swagger and stomping beats to melt your face), Wale: Attention Deficit (A quality debut from the hot new MC with some refreshing production to boot)

Zoe

Brittany Bosco: Spectrum 2.0

Confession time, guys: not only am I the person who only listens to the singles, I am also the person who only really got a hold of a few new albums this year. Like less than ten. What I am saying is: this album is amazing, but keep in mind that I didn’t have that much new stuff to pick from. In any case: Brittany Bosco has a great, funky album here, which I got only after seeing her amazing live performance. For someone who mostly uses music as a way to either get myself dancing or to pump myself up, this album’s perfect. Her voice is incredible, the beats are sick, and it’s just generally the perfect album to cook or get down too. It’s crisp, fun, and free. Download it and bask in some retroism that doesn’t suck.

Honorable Mentions
Nyle: Capstone EP (Check out this one take video, then imagine that for a whole album), K’Naan: Troubador (One of my favorite rappers delivers a solid sophomore release), Jay-Z: Blueprint III (Totally inescapable in my neighborhood—not that I’d want to)