5. M.I.A. – MAYA

M.I.A. committed pop music suicide in 2010, releasing the most violent and subversive music video ever (the genius “Born Free”), talking mad shit about Lady Gaga and Oprah, and releasing an entire album without a single hummable hook. MAYA is a jagged, suffocating electro-punk freak-out against everything “Paper Planes” was supposed to have signaled for M.I.A.’s career. The beats are dissonant and abrasive, and the politics are often radical and hard to digest. In other words, she’s one of the last, true rock stars left. God bless her.

4. Sleigh Bells – Treats

Treats is the sound of pop music losing its fucking mind. Think brutal, crunk-inspired percussion coupled with oppressive, hard-edged guitar work, with light, sugary-sweet pop vocals floating above the fray. It’s a hysterical, panic-stricken sound. It’s also the loudest album you will ever hear. Of course, Sleigh Bell’s clever yet exhausting style wouldn’t work over the course of an entire album were it not for Treats’ brevity and sonic variety, running the gamut from ominous, strangely metallic pop (“Rachel”) to straight up thrash metal (“Straight As”). It’s a 32 minute tantrum of melodic pop hooks over a tumultuous, violent musical backdrop. Pop has officially gone postal.

3. Janelle Monae – The ArchAndroid

Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid is the best debut album of the year; a sprawling collection that captures the spirit of black music’s past, while moving effortlessly towards an exciting future. The album’s stylistic diversity is its secret weapon, incorporating jazz, soul, psychedelia, Afro-pop, rock and hip hop into a dizzying mixture that is truly stunning. And Monae is a fantastic vocalist, sashaying her way through subtle balladry (“Oh, Maker”), Off The Wall-era disco-pop, rapid-fire rhyming (“Dance or Die”), and otherworldly, psychedelic crooning (“Mushrooms and Roses”) with ease. The album’s afro-futurist concept is basically sound, but the album doesn’t fly or die by the overall story it tells. This is just quality music, plain and simple.

2. The Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

 The Arcade Fire has always aspired to Springsteen-esque, arena rock grandeur, but they’ve outdone themselves with The Suburbs. The band reaches out far beyond their earlier work for something truly universal over the course of its 16 tracks, gently guiding the listener through its many twists and turns, and steeping the entire experience in a melancholy, confusion and nostalgia that feels familiar and affecting. Through it all though, the band never wallows in these sorrows, consistently injecting an air of hope into the proceedings. The album’s grand finale, “The Sprawl I” and “The Sprawl II,” is utterly perfect; wistful and betrayed, yet uplifting and sublime.

1.  Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

After all of the controversy and scandal that has and continues to follow Kanye West, it’s almost inconceivable to realize that he has somehow managed to end this year with the most fascinating and talked-about thing about him being his artistry. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is easily the best album of the year.

It is immaculately produced, lyrically fascinating, and conceptually transcendent. But it’s more than that. Kanye was literally at the lowest point of his entire career; cancelled tours, burned bridges, and hatred and derision from…well, everyone. His ensuing hiatus from the limelight was more like a retreat. Most artists would have responded to this kind of PR nightmare with an image overhaul and some serious ass-kissing. Yet miraculously, Kanye’s response was to close ranks, assemble an all-star roster of collaborators, and make the grandest, riskiest, weirdest statement Hip Hop has ever seen. He knew he’d pretty much lost a huge segment of the population forever, so he decided to make the album of his dreams; an opulent, corrosive, warts-and-all portrait of rock superstardom’s highest highs and most confounding lows.

Taylor Swift and her legion of disciples may never forgive Kanye for what he did. But any true fan of great music already has.