By Chris Gray

It's time to rank the best of what went around and came around again.

BILLY JOEL
The Stranger
(Columbia/Legacy)
As punk and disco exploded, the Piano Man's deeply unhip 1978 breakthrough proved that top-shelf Broadway/Brill Building songwriting could still sell - and, occasionally, rock. "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" and "Anthony's Song (Movin' Out)" remain priceless snapshots of Annie Hall-era NYC, the title track bares real teeth, and the Kenny Chesney fave "Only the Good Die Young" - banned from several college-radio stations for its unseemly insinuations about Catholic schoolgirls - is still a corker.

Extras: Complete June 1977 Carnegie Hall concert; DVD of Joel's March 1978 appearance on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test; thirty-minute making-of doc and facsimile of his lyric sketchbook, scratch-outs and all.

If you're going to drink one clear cola this year, make it Crystal Pepsi. Please.

40. No Age-Nouns (Sub Pop)

Face it, *Nouns* is this decade's *Let it Be* (The Replacements, not The Beatles): A ragtag posse of scruffy dudes sonically illustrating their homes with spectacular tunes and pure passion. Indeed, no band this year, and few bands in recent years, has given music fans so much to be excited about. The reason everyone's searching for the right words to express just why No Age deserves a supplementary chapter in *Our Band Could Be Your Life* isn't because of their setup or ethos or the YouTube videos of Black Flag and The Minutemen they post on their blog, it's due to a shared spirit, one where youthful ardor and sonic ingenuity emphasizes simple messages. Nowhere is this more evident than on "Sleeper Hold," a dynamic flurry through corridors of sloppy feedback and cymbal washes, where drummer/singer Dean Spunt spews words that might be describing drugs or sex or both, but ultimately it doesn't matter. A line like "With passion it's true" can describe any number of things--seriously or sarcastically--that the very vagueness of the message gives it an odd power, like a Zen koan or a line from Kabbalah. But this ain't religion, folks. This is the sound of two dudes honed in on the wavelength that connects the sky to the ocean like an azure mirror, a perpetual sunrise/sunset of blissful vistas and the ocean crashing softly on the shore. With passion it's true. With passion it's you.--Tal Rosenberg
Download:
MP3: No Age-"Teenage Creep"

39. Blitzen Trapper-Furr (Sub Pop)

The rare net-hyped band that seamlessly and painlessly swathed their next musical step in all the right blankets: tighter structures, layered melodies that stop short of overkill and "maturity" done right in the form of small, Neil Young-esque folk ditties to cleanse the rock palette (which is more generous here than on last year's more acrid Wild Mountain Nation). They began with a fetish for Pavement's scratchy sidecrawling dubbed through My Morning Jacket weirdness, and came out probable successors to Built to Spill. 13 songs in less than 40 minutes will hit you in the face so many times at such speed you'll need to play it again to remember all the sweet spots. The first one sounds like a countrified Elliott Smith.--Dan Weiss
Download:
MP3: Blitzen Trapper-"Gold for Bread"

By Julienne Gage

Americans who still think of Latin music as mariachi bands and gyrating Ricky Martins and Shakiras might want to lend a closer ear to the genre. This country's Hispanic population isn't just growing, it's growing more diverse. More and more unique musical styles are being gobbled up, and that should come as good news to alternative gringos hoping to spruce up their castellano. This year's Latin-music highlights come from all over the Spanish-speaking map. We'll start in the farthest geographic corner: an island in the Mediterranean.

BUIKA
Niña de Fuego
(WEA International)
Afro-Spanish artist Buika epitomizes cultural and ethnic diversity. Over three decades ago, her parents fled political turmoil in the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea and made a new life for themselves in a gypsy neighborhood on the island of Mallorca. After stints as a Tina Turner impersonator in Vegas and as the vocalist on some chic house and funk albums made for the European clubs, Buika has found her niche in flamenco and Latin jazz. This year's Niña de Fuego contains many of the same gitano elements found on her successful LP Mi Niña Lola, and pushes the boundaries further by adding Mexican ranchera. Only someone as strangely bohemian as Buika could pull together these emotive styles with just the right amount of melodrama.

THE PINKER TONES

Wild Animals

(Nacional)

Barcelona's Pinker Tones have traded most of their native Catalán for English -- both in language and in beat. On Animals, harmonic backing vocals combine with synthesizers and wah-wah pedals to produce 1980s-style pop and rock steady. The song titles couldn't be more fitting. "Hold On" starts with a choir and then hits the gas with an accelerated Beck-like groove. That's followed by the even more retro number "S.E.X.Y.R.O.B.O.T." and the happy-go-lucky reggae track "The Whistling Song." But Pinkertones do take pride in some forms of hip-swiveling: Be prepared to shake your mod booty to "Electrotumbao."

By Dan Leroy

A couple of weeks ago, an expert on the Harry Potter series told an audience of high school kids how lucky they were to have this Big Shared Experience--these seven books and 41,000 words in common. What does Harry Potter have to do with hip-hop in 2008? In an age when many year-end lists should be subtitled "Ten More Albums You've Never Heard of and Will Never, Ever Hear," plenty.

Technology has made the world smaller, and in response, we've found smaller and smaller worlds to inhabit. Think of a specific era--in some cases, a specific artist's work from a specific era, or even a specific year--and someone, somewhere is re-creating those very sounds. Which is fine, and sometimes a lot of fun. It's just that those folks who are still striving for the Big Shared Experience were the most interesting stories of the past year in hip-hop. They were the people who believed that hip-pop didn't automatically equal T-Pain, or the real pain of automatic IQ loss.

There were several such moments in 2008.

See the Top 10 after the jump...

By Noah W. Bailey

Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn't nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn't feel right stuck in the category.

Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while Blitzen Trapper's fantastic Furr smells more like the Kinks than Neil Young. [Editor's note: That's why we put it on our indie-rock list.] We likewise discarded Shearwater's near-masterpiece Rook, despite the fact that the album's instrumentation includes both banjo and a hammered dulcimer. And while we certainly returned to releases by Bon Iver and Bowerbirds throughout the year, we actually heard both records last year, when they were first independently released.

After this arduous vetting process, these are the records that survived: ten releases that dabble equally in meat-and-potatoes alt-country, soft-focus '70s pop folk, and the old, weird America of Greil Marcus.

As a Zooey Deschanel character once put it, long before she ever met M. Ward: "Listen and light a candle, and your future will become clear."

BONNIE PRINCE BILLY
Lie Down in the Light
(Drag City)
Perhaps even besting his 1999 high-water mark I See a Darkness, Lie Down is surely the most diverse and listenable outing of Will Oldham's lengthy career, with a sweet, playful side not often found on the Bonnie Prince's earlier records. From the Dead-does-country of opener "Easy Does It" to the earth-shaking duets with Canadian Ashley Webber (sister of Black Mountain's Amber Webber) on "So Everyone" and "You Want That Picture," the album is proof positive that Oldham is only getting better with age.

By Annie Zaleski

Pop music often gets a bad rap for being disposable or vapid, and in many cases that's true. (Katy Perry, Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls, step right up!) But every year, a few irresistible bits of innovative ear candy rocket up the charts and seep into our subconscious.

The following ten singles saturated the Top 40 -- or what passes for hit-oriented radio in this topsy-turvy musical climate -- while proving that accessibility doesn't necessarily preclude creativity.

CHRIS BROWN

"Forever"

(Jive/Zomba)

Few adolescent pop stars have aged as gracefully as fleet-footed Chris
Brown. Produced by Polow da Don, "Forever" was first recorded in
shortened form for a Wrigley's Doublemint gum ad; accordingly, the
longer version of "Forever" is a grown-up bit of (no pun intended)
bubblegum hip-pop that's still young at heart. Rounded techno beats and
digitally warmed vocals conjure the giddiness of puppy love, a time of
life when the entire world shines with hope and promise.

By Ben Westhoff

Hip-hop A-listers including Rick Ross, Akon and Plies were caught grossly exaggerating their gangster credentials this year. (Turns out they were painfully law-abiding. The horror!) But even if your favorite rapper wasn't caught in a lie, you can bet he or she put out a hilariously absurd record or two in 2008. Here are the most preposterous rap songs of 2008.

RICK ROSS, FEATURING T-PAIN
"The Boss"
(Def Jam)
Though Rick Ross claimed on his debut album, Port of Miami, to know Manuel Noriega, The Smoking Gun website found that Ross was a prison guard rather than an international drug kingpin before he was famous. Perhaps they met in the can? In any case, his assertion on "The Boss" that he "made a couple million dollars last year dealing weight" is absurd. Still, we're tempted to give him a pass on his claim that "I don't make love/Baby we make magic," because, well, we wouldn't know.

By Michael Roberts

In 2008, independent rock returned to the underground, where it belongs. Given the grand catastrophe that is today's record industry, most major-label executives don't have the time or energy to convince music fans they might like something a little out of the ordinary. They're too busy recycling variations on what were once sure things while desperately searching for career exit strategies that don't involve tall buildings, open windows and running leaps. As a result, fringier artists have had the opportunity to develop outside the spotlight, sans the sort of unrealistic commercial expectations that can lead to self-consciousness, compromise and a lifetime of regret. Not selling means not selling out, as the following albums demonstrate.

By Phil Freeman

In a year worthy of your rage, metal delivered in spades. What with the economy circling the drain and Sarah Palin coming down from the tundra and then refusing to go back, 2008's been the kind of year that really makes you want to smash your head into walls or punch random strangers in the face. Good thing there were so many awesome records available to serve as a soundtrack for exactly that kind of behavior. The ten discs below are just the tip of a very big, very heavy iceberg. Metal seems to grow stronger each year; 2009 will bring new albums by Mastodon, Deftones, Lamb of God and more. In the meantime, check these out.

Metallica
Death Magnetic
(Warner Bros.)
Five years after their last comeback, they did it right. Combining the punishing thrash of their early glory years with the thick, bluesy grooves of their 1990s output, the members of Metallica reclaimed their throne as America's kings of metal. Songs like "That Was Just Your Life," "My Apocalypse" and "Cyanide" are made to be heard blasting through speakers bigger than your goddamn house, but even on an iPod, they'll have you clenching your fists and banging your head like a fourteen-year-old amped on testosterone and Red Bull.

Not to be confused with the epic, Eric Roberts, Tae Kwon thriller.

50. Benoit Pioulard-Temper (Kranky)

Have you ever been in one of those nutty meditation classes, where the crackpot instructor tells you to close your eyes and imagine that you're in the middle of a forest? Don't be surprised if we eventually learn that this is what Portland-via-Michigan, singer/songwriter/producer, Benoit Pioulard, nee Thomas Meluch, does prior to picking up his guitar and turning on his mic. Like Precis before it, Meluch vividly narrates a pastoral jaunt, creating a mood that approximates a walk along the banks of the Willamette River, with the cold current splashing rocks and the water chilling your shoes. Other songs, particularly "Ahn," scald like hot cocoa in your hand as you peer out your window at snow covering your car and everything else in sight. And just like the landscape after a fresh flurry, Temper is a pretty and pristine piece of work.--Douglas Martin Download: MP3: Benoit Pioulard-"Brown Bess"

49. The P Brothers-The Gas (Heavy Bronx)

The grimiest New York album made in 2008 came from Nottingham, UK? (What'd you think it was, "Pop Champagne?"). The P Brother's magnum opus, The Gas, rattles and shakes in the surly shadows of towering Bronx tenements. With an elite cadre of rappers, the East Midland production team neatly side-step the questions of cohesion that plague most contemporary producer-led efforts. In business for nearly two decades, from the melodic keys of album opener 'Cold World," to the swirling guitar licks and downtempo skulk of "Don't Question Me," The Gas delivers an infectious, stripped down aesthetic, with few concessions to the mainstream. All the underground Bronx MCs bring heat, dropping dark, Ox-sharp verses that weave themselves into the beats and establish an almost pretenatural consistency. The Gas is rap music by heads, for heads, and it's all the better for it.--Dan Love
Download:
MP3: The P Brothers-"Digital B-Boy ft. Milano"