E-Mail This Article to a Friend From the political to the personal (continued)

4) Rock Against Bush Volumes 1 and 2 (Fat Wreck Chords)

I don’t think these are great albums. But the documentary Fat Mike snuck onto the DVD portion of Volume 1 is pretty great if you’re looking to understand why Bush is a terrible president. And it was just great to see punks coming together to urge their fans to vote against Bush.

5) Morrissey, You Are the Quarry (Attack/Sanctuary)

Maybe it’s not fair to give an entire album such high props for just one song, especially since the opening track, an attack on George W.’s America called "America Is Not the World," sounded awkward and a little too easy coming from a Brit. But the second track ("Irish Blood, English Heart"), a steamroller of an anthem with a wall of guitars almost as fierce as those on "American Idiot," took deadly aim at Morrissey’s own government. The rest of the album is really beside the point, but it’s not half bad, either. Too bad Lollapalooza didn’t survive to give Morrissey a chance to preach to the unconverted.

6) DJ Danger Mouse, The Grey Album (self-released)

On "Grey Tuesday," The Grey Album was downloaded enough times to make it the best-"selling" album of that week’s big release day. And that was a bigger deal than any of the music Danger Mouse created in his "mash-up" of Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’ "White Album." If nothing else, it was a warning to the powers that be that the digital cat is out of the bag and there’s no way to sue downloading out of existence. Along with giving one previously unknown DJ/producer instant entry to the hot list of producers, this remarkable feat opened the door for hundreds of closet mixologists with thousands of ideas that will continue to challenge traditional notions of what music is for.

7) Nirvana, With the Lights Out (DGC/Interscope)

Just when I thought nothing was going to trump the Legacy deluxe reissue of the Clash’s London Calling, replete with the legendary "Vanilla Tapes," DGC surprised me with a revealing Nirvana box set. Even apart from the DVD, the three CDs are full of musical revelations that refocus Nirvana’s legacy on the music Kurt Cobain wrote and recorded instead of the drugs he did and whatever other stupid shit he and Courtney Love indulged in during his final days. For that alone, With the Lights Out was one of the most important releases of the year.

8) Jolie Holland, Escondida (Anti-)

It’s not just that I didn’t want to put together a Top 10 list devoid of any female voices in a year that saw the release of at least half a dozen great albums by women, including Elizabeth Elmore (formerly of Sarge) returning with the Reputation’s To Force a Fate (Lookout!), PJ Harvey finding another raw itch to scratch on Uh Huh Her (Island), and Laura Veirs and Jesse Sykes finding their own dark roots on Carbon Glacier (Nonesuch) and Oh, My Girl (Barsuk), respectively. In fact, I probably could have just done a Top 10 list by women without even resorting to Gwen Stefani, whose solo debut is actually a lot of fun, or Avril Lavigne, who’s not as bad as you want her to be. It’s also that I wanted to give the Anti- label some props — Epitaph’s more "adult" imprint is turning out to be one of the best labels in all of rock. Plus, Holland’s haunting Escondida transcends genre in its roots-tinged, cabaret-noir meditations on the darker side of life.

9) The Libertines (Rough Trade)

I have no beef with any of these bands who seem stuck on ’80s new wave as a logical way out of the brooding alterna-rock rut we’ve been in for a while. But one thing all the Interpols, Elefants, and Radio Fours are going to have to realize is that the Brits did this stuff better than the Americans the first time around. And for my money, the best band currently ripping off Gang of Four, the Cure, and all those other post-punk ’80s bands who made new wave a style unto itself are the Libertines. In their hands, this stuff doesn’t even sound derivative. I mean, it’s all just rock and roll to me.

10) Scissor Sisters (Universal)

The #10 spot was a toss-up between Scissor Sisters and a fine album by the Philly band Marah, 20,000 Streets Under the Sky (Yep Roc), with Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born (Nonesuch) coming in a close third. But Wilco have gotten kudos enough and Marah have made better albums in the past. Plus, in a year full of disappointments, I’d much rather end things on a high note with hilarious anthems like "Tits on the Radio" and the new-wave disco danceathons that populate this homonymous album, which slipped under everyone’s radar even though it has a great cover of "Comfortably Numb" on it. My guess? They’re just a little ahead of their time . . .