Instead of linking to yet another “Best of…” list, I’ve decided to make my own. Compiling a list of the best albums of any year always involves some amount of arbitrariness – there simply is no healthy way for one person to listen to all the potentially great albums that have been released in a single year. Nevertheless, I do find myself hearing quite a few of them, so even if I was superhuman enough to listen to every release in every genre, I think the below list would be a close approximation to the True Top 20. So without further ado:

20. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
Recently, the musical style of Bloc Party, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, etc. began to run together for me – something about those single-driven poppy choruses and similar vocal styles reaching back to the early 80’s. But Silent Alarm doesn’t have to be original to be enjoyable, and enjoyable it is with one fun track after another. The best release of its type this year.

19. Aphex Twin/AFX – The Analord Series
The Aphex Twin of the 21st century has a habit of releasing tracks in huge spurts, like he did with the double-albums Drukqs and 26 Mixes for Cash. Now he’s outdone himself: throughout 2005, he released about three hours (!) of music divided among 11 short LPs. Most of the tracks harken back to acid analogue music of the 90’s, but somehow he’s managed to perfect his craft to the point of being able to pump out tracks like a factory. Yes, some of the tracks are dragged by repetition, but there are a treasure trove of supple synth lines grumpily weaving through tracks to be found.

18. Prefuse 73 – Surrounded by Silence
Prefuse 73’s last two proper albums were both in my top 3 the respective years they were released. With Surrounded by Silence , cracks are finally beginning to show in his technique. Some of these tracks are simply too chaotic and filled with, dare I say, too many ideas. But on those where he manages to limit himself to a handful of ideas, Scott Herren proves that he’s still one of the best hip-hop/electronic musicians around.

17. Fiery Furnaces – EP
If you can’t stand the whimsy of Blueberry Boat or the public-radio-style collage of Rehearsing My Choir , don’t give up on the Fiery Furnaces just yet. This EP is their most accessible work and more like a short album at 35 minutes. No crazy tempo changes in the middle of tracks, melodies are beautifully straightforward, yet their eccentric instrumentation is still distinguished. This is the distilled essence of the Fiery Furnaces (which, I found out this summer, is the name of a section of Arches National Park).

16. Keith Fullerton Whitman – Multiples
A master of electronic composition, Keith Fullerton Whitman proves on Multiples that he can compose beautiful music in any academic electronic style that he puts his mind to. Several reviewers theorized that the order of the tracks follows the progression of electronic music history, and I can’t say I disagree. Yet somehow he’s stripped off the academic pretensions of the early pioneers and flooded it with an emotional sense that’s never boring and all his own.

15. Caribou – The Milk of Human Kindness
It’s getting harder every year to classify the music of Dan Snaith. His Manitoba project began with IDM peppered with jazz, but then turned a sharp corner to aggressive wall-of-sound psychedelia. As Caribou on his latest album, the style varies from motorik to free jazz to IDM to soft-spoken folk. And somehow, with the one constant being the pulsating basslines and rhythms, it’s all good.

14. LCD Soundsystem – LCD Soundsystem
LCD Soundsystem got off the ground with “Losing My Edge,” a talky yet catchy tune mocking music pretension. But not being familiar with James Murphy’s production work in DFA at the time, I was surprised when I first heard the LCD Soundsystem full-length – it was immensely danceable and incredibly fun (e.g., “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”). And “Never As Tired as When I’m Waking Up,” a straightforward indie-rock track, keeps on surprising me every time it comes up in shuffle. A style that I don’t think can be sustained longer than one album, but hey, here it is.

13. Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine
Sometime earlier this year, I grabbed the bootleg version of Extraordinary Machine produced by Jon Brion. It was filled with triumphant violins and bravado underscoring Apple’s deep voice and cabaret melodies. Many months and an overhyped record label battle later, the so-called real version of the album was released, this one produced by Mike Elizondo. The florid Brion arrangements were mostly gone, replaced by a mellower sound and the occasional drum machine track. Which one am I selecting for this list? Neither. Take your favorite tracks and make your own mix. Or make several, letting your current mood decide which to put on. Fiona Apple has released an excellent Choose Your Own Adventure album.

12. Common – Be
The first time I heard Common was during college at a live on-campus performance, around the year 2000. I remember being entranced by his striking face and his flawless flow – I’d never seen a better freestyle session (although admittedly I haven’t seen many hip-hop performances). Be is the first studio album of his I’ve heard, and I’m impressed. Simply, it’s the soulful Kanye West beats mixed with Common’s words and voice, all sprung from the electrojazzy intro. It’s all so… down-to-earth. And that’s unusual in mainstream hip-hop.

11. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Like The Arcade Fire last year, I didn’t want to like this band. The online buzz was much too intense, and I even heard a segment about them on NPR. Pretty good for a self-released album, but typical of the fad-driven indie scene. And so on my first listen or two, I focused on the lead vocalist’s tendency to screech and mumble simultaneously. But, dammit, the songs are so darn infectious, what could I do?

10. M.I.A. – Arular
I immediately liked this album, but something about it kept nagging me. Maybe it was the vocal repetition, or perhaps merely a vague feeling of underproduction. No matter. Any lingering feelings of doubt have all but disappeared – I love M.I.A. I love her acrobatic voice wavering from hip-hop to bhangra to dancehall. The beat-focused production has wormed inside my head, and it now sounds full. Any 2005 party mix lacking a track from Arular is incomplete.

09. Sigur Rós – Takk …
Like with Prefuse 73, Sigur Rós’s last two proper albums were in my top three in their respective years. Takk … still has the quintessential achingly beautiful Sigur Rós sound, but this time went slightly over the edge. So it’s sometimes a little pat, sometimes a little fey, and not as adventurous as their previous work. Nonetheless, Jonsi’s voice continues to be incredible and the music powerful and uplifting. And they’re still the band that put on the best live concert I’ve ever seen.

08. System of a Down – Mezmerize
This is the only hard rock album on my list, but it deserves to be here. I find the earlier and most recent (Hynotize) System of a Down releases to be to hard, too much about the aggression. But on Mezmerize , they find their niche, excepting the sometimes puerile lyrics. The songs are strangely melodic; the singing goes from sweet croon to guttural roar to uncontrollable high-pitched hooting. Sounds silly, but it really works. Throw in the Armenian folk influences and the anti-war lyrics and you have the best mainstream rock album of 2005.

07. The Books – Lost and Safe
Lost and Safe , hmm. Reminds me of “lost and found” and “safe and sound.” Ah, found sound! The Books show I saw earlier this year in Boston was the best live performance of the year, a celebration of guitar, cello, samples, images, and clever word play. The album is similarly brilliant, constantly toying with sound and words, words and sounds. Find it.

06. Isolée – We Are Monster
There are two reasons why IDM as of 2005 is not yet dead. This is one of them. A perfect dance album, constantly evolving, constantly surprising. It makes me want to dance around like a robot, but not in a cold and clinical way. Note: the Pitchfork review of this album is an exercise in music snobbery, but they got one thing right: each track has its own “self-revealing logic.”

05. Iron & Wine – Woman King EP
Sam Beam is on fire. Last year he released the incredible full-length Our Endless Numbered Days. And In the Reins , his recent his collaborative effort with Calexico, has been making critical waves. And then there’s his appearance on the Garden State soundtrack, making him an adolescent hipster bedroom name. But early in 2005, he released the incredible Woman King EP and convinced me that he’s one of the best singer/songwriters out there. It’s got his trademark folksy voice and melodies, but this time around it’s darker yet livelier. See, e.g., “Evening on the Ground (Lilith’s Song),” which is Beam at his most earnest, and not just because he uses the word “fuck.” At less than 30 minutes this is not exactly an epic album, but it’s no less indispensable.

04. Boards of Canada – The Campfire Headphase
No, this is not the second reason that IDM isn’t dead in 2005; Boards of Canada shed that genre from their oeuvre sometime back in 2002 – there’s no more D in the IDM here. But to follow a theme from above: like Sigur Rós and Prefuse 73, Boards of Canada’s previous two full-lengths were in my top 3, nay the #1 albums, of their respective years. But now they’ve slowed everything down, becoming more introspective and wistful than ever. That’s not a bad thing at all, but it’s hard to shout about such a subtle album from mountain tops. Yet it’s still so damn good. Every sound is perfectly crafted, every melody timeless yet deliberately time ful , and with their most carefully constructed album structure yet. This is both an album and a trip in as many senses as you can get, never forgetting the come down.

03. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
So you’re annoyed. Maybe it’s his soft voice, the Charlie Brown piano intros, or the lengthy titles like “A Conjunction Of Drones Simulating The Way In Which Sufjan Stevens Has An Existential Crisis In The Great Godfrey Maze.” But you need to get past all that, for Illinois is an incredible album and without a doubt Sufjan Steven’s best. The second in his 50 states series, Illinois is an amalgamation of American folk and gospel with lush orchestral instrumentation. And maybe I’m biased because it’s my childhood instrument, but the trumpet hasn’t been better used in an album in years. I loved his Michigan installment partly for nostalgic reasons (I lived in Michigan between the ages of 3 and 9), but since I have no ties to the state of Illinois, I love this album for its music alone. To the frightening “John Wayne Gacy” to the folksy “Casimir Pulaski Day” to the Reichian “Out of Egypt…,” Illinois is the best indie-rock album of the year.

02. prhizzm – prhizzm EP

OK, so this is the second reason that IDM isn’t dead in 2005. prhizzm is a relative unknown who landed a record deal with the Scottish Benbecula label. His has yet to drop a full-length album (supposedly he will next year), but with an amazing release like the prhizzm EP , he hardly has to have one to prove his worth. This is one of those records where I immediately recognized the musician’s talent in the first minute of listening. The melodies are instantly arresting, the hip-hop influenced beats head-nodding, and all with an impending sense of entropy, as if the music could fall apart at any moment. I implore you to listen to some of the samples on his website. A glorious 27.3 minutes.

01. Kanye West – Late Registration

What more can I say about Kanye West’s latest release that I didn’t in my longish review a few months ago? Maybe that, embarrassingly enough, I still haven’t heard The College Dropout , his first release? Or maybe that this is the first hip-hop album where the skits don’t really bother me? Jon Brion’s name might have led me to first consider spinning this album, but since then it’s been Kanye all the way. This album transcends hip-hop or whatever genre you want to label it – it’s a great pop album, pure and simple. Every track shines in its own way, whether its through humor, politics, emotion, contemplation, soul, or a funky groove. And when a perfect pop album, already an endangered species, lands on your doorstep, you’d best not ignore it.