The Top 50 Albums of the Year

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31 Like Father, Like Son [Listen]
BIRDMAN AND LIL' WAYNE
New Orleans' Cash Money Records may be past its heyday as a hitmaking cartel, but with Like Father, Like Son two of the label's biggest names were able to reinvigorate a familiar sound: thick, exuberant drawls about guns, cars and girls backed by locked-in, hard-charging bounce.

32 Supernature [Listen]
GOLDFRAPP
So you thought they stopped making dance-pop records like this in 1988, when the Eurythmics started to slow down? Or in 1998, when trip-hop hit the wall? Goldfrapp exist beyond time and space, in a metropolitan interzone of sleek computer beats and dark melodies and after-hours club-slut ambience. First lady Alison Goldfrapp's sex-robot vocals hold it it all together -- when she sings "Ooh La La," it sounds like a threat.

33 The Devil You Know [Listen]
TODD SNIDER
This veteran folkie's third consecutive great album finds voices for an assortment of Middle Americans who "didn't want to throw a fishing line in that old main stream." Although Snider likes the coke-snorting Romeo, the hard-as-a-carapace slut, the dayworker just out of prison, the bank robber he lends his car keys, he doesn't romanticize them. He just believes that with "a war going on that the poor can't win," each of them is enough like him to be worth a song. And generally that song is pretty damn funny.

34 The Eraser
THOM YORKE
Major Thom managed to keep his first solo album a secret until just before it dropped -- the reason, he explained, is that he didn't want to raise any questions about whether Radiohead were breaking up. The sound recalls Kid A's quiet glitch-tronic moments, in disarmingly straightforward verse-chorus-verse tunes. But even in morose ballads such as "The Clock" and "Atoms for Peace," Yorke's steely intelligence shines through.

35 Once Again [Listen]
JOHN LEGEND
The very talented Legend is a mama-friendly smoothie, a devout sex-lover and a skilled songwriter who makes good use of his hip-hop buddies. Once Again finds him playing all those roles, often on the same great song: Legend goes from Nat "King" Cole to Jeff Buckley on a dime. His manly croon and pretty tunes might suck you in, but it's the less obvious stuff -- his wit and big ears, namely -- that keeps you hooked.