The Top 50 Albums of 2007

17 The White Stripes
Icky Thump (Warner Bros)
A return to the firewall fuzz of 2003's Elephant, Icky Thump is simply Delta-garage wallop made from the fewest, finest ingredients: the tube-amp guitar squeal and frantic falsetto vocal in "I'm Slowly Turning Into You"; Meg White's John Bonham-size drumming, sounding like a jail door slam, in the busted-immigrant song "Icky Thump." And if you think Jack White has no sense of fun to go with his power-chord Skip James, go to the cover of Patti Page's Fifties hit "Conquest" for a fat slap of Mexican Zeppelin.

18 Lucinda Williams
West (Lost Highway)
West is an album perfect for communing with yourself at three in the morning — the sound of one of rock's great songwriters getting her demons out, and still challenging her fans. Producer Hal Willner brings in jazz guitarist Bill Frisell and violinist Jenny Scheinman, who add a contemplative darkness to Williams' roots sound, and the music flows like the Dead in a country mood, particularly the pained psychedelic longing of "Unsuffer Me." Williams' cracked voice brings to mind her hero, Bob Dylan, fighting for air on Time Out of Mind. "Fancy Funeral" — about planning her mom's service and ending up thinking the money would have been better spent on groceries — might have been the year's saddest, simplest song. Except Williams tops it with "Are You Alright?" in which she hopes an ex-lover is making out OK.