How To Make A Hip End of the Year 'Best Albums' List
I didn't buy enough albums this year to even make a best albums list, but I'll vouch for these five, safe and no-risk picks:

• The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
• Spoon - Gimme Fiction
• My Morning Jacket - Z
• Broken Social Scene - Broken Social Scene
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

I'm buying less albums and spending more time listening to random tracks from mp3 blogs: Fluxblog, Stereogum, You Ain't No Picasso, and, best of all, Largehearted Boy.