- Ghostpoet — Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam
- PJ Harvey — Let England Shake
- Metronomy — The English Riviera
- Wild Beasts — Smother
- The Antlers — Burst Apart
- Girls — Father, Son, Holy Ghost
- St. Vincent — Strange Mercy
- Gang Gang Dance — Eye Contact
- The Weeknd — House of Balloons
- Adele — 21
- Bon Iver — Bon Iver
- The Horrors — Skying
- Arctic Monkeys — Suck It and See
- Kurt Vile — Smoke Ring for My Halo
- Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx — We’re Here Now
- Lykke Li — Wounded Rhymes
- Wild Flag — Wild Flag
- Los Campesinos — Hello Sadness
- Slow Club — Paradise
- Yuck — Yuck
- Summer Camp — Welcome to Condale
- Eleanor Friedberger — Last Summer
- Three Trapped Tigers — Route One Or Die
- Cymbals Eat Guitars — Lenses Alien
- Destroyer — Kaputt
- James Blake — James Blake
- Tune-Yards — Whokill
- Fleet Foxes — Helplessness Blues
- Gruff Rhys — Hotel Shampoo
- Banjo or Freakout — Banjo or Freakout
- Male Bonding — Endless Now
- The War on Drugs — Slave Ambient
- patten — Glaqco Xaacsso
- Bright Eyes — The People’s Key
- Tyler, The Creator — Goblin
- Real Estate — Days
- Björk — Biophilia
- Pains of Being Pure at Heart — Belong
- Battles — Gloss Drop
- EMA — Past Life Martyred Saints
- Washed Out — Within and Without
- Laura Marling — A Creature I Don’t Know
- British Sea Power — Valhalla Dancehall
- Veronica Falls — Veronica Falls
- Iceage — New Brigade
- Korallreven — An Album By Korallreven
- Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks — Mirror Traffic
- Other Lives — Tamer Animals
- Peggy Sue — Acrobats
- Ben Howard — Every Kingdom
Year-End Lists
Notable, browsable lists of the year's best music, movies, books, and TV shows. Year-end lists are fingerprints; aggregate statistics are smudges. Therefore, we make no tallies. Follow the link for each list to see essential commentary from its authors, at the source.