Here's the definitive passion play chronicling - in both certain and uncertain terms - the sputtering frustration of a world controlled by faith. It's tighter than Funeral and plays like an aural whirlwind.

02. Icky Thump (The White Stripes)

Rocks hard like Elephant - which is all I asked for.

03. In Rainbows (Radiohead)

Genuinely haunting on both first and second spin - but it's lush and ambient about it.

04. Yours to Keep (Albert Hammond, Jr.)

I could hand this album to nearly anyone and they'd like at least one song - if not multiple songs - on it. It's the kind of album that has you obsessing over a different song each listen - and beckoning you back for enough listens to be obsessed with every one at some point.

05. Jarvis (Jarvis Cocker)

A bit of freedom to indulge pure pop catchiness (including a sample in the great "Black Magic" of James & The Shondells' "Crimson And Clover") and the usual musings of the hypersexually bleak and morally bankrupt sort. It might be even better if he'd remove the fatal 25 minute silence between "Quantum Theory" and its hidden track "Cunts are Still Running the World" (and added "One Hell of a Party", the paean to post-party reflection he sings on Air's otherwise business-as-usual Pocket Symphony).

06. Person Pitch (Panda Bear)

07. Widow City (The Fiery Furnaces)

Best cover in forever and, as everyone says, full of a 70s guitar-rock backdrop over the usual frentic and complicit poeticizing. Make sure that they notorize my will. Make sure ma don't look at the news.

08. An End Has a Start (Editors)

The single guiltiest pleasure in years - somehow more elegantly unabashed about its naked, often melodramatic pop-operatics than all the other bands that could be described this way. It's so addictive, I interrupted my QUITE CHOICE birthday playlist to listen to it in its entirety.

09. From Here We Go Sublime (The Field)

I cannot stop listening to this. It's like a new flavor of liquid refreshment: It goes with anything. It goes with everything.

10. In Our Nature (Jose Gonzalez)

Sweden is the new fucking Scotland. Here's the collection of timeless peace-themed tunes with just enough sincerity but lacking any hint of commerically anthemic lameness.