• Best of the year:

• 
  obvious
• 
  spazzy
• 
  ragged
• 
  beautiful
• 
  hypnotic
  

• Best of the decade:

• 
  balanced
• 
  literate
• 
  yes!
• 
  better
• 
  pioneer*

* – We know this choice is somewhat controversial, because people hate Ben Gibbard for no good reason. But we’re going to say it now: Without this album, you would not have the popular success of indie rock that you see today. “We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes” made it cool. At least cooler than Dashboard Confessional. Which as you might notice, is not on the list. Do you want us to put it on there? Or do you even want to remember “Screaming Infidelities”? Good. Death Cab’s album, beyond being a gateway drug for any college student, also has some pretty amazing songs on it. ‘Nuff said.

• Lots of great singles came out this year – pieces of memorable mind candy worthy of (more than) a few minutes of your time. Here are a few of our faves.
• one Instant euphoria, in just a few words. What else could you want?
• two Crocodiles hit our Jesus & Mary Chain soft spot; they get in easily.

• three St. Vincent makes every second of “Actor out of Work” count.
• four Best use of synthetic hand claps goes to YACHT this year.
• five “Sunlight” by Tune-Yards has such a simple, organic sound.
• six Bradford Cox works well with Animal Collective members.
•  
• seven The Big Pink gets a lot out of a really awesome lyrical hook.
• eight The best part of Antony’s “Another World”? The empty spaces.
• nine Girls, the band, exposed sadness through unending optimism.
• ten Cass McCombs’ hazy take on alt-country had an obvious peak.

• 
  High-Speed Nudity In Matt & Kim’s simple, clever video for “Lessons Learned,” they run through Times Square stripping all along. Best part? The cops that tackle them totally weren’t planned, but make the video ten times better.
• 
  Carl Sagan, Remixed When we posted about this a few months ago, we were shocked at how well this remix worked. Beyond being a good video, it’s a good song – way better than most video mashups turn out being.
• 
  Oddity with a budgetDan Deacon’s been on the winning end of the viral video game before, but he’s clearly never had a budget as big as the one for “Padding Ghost,” which is way more palatable than those videos, but just as fun.