1. Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion

The Animal Collective gang may have grown up, but they’re definitely not wearing ties. While Merriweather finds the indie iconoclasts tempering their signature banshee wails and zero-gravity space jams, these Animals haven't been neutered. The album is an irrefutable crackerjack, an experimental pop record of startling maturity and immediacy that consistently shimmies the ears without ever spilling over into the noodly realm of overindulgence. Double-helix polyrhythms and mind-dripping textures grace wedding-cake song structures, walking the fine line between airtight and twisty. Put simply, Merriweather is the decade’s definitive electro-pop album (but to simply call it “electro-pop” would be utter sacrilege). It uncannily melds the warmth of melt-in-your-mouth sunshine pop with the coldness of electronic cyborg drones. And, as with any pop masterpiece, the melodies are guaranteed to induce shivers — the warm kind, of course.

—Josh Bayer

2. Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest

Grizzly Bear just Gets It. The band has one of today’s most complete and attuned rhythm sections, two phenomenally gifted vocalists in Ed Droste and Dan Rossen — the latter also being a vastly inventive (and underrated) guitarist — and, most importantly, the maturity to keep from collapsing under the immense sum of its parts. Veckatimest is a paradox, somehow displaying the scrupulous, detail-obsessed work that went into it while still seeming transparently effortless. The shipwrecked beauty of “Dory” and “Ready, Able,” the layered intensity of “Fine For Now” and “I Live With You” and the pop mastery of “Two Weeks” all sound calculated down to the core, yet remain unbridledly emotional and human. But Veckatimest’s greatest gift is something that, in a culture of irony and detachment, is becoming a rare and under-appreciated commodity: simply, an occasion to feel.

—Jeff Sanford

3. Dirty Projectors — Bitte Orca

While artsy contemporaries Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear obscured their so-called masterpieces behind dense clouds of reverb and harmony, Dirty Projectors had no shame in flaunting the naked, waif-like sexiness of its songs on Bitte Orca. Delicate, sensitive, feisty and cerebral, the record is a career achievement from notoriously eclectic frontman David Longstreth, who finally decided to zero in on songwriting and style. Though the album’s pacing benefits from a few song-length detours into acoustica, the temperature peaks with “Stillness is the Move,” a featherweight R&B titan on which singer Amber Coffman unapologetically gets her falsetto rocks off.
—Dave Watnick

4. Phoenix — Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Phoenix has always had that certain je ne sais quoi — whether it’s the band’s chic attire or its foreign allure, the French foursome has probably been more famous for its trendsetting image than its glammy, slicked-back synth-pop. But that all changed in 2009. After absurdly remaining in obscurity for years, Phoenix soared to the peak of indie stardom with 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Album opener “Lisztomania” sets the infectious tone that permeates the entire record, with Thomas Mars’s cooing vocals layered over disco-vibe synths and a crisp, elastic beat. With Wolfgang, Phoenix has channeled 15 years of pop experience to create a sophisticated, stylish, dance-friendly album that the band's leather-clad counterparts (ahem, The Strokes) couldn’t even touch.

—Kristyn Acho

5. Girls — Album

With Album, these sneering, pill-popping heirs to Elvis Costello craft a sunny, drug-addled collection of songs about youth, slacking off, and, well, girls.