1. Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West naysayers of the past year, it’s officially time to get over yourselves. You can claim he’s a douchebag. You can whine about his embarrassingly rude treatment of Taylor Swift. You can even say 808s & Heartbreak sucked. Fine. But on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Mr. West has resoundingly absolved himself of any and all public besmirching.

Unfailingly complex and as blatantly confident as Yeezy himself, the album is forever describable: apologetic, honest, chauvinistic, egotistic, ecstatic, ridiculous, catchy, dark, twisted — but most of all, it’s beautiful. MBDTF has the originality of College Dropout, the studio expertise of Late Registration, the swagger of Graduation and the emotional airing-out of 808s & Heartbreak. Of course, West was not alone in creating this grandeur – the album is royally stacked with a barrage of respected guests — with Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Bon Iver and Kid Cudi among the prestigious assortment.

Kanye West wants to be (or already considers himself) “the best rapper alive.” He may not have officially won the crowning title just yet, but he did succeed in making the best album of the year — although it seems unlikely that this will satisfy ’Ye for long.

-EMMA GASE

2. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

Suburban discontent — it’s not exactly glossed over in contemporary art. So how to give a new take on such a worn-out subject? On The Suburbs, Arcade Fire doesn’t try to create some overcooked raison d’etre for the humdrum childhood wasted just short of urbanity. Each track provides a window into the ubiquitous 2.5-kids-and-a-golden-retriever suburban home, but with minimal judgment and irony.

Frontman Win Butler is always either one of “the kids,” or a guy looking at a faded photograph vaguely remembering when he was. It’s because Arcade Fire doesn’t hold up any pretense of "getting" suburbia any better than its fans do that The Suburbs has sprawled its way to the top. Who hasn’t seen ghostly malls tower above infinite stretches of flat pavement like “Mountains Beyond Mountains?" And what college kid can’t relate to old friends rebelling and drifting as time passes in “Suburban War?" Itching guitars and rising multi-voice choruses frame Butler and co.’s confused nostalgia for a childhood ill-spent — one that much of America shares, but that’s rarely laid out so flat. It’s not a new concept. But, like the suburbs themselves, we keep wanting to go back.

-SHARON JACOBS

3. Beach House, Teen Dream

When it comes to towering heartachey melodies, Beach House had everyone else beat this year. Vocalist Victoria Legrand’s spectral balancing act between Herculean mother and smoky seductress honestly makes 99 percent of indie rock starlets sound like acid-washed teeny boppers. And Alex Scally’s clean-picked, merry-go-round guitar parts take the word “catchy,” slow it down to half its tempo and project it onto the folds of your heart tissue (along with mountains of nostalgia-oozing reverb). Beach House may have settled into its sound, but the net effect feels more like a remedial bowl of time-tested chicken noodle soup than a lazy attempt to cash in on a comfortable formula. On Teen Dream, the arrangements are lusher and swoopier, feeling less conjured by humans than anything off Devotion. And having leaked over a year ago, the album has already heftily transcended flash-in-the-pan status — this is a record we’re going to be listening to for years to come.

-JOSH BAYER

4. The National, High Violet

There's something to be said about the eternal listenability of High Violet. There are no obvious, catchy hooks, no gut-busting guitar solos, no sing-along hit singles.