The 40 Best Albums of 2005

30. The Decemberists, Picaresque (Kill Rock Stars)
Single white male of wealth and beauty seeks sweet, untouched Miranda for dreamlike confluence, long conversations in rhymed iambic pentameter, whaling, sweater sharing, choleric alienation. Likes: corduroy, feminist literary theory, pianofortes, Neutral Milk Hotel, abiding passion. Dislikes: drownings, toil. Humble parentage, virginity, alabaster arms all musts. Please, no nonsmokers, Bush voters, athletic types. If you seek the suspicion of the townspeople and scorn of my family, reveal thyself at midnight in the rare-books room and sally forth I shall. J.D.

29. Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth (Nothing/Interscope)
Age hasn't mellowed Trent Reznor. It has only turned his primal rage into visceral self-loathing -- a transformation that makes With Teeth the most insular NIN album yet. Somehow, he makes those pathos work: When he shouts, "Don't you fucking know what you are?" over blistering double-track drums and whirring synthesizers, you can't help but contemplate your own place in the universe. Reznor's not screaming into the void anymore; now he's figuring out how to live inside it. K.A.

28. Antony and the Johnsons, I Am a Bird Now (Secretly Canadian)
What is it about a 6'4" dude who sings like a 4'6" girl that makes some listeners squeamish? Is it Antony Hegarty's trembling falsetto, which resonates with the power of decidedly nonmale vocalists like Nico and Nina Simone? His lyrics, which flirt with ideas of incest and gender reassignment? His friendship with Boy George? If Bird is too problematic for you, just pretend it's a lost Roxy Music or Velvet Underground bootleg, and go read a copy of Playboy when it's over. D.I.

27. Damian Marley, Welcome to Jamrock (Tuff Gong/Ghetto Youth/Universal)
The youngest Marley steps into his father's shoes, mixing different strains of Jam-aican pop into an essentially hopeful state-of-the-world address. With four decades of island innovations and global air passes to pull out of his knapsack, Damian was able to bridge Studio One and Channel One, samba, neo-soca, and street-hop. Afro-house, love songs, Selassie tributes -- Jr. Gong can do them all. But the title track, a classic tribal-war lament, is the inescapable one, excoriating murderers with a groove calculated to kill. J.Z.C.

26. Dungen, Ta Det Lugnt (Kemado)
The psychedelic, meta-biker, Swedish cock-rock fantasia of the year -- no contest. Dungen add an imperious Cardigans polish to the mountainous riff-raider power surges of those Scandinavian '70s prog bands only Stephen Malkmus knows about. It may ride high on chugging guitar fury and skywriting filigreed jazz, but it's less about riding open highways than the more primal allure of zoning out to your screensaver or counting your fingers (one, two, three, four... three?) on a squish-brained summer afternoon. J.D.

25. DangerDoom, The Mouse & the Mask (Epitaph)
MF Doom is the new Kool Keith: a deadpan, far-out rapper with "more jokes than Bazooka Joe / A mix between Superfly Snuka and a superho." Danger Mouse is the new Dan the Automator: a producer of laid-back stoner beats who makes the weirdos he works with sound downright huggable. Together, these two dudes, both named for comic book heroes, are more animated than the cartoon characters who pop up on this disc. The result: Dr. Octagon for kids -- a niche we didn't even know we needed filled. M.M.

24. Spoon, Gimme Fiction (Merge)
After ten years of wildly variable career luck, Spoon songwriter Britt Daniel delivered his most precise and soulful collection by obsessing about the end of the world and putting on his dancing shoes. He boiled his minimalist songwriting down to a series of melodic flickers nearly hip-hop-esque in their economy; dude could make perfect pop from two notes and a snare hit. And drummer Jim Eno is indie rock's Charlie Watts: subtle, spare, unflappable. Rarely less than decent, they're suddenly untouchable for life. J.G.

23. The Darkness, One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back (Atlantic)
Rock's most polarizing peacocks probably won't convert the naysayers, even though their second album eases up on the shtickiness that marked their debut. With Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker ladling all manner of studio goop onto their arena anthems, and Justin Hawkins' scrotum-shrinking falsetto multitracked to infinity, it's nothing if not a triumph of grandiosity. By turns gorgeous ("Dinner Lady Arms") and anvil heavy ("Bald"), it also establishes Hawkins as a lyricist of the first order. And that's no joke. D.B.

22. Various Artists, Run the Road (Vice)
Grime crept out from East London's housing projects through British pirate radio, but these icy raps and après-jungle bass throb brought limey crunk Stateside. Documenting the rise of England's fiercest MCs, Run established a movement in progress. Without American hip-hop's cash glut, still-raw rappers lashed their tongues about a crumbling London far removed from upper-crust propriety. But turf battles still reigned over themes of despair, because grime was also their lifeboat; as Roll Deep rapped, "I see the road to success / I'm getting out of here." J.S.

21. Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning (Saddle Creek)
Now that the critical din has quieted, this twangy set (released alongside the more hit-or-miss Digital Ashes in a Digital Urn) sounds less like a generational position paper and more like an intimate folk-rock CD by a principled singer/songwriter who's working hard to keep things indie, stay loyal to friends, and pierce individual hearts. An artist who, when the media knocked, stepped up, posted a free song to iTunes dissing the president, then played it on The Tonight Show in a Stetson. Godspeed, young man. W.H.