By Sam Sutherland
MSN Music

The record industry's widely publicized woes continue, but the music itself belies dire prophecies of diminished relevance and the "death" of the album. Even a month shy of year's end, 2007 has produced a steady flow of compelling, long-playing visions attesting to ambitions that can't be readily sliced into a la carte downloads and won't be fully realized when dispersed through shuffle-play.

Our tally of the year's most powerful releases carries caveats: First, every contributor polled agonized over the handicap to albums dropping late in the year, which risk short shrift when voters faced a November deadline. Less obviously, the sheer volume of new recordings issued each year, compounded by the vagaries of distribution can orphan deserving releases on tiny indie imprints. It's a safe bet that more than a few of us will find deserving candidates for the "best of 2007" well into 2008.

Our list of the year's 10 best albums is based on the votes cast by MSN Music contributors. Inevitably some great albums missed the cut by a scant few votes, so we're adding a second list of honorable mentions, all worthy of attention from thoughtful fans.

1. Arcade Fire: "Neon Bible"
The Montreal band's vivid mix of idealism and eclecticism earned them nearly instant notoriety with their debut, "Funeral," making the Arcade Fire's follow-up among 2007's most keenly anticipated releases. Any fears of a sophomore slump were dissolved by the new set's even grander ambitions and its urgent, angry political subtext, while Win Butler's songs reflected an expanded array of influences (including, among others, the Boss himself).

2. Bruce Springsteen: "Magic"
At midlife, Asbury Park's most famous son has hit a brisker stride, stepping up the flow of new releases, rekindling his stage passions with both the Seeger Sessions Band and his E Street cohorts and, most vitally, taking his writing back to street level. "Magic" manages to echo Springsteen's most triumphal past records while displaying new tricks (including rhapsodic pure pop worthy of Brian Wilson) and honing its social themes to the sharpest edges of his career.

3. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: "Raising Sand"
The calculus of collaborations between established stars typically leads to simple addition (as in the supergroup model) or polite standoffs between established styles. Such expectations made this left-field combination all the more startling as producer T Bone Burnett lured the hard-rock howler and the decorous bluegrass queen out of their comfort zones and into a newly imagined, gothic frontier between blues, country and folk. Plant has never sounded subtler or more nuanced, Krauss reveals a more sultry edge and their collective sound proves truly sui generis.

4. Miranda Lambert: "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend"
How do you reach the finals on "Nashville Star," snare a major label contract and still pull cred from alt-country hipsters living time zones away from Music Row? Miranda Lambert's solution is to channel seething revenge fables (the rocking "Gunpowder and Lead" and the unhinged title track), evoke life beyond the metroplexes ("Famous in a Small Town") and tap into heartbreak with fresh conviction ("Desperation") -- and do it all with poise and intelligence.

(Story Continues On Next Page...)

Page 1 of 2

Next