NPR Music releases its "Best Albums" list

Popular breakthrough albums from indie favorites topped NPR Music’s fifth annual All Songs Considered “Best Albums of 2009,” announced last night. Thousands of All Songs Considered listeners voted in the highly-anticipated year-end list, naming their favorite record Veckatimest by New York-based indie band Grizzly Bear. Experimental pop band Animal Collective lands in second place, with Phoenix, Neko Case and Andrew Bird rounding out the top five albums of the year.

The entire “Best Albums of 2009” list is available at NPR Music, where users can listen to selections from all 25 records of the year, below:

1. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest
2. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Phoenix: Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
4. Neko Case: Middle Cyclone
5. Andrew Bird: Noble Beast
6. The Decemberists: Hazzards of Love
7. Wilco: Wilco (The Album)
8. Bon Iver: Blood Bank
9. The Avett Brothers: I And Love And You
10. St. Vincent: Actor
11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!
12. Regina Spektor: Far
13. M. Ward: Hold Time
14. The Swell Season: Strict Joy
15. Monsters of Folk: Monsters of Folk
16. The Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca
17. Passion Pit: Manners
18. Various: Dark Was The Night
19. Camera Obscura: My Maudlin Career
20. Metric: Fantasies
21. Beirut: March of the Zapotec
22. The xx: XX
23. Bat For Lashes: Two Suns
24. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Up From Below
25. Modest Mouse: No One's First, And You're Next

Thoughts on this year’s poll from All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and producer Robin Hilton, and a special downloadable edition of All Songs Considered announcing the results are available here: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121103815&ps=cprs Also, extended results listing audiences top 50 choices can be seen at the show’s blog: www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2009/12/ballot_results_npr_listeners_p.html

The ballot is part of NPR Music’s round up of the year’s outstanding music in all genres. Every weekday until December 31, top 10 lists from critics, public radio tastemakers and NPR Member stations will be featured at the site, including World Cafe host David Dye's albums of the year; the best kids' music this year, from WXPN in Philadelphia; Member station WGUC Cincinnati’s "Classical 2009: Next Generation and Beyond;" Take Five’s “Top 10 Jazz Records of 2009;” and KUT Austin's "10 Albums You Were Too Cool To Hear."

In addition to end of the year coverage, NPR Music's The Decade in Music: '00s" takes an extensive look back at the sounds and moments that defined the past ten years. NPR Music is a free, multimedia music discovery Web site at www.npr.org/music The site offers content from NPR and 12 NPR Member public radio stations, including live performances, studio sessions, first listens to new albums, interviews, reviews and blogs. The site's continuously expanding sections are dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. NPR Music culls from NPR's and the stations' extensive music archives to present thousands of features; more than 250 new features are added to the site every month.