subject to extreme change, my favorite albums of the year:

1) Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary
2) The Clientele - Strange Geometry
3) Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
4) The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree
5) The Decemberists - Picaresque
6) Franz Ferdinand - You Could Have It So Much Better
7) Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
8) Silver Jews - Tanglewood Numbers
9) The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
10) The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
11) Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning
12) Kanye West - Late Registration
13) Spoon - Gimme Fiction, although it feels odd having it this low
14) Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Howl
15) Death Cab for Cutie - Plans
16) Stephen Malkmus - Face the Truth
17) Hot Hot Heat - Elevator
18) ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - Worlds Apart
19) Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak
20) Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
21) Blackalicious - The Craft

Unranked...
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins, although I sense it's really good
Editors - The Back Door, which I have no read on.

The moral here: I spend far too much money on music. I like music.

Revisiting 2004 [with the 2004 ranking in parentheses...UP=unpurchased when list was made; OBU=Owned but Unranked in 12/04, when the 2004 list was made)
1) The Arcade Fire - Funeral [UP]
2) Brian Wilson - Smile [1]
3) Modest Mouse - Good News for People Who Love Bad News [2]
4) The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows [3]
5) The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat [6]
6) Guided by Voices - Half Smiles of the Decomposed [12]
7) Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand [5]
8) AC Newman - The Slow Wonder [8]
9) The Streets - A Grand Don't Come for Free [4], 2004's "Gimme Fiction Award" winner
10) The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed [OBU]
11) Interpol - Antics [14]
12) The Futureheads - The Futureheads [UP]
13) Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill [8]
14) Wilco - A Ghost is Born [13]
15) The Killers - Hot Fuss [9]
16) Rogue Wave - Out of the Shadow [15]
17) The Secret Machines - Now Here is Nowhere [OBU]
18) Loretta Lynn - Van Lear Rose [UP]
19) Kanye West - The College Dropout [UP]
20) TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes [UP]
21) Dizzee Rascal - Showtime [6]
22) Mission of Burma - ONoffON [10]
23) Robert Pollard - Fiction Man [OBU]
24) The Polyphonic Spree - Together We're Heavy [OBU]
25) Elbow - Cast of Thousands [OBU]
26) Aberfeldy - Young Forever [OBU]
27) John Vanderslice - Cellar Door [OBU]
28) The Magnetic Fields - i [OBU]

Top One for the 1998-2003 [I started listening to music in 1998]
The Postal Service - Give Up [2003]
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights [2002]
The Strokes - Is This It? [2001]
Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica [2000]
Wilco - Summer Teeth [1999]
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea [1998]