James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem: deserving of the top spot? Photograph: Jim Dyson/Getty
The Guardian's 20 best albums of 2007 is clearly - and I'll save you saying it - an outrage, a disgrace, a farrago. Was I really the only voter who put Gravenhurst's incredible The Western Lands in their top five? Did no one else cherish Paris Motel's In the Saltpetriere? Idiots, the lot of them. The lot of us. I guess, actually, those won't be your most forthright criticisms. You might be asking: why is it so white? And why is it so male?
The answer: because most of the 30 or so writers asked for their five favourite albums of the year write mainly about rock and pop. And those are the 20 that garnered the most votes. The full list of albums nominated - read it here - is rather more catholic. So feel free to ignore the rankings above and look instead for the broader range of the whole kit and caboodle.
That said, those are 20 pretty good albums, reflecting both the keepers and the sensations of the year. I'm pretty sure the top three will still have adherents in five even 10 years' time. Doubtless at least one of them will have passed into the canon (if Radiohead albums don't automatically achieve canonical status). MIA and Klaxons (an album that originally got a one-star review in the Guardian, from a writer who hated it with every fibre of his being), I'm less sure about. But I have no quibbles with them being there: from Elvis onwards, pop has always demanded instantaneous sensation - that's a crucial part of its job - and these two fulfil that need.
There are some wildly leftfield choices, too. The Felice Brothers are adored by a small number of writers, and utterly unknown to the rest. Less leftfield, but still surprising, is Bruce Springsteen: I quite like Magic, but I think Richard Williams got it right in his three-star review for us: it's decent, but it's a far cry from his best work. And I still just don't really hear Battles, music that - to my ears - spends too much time aggressively shrieking LOOK HOW CLEVER WE ARE and too little being, well, enjoyable.
GU Music is also asking you to vote for your picks of the year, and I'm looking forward to that. Will the small but vociferous Throbbing Gristle lobby be out in force? Or is there a silent majority of Mika fans who will, for the first time, make their voices heard on this site? Tell the estimable editors here (and, please, for all the day-after-day carping we read on the blogs, let's hear it for the people who've made this place such an excellent forum for music discussion). And then all the Guardian music writers will come out - and tell you what an outrage your list is. It's only fair.
Editorial notice: don't forget to cast your vote in our readers' poll!
