Our Top 50 albums of 2007 countdown contines... from Panda Bear to Rufus Wainwright, via Neil Young and Girls Aloud
30. Person Pitch Panda Bear Animal Collective's singing drummer rediscovered his inner child with this album of eerie, experimental post-pop.
29. Chrome Dreams II Neil Young Shakey was back to his best with a sequel to a record never made, featuring the epic 'Ordinary People'.
28. Watina Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective An album of rhythms of Belize that are effortlessly accessible but sound like nothing you've heard before.
27. My Name Is Buddy Ry Cooder A fascinating road trip through dustbowl blues, gospel, folk and bluegrass inspired by a feline postcard.
26. White Chalk P J Harvey Despite the lack of guitars and odd vocal pitch, Harvey's (below) eighth album was a bleak triumph.
25. Mirrored Battles Back in May, New York four-piece Battles fused the previously unfusable: art-rock and fun. Perhaps it was the rave stylings of tracks such as 'Leyendecker' or the Four Tet remixes of the awesome 'Tonto' - or maybe just the fact that the drummer's cymbal was six feet above the rest of his kit. A stunning video for 'Tonto' helped spread the Battles gospel of power-fuelled drone rock and new wave sensibilities. Where most post-punk revivalists became mired in retrospective folly, Battles produced one of the freshest records of the year. (Emma Warren)
24. Tangled Up Girls Aloud GA give better pop than anyone else. While their covers can be mediocre, their fourth studio album contained more high octane, gleeful, original pop songs - raucous and slaggy, with tongue-twisty -lyrics shoehorned into cliche-free choruses. Clever yet commercial, honest-to-goodness pop. (Polly Vernon)
23. Good Bad Not Evil Black Lips Atlanta's Black Lips buffed their bug-eyed garage thrash to create a mucky, pithy 13-song set of freewheeling psych-goofiness that was dispatched with guileless enthusiasm. The jerky 'O Katrina!' - which wouldn't have sounded out of place on Lenny Kaye's proto-punk compilation, Nuggets - made way for the stoner drone of 'Veni Vidi Vici', while the brilliantly sardonic 'How Do You Tell a Child That Someone Has Died' was a warped homage to country music. Each tune was laced with enough pop hooks to let Good Bad Not Evil swing both ways, sounding simultaneously retro and original. (Sarah Boden)
22. Navega Mayra Andrade We make things tough for singers whose first language is not English, expecting them not simply to make exceptional music but to look remarkable, explain the meaning of their songs and beguile journalists. Mayra Andrade passed all the tests. The daughter of Cape Verdean parents, she lives in Paris where local session musicians suffused her debut album with the rhythms and sounds of the Islands. Mayra's softly alluring tone was slightly reminiscent of Nora Jones or Bebel Gilberto, but her songs were more varied and daring. If tracks from this album do not get played on daytime Radio 2 in 2008, there ought to be a public inquiry. (Charlie Gillett)
21. Release The Stars Rufus Wainwright Rufus returned, more baroque and grandiloquent than ever, with his first self-produced album, a luxurious collection that offered -affectionate nods to his heroes Wagner, Verdi and Strauss, ironic gestures towards cabaret and moments of elegant political anger at America's conservative -hypocrisy. Across the driving rock riffs of 'Between My Legs' or the delicate melody of 'Going to a Town', he demonstrated his -disregard for the rules of popular music, embracing a richly -theatrical sound, often swollen with orchestras and gospel choirs, that made most other pop feel bloodless beside it. (Stephanie Merritt)
See this Sunday's OMM for a chance to win all 50 albums.
