5.) Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty

Huge Outkast fan so I've been waiting for this album for about 4 years. The only down side was the fact that Andre 3000 wasn't given clearence to appear on any tracks (except for a few leaked ones). Big Boi is able to stand on his own despite that, and shows why he's a legend in the game...

4.) Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager

Sort of alternative Hip-Hop, I guess. Really solid production, especially from Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids. Even darker than his first album. Always great when artists are allowed to express thenselves without the label making them put a bunch of Pop-y bullshit on their album just to sell records...

3.) Eminem - Recovery

Who knew that getting off of drugs would have a positive effect on him? I enjoyed Relapse, but really could only tolerate moste of the tracks. Recovery is great from begining to end. He's able to show his rhyming ablity even more without losing the edge that people like so much. Not a ton of pop culture references which he often seemed obsessd with in the past....

2.) The Roots - How I got Over

My new favorite Roots album. Musically their best one to date, IMO. All the songs flow together perfectly and every verse from Black Thought and the guests (Blu, P.O.R.N., Truck North, etc.) are on point. Damn near perfect in every way...

1. ) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Wow. Just.....wow. Excellent production. If you like music, you'll love this. Kanye has grown as a rapper and it shows right here. While The College Dropout will always be my sentimental favorite, he really does some serious shit on this one. He's even become a better producer, if that's possible. A ton of replay is neccessary to catch everything going on. From the subtle guest voices you think you may have heard on a track, to a ton of dope lines from West, this one is a classic...


Very Honorable Mentions

Bez - Journal Enteries (#6)
Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
John Legend & The Roots - Wake Up!
Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek - Revolutions Per Minute
Method Man, Ghostface & Raekwon - Wu-Massacre

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This is my signature...

1 - Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
I recently did a review thread for this: KanYe West finally gets his 5th mic


2. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty
This album is great from beginning to end. Big Boi has always been severely underrated. He's definately one of the top MCs in hip hop. Andre 3000 has a very tough act to follow

3. The Roots - How I got Over
This is just as good if not better than Illadelph and Things Fall Apart. The album goes from dark as if theres no hope to light and optimistic. The guest appearances where chosen very well and each guest delivered. This and Big Bois album are pretty much tied for 2nd place. Tough choice

4. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
I had limited exposure to Monae before I was given this album by a female friend and told "this is how busting a musical nut feels like". Took about a week before I finally gave it a spin and damn this shit was better than I expected. This album is complete musical stimulation.

5. Cee Lo Green - The Lady Killer
This is 21st century 70's Motown. Another album with no filler. Cee-Lo is like the male version of Lauren Hill. Dude is a sick MC who sings just as good. A collab with 3000 would have been awesome on this album though

I liked Kid Cudi's album too but its suffered cuz I got it the same day I got Cee-Lo and Kanye's album so I haven't listed to it nearly as much. Its very good though

I also liked Em's album. I'm listening to it now as I type this and it could easily be in the top 5. Best album from him in a loooong time.

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"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

1. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
2. Brothers - The Black Keys
3. Nothing - N.E.R.D.
4. Heaven is Whenever - The Hold Steady
5. To the Sea - Jack Johnson

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I'm gona go out on a limb and guess that this one sounded exactly like all the rest of his songs....

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Mr. Hernandez is my mult....or I'm his mult. I wish there were an easy way to figure this out...

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This is my signature...

The album was a lot better than some of his previous. It's in the team photo for my top 5 for sure. You can't expect anything musically groundbreaking with his stuff, some may say that should automatically eliminate it from this topic

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Team Cutler.

Ke$ha deserves all five spots.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

She may very well be the worst person to ever do anything...

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This is my signature...

Any list without Kanye's and Eminem's is bad. I'm not a rap/hip-hop fan and I've gone through both of those at least 20 times.

MGMT's-Congratulations was really good
Guster Easy Wonderful
Against Me!- White Crosses


I'm sure I'm forgetting some w/o being home to look at my itunes

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Team Cutler.

5. Scott Lucas & The Married Men: George Lassos The Moon
I didn't know what to expect when I bought this album. I've always been a big fan of Local H, but this was something completely new for Scott Lucas to try. The band features Lucas along with a few members of The Tossers, and some other assorted musicians. Pretty mellow stuff, but some very beautiful songs songs came out of this album. They're playing at The Hideout this Saturday also...so come buy me a drink.

4. Nick Curran & The Lowlifes: Reform School Girl
I didn't even know who Nick Curran was prior to this year, but heard a few songs from this album on satellite radio and decided to buy the album on itunes. I've always been a small fan of rock-a-billy music, but Nick Curran has done it better than any current artist I have ever heard. I caught him back in September at Fitzgerald's and it easily ranks as the best show I have seen this year.

3. Dead Weather: Sea Of Cowards
I thought their first album was just ok, but this follow-up was great from front to back. Nothing much else to say..

2. Black Keys: Brothers
This band just seems to get better and better with each album they release. Just when you think their sound could go stale, they seem to reinvent themselves again and again. They're one of the only bands out there where I actually look forward to hearing new stuff year after year. So many bands in the mainstream just get tiresome by trying to recreate the success from previous albums.

1. Nelly: 5.0
I don't want Rick to beat me up, so this is my #1.

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Tough to make a top 5 list. I like Eminem's album and the Black Keys, but not a Kanye fan at all.

This would also be in mine somewhere:

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This is really good. Not my normal stuff, but I really dig it...

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This is my signature...

There is. Brian Williams and Bison Dele...

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"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

A friend of mine drove out to California to play some gigs and he took the bass player and drummer from The Tossers as his backing band. After a couple weeks those two guys hated his guts so much they left his ass in California and drove home to Chicago without him.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

So what you're really saying is that you took the bass player and drummer with you to California, and they hated you so much they left your ass there.

Got it.

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5. The Black Keys- Brothers

4. Iron Maiden- The Final Frontier

3. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

2. Avenged Sevenfold - Nightmare

1. Eminem - Recovery

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"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." ~ H.L. Mencken

Thanks. Even better stuff to come in 2011.

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

It would be worse if they would have driven him half way back and stranded him in Nebraska.

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No particular order b/c they are all great in their own ways.

Stone Sour - Audio Secrecy (edit...)
N.E.R.D. - Nothing
Minus the Bear - Omni
Deftones - Diamond Eyes
TSP - Teargarden I (Dec 09) and II.
Bez - Journal Entries was pretty cool too.

Why do Kanye's albums sound "thin" to me?

Some pretty Hipster albums out there...I haven't heard 85% of the music in these lists you guys are coming up with.

Although, I don't really listen to much music nowadays anyway.

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@audioidkid

I saw Minus The Bear with the Mrs. a few years ago. I don't really like them, but she is into them. I think we were the only people in the crowd not wearing cardigan sweaters. That's a very Hipster-ey pick, Doug.

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I think I only bought five new albums this year...

5) Final Fantasy XIII: Original Soundtrack
4) Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: Original Score
3) Video Games Live: Level 2
2) Mass Effect 2 Original Video Game Score
1) Halo: Reach Original Soundtrack

I forgot about Audio Secrecy by Stone Sour. That was 5b for me.

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"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." ~ H.L. Mencken

I haven't bought an entire album since 2007 (The Money Pit by Aasim). I only grab individual mp3s so I can ensure I'm only getting songs that I'll actually listen to. I have never, and will never like every song on an album (not even my own albums).

Torrents are a wonderful thing.

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

I hate it when the Eagles don't have a new album come out.

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Well this is dissapointing...I was hoping you would find some way to shit on one of those CDs...

I can't say I've ever heard any of them, so no...nothing to shit on here...for now

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Torrents suck.

Torrents are the fast food of the music industry.

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That analogy would be good except for the part that if I walked into a top-notch restaurant and tried to sample whatever I wanted without paying for it, I'd get thrown out...

Well, that certainly is one of the more creative arguments for theft I've seen in a while...so, congrats?