Pazz and Jop and Rock and Roll

Here's what I submitted to the Village Voice annual Pazz and Jop Critics Poll.
Neither albums nor singles are in any particular order.

ALBUMS:
Franz Ferdinand (Domino)
Sam Phillips – A Boot and a Shoe (Nonesuch)
David Byrne – Grown Backwards (Nonesuch)
Wilco – A Ghost is Born (Nonesuch)
Green Day - American Idiot (Reprise)
Le Concorde – Universe and Villa (March Records)
Hope of the States – The Lost Riots (Epic)
Various Artists - Garden State soundtrack (Epic)
Magnetic Fields – i (Nonesuch)
Killers – Hot Fuss (Island)

SINGLES:
U2 – Vertigo (Interscope)
Modest Mouse – Float On (Epic)
The Darkness – I Believe in a Thing Called Love (East West Records)
Keane – Somewhere Only We Know (Universal)
Dashboard Confessional – Vindicated (Sony Music Soundtrax)
Troubled Hubble – A Happy Day Went Off the Cliff (Latest Flame EP)
Eminem – Mosh (Aftermath)
Gary Jules - Mad World (Universal)
Black Eyed Peas – Let’s Get It Started (Interscope)
Switchfoot - Meant to Live (Columbia)

and, for the comments area:

I'm a woman, over 40, living in the suburbs of Washington, DC, so I am an endangered species in the field, among the oldest persons at most shows I attend (but not the Pixies reunion!) and definitely not the audience most pop music wants. But then, I don't want most pop music either.

I am not on the Nonesuch payroll; not even on its mailing list! (I paid for all four of the label releases on my list this year), but that label's work is an example of why I still proudly follow contemporary music. There are still so many older artists I admire (shame about that last R.E.M. CD, however) and fine new discoveries to be made.

The radio is useless to me, and I won't pay (yet) for a satellite receiver, but I can hear what I need to know via internet streams from the likes of WFUV, KCRW and WXPN. My teenage daughters keep me informed of what's happing in high school and college. They give me Death Cab for Cutie and the Killers; I give them Magnetic Fields and Wilco. Everybody wins.

It's been a good year personally, and musically, I found a lot to love. But what a terrible year it was for the rest of the world. I live on a small blue island in a big red state, and November 2 would have been the most disasterous day of the year past if it weren't for December 26.

I have a family, a home, a job I love, a roomful of music and high-tech gadgets to play it on. There are people who ask only for clean drinking water and a blanket. If I complain about my life, slap me.