The Onion's AV Club launched its best albums of the year list today, and it's topped by the Arcade Fire's Neon Bible, with the National, Radiohead, LCD Soundsystem, and Band Of Horses bringing up the top five's rear. The usual-suspect-studded full list is after the jump, but for now, some initial reactions...
THE GOOD: Tegan and Sara's sharp, spunky The Con (No. 8) is a nice addition to the top 10, which, if I didn't mention before, is full of the usual suspects. (Let the fighting over Wilco resume!) Also, I think this might be the first Feist-free list I've seen yet.
THE BAD: Band Of Horses over Kala? Really?
THE WHAAAA? So along with each ranking album's spot on the chart, readers were made privy to the number of points each record received, as well as how each critic broke down his ballot. Critics were allowed to give each album they voted for a maximum of 15 points, and the albums in the Nos. 24 and 25 slots—the Murphy/Mahoney FabricLive36 and Iron & Wine's The Shepherd's Dog—each received 20 points from two voters. Which illustrates an eternal critics'-poll conundrum, and it's only accentuated by the fact that 2007 is shaping up to be a pretty lackluster year as far as critical consensus goes: Nos. 21-25 on the list (which also included Grinderman, Bat For Lashes' Fur And Gold, and Fall Out Boy's Infinity On High) certainly represent more interesting choices than the swath of rock-critic-beloved meh ahead of them, but if they were voted for by two or three critics out of a 19-critic panel (which each of them were), are they really among the "best," or were they just the most beloved by a select few (with good taste)? I guess this is where Matos' Enthusiasm 40 comes in.
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Idolator
In October 2007, the Brooklyn outfit Creaky Boards was excited to see a person who resembled Coldplay's Chris Martin enjoying their CMJ festival performance. Less than a year later, that enthusiasm has turned into frustration as bandleader Andrew Hoepfner discovered that Coldplay's iTunes-ad-featured "Viva La Vida" had a melody that was kind of close to their "The Songs I Didn't Write," performed at the aforementioned concert. Did Martin go hopping from show to show at CMJ, lifting bits for his next album? Don't be daft, say the superstars; "Viva La Vida" was allegedly demoed over a year ago. This hasn't stopped Hoepfner from creating a video clip comparing the tracks and publicizing his band.
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As several Idolator 
