It’s been a good year for music, and a good decade. 2009 ended with some truly forward-thinking genre development (glo-fi/chillwave) and genre resurgence (shoegazer), and an overall spirit of musical innovation that makes me excited to see what the next decade has in store. It was hard to pick my top ten this year (and any of my honorable mentions could easily have made the top ten), though the #1 was never in doubt. Anyway, here are my picks:

10) The Flaming Lips, Embryonic: Unexpected, daring, fringe… the Flaming Lips’ latest is a challenge but nevertheless grows on you with each listen. It is low-fi, 70s-era psychedelia that evokes a sort of “Age of Aquarius” atmosphere of hippie haze.