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This is where I'm supposed to summarize the past year, find some overaching theme or thread running through my choices, spot trends, or something along those lines. Instead it's just another mea culpa for my continuing and accelerating estrangement from mainstream pop music. Don't mind me, I'm just a grumpy old fart. But these twenty new albums made me less grumpy.

1. Diiv: Is the Is Are (Captured Tracks)

I enjoyed their first album, and far from a sophomore slump, their second is even better. Sure, I'm heavily predisposed to love bands that conjure a moody '80s vibe with thrumming bass, chiming guitar jangle, and submerged vocals, but this is greater than the sum of those parts, simultaneously updating the sound while tapping into a new level of melodicism for this band.

2. David Bowie: Black Star (Sony)

I wrote about this at length. What can I add now that...

After nearly two decades of independently producing and selling their own material, sexy goth-rock duo Collide are now releasing the work of another artist through their own label, Noiseplus Music. According to Collide's core members KaRIN and Statik, their rewarding past team-ups with multi-talented artist/producer Dean Garcia (of UK band Curve) was the catalyst that inspired them to back his new project. Find out more about this tenebrous team-up after the jump... Although KaRIN and Statik initially formed Noiseplus exclusively for releasing Collide's music, they admitted they could not resist boosting Garcia's new venture Spc Eco (pronounced "Space Echo" after a beloved vintage reverb effect), which also...