This year, I think, was a tougher one to pin down. A lot of albums were coming out late this year, which means I don't make them eligible until next year, and the bottom line is, there wasn't a ton of records that I was finding myself acquiring, outside of filling in on my vinyl collection, and stuph like that.
So the one that I kept coming back to turned out to be Rush's single release 'Caravan' this year (which was more of a preview of the upcoming Clockword Angels, set for a spring release). Truthfully, it wasn't 'Caravan' itself which got my attention, so much as the b-side, 'BU2B' which could almost be the theme song for Four Horsemen-style secular activists and anti-theists. Critics have panned the Neil Peart's lyrics on the tunes as preachy and self-righteous, but I'll still side with any song that echoes sentiments of James Hetfield's anti-religion screed "The God That Failed" (which was much less preachy, and maybe more anguished by first-person experience). It's also the best marriage between music-vocals-lyrics the band has put together in some years (I wasn't very impressed by anything they did on Snakes and Ladders back in '07), so it was a happy return to form. Hopefully, that's an indicator of things to come next year.
Honourable Mentions--Ben Folds and Nick Hornby--Lonely Avenue; Peter Gabriel--Scratch My Back
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