year in music

 The Spin Year in Music issue just arrived. Here are their Top 40 Albums:

1. The White Stripes, White Blood Cells
2. Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
3. Beck, Sea Change
4. The Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
5. Eminem, The Eminem Show
6. Weezer, Maladroit
7. Missy Elliot, Under Construction
8. Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
9. N.E.R.D., In Search Of...
10. The Hives, Veni Vidi Vicious
11. Felix Da Housecat, Kittenz and Thee Glitz
12. Sleater-Kinney, One Beat
13. Jay-Z, The Blueprint 2: The Gift & The Curse
14. Bruce Springsteen, The Rising
15. Tori Amoz, Scarlet's Walk
16. The Roots, Phrenology
17. The Streets, Original Pirate Material
18. Scarface, The Fix
19. DJ Shadow, The Private Press
20. Bright Eyes, Lifted or the Story Is In The Soil, Keey Your Ear to the Ground
21. Foo Fighters, One By One
22. Sigur Ros, ()
23. Drive-By Truckers, Southern Rock Opera
24. Pulp, We Love Life
25. Red Hot Chili Peppers, By The Way
26. Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head
27. El-P, Fantastic Damage
28. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
29. Moby, 18
30. The Soudtrack of our Lives, Behind the Music
31. RJD2, Deadringer
32. Interpol, Turn of the Bright Lights
33. Ryan Adams, Demolition
34. Audioslave, Audioslave
35. Various Artists, MTV Road Rules: Don't Make Me Pull This Thing Over Vol. 1
36. Steve Earle, Jerusalem
37. Cody Chesnutt, The Headphone Masterpiece
38. Spoon, Kill the Moonlight
39. Super Furry Animals, Rings Around the World
40. 2 Many DJs, As Heard on Radio Soulwax Pt. 2

Surprises? None, really. They've ditched the perenial "Top 10 Albums You Never Heard," which seems an important shift in philosophy (depending on how you want to interpret it, the underground music scene is either inconsequential, bad, or unconsumable). I'm surprised at the vigor with which they hang on to The White Stripes. I think Spin needs The White Stripes to survive more than The White Stripes do.