Those who know me well know that I love music. In terms of audio/visual entertainment, nothing compares. Not movies. Not games. Definitely not TV.

When opening it up to all forms of entertainment, music is right up there with books and dancing. In other words, if an armed man asked me which I’d prefer, I’d have a really hard time and probably die trying. What’s more, the latter is virtually impossible to enjoy without music.

That said, this is the new music I most enjoyed last year. New to me, at least. Call it my top bands, whatever. I had this stuff in heavy iTunes rotation last year:

1. Contra by Vampire Weekend. Album of the year.
2. Walking on a Dream by Empire of the Sun. Released in 2008. I didn’t discover it until last year. The first half alone is worth more than most full albums.
3. Baby Darling Doll Face Honey by Band of Skulls. Hello, blues rock! I couldn’t get enough of this album. Best new rock act out right now.
4. First Narrows by Loscil. An older album but really chill.
5. Miike Snow (Self titled). Another 2009 album that took me a year to discover. Every song on this thing is rated either a four or five star in my itunes. It’s that good.
6. Man On The Moon: The End Of Day by Kid Cudi (clean version). His newest album is dreadfully boring. But End of Day is all kinds of win. There are 6-7 really good tracks therein.
7. “Cooler than Me” and “Please Don’t Go” by Mike Posner. Overall, the album these are contained on fails to inspire. But these two songs are incredibly danceable.
8. Flamingo by Brandon Flowers. It’s not quite Killers quality. But it’s really close, which is enough to put in the the short list for album of the year.
9. Junior by Royksopp. Another album that took a year to make its way to my ears. Totally awesome. 10x better than Senior.
10. History of Modern by OMD. More like history of awesome. Synth pop is alive and well.
11. “Animal” and “1983” by Neon Trees. I regrettably bought the full album (only three songs worth listening to on it). But these guys from Provo, Utah know how to write killer pop singles.
12. Tron Legacy by Daft Punk. Not only are they capable of producing totally awesome house music. They’re equal soundtrackers to Hans Zimmer and maybe even John Williams.
13. “Tighten Up” by Black Keys. Their latest album really loses steam after song 4 or 5, but track three is wonderful.
14. “Some Chords” by Deadmau5. Best track off his somewhat underwhelming new album.
15. “Magic” (clean version) by B.O.B. featuring Rivers Cuomo. Awesome pop track.
16. “Cinema” by Benny Benassi. My favorite house track of the year.
17. “Runaway” (clean version) by Kanye West. Candid rap FTW.
18. “Jump” by 16bit. Best dub track of the year.
19. “Congratulations” by MGMT. Incredible finale to an otherwise disappointing album.
20. “Not Afraid” by Eminem (clean version). Best new work out song of 2010.
21. Hymns For The Rebel Soul by Rocky Dawuni. Most fun reggae since Bob Marley.
22. “Baby” by Justin Bieber. Song is awesome, people.

Honorable mentions: All the good pop music my hot wife introduces me to. And of course, all the oldie but goodie songs I continually enjoy.