Albums of the year: Rock, pop and country

Musical consensus is dull, but there were – as noted in many other best-of-2010 lists – a handful of great albums that were hard to ignore this year.

But let's not dwell any longer than we must on the gorgeous organic electro-pop of Caribou's Swim, the swoony spliffiness of Beach House's Teen Dream, the much-championed-by-me-already-on-these-pages sensation that is Caitlin Rose's Own Side Now or the heart-breaking vulnerability of John Grant's Queen of Denmark. Let's instead, turn our attention to those albums that slipped through the cracks.

If I were compiling a mix tape or playlist of great moments from 2010, these are the albums that would be by my side, jostling for inclusion: Sleepy Sun's Fever, Aloe Blacc's Good Things, Midlake's The Courage of Others (and the band must get a special mention for their backing work on that John Grant album, too), Broken Bells self-titled debut, Dylan LeBlanc's Paupers Field, the Avett Brothers' I and Love and You, Glasser's Ring, Lissie's Catching a Tiger and Sun Kil Moon's Admiral Fell Promises.

But the album of the year? There can only be one contender. Joanna Newsom's Have One on Me triple album is a work of staggering genius. And I've even held CD three back for 2011...