While the Collective may still be a little too 'out there' to seep into the collective consciousness, their amalgam of indie rock, twisted folk, and Beach Boys harmonies reached its finest expression yet in Merriweather Post Pavilion, an album that earned a 90 or higher from 19 of the 36 critics from whom we have a review. First, let's take a look at the best albums of the year (in Metacritic's database) as determined by their Metascores - an average of all reviews given by those same critics at the time of each album's original release. Later in this article, we'll look at the albums singled out by critics as the year's best. With a Metascore of 89, it's our top album of 2009, and it's one that people could still be listening to in the years to come.

Animal Collective may not be a household name, but in indie music circles, their whimsical landmark Merriweather Post Pavilion actually qualifies as a high-profile release. Having said that (sorry, Larry David), at least there's a chance you may have heard of our top-ranking album of 2009, which cannot always be said about our year-end high score lists. (Several live albums and compilations released in 2009 did surpass the 90 mark, but such releases are excluded from this article, which centers only on new studio albums.) And only six of the 100 highest-scoring albums of the past decade were released in 2009. Will 2009 go down as the least memorable year in music of the past decade? Despite having many more albums to choose from (Metacritic scored 892 albums this year, up from 805 last year and well up from the 400-600 per year we averaged in earlier years), not a single qualifying new studio album achieved a score of 90 or above - the first time in our 10-year history that has happened.

My albums from 2009