Best albums of 2010

The Official Charts Company has just predicted that 2011 will be the first year that an act sells half a million albums in download form alone. Next year the Brit Awards is also shifting the focus of its grand finale away from a lifetime achievement gong towards a Best Album prize instead. The form remains the best way to consume music.

And we've had quite a selection this year — from the towering ambition of Kanye West's anguished masterpiece to the quiet cheer of Best Coast. As you ponder what to get your urban aunt or your hipster grandma for Christmas, you could do worse than pick out one of the year's best. And whether you give it in the form of a CD, an iTunes voucher, even a piece of vinyl, the music remains the gift that keeps on giving.

FOR THE SCREAMING SCHOOLGIRL
Glee The Music, Volume 1 (Epic)
Like The X Factor and American Idol, Glee is a TV show that spawns vast download sales, but hopefully your nearest teenager has realised that it's a far superior show that also produces better music. This year there have been six Glee albums and a head-spinning number of singles — so if you're new to Gleekdom, this is the best place to start. Its sunny covers are cheesy, sure, but little can match their teenage takes on Don't Stop Believin', Gold Digger and Sweet Caroline for sheer exuberance.
 
Katy Perry
Teenage Dream (EMI)
Perry largely lost the rock-chick shtick on her second album in favour of synths and smut. It's bright, silly fun.
 
Taylor Swift
Speak Now (Big Machine)
With sales figures that would make Tesco's Terry Leahy salivate, this young singer-guitarist writes her own country-pop tales of boy troubles — and her obsessive fans adore her for it.

Justin Bieber
My World (Mercury)
Has the schoolgirl nearest you got flushed cheeks? A croaky voice from screaming too much? She's suffering from Bieber fever. I prescribe this album, on headphones preferably.
   
FOR THE HIP HOP HEAD
Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Mercury)
From the uniformly ecstatic reviews to the overwhelming variety within, West's masterpiece feels like the biggest rap album of the year. There are the spartan beats and nasty rhymes of Monster, the union of electronica and indie folk on Lost in the World featuring Bon Iver, and a signature self-loathing ballad in the nine-minute Runaway. Its predecessor, 808s & Heartbreaks, may be more coherent but he's thrown everything at this one and it's hard to see anyone in any genre matching him any time soon.
 
Eminem
Recovery (Polydor)
The most instantly recognisable voice in hip hop is still on top, having just received 10 Grammy nominations for this album, which includes his huge-selling Rihanna collaboration, Love the Way You Lie.
 
Nicki Minaj
Pink Friday (Young Money)
She's the most significant female rapper in years, guesting on other people's hit singles throughout the year but showing her range of voices to best effect on this eclectic solo debut.
 
Big Boi
Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty (Mercury)
In the absence of any new material by Outkast, this adventurous, funky solo work by 50 per cent of the group was 75 per cent as good. Which is very good indeed.
 
FOR THE SOUL SISTER
John Legend & The Roots
Wake Up! (Columbia)
R&B singer Legend and hip hop band The Roots have always had one foot in the past. Here they came together to dive into the soul sounds of the Seventies, choosing a selection of political covers that had a strong contemporary relevance to life under Obama but also had enough tunes and funk to work as entertainment. Baby Huey & The Babysitters' Hard Times has tough horns and taut guitar, while Legend sings mightily throughout. Even daring to take on Marvin Gaye's Wholy Holy doesn't result in a pale imitation.
 
Cee-Lo Green
The Lady Killer (Warner Bros)
Thankfully, former Gnarls Barkley man Green's solo album had far more to offer than his increasingly irritating hit F**k You. This is a vibrant, varied showcase for a strange, unique voice.
 
Janelle Monáe
The Archandroid (Bad Boy/Atlantic)
The most exciting new R&B star around confused many with the huge variety of styles on her debut album and a mad concept about a future dystopia. But the towering funk of Tightrope was the single of the year and there was plenty more where that came from.
 
Plan B
The Dafamation of Strickland Banks (679/Atlantic)
Londoner Ben Drew's commercially successful take on soul juxtaposed his smooth singing voice with his urgent raps. He pulled off a huge change in direction beautifully.
 
FOR THE INDIE STUDENT 
The Drums
The Drums (Island)
This Brooklyn trio divided opinion among those who saw them live, mainly because many couldn't believe that singer Jonathan Pierce should get away with dancing like that in public. Their debut album was nothing new either — a wiry, minimal indie sound that recalled Joy Division and Orange Juice. But what melodies! Best Friend, Me and the Moon and Skippin' Town all compete to see which one will refuse to depart your brain for the next week. It all raced along merrily to produce an absolute delight.
 
Warpaint
The Fool (Rough Trade)
The best midnight music of the year came from four LA women whose guitar-based songs meandered at length, favouring woozy harmonies and structural looseness over traditional verses and choruses.
 
Yeasayer
Odd Blood (EMI)
This once difficult Brooklyn band proclaimed this to be their pop album — if only Cheryl Cole were making electronic music this weird with great tunes at its core.

Best Coast
Crazy for You (Wichita)
Former child actress Bethany Cosentino brought some California sunshine to the indie world this year with this lo-fi, echoing and supremely hummable debut.
   
FOR THE BRAINY ROCK FAN
Arcade Fire
The Suburbs (Mercury)
Few could fault the third album from the Montreal rabble rousers, which ditched the end-of-the-world portentousness of its hard-going predecessor, Neon Bible, in favour of smaller-scale worries about growing up and a wariness about modern life. The songs were up there among their finest, from the outright punk of Month of May to the thrilling rush of We Used to Wait. Broader in scope and style, more consistent than ever before, this was the sound of a band operating at full throttle. It's essential listening across the board.
 
The National
High Violet (4AD)
This middle-aged Brooklyn band's breakthrough finally came this year, and it wasn't even their best album. Still, High Violet does show their talent for beautiful melancholy to fine effect throughout.
 
Paul Weller
Wake up the Nation (Island)
Weller is on fire at the minute, following up 2008's bonkers 22 Dreams with this similarly inventive work — taking in soul, heavy rock and even bizarre falsetto funk on the fantastic Aim High.
 
Robert Plant
Band of Joy (Decca)
Still coolly resisting the lure of a Zeppelin reunion, Plant continued vaguely in the vein of his Grammy-winning country collaboration with Alison Krauss on Raising Sand, here, but also turned up the guitars a bit and concentrated on impeccable covers of Low, Townes Van Zandt and Richard Thompson.

FOR THE CHUNKY JUMPER FOLKIE
Laura Marling
I Speak Because I Can (Virgin)
A close call for the Mercury Prize, Marling continued to sound dauntingly sophisticated on her second album, doing a huge amount both lyrically and musically over a simple acoustic backdrop. Subtle strings and swooning backing vocals offered touches of extra colour, though really it was all about her pure, desolate voice painting vivid pictures in song. Her boyfriend Marcus Mumford had the commercial success this year, but it was Marling's music that set the high watermark for the new folk movement.
 
Caitlin Rose
Own Side Now (Names)
She hails from Nashville with just a touch of country in the softly-softly folk of her debut album. There are subtle slide guitars and gentle harmonies with herself. It's lovely stuff throughout.
 
Joanna Newsom
Have one on Me (Drag City)
Two hours, three CDs, inimitable harpist Newsom improved her singing voice and cast her creative net even wider on her third album. it's a towering creative achievement, capable of delivering new pleasures for months and years to come.

Sufjan Stevens
The Age of Adz (Asthmatic Kitty)
Stevens shared with Newsom a fondness for long songs on his latest, which took folk as its starting point and then smeared it in clattering electronics. It's bizarre and frequently brilliant.
   
FOR THE ELECTRONICS BOFFIN
LCD Soundsystem
This Is Happening (EMI)
James Murphy claims this is his last album as LCD Soundsystem. Say it ain' t so! This one refined the rough, edgy electronic sound of its two predecessors and contained many of Murphy's finest songs. Particular standouts include the sparkling bleeping of I Can Change and the epic opener Dance Yrself Clean, which takes three minutes to burst into thrilling life wth one of the greatest synth riffs of the year. The frantic punk of Drunk Girls provided the party anthem of 2010 too.
 
Gorillaz
Plastic Beach (Parlophone)
Damon Albarn was as ambitious as ever on his third Gorillaz album, somehow marshalling Mark E Smith, Snoop Dogg and Bobby Womack into a coherent, technicolor pop whole.
 
These New Puritans
Hidden (Angular)
The Southend art punk band's second album is not for everyone, and is easier to admire than to love, but few others were so adventurous in sound this year. Britten meets dancehall? It shouldn't work but it mostly does.

Salem King
Night (Sony)
Harsh, bleak and frequently very beautiful, the blurry electronica and inaudible vocals from these pioneers in the field of witch house sounded special as well as spooky.

FOR MUM
Rumer
Seasons of My Soul (Atlantic)
After a decade of trying to make it in the music business, everything finally fell into place on the debut album by the Pakistan-born singer-songwriter. While she's not a million miles away from previous easy listening successes such as Norah Jones and Katie Melua, she started with different touchstones — the warm horns of Bacharach (who's a big fan) and the soft, heartbroken tones of Karen Carpenter. It's less pastiche than a master forgery — it's hard to believe it's a brand new album. No one sounded more soothing this year.
 
Take That
Progress (Polydor)
The ludicrous sales figures suggest everyone on earth already owns two copies of the man-band's first album featuring Robbie Williams in 15 years. In case you did miss it, it features the usual big tunes largely encased in a novel electronic surround.
 
Lissie
Catching a Tiger (Columbia)
Elisabeth Maurus of Illinois revisited the sounds of the American Seventies on her debut album — a bit of Fleetwood Mac, a bit of country folk and a lot of promise.
 
Tom Jones
Praise & Blame (Universal/Island)
This surprising new incarnation of Mr Jones was worthy of reverent worship rather than airborne underwear. A dignified, stately collection of gospel and soul, it showed an impressive new side to the man at this late stage in his career.