Q’s done it, Mojo’s done it, Pitchfork’s done it, everyone’s done it. All the big music review magazines and websites have pronounced on the albums of the year in their Best Of 2009 lists. But what’s the Best Of The Best Ofs? What’s the final, unarguable verdict on the best albums of the year?

The only place to find that is AnyDecentMusic.com, the music review aggregation service, which has rounded up the top 10s from a host of publications and arrived at the ultimate Best Albums Of 2009 chart.

And the overwhelming conclusion is that one album has dominated the contemporary music landscape in 2009: Merriweather Post Pavilion, the ninth album from Animal Collective, which coalesced the Baltimore outfit’s various freak folk, indie rock, psych pop and experimental post-rock strands into one hugely impressive and far-reaching whole.

There can have been few recent years when one release has figured at the top of so many end-of-year charts: Merriweather Post Pavilion scored two points short of twice the total accumulated by the album which was runner-up in the AnyDecentMusic chart, the debut from London dream pop act The XX.

The chart was calculated by awarding 10 points each time an album was top, 9 for second and so on.

The dominance of Merriweather contrasts with 2008, when the Best Of plaudits were largely shared out among Elbow, TV on the Radio, Fleet Foxes, Deerhunter and others.

Elsewhere in the Best Of The Best Ofs, it has been a strong year for indie rock and pop, but less so for the new folk movement, with Grizzly Bear the only representatives in the upper reaches of the list from the slew of experimental acoustic bands who have been prominent in the past 12 months.

And for hip hop, the impression that it has been far from a vintage year is confirmed by the fact that among the 60 albums in the chart, there are only three rappers, Raekwon, Jay-Z and Mos Def in the 60 names to have figured in top 10s from 15 sources.

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Best Of The Best Ofs Top 10

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112 Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion

57 The XX XX

52 Grizzly Bear Veckatimest

51 Wild Beasts Two Dancers

49 Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz

44 The Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca

42 Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Pheonix

36 Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport

33 The Horrors Primary Colours

26 Manic Street Preachers Journal For Plague Lovers

25 Fever Ray Fever Ray

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The ADM Rating

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8.4 Animal Collective

8.3 Fuck Buttons

8.3 Grizzly Bear

8.2 Yeah Yeah Yeahs

8.1 The XX

8.0 The Dirty Projectors

7.9 Manic Street Preachers

7.9 Fever Ray

7.7 Wild Beasts

7.6 The Horrors

7.5 Phoenix

See the full Best Of The Best Ofs list here:

http://www.anydecentmusic.com/home.aspx

For more information, contact

ally@anydecentmusic.com

terry@anydecentmusic.com