The list was not solely voted for by current NME staff, ex-staffers and industry people (including Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, Glasvegas as well as label bigwigs.)
It's a pretty good list, It sums up what the NME has been about for the past ten years beyond the numbers chasing front covers. If you don't like the NME chances are you you won't like this list.
Two Dancers would look like a favourite for #1 at the end of the year but of course there would have been plenty of people who didn't vote for any 2009 album who will change the shape of the ballot. In early 2000 Travis's The Man Who made Melody Maker's top 100 albums of all times. It was 5th on the year end list for 1999.