"I'm just saying that because I am rally stunned by the lack of diversity in these EOY lists"

Nicolas, I totally agree you about this !
Almost all the lists look the same : TV On The Radio, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, MGMT, Kings Of Leon, Vampire Weekend,...
And it's the same thing every year. Boring.
That's why I'm more interested in personal lists that are made by RYM users for example.
Considering my personal top 10, excepted the Cut Copy album that has been listed in official sources a couple of times, none of my other 9 favourites has been mentioned even 1 time. It's very strange because I'm not considering myself as someone especially eclectic and I have not the chance to listen to as many albums as Pitchfork writers...

yes, but you are just in another "niche"
by the way, I'd love to know which albums are your favorites
i always appreciate your recommendations (on my wishlist of 2008 albums, there's an entry called "Dumbangel groups "
For my part, I have only Fleet Foxes and Nick Cave in my top 10 so far but that might change

I'm released to hear that JCM is a liberal guy; I don't know why I thought he was conservative, maybe because Randy Newman scolded him once for this GM commercial he did.
Mellencamp was a teenage idol for me in the 80's but now I consider him as a lesser Springsteen and he wouldn't make my top 100.

nicolas and Dumbangel,

y'all are speakin' the truth.
i'm definitely guilty of fogeyism. especially these days.
and yes, personal lists are always where you find the interesting stuff.
i like nj's list for its uniqueness, although i probably wouldn't actually like any of the music on it - it's all weird/noisy/dark/arty/experimental stuff, right nj?

I knew Rolling Stone were the archaeologists of rock, but come on, freaking Lucky Old Sun? It's just plain bad.

I also don't get why Randy Newman's album gets such great reviews. You'd think at his age after singing about politics all his life he would have acquired at least some non-superficial understanding of it.

You don't want to see the same albums over and over, but you don't want to be different for the sake of different either. You want to listen to everything and honestly evaluate them all, not leave stuff off just because other lists have it on.

If I only see an album on one list, and can't find anybody else who's said a single good thing about it, it's not going to stand out to me. A single inclusion on a single list is no help to me. What helps me is seeing what comes up multiple times.

With the fogeyism obviously intact, and the stellar review it received, I'm shocked not to see R.E.M. not only on the list, but not in the top 10.