Seeing is how this is a site built on the preservation of music through best of lists, it is fair of me to ask of you your thoughts on which album will likely hold up as the year end best when all is tallied up in the end.

I gather these are the 2 likeliest of candidates. If you feel a third party is warranted, then by all means please submit your entry.

I'll start by choosing The Suburbs

Arcade Fire may pip it overall.

Kanye will dominate the US but from what we've seen - Q, MOJO and likely NME - Arcade Fire are gonna go strong in these kind of publications; not to mention that Kanye will have missed the boat because of the late release

I haven't heard Kanye's album, but I'll be really disappointed if Arcade Fire win with the pedestrian The Suburbs. For me, 2010 has been all about Janelle Monae and Sufjan Stevens.

Two very good albums, also two of the most overrated albums of the year. I think in US publications Kanye will do by far the best, but Arcade Fire will do better on the other side of the Atlantic. It's too bad Big Boi's didn't come out closer to the end of the year. People have forgotten it's better than Kanye's.

Kanye West will win every single US list, and probably a few UK and EU lists as well. I think Suburbs will do well in both UK and EU lists, but I would be shocked if it does well enough to unseat West. Big Boi's album is awesome (maybe my #2 of the year), but other than 3-4 songs it cant really compete with the majority of MBDTF.

I would be very surprised if Sufjan did well at all because of the lukewarm reaction his album got. Janelle Monae will probably do great, but all the publications that were big on her will probably go with Kanye.

I don't get the hype on Arcade Fire - Suburbs has nothing on High Violet, Plastic Beach, or Halycon Digest.

Sufjan will get his share to be sure. The Age of Adz has as many amazing reviews as it does negative. It is however a grower and an album not likely forgotten.

I am surprised however to see that much hasn't been made of PLASTIC BEACH. I think it's better than Kanye and Big Boi's new albums. It does seem so VERY VERY VERY long ago. So much amazing music this year, it has been hard to keep up.

I think Joanna Newsom is going to take the number 1 spot though. Have One On Me just seems like the right pick. I see this album ranking high in all lists.

On the contrary, I think Joanna is going to get left behind this year.

5 eligible EOY lists have been published so far - 4 from the UK (Mojo, Q, The Fly and Rough Trade) and 1 from Sweden (Sonic). Arcade Fire are on all the lists but Kanye is nowhere to be seen. It's still early days but something tells me Kanye is not going to have enough support in the UK and Europe to beat Arcade Fire to the overall top spot.

I'm a huge fan (big news!) and i kinda agree with that. Americans didn't go crazy over Have One on Me and the first european lists haven't shown yet a strong placement for the album. Yeah, she is making the lists, that might be enough to secure a top 10 placement overall, but not dominating is like no chance of being a top 5 of the year. Hopefully she will pick it up some steam. The Big Boi album wasn't forgotten, it was only Americans that really dig it, europeans weren't so crazy about it. Joanna Newsom is the truly one "forgotten", it's been a long way since February and even though her live shows were being critically hailed and all that shit, maybe it just wasn't enough. Deerhunter and National are finally appearing more and in better placements, that's a nice thing.

I uses this "" while typing forgotten because the real forgotten albums of the year were the smaller releases (Anais Mitchell, Dum Dum Girls, Fang Island, Avi Buffalo,...) and honestly: let's not pretend that LCD Soundsystem, Sleigh Bells, Vampire Weekend, Flying Lotus, Yeasayer, Sufjan and a bunch of others are actually doing anything better than Newsom, these albums are having mixed placements when they are placed in lists, while The Suburbs and Kanye will actually place really high. There are lists that even Laura Marling and Best Coast have been doing better, i really enjoy them, but didn't see that coming. That's the thing about 2010, before Kanye, Arcade Fire was the pick of critics to dominate this year's EOY. So basically, Kanye is going to take over almost every ranked list that wasn't published yet, especially in the US, including Pazz and Jop. I'm pretty sure Joanna will make a bunch of others lists in Europe and great to excellent reviews for the album, plus appearing inside Pitchfork's top 10 (yeah, let's not deny that influences others too) and a well reviewed tour, might make Newsom appear in a good amount of American's too. But like i said before, many of Newsom's 5 star reviews came from big local papers and small publications that i still don't know if they do EOYs or not, so we need to wait and watch.

Mojo that gave 2 stars to Archandroid picked to make the list. So there's not doubt Joanna and the others are going to make a good amount of lists everywhere, we just need to know who will do more. But many of us expected this year's EOYs to be variated in terms of picks and positions (we have the forum to prove it). The "big albums" were only the ones we knew that would make the majority of them, so far it is happening, let's see how it shapes.

I just like to say that when i use the word forgotten it wasn't like the albums didn't have staying power (Newsom's a very strong one indeed. Period.), but later releases, considered even better by a great amount of people, overtook the general consensus. To Mojo HOOM is a 5 star, but others of the staff didn't feel as strongly about it as to MGMT and John and they made higher placements. It's all about the staff. Archadroind had a lot of support inside Mojo to overcome that 2 star rating, same goes to M.I.A. Who Knew? Hopefully this will happen to others too, especially Sufjan. Age of Adz was a great, overlooked by some, album. Maybe other people from the staff of the mixed reviews didn't share this feeling and that album might make some of them too. It's a hell of an album, deserved better than what received and what is receiving now.

The real lost album of 2010: Sufjan's All Delighted People EP. People on here were singing its praises (critics were doing the same, if they weren't repulsed) when it came out, now it's been overshadowed by Age of Adz.

As for AF vs. KW, I put my money on Arcade Fire. They released the only great album of this year with a sound broad enough to attract listeners from both the US and Europe. I would predict the overall top 10 from the critics to be:

1. The Suburbs
2. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
3. The Archandroid
4. Plastic Beach
5. Halcyon Digest
6. Teen Dream
7. Have One On Me
8. Sir Luscious Left Foot
9. The Age of Adz
10. High Violet

The distance between 3 and 10, however, is very small. It's a tight race.

This is why it's ridiculous that the UK publish their year-end lists in November, and honestly a small flaw in eventual rankings here - these omissions are tough to make up for. I remember Stankonia consistently getting left off of UK lists a decade ago because of its Nov release date.

Tentative critics top ten.

1. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2. The Suburbs
3. The ArchAndroid
4. This Is Happening
5. Teen Dream
6. Halcyon Digest
7. Treats
8. High Violet
9. Plastic Beach
10. Sir Lucious Left Foot

And after that top ten would come Joanna Newsom, Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens, Best Coast, etc.

Personally Kanye beats Arcade Fire by a mile, but I do think that Arcade Fire will win out with the critics.

I think that Arcade Fire just being in this conversation is a great thing. It will undoubtedly raise there status as a great band. MBDTF might change and inform an entire genre. It's groundbreaking music.This scenario reminds my of 1972; Ramones against Stevie Wonder.

You mean 1976, right?

lol...My bad. The information was right at my finger tips.

I'm predicting:

01. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
02. The ArchAndroid
03. The Suburbs


for the top 3. The rest of the top 10 is a crapshoot, but I'm certain Sir Lucious Leftfoot will be in it.

Deerhunter all the way. Halcyon Digest is outstamding. Rock and Roll hasn't sounded this good in a long time. I love their previous work, but this is a major statment.
They might not win out in your year end lists, but i suspect a high rating.