Usually the top pick is an easy call, the next half-dozen fall into place, and only last few spots are a struggle to determine. But there was no clear choice for this year's top spot, no "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" or "Smile." The rest of the list was no easier.

There was plenty of great music out there, mind you, maybe more than ever. But much of the most notable music took the form of incredibly cool online artifacts -- the amazing OK Go video with the treadmills, the Boston/Beatles mash-up bootleg called "Christmas in Boston," tons of hilarious James Blunt parodies and the hysterical Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg "Saturday Night Live" sketch "Special Christmas Box" (the uncensored YouTube version).

What follows is a traditional list of top-10 albums, plus a top-10 for viral music, which spread like flu via the Web.

Albums

In rank order:

1. Bob Dylan, "Modern Times" (Columbia). I've given up trying to convince myself that "Modern Times" is overrated. It's the best-sounding blues album ever recorded with enough quirks (lyrics cribbed from obscure Civil War poet Henry Timrod?) to make it worth pondering for years to come. A decade from now, it should still sound as simultaneously new and old-as-the-hills as it does right now.

2. The Hold Steady, "Boys and Girls in America" (Vagrant). Against all odds, old-school arena rock lives on in this century. Like spiritual kin Drive-By Truckers, the Hold Steady evokes the sounds, sights and smells of rock in a 1970s-vintage hockey arena so precisely that you can darn near smell the Zamboni exhaust fumes.

3. Girl Talk, "Night Ripper" (Illegal Art). Calling these 16 tracks of studio wizardry "mash-ups" seems insufficient. They're more like "cram-ins," as each track is packed with pieces of songs cut, warped and melded together into a seamless pastiche. They leave you breathless.

4. Weepies, "Say I Am You" (Nettwerk). So when was the last time you played an album start to finish and liked every song so much you hit the button to repeat it all over again? "Say I Am You" is a capital-A Album, a terrific collection of grown-up acoustic pop full of hooks and atmosphere.

5. TV on the Radio, "Return to Cookie Mountain" (Interscope). If you've ever wondered what Peter Gabriel would sound like singing apocalyptic art-metal from the bottom of a tunnel, wonder no more. "Cookie Mountain" takes awhile to sink in, but it's time well spent.

6. Cat Power, "The Greatest" (Matador). Chan "Cat Power" Marshall teams up with Al Green's old sidemen to make an easygoing masterpiece of smooth downer soul. Beautifully sad.

7. Ani DiFranco, "Reprieve" (Righteous Babe). After years of making self-consciously fussy records, DiFranco swings from the gut on "Reprieve." In doing so, she connects with the rhythms of the universe for the best record of all about Hurricane Katrina -- even though it was recorded before the storm even hit.

8. Rosanne Cash, "Black Cadillac" (Capitol). If you think you've got father issues, consider Johnny Cash's daughter. Out of the pain from his passing (as well as the deaths of her mother, Vivian Liberto, and stepmother, June Carter Cash), she wrought this stunningly beautiful elegy. "The World Unseen" might be the most powerful song that 2006 produced.

9. Ghostface Killah, "Fishscale" (Def Jam). A decade ago, few people would have singled out Ghostface as the Wu-Tang Clan member most likely to. "Fishscale" sets his inimitable rasp to beats that recall the old school without a hint of staleness, thanks to Ghostface's peerless wordplay. You keep listening just to see what strange, freaky thing he's going to say next.

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