Does music really get better as the economy gets worse? If so, these records might just herald a golden age.

Portishead Third
The means changed on Portishead's triumphant comeback album—from noirish sampledelia to stark postindustrial rock—but the results did not. This is the same band ravers got stoned to in the 1990s, recalibrated for wizened ears and bleaker times.

Flying Lotus Los Angeles
Birthed under the considerable influence of producers Jay Dilla and Prefuse 73, the instrumental Los Angeles was the best hip-hop record of the year. That's a testament to its slippery rhythms, its novel textures, and, sadly, the terrible state of the art in 2008.

Fennesz Black Sea
A fitting companion to the discs listed above, Christian Fennesz's latest is less a feat of sound making than of remarkable sound treatment. The Austrian guitarist runs his instrument through layers of digital pixilation, evoking the kind of sublime racket you might expect if Kevin Shields tried to cover a Harold Budd record.

Four Tet Ringer
Too frequently too clever for his own good, Kieran Hebden reined in his ambition on this EP, forging a wondrous celestial union between Italian disco, Detroit techno, and electronic minimalism í  la Steve Reich. This is hypnotic, hooky stuff—and the best of a bevy of "cosmic" dance records released in 2008.

Quiet Village Silent Movie
If you don't have the money for a Hawaiian vacation this winter, you could do worse than mix yourself a double Mai Tai, turn the furnace up full blast, and baste in your own juices to the sweet tropical strains of Silent Movie, a remarkable '70s-era lounge pastiche that manages to be kitschy and refined all at once.

Beck Modern Guilt
Odelay aside, Beck's best records tend to be his most restrained—and this, his homage to '60s psych-pop, rates among his finest. Over 33 swift minutes, he's at his humblest—frank, instinctive, and utterly committed to no-frills songcraft.

Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend
For its literate account of campus life, for its intermittent West African pulse, for its indelible hooks, and for "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" alone, this might be the finest debut rock record of the decade. It's hard to believe these young dandies will ever top it.

Coldplay Viva La Vida
Chris Martin and company received more than a mere lesson in engineering from Brian Eno; they learned how to write better, shorter songs that move restlessly around the dynamic range. This disc is no masterpiece, but it does hint at what these Englishmen could accomplish if they keep pushing themselves.

Ne-Yo Year of the Gentleman
A month ago, I gave a lukewarm review to this disc, and then found myself returning to it, obsessively, for weeks. I haven't a clue what airs on top-40 radio these days, but if it's not songs like "Closer" and "Single", teenage girls are the worse for it.

Randy Newman Harps and Angels
Wryness is virtually absent from our age, unseated long ago by cynicism. Randy Newman is as wry as wry gets, and in a world gone mad, he offers a small masterpiece—a funny, intelligent, deceptively effortless album about the United States, a country he loves more than he hates, but not by much.