2007: number 9

Patrick Wolf
The Magic Position
Does it really surprise anyone that an album with a cover featuring an attractive homosexual on a diminutive carousel has ended up in my top 10? But it's not only the awesome cover art that thrills here. The third album from London-born signer-songwriter and classically-trained violist (p.s. weird word) Wolf is a masterful exercise in genre flipping. From the electro-pop of "Accident and Emergency" and "Get Lost", the haunting folk of "Magpie", and the baroque rock (barock? guys?) of "The Magic Position" and album-opener "Overture", it's an album that is at times mournful and reflective, at others upbeat and highly danceable, but consistently interesting and entertaining.