I know I'm late on this, but whatever. It takes me awhile to digest music.

Here is the abridged list of possible contenders for my top 5 albums of 2007 (great albums all, in their own right):

Air - Pocket Symphony
Architecture In Helsinki - Places Like These
Battles - Mirrored
Beirut - The Flying Cub Cup
Blonde Redhead - 23
The Chemical Brothers - We Are The Night
Digitalism - Idealism
Feist - The Reminder
Jose Gonzales - In Our Nature
Justice - Cross
Mando Diao - Never Seen The Light Of Day
Radiohead - In Rainbows
The Rosebuds - Night Of The Furies
Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger
Shearwater - Palo Santo
The Softlightes - Say No! To Being Cool. Say Yes To Being Happy
Son Volt - The Search
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Trans Am - Sex Change
UNKLE - War Stories
Voxtrot - Voxtrot
Wilco - Sky Blue Sky

And here's the 5 I picked and why (not in any order besides alphabetical):

Architecture In Helsinki - Places Like These
My god what a fun album. From start to finish this album works as both a collection of eclectic, energetic, and unique songs and also as an entire rollercoaster ride. Architecture In Helsinki's sound has evolved from a sound of utter chaos with flashes of brilliance amidst the bedlam down to something that's the opposite and better for it: Melodic, tight, poppy music with flashes of chaos that only serve to accentuate the eccentricity of it all. One for the ages.

Digitalism - Idealism
It was a tight finish between this and Justice's Cross; both are heavily glitch-influenced electronic albums, but Digitalism's take on it sounds more like a progressive concept album in its wholeness and manages to make some very entertaining clashing sounds without as much screechiness as Justice's effort, and with more of a melodic undercurrent to it all. The lyrics bring the whole effort down to earth, too, even when it sounds like you're flying through space.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
So even though it's not their best album (OK Computer and Kid A are better in my opinion), Radiohead proves that merely "good" for them is still damned excellent music. Each track accentuates the others, and they all carry a certain haunting beauty to them, most evident in the soft "Nude", the dark "All I Need", and the rolling "Reckoner". A damn fined piece of work.

UNKLE - War Stories
This album blew me away on first listen, and continues to on repeat listens. The inclusion of guest artists on nearly every track makes for a wide variety of sounds on one album...just about as wide a variety as you could get without it sounding like a hodgepodge. Every track is strong here, and the amazing thing is that the finished product is greater than the sum of its parts.

Wilco - Sky Blue Sky
Outside of the dull closing track, everything on this album is a smouldering fire, in some cases just burning below the surface, in other cases crescendoing into a brand of psychadelic-yet-undeniably-modern indie rock that seems utterly unique to post-YHF Wilco. The song structures take on a late-'60s sort of feel, with lots of Beatle-ey sounds and even what sounds to me like a bit of a Joe Cocker take-off in "Hate It Here", but without being plagiaristic...just timeless.