If I were smart, I wouldn't even pretend to rank the "top ten" CDs of the year. Instead, I would simply list ten CDs with the most obscene visibility:quality ratio and let the well-praised top CDs fend for themselves on everyone else's lists. But in order to do that, I'd have to read everyone else's lists to make sure I know what's commonly praised. Also, I'd have to be smart.

So...here's a list of my ten favorite releases of 1998, as of this moment, not counting lots of stuff I haven't heard yet, haven't really familiarized myself with, etc. Also, no EPs, compilations, or live recordings (unless they're wholly of new material). And even though I'm pretty sure about which records go here, I'm totally not sure about what order they go in. Each group of five is about right - but rankings within that group are variable.

Completely subjective, subject to change:

** T H E T O P T E N **

1. Elliott Smith XO
2. The Loud Family Days for Days
3. Mercury Rev Deserter's Songs
4. The Spinanes Arches and Aisles
5. Pinetop Seven Rigging the Toplights
6. Beck Mutations
7. Cotton Mather Kon Tiki
8. Sunny Day Real Estate How It Feels to Be Something On
9. Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
10. R.E.M. Up

Also, in two large clumps:

The Aluminum Group Plano; Belle and Sebastian The Boy with the Arab Strap; Butterfly Child Soft Explosives; Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach Painted from Memory; Creeper Lagoon I Become Small and Go; Mark Eitzel Caught in a Trap and I Can't Back Out Because I Love You Too Much, Baby; His Name Is Alive Ft. Lake; Jack Drag Dope Box; Tommy Keene Isolation Party; Nothing Painted Blue The Monte Carlo Method; Liz Phair Whitechocolatespaceegg; Quasi Featuring "Birds"; Swervedriver 99th Dream.

Neil Finn Try Whistling This; Bill Fox Transit Byzantium; Mitchell Froom Dopamine; The Rock*a*Teens Baby, A Little Rain Must Fall; Jules Verdone Diary of a Liar; Rufus Wainwright Rufus Wainwright.

list, shmist.