20. Janet Jackson - Discipline



I’ve grown up with Janet (well, the Jacksons in general), so it was especially pleasing when she released a great album after the disastrous 20 Y.O. I’ve always been more of a fan of Janet’s dance tracks (who isn’t?), but strangely some of the ballads on this album are my real standouts. There are one or two clunkers (The 1), but overall this was a very nice comeback album. And while it didn’t exactly set radio on fire, I think it pleased a lot of longtime Janet fans. It pleased me, and I’m pretty picky about this kind of stuff.

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19. The Killers - Day & Age



I would have expected the Killers to be higher on my list, but the truth is, this album just didn’t suck me in the same way the previous two did. It’s still the Killers, which means the record is fantastic and better than most stuff out there, but Day & Age didn’t have the staying power that Hot Fuss or Sam’s Town had. Still, there are plenty of positives. The one-two punch of Human and Spaceman is representative of the band’s power to create addictive singles, and I liked a lot of the more worldly flairs they experimented with on this album. They are still very much in the upper tier of current bands and I don’t see them slipping too far in the future.

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