1. 1) Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. 2) Animal Collective –Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. 3) Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
4. 4) Them Crooked Vultures – S/T
5. 5) Mastodon – Crack the Skye
6. 6) Passion Pit – Manners
7. 7(t) Royksopp – Junior
8. 7(t) The xx – S/T
9. 9) Metric – Fantasies
10. 10) Muse – The Resistance
11. 11) The Decemberists – Hazards of Love
12. 12) The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
13. 13) Silversun Pickups – Swoon
14. 14) Kid Cudi – Man on the Moon End of Day
15. 15) Mos Def – The Ecstatic
16. 16) The Antlers – Hospice
17. 17) Dan Deacon – Bromst
18. 18) Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
19. 19) Raekwon – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt. 2
20. 20(t) Modest Mouse – No One’s First and You’re Next
21. 20(t) Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
22. 22) Andrew Bird – Noble Beast
23. 23(t) Wilco – Wilco (The Album)
24. 23(t) Matt & Kim – Grand
25. 25) Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
26. 26) Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
27. 27(t) Various Artists – Dark Was the Night
28. 27(t) Danger Mouse& Sparklehorse – Dark Night of the Soul

Note: All results were tabulated after using the suggested Greasemonkey script to disregard downvotes. I ended at 28 albums because after that number, too many albums were tied with the same amount of votes and I wanted to keep it at a reasonable size. Also, if you would like to hear some tunes from each band, the easiest way is to do a Google Music Search for each band name – streamable audio, videos, and band websites should pop up. For the lazy people/mix lovers, I put together a grooveshark playlist which features some of my favorites from each album (Note: Some songs contain explicit lyrics, so don’t blast it at work unless your boss is cool with that): Listen Here

All-in-all I think this is a pretty respectable list, and I haven’t seen any other publication’s “Top Albums of 2009” similar to what we came up with. As expected, it’s geared towards the non-Billboard Top 40 acts (you have to subscribe to /r/Music, so you are generally more than a casual music listener and you probably strive to find “non-mainstream” groups), but there are a handful of commercially successful acts that are included.

Now for the interesting parts: The biggest move from a band was easily Royksopp. Hardly a blip on the radar four hours after the poll began, it started to steadily move up the poll as Euro redditors began to wake up. Also, the Silversun Pickups bounced around the most throughout the day, moving up/down from as low as 17th to as high as 7th before settling down at 13th.

The biggest fall came from Neko Case and The Avett Brothers. Both started out in the top 12, but remained stagnant for most of the day and ultimately fell off the list.

As expected the top three remained intact throughout the day. I thought correctly that Phoenix was going to take the crown because I feel it is the most accessible album of the three. Not bad for a band which was #50 on Rolling Stone’s best of in ’06 (I know, using Rolling Stone as a metric isn’t advised, but still, impressive nonetheless).

Proportionately speaking, most of the top albums were downvoted the same amount, however there was a handful of exceptions. Taking downvotes into consideration, Muse fell off the top albums list completely (-39 vote differential). Also, it seemed like Phoenix fans and Animal Collective fans were equally downvoting each other (-56, -53 respectively) trying to help their favorite act gain the top spot. This worked once for Animal Collective 19 hours after the vote started, but then it dropped back down to #2 for the final tally. There were three other acts, all near the bottom, that if downvoting were considered would have been knocked off the list (Matt & Kim, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse), and one band, if downvoting was considered, would have made the list (Russian Circles).

So yeah, those are the figures. For anyone interested in seeing the running tally I made throughout the day (five times updated) and my personal perspective on the poll, I made a lengthier post on my personal blog.

If you have any questions about poll results, just leave a comment and I’ll try to answer it as promptly as I can. Let the discussion/arguing begin! Oh yeah, and don't forget to upvote so that this list can get more exposure and a better discussion can ensue (regardless if you like it or not)!

Edit: As requested by swordgeek, here is the clump of bands that just got edged out on the list (the vote totals were near identical when the final tally was taken):

1. Russian Circle – Geneva
2. Baroness – Blue Record
3. The Avett Brothers – I and Love and You
4. Neko Case – Middle Cyclone
5. Portugal. The Man. – The Satanic Satanist
6. Florence + The Machine – Lungs
7. Blackroc -Blackroc
8. Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
9. Converge – Axe to Fall
10. Fever Ray – S/T
11. Sonic Youth – The Eternal

Edit Edit: I'm trying to get popular music site Stereogum to post the results of the poll on their site (they have a habit of displaying a lot of year-end lists). I sent an e-mail to the tips line, however, I'm unsure how likely it will get read. If anyone works for or knows someone who works for Stereogum, feel free to champion our cause!

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