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Preview: Our picks for the 10 best albums in 2008

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It seemed like every notable artist — from LCD Soundsystem to M.I.A. to Kanye West and Feist — released a quality album in 2007.

It got even better at the tail end when Radiohead dropped a completely unexpected digital-only release that signaled a new age for how music makes the journey from artist to audience.

2008 has some big headphones to fill. Here's what we're enjoying so far.

Listen: No release this year has been as immediately satisfying as Vampire Weekend's debut. The album loses steam in its back half, but the first five songs are instant classics.

Live: Vampire Weekend will play the Rialto Theatre on Sept. 23.

The Cool Kids, 'The Bake Sale EP'

Listen: This young Illinois hip-hop duo's EP is one of the freshest things the genre has seen in years. Which is weird, because the EP sounds like the minimalism of the late '80s.

Listen: The first album from this Toronto-based electro-rock duo is a brain-twisting romp that feels like what would happen if the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O, Blondie and Max Headroom decided to eat Super Mario Bros.' mushrooms in the Land of Hyrule and, instead of searching for an imprisoned princess, just made a kick-ass record. Done.

Live: Crystal Castles play Modified Arts, 407 E. Roosevelt St. in Phoenix, Friday.

Listen: After seemingly decades of anticipation and countless mixtapes all hinting toward "Tha Carter III," Lil Wayne has delivered … a pretty good album. It's no "Ready to Die" or "The Blueprint," but it's got enough of Weezy F. Baby's genius metaphors and rewind-and-play-it-again moments to be the summer's biggest hip-hop album. It's probably also safe to say those who saw Wayne's show at the TCC saw his last Southern Arizona performance for a while, after his subsequent arrest near Yuma on drug charges.

Listen: The Fleet Foxes from Seattle make the kind of hymnal, hippy, backwoods harmonies that make you want to sit barefoot in front of a fire and dine from the communal harvest. Which is to say: great, easy-going stuff.

Live: Fleet Foxes play Solar Culture June 30.

Listen: From Barcelona-based DJ El Guincho, "Alegranza" is a trip through all the best elements of Latin dance music filtered through a psychedelic kaleidoscope lens. Great for summer.

Listen: Last year, LCD Soundsystem released one of the best dance records in recent memory. You wouldn't expect something even approaching it to come out the following year, but this album is a blockbuster disco inferno all the way through.

Listen: A varied, cinematic journey through song samples and distillation, Quiet Village's "Silent Movie" works as well as background music for a get-together with friends as it does with headphone contemplation.

Listen: When Tucson's Mostly Bears surfaced circa 2007 in the Downtown music clubs, many probably didn't think the band's sound would evolve so quickly into something like "The Digital Divide," a song so aching for airplay you wonder why local rock-radio dolts don't spin this every hour.

Live: Mostly Bears play Solar Culture next Thursday.

Listen: Even though it could have benefited from some expensive studio time, the effortless pop songs on "Random Walk" established The Swim as one of the sharper rock acts in town.

Live: The Swim play Plush June 20.

On the horizon: New music from Coldplay, Nas, Beck, U2 and Dr. Dre.