1. Beyoncé - 4
This has been a very interesting album to digest over the past few weeks, more than most albums I feel like it'll be a while before I really know if I love it or regard it as a noble failure in some ways, or something else entirely. Even the songs I enjoyed immediately, like "1 + 1" and "I Care," have obvious flaws to me as songs, but the latter also has that amazing moment where she sings along with the guitar solo. And I'm still slowly warming to other tracks, "Countdown" is quickly becoming a favorite, although I don't think I'll ever like "Party" or "Run The World (Girls)." I hesitate to characterize Beyoncé as a usually calculating hit machine, because I think she's always had an unpredictable streak, and the reason B'Day is my favorite of her albums has a lot to do with the brash production and songwriting choices she made there. 4 is perhaps even more brash, just in a very different direction and one I don't like quite as much. Still, this could grow on me and be a big favorite by year's end.

2. bb&c - The Veil
I tend to mentally group Nels Cline albums into three categories: projects where he is the bandleader and/or songwriter, projects where he is a sideman or backing player, and projects where he is an equal member of an ensemble of musicians, usually instrumental and usually improvised. The last category is essential to Cline's work but rarely yield my favorite records -- The Veil, however, is possibly my favorite improv ensemble record Cline's ever done (or at least a close second to In-Store with Thurston Moore), partly because it's really just surprisingly heavy. The trio with saxophonist Tim Berne and drummer Jim Black, dubbed bb&c, is just making nasty, balls to the wall free jazz noise here, with Cline shredding and making an expansive bed of noise while Black lays down brilliant grooves that get almost funky on "Rescue Her."

3. "Weird Al" Yankovic - Alpocalypse
I will forever stan for "Weird Al" but have to admit this isn't exactly his best work -- the style parodies of Queen and Weezer are barely recognizable and the concept of doing "Party In The U.S.A." as "Party In The C.I.A." isn't exactly inspired, even if the execution is full of some pretty funny lyrics. Still, "Whatever You Like" still works almost 3 years after it hit iTunes, and the polka medley and the B.o.B/Bruno Mars parody are gold.

4. Limp Bizkit - Gold Cobra
I already said about all I could say about this album in my Voice review last week, but if my enjoyment of Gold Cobra didn't come across there (which it didn't to the Bizkit superfans in the comments section, but whatever), I will say this does jam almost like Chocolate Starfish in places, which is high praise from me.

5. Pitbull - Planet Pit
I still maintain that Pitbull's 2004 debut is one of the finest southern rap albums of the last decade, and while it's mostly been downhill since that and his guest appearances on "Shake" and "Holla At Me," I will say that his ascendance to global dance pop chart rapper of choice is kind of appropriate -- he knows what to do with these beats better than pretty much every other MC jumping on that bandwagon at the moment. I wish his multi-cultural soup of different types of dance beats had a few more distinct regional elements in here, like the DJ Class beats on his last couple albums (although there is a Baltimore club break on the intro track at least), but this manages to actually somewhat deliver on the promise of "Give Me Everything" being the summer jam of 2011, even if nothing is remotely as good as that.

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