1. RADIOHEAD: ‘IN RAINBOWS’ (ATO). While Radiohead’s discontinued pay-what-you-want proposition for downloading its new album made a great music-business story, the more lasting news is that “In Rainbows”  in either its one-disc or two-disc configurations  needs no gimmicks. The songs sound tuneful and modest, often pared down to just a handful of instruments. But they work up knotty structures and plunge into a troubled mind-set where nothing is secure: not relationships, businesses, identities or song forms.

2. FEIST: ‘THE REMINDER’ (Cherry Tree/Interscope). Immediately appealing melodies, thoughts of love and Leslie Feist’s gracious voice make “The Reminder” a pop album, but never a shallow one. Enigmatic lyrics and complex emotions come through the transparency of the arrangements, and the album is filled not only with immediate feelings but also with memories and what-ifs, hints and conundrums.

3. AMY WINEHOUSE: ‘BACK TO BLACK’ (MCA Universal). As 2007 began, Amy Winehouse’s second album announced the international arrival of a sly, tart-voiced, jazz-and-soul-loving songwriter from London who twisted vintage sounds for modern predicaments. In her songs she already knew too much about alcohol, drugs, succumbing to temptations and spurning rehab, and she neatly balanced self-consciousness and self-destruction. What followed, of course, has not been neat at all.

4. IRON AND WINE: ‘THE SHEPHERD’S DOG’ (Sub Pop). Intricate, hypnotic, fingerpicking vamps carry Sam Beam’s gentle voice and visionary songs on “The Shepherd’s Dog.” The 1960s of quiet psychedelia and East-West, Indo-Appalachian fusions suffuse the album, but so do West African rock, the deconstructions of dub reggae, and contemporary thoughts of war, faith and disquiet.