It’s been a bit of a hyperbole-filled year for indie music fans. Adjectives like “ground-breaking” and “epochal” seem to have been thrown around indiscriminately. And it’s easy (and a bit fun) to get caught up in the hysteria. The so-called “Brooklyn Scene” has made its mark, but no amount of questionable New York Times trend pieces can stand in for straight-up incredible music Dragonfly download. Here’s our list of Top 10 Albums of 2009:

10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
Three albums in and going strong, the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s are still creating some of the best indie dance music around. Karen O’s raucous, shrieking “Heads Will Roll” is a definite contender for best dance song of 2009, with an unexpected organ sample straight out of Nosferatu. A move into more atmospheric territory only further compliments her wonderfully alien vocals.

9. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
This awkwardly-named band pulls off something difficult: fuzzy, twee, noise-pop that avoids being too cutesy. Waves of “oohs” and “aahs” over chugging guitars give off a summery quasi-surfer vibe, even if the band’s most familiar body of water is the Hudson. These sounds of youthful optimism give off a slightly melancholy sense of nostalgia, as if The Pains of Being Pure At Heart knows their level of glee is almost unreasonable.

8. The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love
Despite their rather cynical and misogynistic views on romance, The Big Pink sure knows how to make pessimism sound amazing. A Brief History of Love, with it’s dreamy vocals, warm and fuzzy synths, and catchy choruses, will win over everyone’s heart, however begrudgingly.

7. Sufjan Stevens – The BQE
Channeling the pulsating piano of Philip Glass and the pomp of George Gershwin, Sufjan crafts an instrumental album that’s breathlessly beautiful. His orchestrations wouldn’t seem out of place in a Woody Allen movie–at least, until one learns their inspiration. Not about a state this time (Stevens abandoned his Quixotic 50-state quest a while ago), but the nasty-ass Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Hey, whatever keeps this guy writing.

6. The Horrors – Primary Colors
Although this is their second album, The Horrors sound almost like a completely different band from the one who released Strange House. Faris Rotter learned how to sing, and they rest of the band learned how to play their instruments like Joy Division/New Order. The result is a great blend of their goth-chic grating style and the vocals that say more Ian Curtis than zombie corpse.

5. The Avett Brothers – I And Love And You
It’s refreshing–especially in a year of some crowded and noisily experimental records–to hear a band that, through its sparse sound, bares its soul. Hailing from North Carolina, Seth and Scott Avett play a mixture of folk, bluegrass, and, (gasp) country that tugs at every heartstring, hard. Heartfelt lyrics and swaying piano ballads confront loss and love with truth and honesty that’s hard to come by ’round these parts.

4. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest
We love us some hometown boys. In a few years, a Gallatin kid (lead singer Ed Droste) has gone from noodling in a room in Hayden to playing for a capacity crowd of 8,500 (Jay-Z and Beyonce in attendance) on the Williamsburg Waterfront. Droste’s lilting voice almost seems to echo its way through this entire album, as if Grizzly Bear is playing a yawning pine-tree-ringed canyon, not a Brooklyn warehouse.

3. Mos Def – The Ecstatic
After years of musical stagnation, Mos Def had us wondering whether his original claim to fame would be wrongfully eclipsed by his acting, a la the not-so-fresh-prince. With The Ecstatic, he picks up right where he left off in the nineties. A full sixteen tracks crackle with a playful electricity–Mos isn’t afraid to sample everything from Malcolm X to Middle Eastern chants, and doesn’t hesitate to sing without the aid of autotune. Hear that, Kanye?

2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Avey Tare, Panda Bear, and the gang are masters of setting shimmery, bubbling layers of noisy ambience in motion. The band seemed content in past albums to stop with this sometimes-inscrutable base sound, but in Merriweather Post Pavilion, they let all the pent-up pop free to crazily joyous effect. Infectious hooks work perfectly with ethereal vocals and African-influenced beats. Scarcely a misstep.

1. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
With a sound that hinges on an audacious mix of schizophrenic guitars, intricately constructed vocal parts, and off-kilter time signatures, it’s hard to believe that everything fits to form the densely-layered opus that is Bitte Orca. Even after half a dozen listens to maestro Dave Longstreth’s arrangements in “Temecula Horizon” or “Useful Chamber,” you’ll still be doing some detailed audio excavation.

Runners-up:
Jay-Z – The Blueprint 3
The Decemberists – Hazards of Love
Florence and the Machine – Lungs
Atlas Sound – Logos
Girls – Album
Bat for Lashes – Two Suns
Antony and the Johnsons – A Crying Light
The xx – xx
The Antlers – Hospice
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

With help from Samantha Moore