With a nod to everyone who released records this year, here are my choices of best records of 2008 that were made locally or made elsewhere by locals. This is, of course, an imperfect process. On a different day, the order could be totally upturned, and the difference between the No. 1 record and No. 10 is frustratingly close.

1. Ben Nichols, Last Pale Light In the West (Liberty & Lament). The menace, despair, and desolation that always lurk behind Lucero's pub rock rhythms get their full, horror-filled due on frontman Ben Nichols' solo debut, available exclusively online at luceromusic.com until its physical release Jan. 20. Based on author Cormac McCarthy's gory masterpiece "Blood Meridian," the seven songs here represent a songwriting leap that bodes well for Lucero's major-label debut later this year.

Adam Smith

Lucero frontman Ben Nichols' solo debut is a concept album based on Cormac McCarthy's novel "Blood Meridian."

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2. Jay Reatard, Matador Singles '08 (Matador): This compilation of 7-inch singles -- the prolific Reatard's second collection this year -- is a diverse, super-radio-friendly batch of songs that tempers his electric guitar fury with touches of New Wave keyboard and even acoustic guitar.

3. Robert Johnson, Close Personal Friend (Angel Air): It was a strong year for Memphis reissues, with classic Otis Redding albums from the reinvigorated Stax, an invaluable Ardent Records retrospective and a long overdue rerelease of Van Duren's masterpiece Are You Serious? leading the pack.

But the best of the lot -- as much for its unexpectedness as for its sheer rocking tunefulness -- has to be the re-release of Memphis guitarist Robert Johnson's 1977 debut album packaged with a collection of recordings known as the Memphis Demos. A cult favorite in England, the record finds Johnson standing at the crossroads of '70s music, channeling power pop, boogie rock, soul and New Wave into an expertly written and executed collection that, 30 years, later, sounds shockingly relevant.

4. Oracle and the Mountain, Oracle and the Mountain (self-released): The band stakes out a strange plot of prog rock somewhere between Radiohead and Mars Volta, which is to say that it confounds expectations at every turn. And that makes this eponymous debut the most surprising and most fun local record of the year.

5. MouseRocket, Pretty Loud (Tic Tac Totally!): The art rock quintet MouseRocket emerged in 2008 as something more than the esoteric side project it has been for most of its seven years. From the get-go the band has been a musical marriage between two of the city's most talented frontpeople -- Alicja Trout, known for rocking out with the Lost Sounds and the River City Tanlines, and former Big Ass Truck guitarist Robby Grant, whose work with his home-studio "band" Vending Machine has tended toward whimsical pop. On their aptly named sophomore CD Pretty Loud, they and cohorts Robert Barnett (drums) Jonathan Kirkscey (cello) and Hermant Gupta meld the pair's styles perfectly, creating something all together unique and completely beautiful.

6. Streetside Symphony, the Curse (Ten Star Records): Rock with a capital "R," the debut CD from the former Crippled Nation is easily the most commercial record on this or likely any other local list you'll see this year. Streetside's music -- which, as the name implies, is intimately epic, with huge, sweeping chords and catchy choruses that feel like the summer you turned 16 -- is aimed squarely at kids and their sense of the drama in the everyday.

7. Silent Parade, The Safest Boy (self-released): Toiling with little fanfare, this young quintet -- most of the band members are in their early or mid 20s -- has, nevertheless, crafted a transcendent folk-rock album with just its second effort. The jangly guitars and sobbing pedal steel root things in Americana from the opening chords, but soon enough the band's songs have them flying from Ryan Adams to Sigur Rós and everywhere in between. Bonus points for the coolest Jackson Browne cover ever.

8. North Mississippi Allstars, Hernando (Songs Of the South): The great untold Memphis music story of the past few years has been the slow and quiet death of the style that has perhaps defined it the most. With fewer and fewer blues bands playing Beale Street and the music increasingly taking on a cruise-ship aesthetic, Memphis is looking more and more like the hospice of the blues. A few (too few) acts raged against the dying of the light in 2008, however, including the duo of Lightnin' Malcolm and Cedric Burnside, grandson of the late great R.L., who stepped it up with the recently released 2 Man Wrecking Crew. But after more than a dozen years, the Allstars remain the true heirs to R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, et al., a fact driven home this year by the release of their fifth full-length record. Hernando is a leaner but more varied effort, with the trio branching out into harder boogie and even jump blues.

9. Iron Mic Coalition, The 2nd Edition: Memphop (self-released): The Iron Mic Coalition deserves to be on this list if for no other reason than it allows me to mention one of the most powerful live performances of the year: the hip-hop collective's afternoon set at this year's Cooper-Young Festival where it delivered a tearful (literally) tribute to the just departed Isaac Hayes. Fortunately, the IMC also gave us the best rap record of the year, a typically thoughtful, tuneful and adult (as in mature) collection full of great old soul and blues samples and rhymes that transcend the usual hos, guns and cars babble.

10. Al Green, Lay It Down (Blue Note): Already on something of a comeback trail since his 2003 return to secular music, the soul legend took an artistic gamble on Lay It Down. Breaking free of the confines of Memphis and his longtime association with producer Willie Mitchell, he traveled to New York to work with Amir "?uestlove" Thompson of the hip-hop band The Roots. The resulting collaboration, reminiscent of similar projects by Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn, managed to be both current and timeless with effortless, grooving ease.

Mark Jordan is the senior music correspondent for The Commercial Appeal.