Badly Drawn Boy

Wielding a warped sense of humor and more instruments than most five-person bands, Damon Gough of Badly Drawn Boy has built his "keep 'em guessing" career on indie pop so brilliant and rich it could be sprung onto a Broadway stage with a seven-figure budget. Or, in the case of the beautiful, spot-on About a Boy soundtrack, a hit movie based on a Nick Hornby novel starring Hugh Grant. The songs simply are that colorful and moving — the sonic equivalent of being shot into the air by a cannon in the middle of a fireworks finale.

There's really no point in overanalyzing a Badly Drawn Boy song or, even worse, one of his winding, page-turner albums. Not when every effort lets ideas ebb and flow like water through raised and lowered locks. This boundless approach has produced some of the most deliriously carefree music of the past six years, including love songs that bloom and wilt ("Promises," "How?"), moments of sheer mania ("Push Me, Pull You") and pure bliss ("Summertime In Wintertime"), and even an Anglo-fied spin on Bruce Springsteen (Born in the U.K.).

When a young Damon Gough took home the Mercury Prize (the UK's top honor for album of the year) for his splendid, sprawling debut, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, it was a feat few people in his position could repeat . . . including Gough. Not like he isn't capable — it's just that the prolific prodigy in the ever-present knit cap could care less. He'd rather obsess over his next opus than worry about the last. No wonder listening to this list sounds like a game of Guess the Genre with an idea-a-minute stream of heart-poking balladry, psychedelic outbursts, electronic bridges, and right-brain rock.