New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles shares his year-end list of the best in world music.

View Jon Pareles' list of the best world music albums of 2008

Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on the year's best world music

New York Daily News reporter Carolina Gonzalez discusses the best of 2008 in Latin Music.

View Carolina Gonzalez's list for the best Latin music of 2008

Jim DeRogatis of the Chicago Sun-Times and public radio's "Sound Opinions" shares his list of the worst and most overrated music of 2008. Let the controversy begin! Leave a comment!

Common, Universal Mind Control (G.O.O.D. Music/Geffen)

Britney Spears, Circus (Jive)

The Killers, Day & Age (Island)

Brian Wilson, That Lucky ...

Here's New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles' list of the year's best world music albums (in alphabetical order). Listen to the Soundcheck segment here.

Buika, Niña de Fuego
Debashish Bhattacharya, Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide Guitar Odyssey
Toumani Diabate, The Mandé Variations
Etran Finatawa, Desert ...

Music critic Jody Rosen of Slate.com visits Soundcheck today to share his list of the best pop and rock music of 2008. Here are his lists for best albums and best singles [listen to the episode here]:

Albums

1. Girl Talk, Feed the Animals

2. Lil Wayne, Tha ...

Jake Paine, editor in chief of the site HipHopDX, compiled these lists for his appearance on Soundcheck today. Is his exclusion of Lil' Wayne and Kanye West hip-hop hubris? What does it tell us about hip hop in 2008? In 2009?

Albums:
Killer Mike: I Pledge Allegiance ...

Debashish Bhattacharya

So remember on Tuesday when we were asking whether critics were irrelevant or irreplaceable? And I said that there were a few old-fashioned print critics, like Jon Pareles of the Times, that I still found important and useful? ...