Claiming the posthumous prize
I suppose I should open with a few simple queries. Is there actually anyone out there who truly feels that Ray Charles made the finest album of 2004? Was Green Day's American Idiot too overtly blue state-friendly? Was Kanye West's The College Dropout too generously explicit? Were Usher's Confessions and Alicia Keys' The Diary of Alicia Keys jam-packed with too much pedestrian and mundane R&B? I suppose none of that matters, because Charles died, and untimely death will always take precedence over genuine artistry.

