It's that time of year again, when our merry band of elves here at Nat Geo Music select our favorite world music albums of the past year.

We're passionate about our music here, so the sausagemaking can get pretty brutal - everything from bargaining and horsetrading to namecalling, yelling, slammed doors and the occasional fistfight.. And that's all just over the term "world music".

Because if there's one thing we do agree on, it's how outdated that particular moniker now seems. But what nobody here - or anywhere else - seems to agree on is how to replace it. Maybe we'll come up with a better term by next year, but don't hold your breath?

Another thing we all agree on is that Top Ten Lists are for suckers. It's a big world and there were far too many outstanding albums released this year to limit ourselves to a mere ten. So, in the spirit of bigger being better; we're offering up twenty of our favorite records from around the globe. That's right - twenty. Stuff that in your Christmas stockings, kids.

So without further ado, here are twenty records that knocked our collective socks off in 2010.

The Best World Music Albums of 2010:

1. AfroCubism AfroCubism (World Circuit/Nonesuch)

2. The Budos Band III (Daptone)

3.) Various Artists Palenque Palenque: Champeta Criolla & Afro Roots in Colombia 1975-1991 (Soundway)

4.) Khaira Arby Timbuktu Tarab Clermont Music)

5.) King Sunny Ade Baba mo Tunde (Mesa Blue/IndigeDisc)

6.) Grupo Fantasma El Existential (Nat Geo Music)

7.) ChocQuibTown Oro (Nacional)

8.) Tabu Ley Rochereau The Voice of Lightness, Volume 2: Congo Classics 1977-1993 (Sterns Africa)

9.) Chico Trujillo Chico de Oro (Barbès Records)

10.) Spoek Mathambo Mshini Wam (BBE)

11.) Dave Holland & Pepe Habichuela Hands (Dare2)

12.) Nneka Concrete Jungle (Decon)

13.) Mulatu Astatke Mulatu Steps Ahead (Strut)

14.) Original Broadway Cast Recording: FELA! (Knitting Factory Records)

15.) Various Artists The Roots of Chjcha, Volume 2 (Barbès Records)

16.) Balkan Beat Box Blue Eyed Black Boy (Nat Geo Music)

17.) Konono No.1 Assume Crash Position (Crammed Discs)

18.) Chucho Valdés & The Afro-Cuban Messanger Chucho's Steps (World Village/Harmonia Mundi)

19.) Rahim Alhaj Little Earth (UR Music)

20.) Cibelle Las Venus Resort Palace Hotel (Crammed Discs)