2011 was an OK year for music unless you happened to be a sax player. Those guys had a great year, even the “Big Man” Clarence Clemons, who got to play on a hit single from Lady Gaga which was pretty cool for him but then died, which was less cool. The sax was wielded on albums from such indie stalwarts as Iron & Wine, Destroyer, P.J. Harvey and countless others. It may even be safe now to play the solo from Foreigner’s “Urgent” in public again.
Here are my100 favorite songs of 2011 on a Spotify playlist – dig it!
And below are my 50 favorite albums of the year:
50. Clams Casino – Instrumentals
49. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
48. Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Pt. 2
47. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi
46. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
45. Dirty Beaches – Badlands
44. The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient
43. Sandro Perri – Impossible Spaces
42. The Stepkids – The Stepkids
41. Emika – Emika
40. SBTRKT – SBTRKT
39. Veronica Falls – Veronica Falls
38.Real Estate – Days
37. Dominant Legs – Dominant Legs
36. Kendrick Lamar – Section.80
35. Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What
34. Kurt Vile – So Outta Reach
33. Wooden Shijps – West
32. Surf City – Kudos
31. Action Bronson – Dr. Lecter
30. Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
29. Shannon and the Clams – Sleep Talk
28. TV On The Radio – Nine Types of Light
27. Panda Bear – Tomboy
26. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
25. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
24. White Label - Stolen Voices
23. Tennis - Cape Dory
22. The Horrors - Skying
21. Tune-Yards – Whokill
20. Wilco – The Whole Love
19. J Rocc – Some Cold Rock Stuf
18. The Kills – Blood Pressures
17. Atlas Sound – Parallax
16. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mirror Traffic
15. Wild Flag – Wild Flag
14. R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now
13. Kanye West and Jay-Z – The Throne
12. Cults – Cults
11. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra
10. Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde
Smith Westerns breezed in with a tinge of glam with their second record, which also contained some elements of 70s California rock for good measure.
9. Thee Oh Sees – Carrion Crawler
John Dwyer has been mining this brand of psych-rock for more than a decade but it’s here that he finally hits his stride, pulling two drummers along with him for the ride. It’s a wild woolly rocking set of supercharged songs.
8. The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts
Another band left for dead – their debut was so original a mix of samples, femme rap and cheerleader squad moves that it seemed a template destined to straightjacket the group which is just what it did on the similar follow-up. This, their third album, still contains the basic ingredients of their sound but the songs are all kicked into overdrive with a much broader palette of effects and tones. It feels much more like the best stuff that RJD2 or even Groove Armada were attempting in the early 00s and 90s respectively. Then there are songs like “Ready to Go Steady” which could be a killer track from Camera Obscura and “Buy Nothing Day” which playfully tweaks consumerism and would fit in quite nicely on a more recent Stereolab record.
7. Destroyer – Kaputt
Dan Bejar has made plenty of albums as Destroyer and as a member of New Pornographers, and not a few of them were excellent. None sound quite like this though, a dreamy wooze punctuated by some suspiciously 80s styled bass noodling and saxophone squonking. While the 80s yacht-rock banner was lifted by several other artists this year, most notably Iron & Wine, Bejar bends those sounds to his affecting and engrossing songs, finding the noir undertone to late-period Steely Dan and Christopher Cross textures.
6. Das Racist – Relax
The fickle world of hip-hop has already moved past these guys before they even had a chance to taste any mainstream acclaim but they continue to lay down raps that are as hilarious as they are thoughtful. Their first official release after a series of 2010 mixtapes – they show that they’ve only sharpened their wordplay and penchant for far-out references.
5. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
Each St. Vincent album seems to be a step forward, a deeper delve by Annie Clark into the soaring edgy art rock of vintage Peter Gabriel or post-Berlin period Bowie. It helps that she wields a mean guitar but part of what makes this her best yet is that she’s progressively sloughed off some of the archness of her earlier work to embrace the material and revel in her own bold sounds.
4. Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer
Fiery Furnaces seemed to be on the brink of something over several albums until the whole thing began to feel like wankery, too many riffs and edits and piled up images in the songwriting. Thankfully Eleanor got away from her brother for this solo disc which finally gives her the settings to appreciate her crystalline voice and cool-ass phrasing anew. The songs are hooky, compelling and wonderfully casual.
3. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
Waits is yet another veteran who sounded as vital as ever in 2011. It was easy to get lost in the avant-garde sounds and Howlin’ Wolf at the carnival feel of his last few records and forget that the man is an extraordinary songwriter but this brings it all together. Don’t miss him wink at Mick and Keith on “Satisfied” while Keith is right there playing guitar.
2. The Black Keys – El Camino
After scoring an unexpected critical and commercial triumph with last years Brothers the duo roar back with a crunchy party record that owes as much to Marc Bolan as to the band’s previous classic blues and soul influences. While it may lack some of it’s predecessors depth (almost all the songs are of the mean mistreatin’ wimmin variety) it makes up for it with sheer riff power, killer hooks and tight arrangements.
1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Anyone who read my Top 500 Albums of the Last 40 Years entry will be unfazed by this as number one of the year – it was the only 2011 release on it. What makes it so blindingly great? It’s a real album, with a connected theme but not an overlarded concept. It captured the mood of collapse around the world this year perfectly with lyrics about World War I – the great betrayal of a younger generation by it’s elders. Then there were the brilliant interpolations of other songs folded into these tracks – Niney’s “Blood and Fire,” Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” in clever and revelatory ways. Finally there was the sheer unexpectedness of one of the most vital artists of the 90s coming back after several decent to disappointing records with one of her very best.
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