Over a full year ago, 2010's Best Albums list also awarded Destroyer's Kaputt as the best album of 2011 thus far. Since then, my ears have endured over 300 albums and EPs, yet Kaputt is still #1 with an Aja-slung sax rocket. I've tallied on last.fm, and Dan Bejar's latest blew everything else out of the water at 23 total listens; next closest are currently sitting at 13.
There were a few letdowns in 2011, but the following list will demonstrate it was a much stronger year than some are giving it credit for. Yes, the '90s alternative angle on the new Pains of Being Pure at Heart album resembled a Shania Twain lyric: "So you've got your guitars and you can make 'em crunch / that don't impress me much!" Not to mention a seeming bankruptcy on available band names. In fact, A.V. Club has an entire feature dedicated to bad band names; and while I Break Horses' Hearts is a fair album, reciting the band name and album title together borders on bestiality. Then again, bonus points for the Smog reference.
2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
3. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
4. Real Estate - Days (live review)
5. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
6. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L (live review + blurb below)
7. Chad VanGaalen - Diaper Island (album review)
8. The Weeknd - House of Balloons
9. Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
10. Bill Callahan - Apocalypse (live review/video links)
11. Blackout Beach - Fuck Death
12. Braids - Native Speaker
13. Big KRIT - ReturnOf4Eva
14. Wye Oak - Civilian
15. Hauschka - Salon des Amateurs
16. Drake - Take Care
17. The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck (album review)
18. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place
19. Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact (live review)
20. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
21. The Antlers - Burst Apart
22. Tom Waits - Bad as Me (discussion feature + album blurb below)
23. Mark McGuire - Get Lost
24. Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow
25. Junior Boys - It’s All True
26. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lenses Alien
27. Low - C’Mon
28. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
29. Moonface - Organ Music Not Vibraphone Like I'd Hoped (live review/video)
30. James Blake - James Blake
31. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
32. Panda Bear - Tomboy (behind the hype)
33. Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil (live review/videos)
34. Thunder & Lightning - Kangaroo Court ("name your price" download)
35. Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital
36. Wild Flag - Wild Flag
37. A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP
38. Little Scream - The Golden Record
39. Kendrick Lamar - Section.80
40. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch the Throne
41. The Weeknd – Echoes of Silence
42. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
43. Main Attrakionz - 808s & Dark Grapes II
44. Korallreven - An Album by Korallreven
45. Thundercat - The Golden Age of Apocalypse
46. Future Islands - On the Water
47. Twin Sister - In Heaven
48. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
49. Deaf Center - Owl Splinters
50. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
Best EPs:
1. Burial - Street Halo
4. James Blackshaw – Holly
5. Long Long Long – Who the Fuck Said Family Ain’t Family No More ("name your price" download)
6. Darkside – EP
7. Colin Stetson - Those Who Didn’t Run EP
8. Chad VanGaalen - Your Tan Looks Supernatural (bandcamp to benefit Japan)
9. Grimes – Darkbloom
10. Surfer Blood - Tarot Classics
Best Concert Performance: Randy Newman and the Cleveland Orchestra
Best Soundtrack: Drive
Best New Piano Renditions of Old Tunes: The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 2
Best Collection of Odds-and-Ends from the Glory Days: Stephin Merritt - Obscurities
Best New Christmas Album: John Zorn - A Dreamers Christmas
Worst Album That I Listened to in Its Entirety: The Streets - Computers and Blues
Then, Mike Skinner proceeds to rap the alphabet and punch the sky on the next song.Streets album isn't exactly streets ahead, if you know what I mean.
Best 2010 Album That I Didn't Hear Until 2011: Villagers - Becoming a Jackal
"Err, what's the most anticipated album in 2012?" Same as every year of the past decade, Pinky; The Avalanches try to take over the world.
Best Album of 2012 Thus Far: Sharon Van Etten - Tramp (live review)
In an effort to shake things up in 2012, here's my proposed rating system inversion for music critics: a scale of 1 to 20 monkeys flinging poo; the more monkeys you have, the shittier the album is.
"ONLY THREE MONKEYS FLINGING POO!? Damn, this must be a good album." - Excited Reader
St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
This year’s album of the year could be anybody’s number one, but I bet you it wasn’t yours. This isn’t about laying claim to the onliest flying island of Laputa – would be an apt comparison, though, considering we’re yet another male-dominated online publication comprised of educated, yet flawed, people attempting to mask our deficiencies (and no, handing Annie Clark our fictitious AOTY trophy isn’t an attempt to make amends, either). Strange Mercy is the ubiquitous selection charting high on many year-end lists, also functioning as the conversion point for those that defied all odds and undervalued her previous two efforts. And it’s a monster of an album. The year’s best, to be precise. No ulterior motives on our behalf, no fluff – well, a little bit of fluff.
You see, Annie Clark deserves credit for many things in 2011. Most notably, she provided us with a major holy-shit moment, the year’s most compelling cover, by way of Big Black’s “Kerosene” (along with solidifying her good taste on a slew of others like Tom Waits’ “Big Black Mariah” and the Pop Group’s “She Is Beyond Good and Evil”). We also have her to thank for the most annoying twitter campaign, asking her followers to tweet the hashtag “#strangemercy” to unveil album teasers and debut “Surgeon.” And this took at least six times longer to accomplish than the shelf life of the best trending topics. Why did we endure such an unreasonable request? As fans, we might not have Bieber-level fever, but we cared enough to be compliant, anyway, and I even turned to poetry referencing the origins of Clark’s stage name: “After the 18th straight whiskey – shrouded in smog, illness & misery – Dylan Thomas was admitted to St. Vincent’s to die poetically. #strangemercy”
On St. Vincent’s third album, however, her lyrics dispense of the sometimes coy direction on Marry Me, which was equally endearing, and begin to lean more on the autobiographical, as she hinted on Actor. At least, we’d like to think that we can intercept hints of her home and road life within the lyrics. During a recent interview, Annie Clark told us her inspiration comes from “anywhere and everywhere. Everything is fodder, nothing is sacred.” Well said, but this statement only reinforces our fear that we are the voyeuristic character in “Dilettante,” when she sings, “you’re like a party I heard through the wall / invite me / but I’m always watching you through a keyhole.” There’s a strange duality present where both the artist and the listener function as the outsider. And the skittish, rabbit-like subject of “Neutered Fruit” isn’t offering any answers.
So, let’s put a halt on dissecting her lyrics like a surgeon, and get to the bulk of what matters: these songs! Where the artist and audience really embrace is, somewhat ironically, in the anxious, claustrophobic depths of Strange Mercy’s production. That black cloud of a guitar, lashing out like bellicose lightning, is a force from the start, but extra dexterous on “Surgeon.” Occasionally, the clouds clear, but even the pervasive strings and keys are deceptively pretty, ready to catch you off-guard. On the title track, Clark’s voice catapults to great heights as the low-end distortion mounts, unhinging what was otherwise the first outright pleasant track on the album. And so the honor for most elegant goes to “Champagne Year,” which fronts a gentle post-industrial pulse like a modern Twin Peaks theme. It all amounts to a terrific package; there are so many ideas packed into one 40-minute album.
Before we finish reflecting on the year’s best and begin to look forward to a promising 2012 – who knows, maybe The Avalanches will release their little unicorn of a sophomore effort and/or Clark will wrap-up her collaborative project with David Byrne – we asked Clark what her favorite album(s) of 2011 were. To bid you adieu, we’ll leave you with her response, which begins in 2011 and ends in 1976: “Oh jeez. I'm usually so behind the times. I think Merrill (tUnE-yArDs) did a great job. I have been listening to a record called Selda by a Turkish artist of the same name. It's amazing.”
tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
Let’s get this out in the open: w h o k i l l is leaps and bounds better than the lo-fi BiRd-BrAiNs, Merrill Garbus’ experimental debut; it isn’t solely the production quality, the talent on display has improved in every area. Garbus’ elastic vocals bungee jump all over the vocal spectrum, occasionally toeing the line towards androgyny. Of course, take a gander at any of the lyrics, and you’ll find a strong-willed woman at the center (one of the most satisfying lines affirms she’s a “don’t take shit from you kinda woman”). Fully capable of flipping this role, she effortlessly shifts to the tender lullaby of “Wooly Wolly Gong,” which clocks-in as the album’s longest song. And she has a knack for this balancing act; on tour, she alternates between fashioning drum and vocal loops to her ukulele, while Nate Brenner splits between bass and drums. Saxophone – specifically a duet of alto and tenor sax – nudges its way into the mix to round out the exuberant sound, notably on “RiotRiot” and the game-changing single “Bizness.” Throughout the endlessly enjoyable album, her glam marching band exhibits a keen globe-trotting prowess, but Garbus’ ability to forge impeachable pop songs is astounding.
Tom Waits – Bad as Me
Tom Waits is a masterful conductor always on the right track. This is evident from the onset of “Chicago”; from there, Bad as Me churns forward with a wider scope than we might have expected. In his interview with Pitchfork, Waits commented on how his wife Kathleen Brennan “wanted to do 12 three-minute songs,” adding that he has becoming more “economical” in his songwriting process. Market the album as you wish, but Bad as Me doesn’t stand as Tom Waits’ first attempt at compartmentalization; Swordfishtrombones (1983), the first album informed by Kathleen Brennan, was marginally leaner by comparison. If anything, the tightened focus on shorter songs is likely a result of the exhaustion after compiling 56 songs – 30 of which were new – for the stellar three-disc Orphans collection (truly the perfect distillation of what makes Tom Waits the best musician still living).
Even Bad as Me’s closing song, “New Year’s Eve,” was cut down from what we presume could have been a “Sins of My Father”-sized track; the end result hints at this potential to reach out exponentially, and really it’s the only track to suggest a larger presence. Ultimately, Waits caved to his impulses, also releasing a deluxe CD-version of the album, which adds three bonus tracks. These extra tracks are largely superfluous, yet critical for the Waits completist.
Admittedly, this has been a lot of talk about his back-catalog, but Bad as Me rarely sees Waits branching out beyond what we’ve come to expect from him. This is simultaneously a terrific revelation because his albums have been uniformly great for most of his career, but also disconcerting, knowing there are few dark alleys he hasn’t traversed. The clamoring military-style verses and blue-collar lyrics of “Hell Broke Luce” are a welcome detour, and if we are to resort to Orphans-style categorizations, it appears to be the lone bastard. Elsewhere, I count seven potential bawlers out of thirteen total tracks: "Talking at the Same Time"; "Face to the Highway"; "Pay Me"; "Back in the Crowd"; "Kiss Me"; "Last Leaf"; "New Year's Eve." That means bawlers consume 25 out of a possible 44.5 minutes, which equates to 56% of the album. Therefore, Bad as Me is a bawler-based album with a brawler for a title track. But the true bright spot will always be the bastard in his heart.
Bastard Bits from This Blurb:
The last true attempt at brevity came nearly a decade ago in the form of the theatrical collection Blood Money, which was co-released with Alice anyway, defeating the notion of scaling back on content.
I'd gnaw on gravel and tar, rinsing my mouth clean with turpentine if it meant obtaining a voice with as much gravitas as Tom Waits'.
If you'd like more bawlers, stick to the Asylum years, or cherry-pick from everything thereafter.
On the other hand, if anybody's looking for a bastards-heavy album, that'd be Real Gone. Or, y’know, the third disc of Orphans, which was pretty great.
If you'd like more bawlers, stick to the Asylum years, or cherry-pick from everything thereafter.
On the other hand, if anybody's looking for a bastards-heavy album, that'd be Real Gone. Or, y’know, the third disc of Orphans, which was pretty great.
Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
In 2009, Shabazz Palaces’ smokescreen entrance into the blogosphere conscious was forged via two dizzyingly inventive EPs. As everything settled, many were able to target Ishmael Butler of the jazz rap collective Digable Planets as the Seattle-based act’s point person. The MC’s incantations were enshrined by percussionist Tendai Maraire and engineer Erik Blood. Their light-footed, dissident beats were in stark contrast to big-bodied efforts from ‘90s contemporaries like Raekwon, Mos Def and even DOOM to a point. It was an intriguing, mysterious introduction, but the EPs were easily overshadowed by those heavyweights.
Two years later, the state of hip-hop is stronger than ever; the Watch the Throne duo and the increasingly divisive Drake are raking in millions (or whatever it is, it’s way over our heads), while many upstarts are making their mark: “HiiiPower” Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky, Big K.R.I.T. and Danny Brown to name a few. Plus, let’s not forget the underdogs with great albums this year like Main Attrakionz’ 808s & Dark Grapes II. Many rappers keep slinging new shit almost quarterly, and if you’re Curren$y, most of it is sticking. Nevertheless, one record, Black Up, hovers high above the others and manages to do so in a compact 36-minute, planet-shifting expanse.
Minute details spot the album, collectively making it a brilliant alternative to, oh, everything else: Maraire’s distressing mbira solo and the banshee vocal sample that dominates “An echo from the hosts that profess infinitum,” the slinky rap-singing of THEESatisfaction on “Endeavors for Never,” the deep boom-bap serving as Butler’s launching pad declaration of “tonight!,” which, in turn, cues the soothing female vocals that demand audience participation on “Recollections of the wraith.” Those elements only amount to a very small portion of an album littered with gold specks such as this. Now, please, “clear some space out / so we can space out” a few more times to this album before the year comes to a close.
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