This has been a very good year for music. Personally, I wrote the best songs of my life, my friends were making great stuff too, and a great album was never more than a month away. And this was THE year for the single LP. All the best albums were just clean-cut single LPs- no bonus tracks, no second discs, no spillage, no mess. It's kinda hard to rank em, even though there was one clear winner. So let's run down my favorites in typical romantic reductionist fashion with the old one sentence review!
Iwrestledabearonce- Ruining It For Everyone
A mature (if possible) sophomore effort while still being BATSHIT CRAZY.
The Strokes- Angles
Remember for a brief second when post-punk was cool again?
Kaputt- Destroyer
A beautiful and un-ironic tribute to slick '80s jazz.
Adele- 21
Well produced, well written, well this is gonna win a bucket of Grammys.
Tom Waits- Bad Like Me
It's like Frank's Wild Years and all his ANTI- albums had a baby.
Yuck
Yuck, this tastes great.
Frank Zappa- Feeding The Monkees at Ma Maison
Dear GZ, can I haz m0ar?
The album of the year, by and far, is The Decemberist's The King Is Dead. I think I wrote about it... The best re-issue (sorta) was The Beach Boys's The Smile Session, in ANY incarnation. Huh, I think I wrote about that too. Weird.
***
TOP FIVE SONGS OF 2011-
5) Foster The People- "Pumped Up Kicks" ...Go ahead, pretend you didn't like this.
4) We Cut Corners- "A Pirate's Life" ...Good gravy, this breaks my heart every time.
3) Okkervil River- "Mermaid" ...Another heart-breaker that deserved to stand alone from the LP.
2) The Strokes- "Under Cover of Darkness) ..."It's been five minutes since I heard it. I gotta hear it again."
and the best song of this year or ANY year....
1) BLACK JOE LEWIS AND THE HONEYBEARS- "BOOTY CITY"
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