Top 33 Albums Of 2011: 20 - 16

Sorry for the hiatus. Christmas happened. I'm also moving into a new house, so that will delay things further. Also, I'm a terrific procrastinator.

I'm not getting paid for this anyway, so really I am not at all obliged to finish this list.

Onward!

20: Ceremonials by Florence + The Machine

Hat nod to Beth who a few months ago got me hyped for the new Florence album. Ceremonials met and exceeded (and continues to meet, and continues to exceed) expectations. Though there is a brooding undercurrent flowing throughout the album, Florence maintains the balance between pop and eclecticism like fellow countrywoman Kate Bush. Bush, however, never had pipes like these. Also, REDHEAD ALERT.





19: Faces by Chris Staples

The songs of Faces are soft, mellow, catchy, and, like everything Chris Staples has recorded, solidly written. Listening to these five songs is like drifting down a quiet creek. It's just NICE, you know? Simple without being dumb, and sad for no discernible reason.

Go to Staples' Bandcamp site to stream or download these songs for free.



18: På Engelska by Säkert!

Annika Norlin is, lyrically and musically, a clever little thing. Listening to her is like eating candy. Check out her English-singing project Hello Saferide for proof. But until now language barriers have prevented me from enjoying the lyrical nuances of her Swedish project Säkert! På Engelska is Säkert! songs redone with English lyrics. Even though I'm sure amusing Swedish subtleties were likely lost in translation, the resulting work is still a lot of fun.

"Weak Is The Flesh"

"Can I"



17: Color The Trees by Firefox AK

More female-fronted Swedish goodness. And if it's Swedish, and it's not metal or meatballs, then it's smooth and chill and a little desolate. Maybe you could label this electropop, though it's not electro enough to be called electro and not pop enough to file under straight pop. Whatever. It's stuff like this that makes me forgo labels and just enjoy the jams. Recommended for cruising through empty cities at three in the morning.

"Boom Boom Boom"




16: Metals by Feist

It has been four years since The Reminder came out, so IT'S ABOUT DANG TIME. Despite the darker tone and the lower accessibility of the album (nothing here for iTunes to commandeer for their boppy commercials) you will still feel ultracool if you spin this disc while hosting an ultracool party or while sitting on an ultracool porch drinking some ultracool lemonade. Even if you don't dig it at first trust me when I say Metals is a grower not a show-er.

"How Come You Never Go There"



25 - 21
30 - 26
33 - 31

Top 33 Albums Of 2011: 25 - 21

I wanted to include Lady Gaga somewhere in this countdown because I thought it would make me cool in an ironic sort of way, like how Pitchfork always rates crappy pseudo-hip-hop way higher than deserved. But I couldn't make it all the way through Born This Way. Don't get me wrong. I like The Fame and The Fame Monster. But by the time I got to "Hair" I realized I wasn't enjoying this anymore. Maybe the album just wasn't dark enough. Maybe everything was too poppy. Maybe I'm old enough to remember when Madonna sang these songs twenty years ago.

That being said, "Judas" is freaking awesome and one of my favorite songs of the year.

On with the countdown!

25: Gravity The Seducer by Ladytron

Do you know how fun it is to wait three years for a new album? Not that fun. But with Ladytron the payoff is always fantastic. Not as explosive or dynamic as Witching Hour or Velocifero, the songs of Gravity are instead more in tune with the atmospheric concept of the album. What do I mean by this? I mean you get a good steady vibe. I mean you get sweet consistency. I mean the music takes you by the hand and guides you places instead of shooting you over the moon. Under "genres" Wikipedia has labeled this album synthpop, dream pop, chillwave, baroque pop, and new wave. All apply equally.




24: Lives and Treasure by Acrylics

It is always somewhat interesting when a guy/girl duo split time at lead vocals. What you sometimes end up with is two different albums mingled into one. In Lives and Treasure the chick tracks are groovy and positive, while the dude tracks are more grounded and folksy. In fact, dude does his best to channel his inner Conor Oberst, and when I was first giving this a spin I thought I had stumbled across another Conor side-project. Anyway, despite the variation between the songs you can still hear and feel Acrylics' overarching sound. It is a very good sound.

"Nightwatch"

"Tortoise Shell Shades"



23: Street Of The Love Of Days by Amor de Días

Another awesome guy/girl turn-taking band. This one is a supergroup of sorts (as super as two people can get) featuring Alasdair MacLean from The Clientele and Lupe Núñez-Fernández from Pipas. The music is gentle, slight, a little bit dreamy, and meanders along with a faint Iberian vibe. Lupe's voice is hushed and perfect and occasionally comes at you en Español. With MacLean at the vocal helm some songs do sound like Clientele tracks that never came to be, but that's not even close to being a bad thing. Street of the Love of Days pairs well with a cool quiet evening, a back patio, and a bottle of wine.

"Bunhill Fields"




22: The World Is Just A Shape To Fill The Night by Case Studies

Case Studies is Jesse Lortz, and maybe some other people, but sometimes not. A lot of these songs were recorded in a cabin in Washington state and there is a good rustic vibe that permeates these songs. The lyrics are honest, a little bit clever, and delivered like a resurrected and nearly-sober Townes Van Zandt. These are the kind of songs you should learn and sing around a dying campfire, even if there is nobody else around.

"The Eagle or the Serpent"



21: Wild One by North Highlands

Wild One is an album full of contradictions. Brenda Malvini's vocals are brittle and ethereal, but they hold everything together. The music itself is lazy but not boring. Several songs are uptempo, but none of them feel very fast. And the album as a whole is unassuming yet will still hold your attention. File under 'late-night driving.' The song "Benefits" alone is worth the price of admission.



"Steady Steady"

Top 33 Albums Of 2011: 30 - 26

From here to the top I'm going to post these in increments of five. Sweet goodness, this is going to take forever. Hopefully I can finish up by next Christmas.

Things to note about this set:
- Trail of Dead's cover art is comically bad
- I hate it when music videos have children in them
- I don't hate children
- Yokola is so perfectly out of place
- Austin, Texas, doubly represented

Enjoy, and if you don't, remember that things will only get better. I mean, it IS a countdown.

30: Bandcamper by Yokola

I don't know who or what Yokola is. There is precious little information about Yokola out there in Internetland, save for Bandcamp where a handful of outstanding tracks are free to download. I don't even know if Bandcamper can be classified as a proper release as it was obviously made exclusively for the purpose of existing on Bandcamp. I WANT ANSWERS. I do know Yokola is based in Sweden and the chill Nordic ambiance and attitude that permeates the work of so many other Swedish musicians also does so here. And chill is a good way to describe the music. Dude is so chill it sounds like he doesn't care about life's problems (even as he acknowledges them), and this is so completely at odds with the jangly jazzy music. Yet it works, and it works well. In addition to downloading Bandcamper, I highly recommend downloading the six-song Hello, especially if you're looking for a good summer jam.

Yokola on Bandcamp.


29: The King Is Dead by The Decemberists

I am so glad the Decemberists have moved away from the proggyness of The Hazards of Love and put together an album full of nice hooky folkish rock music. It is what they do best, and, upon my strongest recommendation, they shouldn't do anything else. There is a lot to like about The King is Dead, such as the ample use of accordion, the backing vocals of Gillian Welch, and Peter Buck lending some instrumental support. And of course there is Colin Meloy's thin warbling voice that gives each song a nuanced delicateness.




28: The Tao Of The Dead by ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead

The curse of creating one of the best rock albums of all time is that every follow-up release, no matter how awesome it is, will be somewhat disappointing. And while nothing Trail of Dead can do will ever compare with Source Tags & Codes, the band is still capable of delivering solid rock and roll. Tao of the Dead is, from start to finish, nice and consistent. The tracks, in fact, flow right into each other and this album, more so than most others, forms a complete and cohesive body. When you pop in Tao of the Dead you must be ready for an extended listening experience. Recommended as the soundtrack to a long aggravated drive.




27: I Am Very Far by Okkervil River

I Am Very Far is different than prior Okkervil River projects. It is noisier, busier, more in-your-face, and if it is louder it is because I am cranking the volume up up up. There are quieter tracks to be sure, and nothing squeezes the soul quite like a soft Okkervil River song, but the album was meant to be an experimental departure and that's where the focus lies. But even all the studio mish-mash can't detract from the fact that Will Sheff is one of music's best songwriters and every track -- be it loud, soft, frantic, or grounded -- sounds like a personal note scribbled directly for you.

Okkervil River - "Wake And Be Fine" via Jagjaguwar Records
"Your Past Life As A Blast" video.



26: Minnesota by Mason Jennings

Just over half-an-hour long, Minnesota is short and sweet. Jennings still touches on his familiar topics of love, religion, and booze -- and does so with that smooth crooning voice of his -- but he does well not to duplicate past releases. More piano-centric than his previous albums, each song tells an individual story, some more abstract than others, some more resolved than others. Jennings mood feels a little more dour than usual, and the very last track is a lyrical killjoy, but ultimately he can't restrain the optimist within himself. Minnesota, through its mini-journeys full of downward twists and turns, is a feel-good album, but only in the way that existence, despite its wretched plot-twists, is ultimately a feel-good experience.

#33 - #31

Top 33 Albums Of 2011: 33 - 31

I don't have a lot to say about the past twelve months' worth of music as a whole. It was overwhelming in capacity, underwhelming in quality. Still, there was a substantial amount of music I did (and continue to) thoroughly enjoy. What follows for the next several days is a large slab of that music.

It will appear as though I'm omitting a lot of good stuff, and I am, but only because I never got around to listening to it all. There was that Social Distortion album released in January, Cold War Kids, Get Up Kids (!!), another self-released Radiohead album (forgive me, Thom Yorke), Lykke Li (who I've grown quite fond of, but not fond enough apparently), Foo Fighters, Death Cab For Cutie, Britney Spears, etc. Goodness, it seems like I didn't listen to anything this year.

Anyway, here are my top thirty-three albums of 2011 fed to you in bite-sized chunks. Why thirty-three? No reason, honestly. I could say it was chosen as an homage to the 33⅓ rpm full-length record, but then I would be lying to your face.

33: The Sun Will Rise and Lead Me Home by Gates

I recently decided that 2001 was my favorite musical year. This was a decision based mostly on nostalgia, but the soundtrack to my life that year was exquisite. The Sun Will Rise, in all of its six-song'd glory, reminds me of those tracks. Maybe we would have called this "emo" back then (only after a six-hour argument over what does and does not constitute emoness). And maybe this is proof that rock music, in the stagnant state it is in, has not come so far in ten years. But Gates connects, and they hit all the right notes, and sometimes that's all I really ask for. The Sun Will Rise is for fans of Appleseed Cast, which should be everybody.

OH BY THE WAY, you can freely stream/download a digital copy of The Sun Will Rise over at their bandcamp site.
http://gates.bandcamp.com/album/the-sun-will-rise-and-lead-me-home


32: Fluorescence by Asobi Seksu

Speaking of sub-genres popular a semi-long while ago... shoegaze! There is something comforting about all of that chaotic fuzz and distortion, especially if the barely audible wispy vocals are sung by a female. And Asobi Seksu, once again, churns out the smaze. Fluorescence is reminiscent of late-80s/early-90s dreampop, and some songs are triumphant while others are seductive. Some are just genre-huggingly dreampoppy. But there is just enough pop and just enough rock (and maybe just a touch of weirdness) in each tune to keep things interesting.




31: Deerhoof Vs. Evil by Deerhoof

Hey, guys, Deerhoof is back! And they're glitchier than ever! D vs. E is the band's first full-length release since 2008 and, like everything they've recorded, the album is full of short, punchy, calculatedly insane music. Deerhoof is an acquired taste, and if you're checking them out for the first time this album may not be the way to go. But for longtime fans and/or those with an open mind, D vs. E is a whimsical adventure that will bend the way you approach music.

OH BY THE WAY, Polyvinyl Records is letting you download the entire album as a .zip file.
So get on that.

Christmas Music Is Just Awful

But here are a handful of Christmas songs I find less awful than others. Some may even be quite good.

Yes, a couple of these are really very depressing. That is just my own musical preference and not a reflection of my attitude towards the holiday season in general.

Enjoy while I continue putting together my list of best 2011 albums.

Low - "Just Like Christmas"
The Evaluation - "Full Beards, Angel Wings, Car Doors and Department Stores"
Starflyer 59 - "A Holiday Song (Happy Holidays)"
Grandaddy - "Alan Parsons In A Winter Wonderland"
Sufjan Stevens - "Sister Winter"
The Civil Wars - "O Come O Come Emmanuel"
Over the Rhine - "All I Ever Get For Christmas is Blue"
Rosie Thomas - "Christmas Don't Be Late"
Saint Etienne - "No Cure For the Common Christmas"
Blitzen Trapper - "Christmas is Coming Soon"