James’ Favorite Albums of 2011
Happy new year from Fuck Yeah, Music History! I thought it would be fun to kick things off by listing the 25 albums I loved the most this year.
James’ 25 Favorite Albums of 2011
Keep in mind, this is just my opinion. My tastes are going to be different from yours. (I know it seems weird that I have to explain this, but there’s always that one guy that needs it spelled out.)
Don’t worry about the order: I had a lot of trouble with it, and my opinions of these albums is likely to change.
Remember: It’s just music.
25. Jay-Z & Kanye West / The Throne - Watch the Throne
Watch the Throne was without a doubt the best time I had having people tell me how much better they are than me all year. This collaborative album boasts flashy production, quality beats, and overall solid tracks. Kanye’s not exactly at the top of his game (especially considering the quality of his last studio release) and Hova’s introspective rhymes aren’t anything we haven’t heard before, but it’s still an impressive and expertly crafted, albeit obnoxiously excessive, piece of work.
24. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, ULTRA.
With this release, as well as The Weeknd’s trilogy of EPs, I have hope for the future of R&B. Odd Future’s Frank Ocean gently pours his rich voice out over an unusual selection of tracks (including “Hotel California” and Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing”) for a short and sweet 42 minutes. The lyrics, while they don’t stray too far from radio R&B’s stereotypically cheesy sexuality, are actually somewhat introspective and capable of keeping my interest. Definitely worth a listen regardless of your stance on R&B, especially since it’s free.
23. Mamaleek - Kurdaitcha
I don’t really know how to summarize this dense, industrial, and mysterious bedroom black metal album, but I really like what I’m hearing. You should check it out too.
22. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
Definitely my favorite album to fall asleep to this year. Youth Lagoon isn’t exactly exploring something radically new (there’s kind of a lot of low-fi bedroom dream pop outfits banking on nostalgic vibes around the internet), but the project is arguably doing it a lot better than your average Bandcamp dream pop outfit. The lush synths and lighthearted guitars compliment the distant, almost unintelligible vocals rather nicely, and the songs are structured well too, boasting gently rising crescendos and melodies so dreamy you can barely make out a hook.
21. SebastiAn - Total
If Justice had never released †, I think this album would have received a lot more praise. This French house artist may use the same harsh, gritty synths that make up the general aesthetic of Justice’s debut LP on his own debut LP, but his take on house is pretty radically different than that of his contemporaries. His sound features more pitch-shifted sampling and fidget elements, as well as a much quicker beat measure. Despite these pretty clear differences, I would probably still recommend it to anyone disappointed by Audio, Video, Disco. And that’s not a bad thing.
20. Toro y Moi - Underneath the Pine
In his sophomoric album, Toro y Moi somewhat seperates himself from the whole chillwave movement and creates something a tad deeper, combining psychedelic rock instrumentation and blurry, humming synths into a cohesive and mellow blend.
19. Giles Corey - Giles Corey
Supposedly music inspired by a suicidal artist on a search for life’s purpose, Giles Corey is dark, eerie, and oftentimes difficult to listen to. It’s not an approachable experience, but if you can manage to immerse yourself in its black, foggy atmosphere, you’ll find yourself enjoying a haunting and rather unique piece of art.
18. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
Intense, moody, dark, grimy, psychedelic, schizophrenic trip-hop with a maddening infatuation with wobble bass and weird track names. A must-listen for any and all hip-hop fans.
17. Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I
It’s Earth. It’s really good drone/doom metal. I’m not going to bore you by trying to describe the appeal of drone, so just move along.
16. Neon Indian - Era Extraña
Like Toro y Moi, Neon Indian brought his already solid glo-fi/chillwave sound to the next level by pumping Era Extraña full of gorgeous production quality. It’s just absolutely packed with solid grooves, lush sounds, and great vibes.
15. Rustie - Glass Swords
Rustie takes fuzzy and warm electronic sounds, nostalgic video game and glam rock vibes, and that recognizable “melody, crescendo, drop,” American dubstep structure, and gracefully yet passionately smashes it all together into an electronic record unlike any other. If you’re tired of the “brostep” culture and that atrocious “post-dubstep” snobbery, this is for you.
14. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
More intimate and shocking than its predecessor, Father, Son, Holy Ghost boasts a far more intense version of Girls’ unique, yet quintessentially familiar, take on surf and sunshine rock ‘n’ roll.
13. Future Islands - On the Water
Over the past year, Future Islands has become one of my favorite bands. Their blend of new wave-y synthpop with Tom Waits-esque crooning is really appealing to me, and On the Water presents a lighter and dreamier fare than the outfit’s previous endeavors. Solid melodies, solid songwriting, and absolutely fantastic instrumentation.
12. SBTRKT - SBTRKT
2011 has been a big year for stylistic innovations in dubstep and two-step garage. One prominent example of this is SBTRKT’s wonky debut LP, which combines practically every variation on bass-centered electronic music into something quite simple and beautiful. Casual American listeners may be dismissing dubstep as a passing fad, but with acts like this entering the fray, naysayers may soon be stunned into silence.
11. Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Also known as “Tom Fucking Waits,” the legendary blues man has crafted yet another fantastic album. When I put this album on, I can’t help but feel like I’m wandering New York at midnight in the 1930s or 40s, my hands buried deep in my coat pockets in an attempt to keep warm from the rain as I walk by a small, smokey bar, hearing Waits croak his traditionally exquisite lyrics somewhere inside. Then Waits throws his listeners a curveball, blasting out completely insane tracks like “Chicago” and “Hell Broke Luce,” seemingly just to catch you off guard. Waits has a really consistent track record when it comes to just making good music, and Bad As Me is a worthy addition to his already prestigious discography.
10. Rymdreglage / Ninja Moped - Ninja Chips
What on earth is this album? Who is “Rymdreglage”? What is with that cover? Well, Rymdreglage (AKA Ninja Moped) is just two guys that make artsy, usually stop-motion videos on Youtube and produce some incredible chiptune music. Usually, chiptune artists don’t exactly hit the target when it comes to nostalgia, which is the big appeal of chiptune to me. When I was young, when my Game Boy Color was my best friend, things were a lot simpler, and the future was a whole lot brighter. Rymdreglage really bring me back to that feeling more than any other artist/project/band has ever been able to, and that makes this album very special to me. It’s definitely not for everyone, but to me, this album is something very significant.
9. Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
While typically pigeonholed as drone, Oneohtrix Point Never’s latest doesn’t seem to fit that bill very well. Replica is fidgety, funky, and really, really weird. It’s sample-based and, like drone, very much focused on an aesthetic rather than a melody or groove. The sounds are vibrant and obtuse, but somehow they never feel out of place. A very well-constructed album to be sure.
8. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
An album of introspection, an album of modest beauty, and an album of incoherent, raw emotion. An album of an untold story that gives cryptic bits and pieces but never anything solid and easily digested. Other than, of course, the music.
7. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
With its catchy melodies and hooks, it almost sounds like a mainstream radio pop album, but Strange Mercy is so much more than the sum of its parts. The album is like looking at a painting of something almost stupidly familiar, like a common household object, but with some kind of fourth dimensional angle, presenting the viewer with a forced perspective that would under any other circumstance be impossible to see, or even imagine. Confusing and eerie, but still familiar and comfortable.
6. Battles - Gloss Drop
Battles may have lost a key component of its creative force, but they still managed to create something funky, creative, and fun without breaking stride. Gloss Drop makes me want to get up and dance, but those darn math rock time signatures make it close to impossible to comprehend why it’s so damned catchy, much less figure out the best way to move to it.
5. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin
Yeah. Take another look. Let it sink in. Goblin is on this list. It’s even on the top five. It’s something you’ll have to accept. If you’ve heard it, you already know how you feel about it, so let’s just continue on before anyone gets upset.
4. Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
Nicolas Jaar’s debut album sounds to me like what would happen if the Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor attempted to make a house album. Cryptic samples, field recordings, deep textures. Space Is Only Noise has to be one of the most genre-defying pieces of music of the year, to be sure, blending elements of jazz, soul, electro house, and even a little two-step garage into an album so mysterious that I’m a little more than hesitant to attempt to decipher any kind of meaning.
3. John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
I’d try to describe the beauty that is John Maus’ latest endeavor, but I think if you listen to the closing track, “Believer,” that the experience will demonstrate the genius of this lo-fi master better than my words ever could.
2. James Blake - James Blake
Music fans are oftentimes quick to label whatever they hear into easily discernible genres and sub-genres. When James Blake arrived on the scene, many thought he may be a veritable savior of dubstep, taking the style back from the likes of Rusko and Skrillex. Others claimed it was something deeper, that he was taking the genre into something new, something called “post-dubstep,” a title reserved for the elites, the likes of Mount Kimbie, SBTRKT, and, to a certain extent, the great Burial.
But Blake, although he describes himself as a dubstep producer, has used demonstrated here that he cannot be contained by any preexisting mold. Every track on here is different, yet not entirely unpredictable. Blake’s style is something completely new, but it isn’t even remotely hard to understand. It’s huge and monolithic, but cold and subtle: like an iceberg, with most of its magnitude modestly contained. It is not dubstep, post-dubstep, electro-soul, or anything else: It’s James Blake.
1. Andrew Jackson Jihad - Knife Man
Andrew Jackson Jihad is sort of difficult to pin down with any established genre. The group has been described as Americana, punk, folk, anti-folk, and alternative country. But regardless of how you try to pigeonhole it, the instrumentation doesn’t feel particularly ambitious, boasting your typical folk rock lineup and punk rock chord progressions. Not to say that the instrumentation is bad, but there is something significantly more powerful lying behind it, lurking without the slightest hint of subtlety: the lyrics. To me, Knife Man is more about singing and songwriting than it is about anything else, and it is these two facets that really make this album stand out.
While the songwriting is great, the album doesn’t seem like it’s taking itself too seriously, which is a pretty tricky balancing act. A lot of the songs are full of an almost comically hyperbolic hatred, which is directed at everything from social interaction to the sun. Many other tracks are societal commentaries, most obviously in the ironically gleeful “American Tune”. But Knife Man is at its best when the writer is more introspective, especially in the poignantly tear-jerking ballad that closes the album off, “Big Bird”. I won’t spoil it for you now, but the contrast between “Big Bird” and the rest of the album’s general feel is extraordinarily striking, and it’s probably my favorite part of the record. The emotions are primitive and simple, but they’re so sincere that it’s impossible not to relate.
It’s a fantastic piece of songwriting, and a tragically overlooked masterpiece.
