Monday, December 19, 2011

The 55 Best Albums of 2011 (45-55)



For the week I will count down my favorite albums of 2011.  Like a holiday advent calendar I will only give you a little taste of the good stuff one day at a time.  There's no denying that this year dubstep broke through to the mainstream like a ADD little boy hopped up on food coloring.  For those of us listening to Burial years ago, this was an overwhelming "duh" moment.  But for the rest of the world, it was like a 100-yard dash to the marketing finish line.  Within a matter of weeks of Skrillex's creative video (and it was a great video) every marketing campaign chucked their pop songs hoping they could be the first to latch onto this hip young trend.  There was a dubstep version of the White Stripes in the new Battleship trailer.  Verzion has a little kid tweaking out to dubstep on his cellphone with his grandma.  What's next?...will Tim Tebow pray to a dubstep beat?  I wouldn't doubt it.

Now...I WANT YOUR HELP.  Send me your lists of your favorite albums of 2011.  Top twenty.  I will compile all your votes into one master list.  So send it via email...or just post it in the comment box.  Will post on Dec. 31st the final result.

Here are the 44-55 Best Albums of 2011:

45.       Cage The Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday
46.       R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now
47.       Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
48.       Skrillex - More Monsters and Sprites EP
49.       Stevie Nicks - In Your Dreams
50.       Drake - Take Care
51.       Duran Duran - All You Need Is Now
52.       David Lowery - The Palace Guards
53.       Rival Sons - Pressure & Time 
54.     Jane's Addiction - The Great Escape Artist (End To the Lies)
55.     Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You

Buy these albums and more...now!!!  (all albums under $5 for a limited time)

3 comments:

Michael said...

Hi, always enjoy reading your blog and all the lists you come up with. Here were my 2011 faves, hopefully some with pop up on the rest of your countdown. Either way carry on the superb writing and music coverage :)

1) The Decemberists - The King is Dead

2) Mates of State - Mountaintops

3) The Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave

4) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

5) Tom Waits - Bad as Me

6) Class Actress - Rapprocher

7) Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

8) Dropkick Murphys - Going Out in Style

9) Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes

10) YACHT - Shangri-La

11) The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?

12) Dum Dum Girls - Only in Dreams

13) Cut Copy - Zonoscope

14) Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What

15) Childish Gambino - Camp

16) I'm from Barcelona - Forever Today

17) Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials

18) The Submarines - Love Notes & Letter Bombs

19) Hunx and His Punx - Too Young to Be in Love

20) Summer Camp - Welcome to Condale

Chris said...

This year was weird. I have to say, I like a lot of these albums but I don't necessary love almost any of them. I do absolutely love the first two though. They are also the only two that I think are in any real order. The rest was put together just as I went along. I didn't feel any one necessarily deserved a spot above the other or any rearrangement.

20 best of 2011
1. Battles “Gloss Drop”
2. Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears "Scandalous"
3. The Decemberists "The King is Dead"
4. Yuck “Yuck”
5.Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band "No Time For Dreaming"
6. Old 97’s “The Grand Theatre Volume 2”
7. The Muppets Soundtrack
8. M83 "Hurry Up We're Dreaming"
9. Beastie Boys “Hot Sauce Committee Part Two”
10. Hank Williams III “Hillbilly Joker”
11. G. Love “Fixin’ To Die”
12. Manchester Orchestra “Simple Math”
13. Stephen Malkmus “Mirror Traffic”
14. Kevine Devine “Between The Concrete and Clouds”
15. R.E.M. “Collapse Into Now”
16. Wilco “The Whole Love”
17. Ben Folds “The Immitation of Myself: A Retrospective”
18. Jeffrey Lewis "A Turn In The Dream Songs"
19. Buffalo Tom "Skins"
20. Foo Fighters “Medium Rare”

thanks for all the great posts this year. I love reading your thoughts on life, music, and anything else.

Chris said...

I also feel like this is the year of lost time with getting albums I really wanted to hear like Frank Turner, Good Luck & Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Soundtrack. I know there are tons more like the Vaccines album mentioned before.