Best Albums of 2011

Here's the raw list; additional write-ups are likely coming soon, but hey!  No promises!

1.  Bon Iver--Bon Iver


If you haven't fallen in love with this record yet, here's the secret: listen loud.  The intricate interweavings of textures and sounds throughout Bon Iver are technically impressive in themselves, and paying attention to them amplifies an already-valuable listening experience.  Vernon's songcraft is particularly strong here; whereas For Emma, Forever Ago (which was my #1 album of 2007) stood largely on its standout tracks--"Skinny Love," "Creature Fear," and "Re: Stacks"--Bon Iver is structured evenly, with peaks coming not in  radio singles but in specific moments of building, shifting sounds throughout.  Take "Calgary," for example: the song doesn't kick off as a hit--it isn't even immediately memorable--but it is persistent, building through expanding instrumentation into a powerful bridge and coda that resonates by returning to (and unleashing) the electric guitar pulsing in "Minnesota, WI"...which was itself an echo of the pounding bass drum in opener, "Perth."  The effectiveness of the album's "big hit"--"Holocene"--also benefits from the tracks that surround it, rising from the overlayed, arpeggiated guitar at the end of the track that precedes it and then allowing its eventual build to flow over into the clean electric guitar riff that kicks off "Towers."  The culmination comes in "Beth/Rest," which opens with a synth line taken directly out of a Michael Bolton recording session and then pays it back by slowly transforming dueling Les Paul and slide guitar lead parts into the same auto-tune vocal trickery that landed Vernon on the last Kanye record.  It's a brilliant, rewarding, and deep body of music.  In an age when albums are supposed to be dead, Justin Vernon has used scattered parts to make another kind of coherent and effective whole.


2.  tUnE-YaRdS--w h o k i l l 


Don't hate; appreciate!



3.  Cut Copy--Zonoscope


4.  The War on Drugs--Slave Ambient


5.  Youth Lagoon--The Year of Hibernation


This was my favorite record from last year; I listen to it on an endless loop, always.


6.  Akron/Family--S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT


7.  Foster the People--Torches


This year's "Phoenix Award" winner.  Interesting sidenote: Phoenix won last year's "Vampire Weekend Award."



8.  Efrim Manuel Munick--Plays "High Gospel"


Some of Munick's best post-GY!BE songwriting.



9.  Fleet Foxes--Helplessness Blues


10. Cults--Cults


11. Washed Out--Within and Without
12. Dave Bazan--Strange Negotiations
13. Bill Callahan--Apocalypse
14. The Mountain Goats--All Eternals Deck
15. Strange Cities--Strange Hearts
16. Destroyer--Kaputt
17. Lykke Li--Wounded Rhymes
18. St. Vincent--Strange Mercy
19. James Blake--James Blake
20. Beirut--The Rip Tide