It’s Best of 2k11 time, and this year the list is enhanced with Spotify and other bonus content too!
Pop-up Streaming Player in New Tab/Window
1 – The Streets – Outside Inside – The Streets final album Computers & Blues is really really good. Maybe not quite as amazing as Original Pirate Material or A Grand Don’t Come For Free, but what is?
2 – A-1 – Be Cool – This SF rapper comes to you by way of bushwickwill on Twitter who used to write the “Nation of Thizzlam” blog and still writes interesting stuff for The Awl. Here’s the video for the song. Also, A-1 can rap about anything and you can get his mixtapes here.
3 – CSS – Hits Me Like a Rock – It’s a pretty good album but I couldn’t resist this track because of the buzzy synth that kicks in part of the way through. Also, Bobby G. is handling his transition from badass rock star to Serge-Gainsbourg-esque guest vocalist really well, don’t you think?
4 – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – If I Had A Gun… – The Album is pretty good. Noel should have gone solo before “What’s the Story” though.
5 – Herman Dune – Tell Me Something – Probably the best yeti-related music video since Divine Comedy’s Bad Ambassador IMHO.
6 – M83 – Raconte-Moi Une Histoire – The whole album is massive. Even this novelty-ish song pwns.
7 – Lana Del Rey – Video Games – Fuck all y’all, I like this song. Look how “meaningful” and “relevant” the video is too! =D
8 – Bad Passion – Rockin’ Your Beats – Get the whole EP for free and enjoy the slooooooow jamz.
9 – Daughter – Landfill – Just one EP on Spotify so far, but you can find other stuff in various places too.
10 – Burial – NYC – Any time Burial puts anything out in a given year I’m probably going to post it here.
11 – Melanie Laurent – Uncomfortable – I’ll admit I basically just started listening to this album because of the sexy cover, but then it turns out to be produced by Damien Rice and she’s also Shoshanna from Inglourious Basterds?
12 – Atlas Sound – Te Amo – What I said about Burial applies to this album as well.
13 – Jens Lekman – Waiting for Kirsten – Aren’t we all, Jens? From his 2011 EP. You can here him tell more of the story here.
14 – Jeffrey Lewis – I Got Lost – Never heard of this guy before finding his new album on Spotify, and that is a shame. He also made a bunch more cool stuff including this album of Crass covers.
15 – Strange Boys – Me and You – A fine album by some weirdos from Austin. And they made a fun video too.
16 – Weezer – Like A Good Neighbor – I don’t know why Rivers teases us like this. He’s clearly capable of making Pinkerton-esque stuff but he saves it for some sellout insurance commercial? Barry Manilow wrote this song.
17 The Feelies – Morning Comes – This whole album is worth a listen. Good vibes from a band that has been around pretty much forever.
18 – Trembling Blue Stars – Sunrise on Mars – The final EP from Trembling Blue Stars, but if you’re an idiot like me and never listened to his previous band, The Field Mice, then have I got a greatest hits collection for you!
19 – Jonti – Twirligig – I heard good things about this album from @theavalanches on Twitter, which is pretty much the highest praise you can get, right? Can you imagine that we might get records from Avalanches *and* The Wrens in 2012? That would be apocalyptic…
20 – Little Scream – The rest of the album didn’t catch me at first, but this song is incredible. Even more so in the live video version.
21 – William Elliott Whitmore – Bury Your Burdens – This guy is 33 years old. Why is his voice like that? Anyway, the record is awesome.
22 – Slow Club – Gold Mountain – I’ll admit I basically just started listening to these guys because they share a name with a really good restaurant in SF, but it was all for the best. Their new record and their first one are equally great.
23 – Sakert! – Can I? – 2011 was the year I really got into Swedish pop music. Sakert! normally records in Swedish and then puts out English stuff as Hello, Saferide but this year she put out an album of some translated Sakert songs. Learn more about Hello, Saferide on the aptly titled Would You Let Me Play This EP 10 Times a Day?
24 – Darren Hayman – The Ship’s Piano – Starting to wrap things up on a quiet note with the former Hefner singer’s song (and album) about little pianos. He also made a record and put on a gallery show about Russian space dogs this year and I bought one of his space dog paintings. It’s pretty sweet.
25 – Tune-Yards – Wooly Wolly Gong – Oakland city represent.
26 – Air France – It Feels Good To Be Around You – Sweden, sweden, sweden… This is the only song Air France put out this year but while we’re waiting for more, here’s all the rest of their music.
Don’t forget, you can get all my previous yearly mixtapes (and others) in the /mixtapes section of the archives!
And the amazing Louis C.K. image is from here btw…
Happy New Year!!
is full of great live drumming and bass playing that manages to work perfectly with the typical synth and drum-machine craziness. Check out some of the awesome bass runs on this track and try not to be weirded out by the robot voice reminding you how great it is to be a human.
wasn’t released yet. Damn Web 2.0 bands and their new-fangled business models. What’s next? Letting fans name their own price for an album?
, because they’re all over the place stylistically, but the album as a whole is pretty uniformly great. This track won out mainly for having a deceptively up-beat melody and jokey lyrics, while still getting in some great digs at the bland, frustrating sweetness of living “where the guards are gracious / And the grounds are grand / And the warden keeps the data on your favorite brands.”
is a great example of this and Gamma Ray is one of its catchier tracks.
, it’s from some demo/promo disc I downloaded.)
.
himself this year.
, but it was worth it. Third has everything from spare, acoustic ballads to aggro, electric freakouts. This track is particularly amazing since it contains a little bit of both. The moment when the transition happens is my favorite part of the whole record.