My Favorite Songs of 2011
Playlist of all 30 Favorite Tracks
Hello friends! I’ve compiled a list of my favorite songs and albums of the year 2011. It’s been awhile since I released a list into the publicosphere, so I just want to preface these two lists with a few thoughts:
1. This is all purely my own personal opinion for my own personal enjoyment. I’m putting this list on facebook mainly for you guys to check out new artists/albums you may not have heard yet.
2. And since it’s my own personal opinion, it’s going to be somewhat limited. I listened to a hundred+ different albums over the course of the year, and although the albums ranged from metal to hip-hop to classical, my own personal preferences ultimately take over when it comes to making a list of my favorites. So, even though an album in a specific genre might be excellent to fans of that genre, I might not enjoy it as much simply because my music tastes lean in a different direction.
3. Please add any personal thoughts or ask any questions you might have. There’s definitely room for discussion here.
30. “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele
Out of all the artists on this list I don’t think anybody had a bigger year than Adele. She swept the Grammys and had 6 MILLION cds sold. That’s a heckuva lot in this age of online piracy. In order to sell that many copies, though, you have to be doing something right. Adele’s bread and butter are her powerful, bluesy-silk vocals, which she uses in full-force on this track. Her soaring voice and the almost Gospel-like barn-stomping piano make for one of the most memorable pop songs of the year.
29. “Yonkers” by Tyler, the Creator
This is one of those rare songs where I feel that you have to watch the music video in order to feel the song’s full impact. Tyler’s flow on this song is as left-field as it is smooth, possessing a sort of dark humor that turns disquieting with the unforgettable imagery of the music video.
28. “Judges” by Colin Stetson
This song is probably about as “metal” as Jazz music gets. Almost immediately you’re confronted with a wall of sound—a punishing bassline, a smattering of percussion, and a quiet, ghostly cry that takes over the song’s mid-section. Musically, it’s fascinating. I’ve never heard anything quite like it.
27. “Church and Law” by When Saints Go Machine
The first minute of this song is pretty disjointed, with a smattering of bright sounds and instruments and themes coming and going. And then, all of a sudden, the song stiffens, and a menacing piano-synth takes over the rest of the track, transforming it into an infectious, danceable tune with a huge chorus.
26. “Your Love is Calling My Name/The Animator/Come to the City” by The War on Drugs
It’s kind of cheating, but these three songs feed into each other so seamlessly that it’s really just one big, epic track. To me, these three tunes evoke every emotion that one feels when traveling on the open road. The first two tracks are excellent build-ups to the album’s centerpiece, “Come to the City,” which has the kind of musical bombast that would make 1980’s U2 proud.
25. “Polish Girl” by Neon Indian
There are so many songs out there that are just one Billboard Top-40 play from becoming huge hits, this song included. It definitely has the kind of catchy synth riffs that could sell a pop song, that’s for sure. It still possesses Neon Indian’s signature “chillwave” sound by utilizing old-school 80’s sound effects throughout, but at the song’s heart is a thumping, catchy synth riff that helps propel it a cut above the rest.
24. “Operation” by Yuck
This British band’s first album possesses all the caveats that made bands like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. staples of 90’s college-rock. What really works for Yuck—and on this song especially—is that they take all the best elements of this era of music and do so without it sounding phony or cheap.
23. “Lotus Flower” by Radiohead
Radiohead’s eighth studio release was solid but still a bit of a letdown considering the reputation of their previous work. “Lotus Flower” sure is a beauty of a single, though, with an ethereal bass-groove complimented by a nifty drum pattern and Thom Yorke’s signature falsetto.
22. “Kool On” by The Roots
I haven’t always been the biggest Roots fan, but this song really works for me. It’s got a vintage funky-soul loop and a very smooth flow that is delivered with enormous gospel-like feeling.
21. “Still Sound” by Toro Y Moi
The second chillwave artist to make my favorites list, Toro Y Moi’s “Still Sound” is a funky, pulsing dance beat that possesses the distorted sounds found in 70’s chill-jazz, with a hint of disco.
20. “Niggas in Paris” by Jay-Z & Kanye West
Easily the most quotable song on this list (ain’t it, Jay?). So many culturally-relevant one-liners! Beyond that, though, is a really catchy tune and some nice deliveries by both artists.
19. “More” by Nils Frahm
Felt by German-born composer Nils Frahm is a wonderfully intimate, piano-driven album. The quietness made me feel like I was sitting in the room as it was being recorded, able to hear the warm clunks of his piano keys against the strings. All the songs are great, but the urgent flutter of this track made it stand out to me above the others.
18. “Child Soldier” by Oneohtrix Point Never
I know my ears aren’t trained to hear all the layers, but there is so much going on this song, chiefly the abrasive juxtaposition of a stabbing, noisy hitbox chop and an ambient Blade Runner-esque synth. It’s really captivating.
17. “Bitter Branches” by PJ Harvey
What’s great about PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake is that although all the songs work and flow so well into each other thematically, they’re still able to stand out on their own. Such is the case on the track “Bitter Branches,” which has a quick, folk-rocksy guitar riff that’s immediately overshadowed by PJ Harvey’s singing, which possesses a neat Siouxsie and the Banshees kind of wail to it.
16. “Marvin’s Room” by Drake
This track perfectly captures the atmosphere of a late, drunken night gone wrong. The storytelling on this song is top-notch, with Drake singing and rapping lyrics that conjure far more than just the narrator’s muddled state of mind.
15. “Easy” by Pure X
For all the lo-fi feedback (and there’s a lot of it), at its heart this song is still a romantic ballad. The recording is dense and foggy, but the heartfelt emotion you hear in his vocals is anything but.
14. “Go Outside” by Cults
Catchy pop at its best. “Pumped Up Kicks” got all the airplay, but I thought this was the song of the summer.
13. “It’s Real” by Real Estate
Released in the middle of July, this song possesses summery, breezy warmth in its poppy guitars and wistful singing. Heck, I’d give anything to be able to come up with a chorus half as good as the one on this track.
12. “D.D.” by The Weeknd
This guy totally kills it on this song vocally. I’ve never heard someone come so close to sounding like Michael Jackson. In many respects it’s a very straightforward, faithful cover, but it still possesses that depraved atmosphere at the core of so many of The Weeknd’s songs.
11. “The Wilhelm Scream” by James Blake
Now, just about everybody has heard the Wilhelm Scream in film, although they might not know it. It’s a yelp/scream that’s been recycled through numerous Hollywood films as a sort of an inside-joke. What this scream has to do with the song itself is beyond me. All I know is that Blake’s soulful croon on this song is $$$.
10. “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes
A folksy, soul-searching track that combines the band’s penchant for awesome melodies and their Crosby, Stills & Nash-esque harmonies. Lyrically, though, it’s probably the most impressive song they’ve done.
9. “County Line” by Cass McCombs
Totally captures the desperation one feels traveling from county to county, carrying all of their burdens with them. The song is a slow ballad, but it really takes off when the chorus drops and McCombs hits all the high notes in his arsenal.
8. “July” by Youth Lagoon
I need to go through this list and see how many of these songs are about love gone bad. I’d imagine quite a lot. What stands out about this song is how nostalgic it sounds. This cut feels like a memory, almost hallucinatory, as it slowly builds up into a huge, sweeping melody that’s raw and powerful.
7. “Santa Fe” by Beirut
“Santa Fe” starts off with an untypical choppy synth line, followed by a foot-tapping rhythm and Condon’s affecting croon. And, of course, the horns, which sound absolutely golden on this track. Just a great feel-good song and probably the best hook they’ve released since “Postcards From Italy.”
6. “Burned Out” by The Field
Like most of his songs, this one takes its time as it slowly builds up, churning out layer after layer of trance-synth. Two-folds hypnotic and beautiful, and not to mention I almost crapped my pants when I realized the song had been sampling Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” the entire time. It’s also strangely soothing, yet not in a boring way, as each layer of added sound is as sonically fascinating as the next.
5. “Bizness” by Tune-Yards
Unlike a good amount of the songs on this list, this song didn’t require repeated listens for me to know that I’d heard something remarkably unique the first time I played it. It combines so many different brumal sound elements—Afro-pop rhythms, vocal synth-flurries, a groovy bass-line. What sells it all, though, is Merrill Garbus’ huge, soulful voice that functions more as a force-of-nature than an instrument.
4. “Cruel” by St. Vincent
Annie Clarke’s purest pop song to date. Moments of orchestra, plinking New Wave synths, a trotting drum beat, and her super-distorted guitar slashing all jumbled together to create pop bliss. As infectious and danceable as the song may be, though, lyrically it deals with abuse, which is strange because the way Clarke sings a stretched-out “cruel” during the chorus seems almost triumphant. That’s the icing on the cake, though. That chorus is awesome.
3. “Cave Song” by WU LYF
I was actually going back and forth as to what WU LYF song I wanted to round out my top five, because to be honest there are probably three or four other songs from their debut album that I could have put in this spot. This song may not be everybody’s cup of tea on first listen, as it combines gruff, almost unintelligible vocals with gorgeous guitar playing that reminds me of Explosions in the Sky or other post-rock bands. I’m a sucker for anytime a band sings with unbridled passion and urgency though, which is WU LYF’s calling card. The vocals here are animalistic and heraldic, the music swift and powerful and swirling. This song is big, especially at its climactic finish.
2. “The Morning” by The Weeknd
Goodness, this song is gorgeous. Ignoring the lyrics, you’ve got Abel Tesfaye’s gorgeous, quivering falsetto over hazy, atmospheric synths and a slick guitar riff as the song slowly builds up over a minute-and-a-half ‘til those rapturous drums and massive chorus come in. It sounds like baby-making music, to be honest. But it isn’t. As gorgeous as the song and the melody may be, “The Morning” is as bleak as they come, describing the decadence we often forget exists with the nightlife. The narrator attended a party he never should have gone to, and what we are left with is the foggy, drugged-out aftermath. There’s regret, introspection, shame. And if you’re hoping for solace by the song’s end, you’re not going to find any. That’s one of the many tragic beauties of The Weeknd’s storytelling.
1. “Midnight City” by M83
And here we are. I hate to go with the general consensus on this one (as this song has topped a lot of “Best Of 2011” lists), but this was absolutely my favorite song of 2011. The song just feels immense as soon as you press play and those colossal metallic synthesizers kick in, almost like the countdown to a rocket launching. Soon the opening is followed by even heavier synth textures, giving the electronica a full-band feeling as Anthony Gonzalez sings softly (which contrasts sharply with the bombast of the music). Despite all the adrenaline-pumping drums and synth, though, it’s the saxophone solo that totally steals the show and totally sends this song into the upper-echelons of pop music’s greatest compositions. What makes “Midnight City” so great is that it totally captures that 80’s New Wave nostalgia and transports it into 2011 without sounding hokey or forced. Grandiose and memorable, “Midnight City” was my favorite song of 2011.
My Ten Favorite Albums of 2011
10. Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes
The second album by Fleet Foxes sees the band treading along a familiar path, albeit one that goes in all sorts of cool new directions. It still has the awesome harmonies and pastoral soundscapes that we’ve come to expect of the band, and not to mention some captivating melodies. Lyrically, this album was a lot more thoughtful and less obtuse than their first release, which was a step in the right direction I thought. It’s not as lively or upbeat as their first album, but that’s not a bad thing at all, as the melancholy, self-searching tone of the album really goes well with the instrumentation and harmonies.
9. Watch the Throne by Jay-Z & Kanye West
I know hip-hop artists collaborate all the time, but I’m generally skeptical of collaboration albums, especially considering that Jay-Z’s last collaboration was with…Linkin Park. See, in sports, collaborations almost always work. You take one great player and put him with another great player and good things happen. The same can’t be said for music, as it’s not necessarily two people working together but a new entity altogether. Plenty of great artists have come together to make some astonishingly bad music: Mick Jagger and David Bowie (“Dancing in the Streets”), Jack White and Alicia Keys (“Another Way to Die”), and I think Ozzy Osbourne did a song with Miss Piggy at some point. Anyway, you get my point. This collaboration, however, works. Neither artist sounds out of place or like they’re hogging the limelight—they checked their egos at the door and created some really creative beats and tongue-in-cheek lines that people are still quoting. It’s just a great, consistently good album that hopefully laid the groundwork for future collaborations.
8. Felt by Nils Frahm
Felt is a primarily piano-drive classical album by German composer Nils Frahm. Frahm wanted to play his instrument of choice at night without waking up his neighbors, so he put felt on all the strings of the piano, creating a unique dampening effect and the namesake for his album. The result was something quietly beautiful. The music is close and intimate: you hear the turning of pages, the thumps of his foot on the pedal, the shifting in his seat. When I listened to the recording, it felt like I was there in the room with him. It’s no wonder that the entire album was recorded in the late hours of the evening, as every song has a melancholy, nocturnal mood to it. It’s a new benchmark in modern classical music, and the fact that the guy is only 23 makes me pretty excited to see what direction his future compositions go in.
7. Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never
A huge, huge step for the artist. Filled with bleak, postmodern soundscapes typical to previous releases, what sets this album apart is that each song can stand on its own. The music still possesses the Blade Runner ambient synth, but this time Oneohtrix Point Never couples the snyths with some really inventive samples, a lot of them taken from commercials that he remembered from his childhood in the 80’s. Despite the meticulous fragmentation you hear in a lot of the songs, there’s still a very complete, very poignant vision.
6. Looping State of Mind by The Field
I’ve heard The Field described as “maximalist minimalism,” which I think is a pretty apt description. That being said, this is probably his least minimalist effort to date and easily his best. The beats are bigger and heavier, the synths louder, the trance more seamless. Each song starts off with a beat, before slowly another pattern is built on top of it, and then another, and another. Before long you have so much added to the initial track that although at its core it’s still the same initial beat and loop, the song has morphed into something different altogether. It’s hypnotic, really. Most importantly, though, it’s beautiful, thought-provoking music that can be as calming as it is electrifying.
5. Let England Shake by PJ Harvey
Just being upfront, I’ve never been a big PJ Harvey fan. Her early stuff just didn’t do it for me—too raw, too forceful, etc…So I was happily surprised at how much I enjoyed this album when I first listened to it. In the past, Harvey had let her guitar do most of the damage, but here it’s her lyrics, as each song details visions of war, apocalypse, and general devastation. Lyrics aside, the music is a total break from the heaviness of her earlier work. It’s dreamy, inviting, and danceable—just about every song is song is a standout that could function as its own single. You hear a lot of different influences too, from blues to English folk to early 60’s rock and roll—all different but blended together seamlessly.
4. Take Care by Drake
Drake’s first album was pretty cool. Nice beats, cool hooks, some clever lyrics. What I really, really, like about this album is how personal it is. This is an extremely heartfelt, candid album that, much like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, explores the artist’s mind and all the sorrow plaguing it. Drake puts his heart on the table for all to hear, delving into some really intimate subject matter, from his relationship with his mother to the problems of fame to all the heartache he’s experienced with women. The beats, cool hooks, clever lyrics, and featured players are all still here, but this time around it’s Drake’s songwriting that really makes this album.
3. Go Tell Fire to the Mountain by WU LYF
I remember the buzz surrounding these guys before we knew who they were. Only one picture had been released: it was them wearing bandanas while shrouded in smoke, their arms upraised to the sky. I wondered if they were anarchists, or a cult, or maybe both. Their name did stand for World Unite Lucifer Youth Foundation, after all.
And then their album dropped and everything made sense. It’s gospel music. Recorded in a church (hence the organ on several tracks, which works great), the album, which at times feels like a paramilitary call-to-arms and at other times a set of hymns than an actual album, is among the most unique and genuinely original to be released in 2011. The drums pound like bombs, the reverb-soaked guitars command the atmosphere, and the lead singer’s voice is as primal as it is prophetic. It’s not immediately listenable—whenever I’ve tried to show it to friends, the results have been resoundingly mixed—but for my money, this album is an exhilarating tour de force, delivered by a passionate band of misfits and revolutionaries at the best time possible.
2. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83
Prior to this album, I guess you could maybe have called me an M83 fan. I always hand-picked the songs I liked from their albums, but for me there was always a lot of filler tracks that I didn’t care for. When I heard they were doing a double-album, I shuddered at the thought of how much clunkers there might be…except, there weren’t any. And not only that, but this album was really, really good.
We saw hints of it on their previous release, Saturdays = Youth, but this is the first album where M83 fully sheds its shoegazing past in favor of some of the most affecting pop music ever created. From a songwriting perspective, I don’t think they could have done a better job, as each track is able to stand out on its own and convey a strong, emotional feeling to the listener. Aiding this is that Anthony Gonzalez has really opened his voice up and let it rip, which really stands out when compared to his whisper-singing on previous albums. It’s also a very cinematic album that captures the zeitgeist of the best 80’s pop with its spacey, synthy, wall-of-sound approach and its huge, huge choruses. The fact that Gonzalez sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel on some tracks also doesn’t hurt.
I don’t know what it is. All of these songs could have gone so wrongly if anyone but M83 had done this album. Somehow they managed the perfect blend of hopeful, heartbreaking, and nostalgic, and it totally works here.
1. The Balloons Trilogy by The Weeknd
House of Balloons, Thursday, Echoes of Silence
So, here we are. To be honest, I struggled a bit with how I wanted to approach these albums, considering they were released intermittently for free throughout 2011 (March, August, and December)—do I count them as a whole or pick one out of the bunch? Ultimately, I decided to view the trilogy as a whole, mainly because the three mixtapes were intended to constitute one single album from the get-go, each apart of one larger vision.
I don’t think any one artist had a better 2011 than The Weeknd. From a sheer material perspective, the guy (21-year-old Abel Tesafaye) and his team of producers have created not one, but three exceptional releases in the span of just a few months. I mean, what he’s done for R&B in just the span of a year is exceptional when one considers that he released three genre classics that turned the genre upside down. The atmosphere created and maintained during the trilogy is impressive. It’s sorrowful, distorted, and bleak, but not without some powerful hooks and memorable choruses. What I really thought was cool was seeing the retreading of melodies and lyrics throughout the trilogy that helped tie it all together.
The Weeknd’s narrator on the albums, whether fictional or autobiographical, is absolutely fascinating. The lyrics are often overtly sexual and drug-focused, which aren’t groundbreaking topics considering the genre. What sets these lyrics apart, though, is their nature and the way they’re used. There’s no celebration of the narrator’s sins, but rather sadness and regret behind every reference: the overindulgence on drugs is killing him and everyone around him; the sex is destructive and unfulfilling; the rock n’ roll is just a lonely path to rock bottom. When you combine the lyrics with the dark atmospherics and Abel Tesfaye’s angelic voice, it makes for one very unsettling picture. From a storytelling perspective, it’s really, really gripping stuff. What really adds to the mystique is how little we presently know about this guy. I hope that all this stuff is make-believe or hyperbole, but the fact that we really can’t know for sure helps add to the impact of the depravity and destruction we see in the albums.
Chilling, fascinating, and musically satisfying, The Balloons Trilogy was the best thing I listened to last year, and I can’t wait to see what else he has in store for us.
Hope you enjoyed my lists! Feel free to add your thoughts!
