2011 Albums
1) Bon Iver – Bon Iver
2) Fucked Up – David Comes to Life
3) James Blake – James Blake
4) Wilco – The Whole Love
5) PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
6) Girls – Father, Son & Holy Ghost
7) Radiohead – King of Limbs
8) Atlas Sound – Parallax
9) Arctic Monkeys – Suck it and See
10) Adele – 21
2011 was a strange year all around, not least in the area of music. I started out tweeting my repulsion at Bon Iver’s cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (something about the sounds of cats fighting in the woods behind my house), and ended somewhere in the late summer becoming preternaturally obsessed with one of the finest and most original albums of the last fifteen years. Facebook followers will no doubt have unsubscribed to my feed after one late-night post too many about Justin Vernon’s sainted lyrical ellipses and harmonic convergences. I was, indeed, not magnificent. After that, there was no question as to the album of the year, which did something of a disservice to the other four albums that had previously been vying for that title in my house, namely, Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life, James Blake’s self-titled album, Wilco’s severely underrated The Whole Love (talking to you, Pitchfork, you dumbasses – honestly, how does Beyonce’s Four get ranked #27 on their end-of-year list, and Wilco not even crack the Top 50 – but more about them later), and PJ Harvey’s remarkable Let England Shake.
When I first heard Let England Shake, I thought that there wouldn’t be anything to challenge it for album of the year. It just seemed like an hermetically sealed piece of visionary musical and lyrical work, an imagining of a country at a certain point in history, recalling other difficult (wartime) moments in that same country’s history, reclaiming World War One poetry from the muddy fields of Belgium, and from the upper-middle class white men who wrote it. Regardless of how the album was ultimately overshadowed by things that grabbed my attention in other more stunning ways, Let England Shake remains a massive artistic statement that will endure.
I’ve been skeptical about Wilco’s ability to make another good record since Sky Blue Sky, to the extent that I never even bothered to listen to the self-titled album that followed it. But The Whole Love is another kettle of fish altogether. There’s so much vitality, energy, creativity and joy on this album that in any other year it might have walked away with the Best of the Year title. It’s also a really, really smart album. My theorizing of it has Tweedy Wilco-izing the 1960s. It also made me wonder how many of these songs were Tweedy songs with Wilco as the backing band; how many were Tweedy songs with significant Wilco input, and how many were true Wilco songs. It doesn’t matter, of course. The narrative trajectory of the album is quite beautiful, from the opener “Art of Almost” to the exquisite pop music of “Dawned on Me,” to the extended country fuzz of “One Sunday Morning,” and suggests a band that is back on top of its game, and in full command of the mighty power of its engine.
James Blake’s self-titled album is more of a gestalt thing, and dovetails beautifully with the Bon Iver album as a mood piece. Play them back to back, with a chaser of Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972, with or without mind-alteration, and you’ll be in a very fine place for a very long time. Just do it.
I would normally run very fast in the opposite direction from Fucked Up’s David Comes to Life, but something about the scope of its ambition, the human car wash/MRI of its massive sound, and the catharsis of its primal scream made me love it unreservedly. I’m too old for punk rock, but this album made me feel like I still had a little bit of John Peel left in me after all.
Of the rest, there were some albums that would have probably made it to the big list, had I heard them sooner, notably Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring For My Halo and Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation. Kurt Vile does himself no favors by being called Kurt Vile. It makes people think he’s some third generation Nick Cave karaoke outfit, when in fact he’s descended much more attractively from Lou Reed and Lloyd Cole. Youth Lagoon make a lovely sound, which I hope they’ll continue to develop.
Radiohead made their first official jazz album (IMO), and King of Limbs would seem to lend itself to some fascinating and wonderful interpretations by the likes of Brad Mehldau and Wayne Shorter if they have the interest and the energy to take a stab at it. Forget the remixes (which were also great by the way), let’s see some interpretations.
Father, Son & Holy Ghost by Girls initially irritated and underwhelmed me, but ultimately won me over by its broad canvas and occasional moments of stomach-churning brilliance. I worry about that dude’s long-term physical and mental health, though.
Bradford Cox is putting together an astonishing body of work, and it’s only a matter of time before his masterpiece. Last year’s Deerhunter record and this year’s Atlas Sound offering suggest that he’s not far away from an epoch-marking statement. His ability to translate his encyclopedic knowledge and fandom of alternative music into compelling, dark and beautiful art-pop songs is truly impressive, and we underestimate him at our peril. Watch his space very carefully. He is an artist more than he is anything else.
Arctic Monkeys are the most underrated brilliant band that we currently have. Every album is strong, melodic, witty and technically adept. Alex Turner’s lyrics and melodies should be universal earworms by now, but there never has been any justice in terms of who gets rich and famous and who doesn’t. If the kingmakers had any sense (Pitchfork gave The Whole Love a 6.9 and Suck it and See a 7.5, which tells you all you need to know about today’s tastemaking industry), they would be championing purveyors of smart, innovative, melodic alternative pop music, instead of insistently wandering down backwaters looking for things that are too cool for us to understand, but which we buy/download and lionize anyway, because we, paradoxically, are deathly afraid of being seen to be out of step with them. How fucked up is that?
Which brings me to Adele’s 21. 21 was nowhere near as good as her debut 19 in terms of the quality of the songs, but the voice took center stage this time in a way that blew the mediocrity of some of those songs completely out of the water, such that it didn’t really matter. With this album, Adele established herself as at least the equal of Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin (and I wouldn’t dare to make that comparison lightly, given my love of both of them). Rolling in the Deep is the song of the millenium so far: tribal, angry, exuberant, badass, weird (what does “rolling in the deep” mean, anyway?), and Adele herself seems like a completely regular person with an unusual ability to articulate the pain and suffering of other regular people, which no doubt accounts for her appeal and her success. Finally, someone we can relate to who is also successful, and immensely talented. Suck it, Celine Dion. You’re history.
The list of records that didn’t quite make it or that weren’t really that good is about as long as the list of records that did and that were. I continue to be baffled by the appeal of St. Vincent. Great musical chops, unlistenable songs. Really wanted to like Laura Marling, but found myself wanting to punch myself in the face while listening to A Creature I Don’t Know. Tuneyards’ Whokill might yet become a firm favorite, but right now my position is that we already have Talking Heads and the Pop Group, so what’s the point of the imitation? Likewise Fleet Foxes, who seem still not to realize or care that their entire career is made completely redundant by the pre-existence of CSNY. Trust fund music of the worst kind. When did alternative music cede authority to the Bearded People? Take back the power, hipsters, put down the banjos and mandolins, and shave your fucking faces. You have nothing to lose but your extreme lameness.
But Bon Iver wins at a canter this year (beard notwithstanding). No record of the last decade (aside perhaps from The National’s Boxer) has managed to get under my skin the way this one did. Justin Vernon creates an imaginary country of love lost and found, where it was OK to say “darlin’” and not sound like a giant tool, where the real world and the world of the imagination were entirely confounded and conflated, where beauty had a purpose outside of itself, to heal and make whole what had previously been broken (see For Emma, Forever Ago, and Blood Bank, both remarkable in their own right as well). This music is sui generis, inventing a kind of folk/electronic sound that makes a parallel comparison with James Blake entirely reasonable. I could listen to this album another thousand times and still hear new things in it that would turn my stomach and my heart inside out. It’s the kind of album that makes me want to proselytize about it (and believe me, I did, with a surprising degree of success).
So yeah, a weird year. Mono, family sicknesses, life upheavals, but the constant stimulation and diversion of some fantastic new music which gives me hope for my own continued engagment with it and the possibility that we haven't yet run out of ideas (unless you're Robin Pecknold, in which case you can just keep listening to, and cribbing from Deja Vu for just as long as people will keep paying you to do so - good luck with that, you charlatan).
1) Bon Iver – Bon Iver
2) Fucked Up – David Comes to Life
3) James Blake – James Blake
4) Wilco – The Whole Love
5) PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
6) Girls – Father, Son & Holy Ghost
7) Radiohead – King of Limbs
8) Atlas Sound – Parallax
9) Arctic Monkeys – Suck it and See
10) Adele – 21
2011 was a strange year all around, not least in the area of music. I started out tweeting my repulsion at Bon Iver’s cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me” (something about the sounds of cats fighting in the woods behind my house), and ended somewhere in the late summer becoming preternaturally obsessed with one of the finest and most original albums of the last fifteen years. Facebook followers will no doubt have unsubscribed to my feed after one late-night post too many about Justin Vernon’s sainted lyrical ellipses and harmonic convergences. I was, indeed, not magnificent. After that, there was no question as to the album of the year, which did something of a disservice to the other four albums that had previously been vying for that title in my house, namely, Fucked Up’s David Comes To Life, James Blake’s self-titled album, Wilco’s severely underrated The Whole Love (talking to you, Pitchfork, you dumbasses – honestly, how does Beyonce’s Four get ranked #27 on their end-of-year list, and Wilco not even crack the Top 50 – but more about them later), and PJ Harvey’s remarkable Let England Shake.
When I first heard Let England Shake, I thought that there wouldn’t be anything to challenge it for album of the year. It just seemed like an hermetically sealed piece of visionary musical and lyrical work, an imagining of a country at a certain point in history, recalling other difficult (wartime) moments in that same country’s history, reclaiming World War One poetry from the muddy fields of Belgium, and from the upper-middle class white men who wrote it. Regardless of how the album was ultimately overshadowed by things that grabbed my attention in other more stunning ways, Let England Shake remains a massive artistic statement that will endure.
I’ve been skeptical about Wilco’s ability to make another good record since Sky Blue Sky, to the extent that I never even bothered to listen to the self-titled album that followed it. But The Whole Love is another kettle of fish altogether. There’s so much vitality, energy, creativity and joy on this album that in any other year it might have walked away with the Best of the Year title. It’s also a really, really smart album. My theorizing of it has Tweedy Wilco-izing the 1960s. It also made me wonder how many of these songs were Tweedy songs with Wilco as the backing band; how many were Tweedy songs with significant Wilco input, and how many were true Wilco songs. It doesn’t matter, of course. The narrative trajectory of the album is quite beautiful, from the opener “Art of Almost” to the exquisite pop music of “Dawned on Me,” to the extended country fuzz of “One Sunday Morning,” and suggests a band that is back on top of its game, and in full command of the mighty power of its engine.
James Blake’s self-titled album is more of a gestalt thing, and dovetails beautifully with the Bon Iver album as a mood piece. Play them back to back, with a chaser of Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath, 1972, with or without mind-alteration, and you’ll be in a very fine place for a very long time. Just do it.
I would normally run very fast in the opposite direction from Fucked Up’s David Comes to Life, but something about the scope of its ambition, the human car wash/MRI of its massive sound, and the catharsis of its primal scream made me love it unreservedly. I’m too old for punk rock, but this album made me feel like I still had a little bit of John Peel left in me after all.
Of the rest, there were some albums that would have probably made it to the big list, had I heard them sooner, notably Kurt Vile’s Smoke Ring For My Halo and Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation. Kurt Vile does himself no favors by being called Kurt Vile. It makes people think he’s some third generation Nick Cave karaoke outfit, when in fact he’s descended much more attractively from Lou Reed and Lloyd Cole. Youth Lagoon make a lovely sound, which I hope they’ll continue to develop.
Radiohead made their first official jazz album (IMO), and King of Limbs would seem to lend itself to some fascinating and wonderful interpretations by the likes of Brad Mehldau and Wayne Shorter if they have the interest and the energy to take a stab at it. Forget the remixes (which were also great by the way), let’s see some interpretations.
Father, Son & Holy Ghost by Girls initially irritated and underwhelmed me, but ultimately won me over by its broad canvas and occasional moments of stomach-churning brilliance. I worry about that dude’s long-term physical and mental health, though.
Bradford Cox is putting together an astonishing body of work, and it’s only a matter of time before his masterpiece. Last year’s Deerhunter record and this year’s Atlas Sound offering suggest that he’s not far away from an epoch-marking statement. His ability to translate his encyclopedic knowledge and fandom of alternative music into compelling, dark and beautiful art-pop songs is truly impressive, and we underestimate him at our peril. Watch his space very carefully. He is an artist more than he is anything else.
Arctic Monkeys are the most underrated brilliant band that we currently have. Every album is strong, melodic, witty and technically adept. Alex Turner’s lyrics and melodies should be universal earworms by now, but there never has been any justice in terms of who gets rich and famous and who doesn’t. If the kingmakers had any sense (Pitchfork gave The Whole Love a 6.9 and Suck it and See a 7.5, which tells you all you need to know about today’s tastemaking industry), they would be championing purveyors of smart, innovative, melodic alternative pop music, instead of insistently wandering down backwaters looking for things that are too cool for us to understand, but which we buy/download and lionize anyway, because we, paradoxically, are deathly afraid of being seen to be out of step with them. How fucked up is that?
Which brings me to Adele’s 21. 21 was nowhere near as good as her debut 19 in terms of the quality of the songs, but the voice took center stage this time in a way that blew the mediocrity of some of those songs completely out of the water, such that it didn’t really matter. With this album, Adele established herself as at least the equal of Dusty Springfield and Aretha Franklin (and I wouldn’t dare to make that comparison lightly, given my love of both of them). Rolling in the Deep is the song of the millenium so far: tribal, angry, exuberant, badass, weird (what does “rolling in the deep” mean, anyway?), and Adele herself seems like a completely regular person with an unusual ability to articulate the pain and suffering of other regular people, which no doubt accounts for her appeal and her success. Finally, someone we can relate to who is also successful, and immensely talented. Suck it, Celine Dion. You’re history.
The list of records that didn’t quite make it or that weren’t really that good is about as long as the list of records that did and that were. I continue to be baffled by the appeal of St. Vincent. Great musical chops, unlistenable songs. Really wanted to like Laura Marling, but found myself wanting to punch myself in the face while listening to A Creature I Don’t Know. Tuneyards’ Whokill might yet become a firm favorite, but right now my position is that we already have Talking Heads and the Pop Group, so what’s the point of the imitation? Likewise Fleet Foxes, who seem still not to realize or care that their entire career is made completely redundant by the pre-existence of CSNY. Trust fund music of the worst kind. When did alternative music cede authority to the Bearded People? Take back the power, hipsters, put down the banjos and mandolins, and shave your fucking faces. You have nothing to lose but your extreme lameness.
But Bon Iver wins at a canter this year (beard notwithstanding). No record of the last decade (aside perhaps from The National’s Boxer) has managed to get under my skin the way this one did. Justin Vernon creates an imaginary country of love lost and found, where it was OK to say “darlin’” and not sound like a giant tool, where the real world and the world of the imagination were entirely confounded and conflated, where beauty had a purpose outside of itself, to heal and make whole what had previously been broken (see For Emma, Forever Ago, and Blood Bank, both remarkable in their own right as well). This music is sui generis, inventing a kind of folk/electronic sound that makes a parallel comparison with James Blake entirely reasonable. I could listen to this album another thousand times and still hear new things in it that would turn my stomach and my heart inside out. It’s the kind of album that makes me want to proselytize about it (and believe me, I did, with a surprising degree of success).
So yeah, a weird year. Mono, family sicknesses, life upheavals, but the constant stimulation and diversion of some fantastic new music which gives me hope for my own continued engagment with it and the possibility that we haven't yet run out of ideas (unless you're Robin Pecknold, in which case you can just keep listening to, and cribbing from Deja Vu for just as long as people will keep paying you to do so - good luck with that, you charlatan).
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