2011 in Music: Albums

These are my favorite albums from this year.

I haven’t done this since 2008 (and 2007!) because I get so wrapped up in making sure that I heard everything I should have heard so that I can make The Perfect List and then July rolls around and I think ‘hey it would be neat if I did my year’s list with six months worth of perspective’ and then I just never do it.

Not this year! This year I’m reeling it in and going all-out (yep). This is the first of seven posts to be published over the next week:

  1. Favorite Albums
  2. Favorite Songs
  3. Last.fm Stats
  4. Favorite Sounds
  5. Favorite Music Writing
  6. My Friends and Myself
  7. Miscellany

I also put up a mid-year round-up in June.

So here are my favorite albums of 2011. No order, just tiers (thanks for the idea, Eric).

Superlative

Excellent from front to back, personally and strongly resonant.

  • The Antlers – Burst Apart
  • Atlas Sound – Parallax
  • Deerhunter – iTunes Live at Soho/Rhapsody Original Live
  • Destroyer – Kaputt
  • Eleanor Friedberger – Last Summer
  • Hooray for Earth – True Loves
  • James Blake – James Blake/Enough Thunder/Love What Happened Here
  • Matthewdavid – Outmind
  • Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
  • Panda Bear – Tomboy
  • Sandro Perri – Impossible Spaces
  • Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
  • Shlohmo – Bad Vibes
  • Tim Hecker – Ravedeath, 1972/Dropped Pianos
  • Toro Y Moi – Underneath the Pine
  • tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
  • Wye Oak – Civilian

Excellent

Great but not as great as the greatest ones.

  • The Alps – Easy Action
  • Battles – Gloss Drop
  • Bobby – Bobby
  • Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver
  • Braids – Native Speaker
  • Clams Casino – Instrumentals/Rainforest
  • Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
  • Cut Copy – Zonoscope
  • The Field – Looping State of Mind
  • Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
  • John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
  • Junior Boys – It’s All True
  • Kyle Bobby Dunn – Ways of Meaning
  • Mark McGuire – Get Lost
  • Neon Indian – Era Extraña
  • Nicholas Szczepanik – Please Stop Loving Me
  • Noveller – Glacial Glow
  • Papercuts – Fading Parade
  • Phantogram – Nightlife
  • Radiohead – King of Limbs
  • St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
  • Teebs – Collections 01
  • The Throne – Watch the Throne
  • YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN – YT // ST

Great

Albums not wholly wonderful, or which I listened to a lot initially but less so later, or which were huge but with which I didn’t connect strongly.

  • Akron/Family – Akron/Family II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
  • Burial – Street Halo
  • CANT – Dreams Come True
  • Cornershop – Cornershop and the Double ‘O’ Groove of
  • Darkside – Darkside
  • Dum Dum Girls – He Gets Me High/Only in Dreams
  • Epstein – Sealess Sea
  • Feist – Metals
  • Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
  • Gil Scott Heron & Jamie xx – We’re New Here
  • Kendrick Lamar – Section.80
  • Kuedo – Severant
  • Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo
  • Machinedrum – Room(s)
  • Nicolas Jaar – Don’t Break My Love
  • Real Estate – Days
  • Rustie – Glass Swords
  • Tammar – Visits
  • Twin Sister – In Heaven
  • Washed Out – Within and Without
  • Wild Flag – Wild Flag
  • Zomby – Dedication

Good

Enjoyable and interesting and not at all to be forgotten but I have to arrange these things somehow, I’m sorry.

  • A Winged Victory for the Sullen – A Winged Victory for the Sullen
  • Andy Stott – Passed Me By/We Stay Together
  • Balam Acab – Wander/Wonder
  • Beirut – The Rip Tide
  • Belong – Common Era
  • Blanck Mass – Blanck Mass
  • Born Gold – Bodysongs
  • Cass McCombs – Wit’s End/Humor Risk
  • Co. fee – Easy Listening
  • Demdike Stare – Tryptych
  • DJ Quik – The Book of David
  • The Dodos – No Color
  • Floating Points – Shadows
  • The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts
  • Grouper – A I A
  • Kieren Hebden & Steve Reid – Live at the South Bank
  • Julian Lynch – Terra
  • Kathryn Calder – Bright and Vivid
  • Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
  • Rarebit – The Destroyer
  • Ryan York – If I Am This Forest/Zipperlegs
  • Sepalcure – Sepalcure
  • Tape – Revelationes
  • Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocalypse
  • U.S. Girls – U.S. Girls on KRAAK
  • Wild Beasts – Smother
  • Young Man – Ideas of Distance
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