You might have had to search a little harder to find it, but for those with the resourcefulness to exercise their due diligence, there was plenty of great music out there to be had this year. As it turns out, those pesky 2011 rumors that music is dead were greatly exaggerated after all.
But locating it was key. With good record stores — the kind staffed with reliably knowledgeable music nerds — increasingly scarce these days, and the once healthy art of music journalism mostly on life support, finding that great new musical discovery in 2011 often meant clicking your way like a needle through the vast haystack of the internet.
Still, there was life out there beyond the Biebers, the Perrys and the Gagas, as the list you are about to read proves in spades. To compile BC Music's annual (well, mostly anyway) rundown of the year's best albums, we tasked ten of our music editors and writers with the simple assignment of naming their pick for album of the year, and explaining that choice in as few words as possible. While our music scribe's words were not always few, each of their picks are, without exception, all worthy contenders for the 2011 championship belt.
To that end, the following list is in no particular order, and there are no rankings. Rather, it is based on the individual perspectives of the contributors who participated. Which makes for a very eclectic and diverse sampling of some of the best that music had to offer in 2011.
Not that we ever expected anything less, of course...
Donald Gibson picks Adele's - 21
“Rolling in the Deep” changed the game. The first time you heard it you just knew that this song – that voice – was going to be a big deal. Adele is sirenic and sexy, her will-not-be-denied resolve striking a visceral blow to every self-absorbed, woe-is-me lament clogging up millions of iPods around the world.
As an album, 21 achieves much the same impact. Many of its songs have become so familiar now that they risk sounding cliché – a mere 12 months after entering the pop landscape. Yet it continues to sell like nothing else in contemporary pop, further illustrating the extent to which this music resonates with people. Popularity doesn’t equate to quality, of course; longevity will speak more to that. But it’d be churlish not to recognize that with this album Adele has tapped into the universality of heartbreak in ways that are at once intensely personal and timelessly profound.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Glen Boyd
Thanks to everyone who participated in compiling this~!
-Glen
2 - Christopher Rose
There has indeed been absolutely loads of great new music around this year although strangely enough I haven't yet heard any of the albums featured in this interesting round-up article.
Fortunately I have Spotify so checking them all out will be easy!
3 - Glen Boyd
You haven't heard Adele? What, do you live in a freaking igloo or something?
4 - Christopher Rose
I didn't say I hadn't heard Adele. I've heard a couple of tracks but not the album, although I'm told I'm buying it as one of my wife's Christmas presents...
5 - Glen Boyd
Okay, just checking to make sure you were actually still alive.
6 - Christopher Rose
Well, I'm not commenting from the grave!
I've seen Adele being interviewed a couple of times and the most striking thing is the contrast between the lyrics, which are well done, and the way she talks, which seems implausibly thick.
7 - zingzing
albums of the year for me were definitely the james blake s/t and destroyer's kaputt. i saw blake live a couple of months ago and that made me love the album even more... thought i was going to lose my shit at that show, not in a good way... the bass was so deep and loud that i thought my bowels might lose control.
destroyer has been one of my favorite bands for many years, and kaputt is one of his masterpieces, so i'm putty in his hands on that one.
two albums that made me poop myself! not bad for one year. peaking lights, prurient, panda bear (so many "p" bands...), girls, african hitech, ema and bill callahan all put out other albums that i loved.
biggest disappointment was the new fall album. other than a stolen line ("jerking off the dog to feed the cat"), there was absolutely nothing memorable about that album. such a shame, given that their last album was one of the best of their career.
best reissue has to go to disco inferno's 5 eps, although i'm sure there's a smile fan out there who would disagree.
8 - Glen Boyd
And that SMiLE fan would be me, Zing.
-Glen
9 - zingzing
i love smile as well, glen. but there's been a glut of smile-related stuff over the past half-decade plus, from brian's live version to the 2004 version, plus the fact that i've had this stuff on boot for so long. i like that it finally came out (but did we need another disc of "good vibrations" sessions?), but it's finally been too much for me. obviously, this should be the last word on the matter, and i'm glad it's definitive, but goddamn, did they run that train into the ground.
disco inferno's 5 eps is stuff that's 15-20 years old at this point, but finding good copies of that stuff was a good way to bankrupt yourself. and it's some of the most innovative music of the past couple of decades, and still sounds like the future. amazing stuff, and a totally overlooked band. a revelation... which the smile reissue certainly was not.
10 - Glen Boyd
I agree that SMiLE has been somewhat done to death, but I thought they really did a nice job with the box, and yes this should be the last word on it. The "new version" also sounds so much warmer than Brian's 2004 version...which if I had one complaint about, it would be that it sounds a little sterile (as in a bit too much studio gloss).
I do agree they kind of went overboard on the outtakes discs (and especially with "Good Vibrations"). But there are still those Brianiacs who will eat that stuff up, regardless. But that's why I stuck with the two-disc version.
-Glen
11 - zingzing
the two-disc version is pretty great. there's really only been a few things on the expanded version i've found to be necessary. (and didn't a "good vibrations" sessions disc come out with the pet sounds box back when?)
there's a boot i have that already did the original studio sessions in the 2004 order... purple chick? i can't quite recall. there were a few spots on the two-disc set where there was something new, but it's basically a retread of stuff the boots have been doing for years.
i suppose that if i hadn't been into smile for almost 20 years at this point, it might contain something new for me, and i guess that's the point of the two-disc set. i'd love to have it on vinyl.
that and i do like having the most pristine versions of the studio tapes... i'm glad it was released.
but go listen to disco inferno's 5 eps. i'm sure you can find it. in that free way.
12 - Glen Boyd
That's the beauty of "revision." You just keep on tinkering until you usually find some way to really f**k something up. Fortunately, that didn't happen with SMiLE ("Good Vibrations" outtakes notwithstanding).
I'll probably take a pass on the Disco Inferno stuff. Wasn't really a fan then, and I doubt the reissues will do much to change my mind. One man's Picasso is another man's ... well you know all that...
-Glen
13 - zingzing
you knew disco inferno?
one of the few... actually i have to ask if you're thinking of the same band... i have doubt, but i guess i could be wrong. i don't think i've ever met anyone who knew of them when they were around. (not that i did either.)
14 - Glen Boyd
You're probably right. I might be confusing them with the Traamps.
15 - zingzing
figured as much. they're not a disco band. just a band with an unfortunate name.
here's one of the reissued tracks. one of their better, more accessible songs from the eps. it's their most guitar-oriented stuff, which was a bit of a rarity for them later on. they're straight up guitar-bass-drums, but you'd never know it from most of their stuff because they incorporated so much technology and samples (played through normal instruments).
16 - Glen Boyd
Thanx! I'll check it out and get back to you.
17 - Greg Barbrick
Well zing, you have me intrigued about this Disco Inferno band - if not Glen. There actually was a fair amount of cool stuff released in 2011, although my taste is generally outside of the iTunes top 10 list.
But I would like to add a few honorable mentions:
Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Shoot!
Reinhold Friedl - Inside Piano
Kieth Jarrett - Rio
Villalobos/Loderbauer - Re: ECM
Kaboom Karavan - Barra Barra
The Black Watch - Led Zeppelin Five
And the reissues were something else again.
Besides Smile, fans of classic Stax had a field day - especially with Booker T.s - McLemore Ave. Their take on Abbey Road is a must.
Add Plastikman's Arkives, the Throbbing Gristle catalog, the CTI material, Trans Am's Futureworld, the Queen catalog...
If one looked carefully, there was actually quite a lot of good music released this past year, both new and reissued.
In 2012 I have but one wish. For the love of Gaga, and all that is holy, can we put a merciful end to her 15 minutes?
18 - El Bicho
My #2 of the year is...(double-checking Inbox to see if Sony sent any money for me to mention Karmin)...The Cars - Move Like This. Much better than expected. It was like they just picked up a couple of years later
19 - Glen Boyd
I haven't heard the Cars record, but I did see them on Colbert earlier this year and was surprised at how good their new song sounded.
I'll be doing my own Rockologist Top Ten for 2011 list soon. Not sure what the order will be yet, but it will probably include stuff like Waits, Kate Bush, Steven Wilson...maybe Radiohead, although KoL didn't stick with me as much as In Rainbows did.
I'd also be tempted to put the Beach Boys SMiLE box on there, even though its technicaly a reissue.
But we'll see, I guess...
-Glen
20 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Good choices here, but I'd also put in a bid for Paul Simon's So Beautiful Or So What, an album of great richness and reflection. Also Miranda Lambert's Four the Record and Foo Fighters' Wasting Light.
Reissue of the year: Beach Boy's SMiLE, in whatever incarnation.
21 - Triniman
There's something about Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" that is so familiar. I can't remember the song, but the chorus is very similar to that of another song. I seem to think it was used in a commercial and was from the disco era.
Anyone else notice the same thing?
22 - Scott Deitche
Great list. I will definitley check out Yuck, and a few others.
I did my favorite songs, but if I had to pick some fave albums:
Arch/Matheos - Sympathetic Resonance
Washed Out- Within and Without
Ben Folds- Best Imitation of Myself Retrospective
23 - Tan The Man
I would James Blake to this list.
24 - Paul Roy
You guys like hard rock and metal about as much as Rolling Stone.
25 - Glen Boyd
Paul...personaly, I like Hard rock as much as anybody. I just didn't hear a lot of it I liked this year. And I've never been a big fan of growly, cookie monster vocals.
I dunno, does prog count? Steven Wilson made my top ten this year...
-Glen