Here's a list of my favorite (and therefor the best) albums of 2011.
All of these albums have now turned 10 years old.
Take note: For the entirety of 2011, I was serving an LDS mission in the Western Canadian province of British Columbia. So not only is this the 1 full year of my life where I couldn't tell you about the music scene at the time, but I did not even know any of these albums existed.
After listening to a shit-ton of music these last 10 years, I've conjured up a list of the 32 best albums of 2011 (plus 1 that shouldn't be here).
I will save both you and me a lot of time and write 1-sentence blurbs for each album.
33 Wilco The Whole Love
This is a great album by my favorite band, and at this rate, it's probably the last great album we'll ever get from this band.
32 The War On Dugs Slave Ambient
This beats the crap out of the "90s Springsteen" stuff they're releasing these days.
31 Frank Ocean nostalgia,ULTRA.
As groundbreaking as the alt-R&B movement was, some of these songs have aged worse than others.
30 Iceage New Brigade
I like Iceage because they're a band that knows what they're doing.
29 Real Estate Days
I guess you could call this a step down from their previous album, but the singles have stuck around.
28 Big K.R.I.T. Return of 4Eva
Believe it or not, there was a point in music history where Big K.R.I.T. and Kendrick Lamar were on the same page.
27 M83 Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
I could write a book about this album without reaching a clear conclusion of my actual opinion on it.
26 The Weeknd House of Balloons
I personally find this album kinda mind-blowing, but by its 2nd half, you kinda know what the next song is gonna sound like.
25 Drake Take Care
I honestly appreciate this album more and more each year; mind you, I used to hate it.
24 Macintosh Plus Floral Shoppe
You can say what you about vaporwave or a e s t h e t i c or whatever, this is just some damn impressive electronic music.
23 Bill Callahan Apocalypse
Is this too low?
22 Kendrick Lamar Section.80
Kendrick is the superior rapper because he is the superior songwriter.
21 La Dispute Wildlife
I'm a sucker for stories about death.
20 Death Grips Exmilitary
"Responsibility's cool, but there's more things in life."
19 Liturgy Aesthethica
The deeper I dig into metal, the more I realize I just prefer metal albums that mix metal with genres I actually enjoy.
18 A$AP Rocky LIVE.LOVE.A$AP
Say what you want about A$AP's rap skills, this album will always sound dope.
17 Grouper A I A: Alien Observer
We have now entered the "boring ethereal music" section of this list.
16 Nicolas Jaar Space Is Only Noise
Nicolas Jaar kicked off his excellent discography with a dark and minimal take on house music.
15 Tim Hecker Ravedeath, 1972
Despite his acclaimed early work, I've officially decided Tim Hecker's 2 best albums are the ones he recorded at a 100 year-old church in Iceland.
14 James Ferraro FARSIDEVIRTUAL
Trying to sound like the future is hard, but trying to sound like the future from a past perspective might be harder.
13 Matana Roberts Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres
I highly recommended the Matana Roberts Coin Coin series, which currently stands at 4 chapters; all of which are worthy of making year-end lists.
12 Tune-Yards w h o k i l l
It kinda irks me just how much this album takes from Dirty Projectors, but Merrill Garbus delivers delightfully zany vocal performances, and these are some damn good indie pop songs.
11 the Caretaker An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
Is this too high?
10 Colin Stetson New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
When you make albums like this, you get invited to soundtrack independent horror films.
As opposed to having the "influential" effect, it's actually just really really hard for me to compare this to any other rap album from the last 10 years.
8 Bon Iver Bon Iver
This used to be one of my favorite albums of all time, but I've settled for dubbing it a "must-hear" album for American college kids going through a hipster phase.
7 PJ Harvey Let England Shake
This is some top-notch songwriting and I think it's PJ's best album since the 90s.
6 St. Vincent Strange Mercy
This album cemented Annie Clark's spot as one of indie pop's smartest songwriters, and a badass guitarist in general.
5 Danny Brown XXX
I think I've already written this exact blurb before, but kids, don't do drugs.
4 James Blake James Blake
I think James Blake was the perfect representation of the direction modern music was going in, circa 2011.
3 Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues
So many corny flaws on this album, but at the end of the day, this is the sound of pure yearning.
2 Oneohtrix Point Never Replica
It's a shame that 0pn has become the go-to name-drop for people who want to sound artsy-fartsy in front of their friends, because this guy's career of work is a Rubik's cube of creativity collecting dust on the shelf; waiting for curious listeners to crack the code.
1 Destroyer Kaputt
While I was caught up trying to convert people to Mormonism in North Vancouver, Dan Bejar released the greatest album to ever come out of Vancouver.
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