2011 proved to be a banner year for music. For crying out loud, hell froze over and the Stone Roses reformed! I even bought tickets to see the La's in 2012! There were many excellent albums, to be sure, but It was hands down the best year for live music I've ever experienced ... where to begin?
Drinking crummy whiskey in the middle of a farm watching "surprise" guest Pulp play Glastonbury for perhaps the last time was a lifetime highlight for sure. And then catching all three public performances of Radiohead this year was pretty great too. Front row at U2's show at the Meadowlands, probably the single best show of my life, as well as their show at Glastonbury. Fleet Foxes at the Williamsburg Waterfront. Singing Don McLean's American Pie with 100,000 others on a hot summer day. Seeing Coldplay and Noel Gallagher perform for Brits instead of Americans and how it changes hearing those songs. Plan B. OMD. Beach House. The National several times. Wilco. Interpol. Erasure.
Seems I've lost count. More interestingly, this was the year that I discovered several new bands I expect to listen to quite a bit over the next few years. Many of them made my top 10 ...
1. Beirut - The Rip Tide
http://hypem.com/item/1cxaz/Beirut+-+Payne's+Bay
This album ended up becoming the late summer soundtrack for the Burg household. Seems I only heard this playing in the kitchen. The Rip Tide several times comes close to dissolving into being overly cute or fussy, but it never does. Better yet, it's an album full of great songs in the right order, none of which I ever feel like skipping.
2. Let England Shake - PJ Harvey
http://hypem.com/item/191gs/PJ+Harvey+-+On+Battleship+Hill
PJ Harvey has always been a hit-or-miss proposition for me, but this album succeeds on so many levels that it's forced me to reconsider the rest of her catalog. This album probably appeals to me on a literary and historical level as much as the music - it's equally a critique on contemporary England as it is on war. I suspect of all the albums on this list, this is the one I will be listening to 10 years from now.
3. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
http://hypem.com/item/1a5qt/Fleet+Foxes+-+Grown+Ocean
In the old days, your musical heroes had a aura of mystery about them. Maybe you got to go backstage or get an autograph if you were lucky. Today, everyone seems knowable and I think we've lost something in the equation. Ironically, lead singer Robin Pecknold seems utterly knowable - he occasionally posts on a Radiohead fan message board I read from time to time. He was brutally honest about the emotional price he paid about recording Helplessness Blues in a way that didn't seem self-serving or corny. Anyway, reading about the recording process opened up this album for me. They are one of the great American live bands; for them the sky is the limit.
4. The Vaccines - What Did You Expect from the Vaccines?
http://hypem.com/item/1drqj/The+Vaccines+-+If+You+Wanna
When I knew Nicola and I were going to Glastonbury 2011 and the performing bands starting getting announced, I had heard about the Vaccines being a pretty up-and-coming band in the UK. I started listening to them a bit ... but when my friend Jill turned If You Wanna up to eleven in Brandy Collin's car, driving to Glastonbury ... going 90 mph in her BMW ... on a sunny June day in England ... it became one of those life experiences you don't forget. Hell, my kids instantly liked the song. Anyway, the whole album is great fun and makes me think of Interpol had they decided to lighten up a bit. To Jill's credit, it's a great album for a road trip.
5. The Antlers - Burst Apart
http://hypem.com/item/1gk2y/The+Antlers+-+No+Widows
I didn't really buy into the hype about this band when their first album Hospice came out. To me it seemed like an album by torture survivors, for torture survivors. Well, label me a survivor - Burst Apart doesn't sound much happier than Hospice but I love it. Of all the great songs on the album I think No Widows is the best, culminating in the album's best moment at the 2:30 mark.
6. Cults - Cults
http://hypem.com/item/1akzh/Cults+-+Abducted
Cults are a band that are throwback, derivative and gimmicky. The album - my guess their first and last - is about cult leaders. Worse yet, they were supposedly on the Glastonbury bill but either didn't show up or weren't invited in the first place. But jeez - the songs are pretty awesome. I kinda hope they go out in a blaze of glory and end on a high note.
7. Radiohead - King of Limbs
http://hypem.com/item/1ctvs/Radiohead+-+Lotus+Flower+(6.24.11)
This song is from their Glastonbury performance. Unlike the two NYC Roseland performances, I was about 8,000 yards from the stage for this one, listening to speakers that may have been rivalled only by an AM clock radio. But here's the thing about Radiohead - we all know that they're going to play these songs live better than they did on the record. That's been the case probably since OK Computer. It seemed to me that they didn't try to put the best version of these songs on the studio album. So if you can get your hands on it, pick up the forthcoming DVD of Radiohead's "In the Basement" performance of this album. For one, it has their best recent new song - Staircase. But I do think every single song on that version of the album is an improvement on the original.
8. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - S/T
http://hypem.com/item/1f03w/Noel+Gallagher+-+Aka...+Broken+Arrow
Not much to say other than hands down the proof where the talent in the Gallagher family resides. I have high hopes for Noel G's solo career, especially seeing him last month at the Beacon. Maybe it's Dad Rock, but I'm a dad.
9. Washed Out - Within and Without
http://hypem.com/item/1ccfx/Washed+Out+-+Amor+Fati
This is a great example of how the music industry has changed over the last 5 years. The labels no longer seek out and develop new acts like they used to. The quality of music recording software has evolved to the point where a guy like Ernest Greene, a twenty-something recent library sciences graduate who started writing music to offset the fact he wasn't likely to find a job anytime soon, can put out an album like this. Amor Fati is probably the single best song I heard all year. But bands like Cut Copy and Electric President follow Greene's experience, have become self-taught, and are successes in music's new "long tail" model. I'm happy about this.
10. The Pierces - You and I
http://hypem.com/item/1ekw8/The+Pierces+-+Kissing+You+Goodbye
Produced by Coldplay's bassist and featuring two Alabama sisters who do their best to write ABBA tunes, here's another album that could have doomed before I listened to it. But good songs are good songs and this album features plenty along with obvious top production skills. I thought about actually putting the Coldplay album Mylo Xyloto in the #10 spot, as it does feature three songs that are as good as anything they've done, but I simply like this album better.
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