The Year In Music 2011

It is time for my annual list mostly for my own amusement, but also for anyone who is bored and in need of something to read. Same format as past years: leading off with my 10 favorite albums of the year in descending order to #1 and then commenting on everything else that I heard in both the indie and main stream worlds and my vote for worst album of the year.

10.   21 by Adele

This is what I like to call a “collective unconscious” album. The concept of the “collective unconscious” is that humans all share sort of unconscious part of their mind that holds characteristics of the human condition like love, mortality, religion, science and more. I don’t know if the “collective unconscious” exists, but this is the type of the album that would tap into if it does exists. Nearly everyone can relate to songs about love and heartache and the manner Adele sings songs with those themes throughout 21 is undeniably beautiful. The production for the album is obviously handled by pros and my biggest criticism might be that it is a little too lush and similar to other songs I have heard before to the point kind of detracts from the emotion in Adele’s voice. That being said, songs like “Fire To The Rain”, “Rumor Has It” , “Turning Tables”  and “Someone Like You” will no doubt to be staples for anyone getting over a break up for the foreseeable future. (They will also no doubt be butchered in Karaoke bars worldwide) Great universal pop music has to feel both specific but be able to apply to anyone and Adele accomplishes that lyrically throughout.  When Adele sings the line  “I wish nothing but the best for you both” in the song “Someone Like You” it echoes similar lines in other classic songs written to a former lover like Dolly Parton/Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”  and Carol King’s “It’s Too Late.” Which leads to my second slight criticism to the album; since nearly every song has the lyrical theme of talking to a recent ex that broker her heart it kind of gets a little repetitive and I don’t find myself listening to myself it as much as I might have had she switch it up a little. Just the same way The Clipse are great rappers who get a little tiresome after a while cause they only rap about selling cocaine, Adele is 21 is a great album that can get a little tiresome since it is all about a recent break up. That being said, I have not had a recent break up and I am sure anyone who has had one would call this the album of the year.

9.  Tha Carter IV by Lil Wayne

I admit this album is not as good as Lil Wayne’s best stuff like Da Drought Mixtapes or even Tha Carter III. However, in a time when some of the best rappers are borderline Emo and there is not a lot of great hard rock music out there, I need to get my adrenalin rushes from somewhere and this album is filled with that types of adrenalin rushes that come from the banging beats, filthy rhymes, and general shit talking that Wayne and all the guests on this album excel at.. The track “John” featuring Rick Ross could literally make speakers explode and opens with the line “Fo’ fo’ bulldog, my motherfucking pet-I point it at you and tell that motherfucker fetch
I’m fucking her good, she got her legs on my neck-I get pussy, mouth and ass, call that bitch triple threat” Plus any song where Lil Wayne yells “Big Bs, Red Sox” gets huge bonus points in my book. 6”7’ with Cory Gunz (yes, Peter Gunz son#uptown Baby) has what he want from Wayne a great beat and him rapping crazy shit together just for the sake of rapping crazy shit together. I mean “real Gs move in silence like lasagna” is a line that could only come from the mind of Dewayne Carter. One of the cool things on this album is that there are a lot of guest versus and everyone tries to bring their A game to match with Wayne even the aforementioned Cory Gunz who raps rapid fire and gives a star making performance on his verse to close out the track. Two of the best songs on here “Interlude” and “Outro” don’t even feature verse by Wayne, just guest artists doing their best to match and in few cases surpass Wayne. Tech N9ne starts off Interlude with a verse that features some of the most complex rhyme schemes a person can here and Andre 300 finishes the track by telling everyone that their “flows are borrowed” and then comes as us with a  new flow. On “Outro” a collection of random that seem kind of random (Bun B, Nas, Shyne, and Busta)  all go hard on their voices even Shyne sounds awesome despite that his voice has changed in his time in prison and he literally phoned in his verse after getting deported. So far I have not even mentioned the 2 huge singles “How To Love” and “She Will.” How To Love is a pop song and not what we are really looking for from Wayne, but as a basic pop song it is a pretty good one and was even covered by the Demi Lovato’s of the world and it still sounded good. “She Will” which has a both sexy and menacing beat and Drake on the chorus is just one of those songs that has to be played in a club around 2am and was deservingly one of the biggest singles of the year. This album is not perfect, there are a few clunkers like “How To Hate” which I usually skip over, but overall this album provides a jolt of energy that others this year were not able to do.

8. Ultra Nostalgia by Frank Ocean

 Frank Ocean’s  debut album is very good if not great effort that shakes up the mildly stagnant world of RNB. The single Novacane is already a borderline classic with a great beat and groove. Frank laments both the state of both his life and music today with lines like  “I can't feel nothing -] Superhuman, even when I’m fucking -Viagra popping, every single record Auto-tuning, zero emotion, muted emotion -Pitched corrected Computed emotion uh huh” Later, he talks about hooking up with some uber hot girl who claims to be an aspiring dentist but does porn. But the hook up is not for pleasure, it is too dull the pain as Frank sings on the chorus “ Novocaine baby I want you -Fuck me good -Fuck me long -Fuck me numb -Love me now when I’m gone love me numb -Love me numb love me numb -numb numb numb numb” But Frank is not totally against fucking for pleasure. On the track “Nature Feels” he exalts the virtues of fucking outside with lines like “baby girl-tell me how my nature feels-up against a cherry tree-baby girl- I will give it to you naturally.” The track “Nature Feels” samples MGMT’s Electric Feel. I think it works great, but if one wants to nip pick, there is an argument to made that Frank relies a little too much on familiar samples on the album. One of the other two most obvious samples is the track “American Wedding” which samples The Eagles “Hotel California.” The song is a great story telling track about Frank falling madly in love with a college girl (or possible a high school girl) over the course of a summer, getting married, but only to have the girl break his heart at the end of the summer when she confesses that she had fun, but only wanted a quick summer fling. Again, while “Hotel California”  is an all time big hit and Ocean using it  could be looked at as a too easy Puffy style recycling of a past hit, but in “American Wedding” much like Puffy at his best the sample is used in a non obvious way bringing new life both to the original song and the song that samples it. Frank Ocean also breathes new life into the Coldplay track Strawberry Swing with not just a sample, but a cover of that song in a soulful way.       Despite the previously mentions samples, Frank also creates his own music that also sounds fresh but familiar. On the track “We All Try” he uses a simple back beat to argue both for gay marriage and a women’s right to choose (but encourages not abort) ” with the lines “I believe a woman's temple -gives her the right to choose -but baby don't abort -I believe that marriage isn't  between a man & woman-but between love and love” . In the funny interlude “Bitches Talking Shit” Frank is listening to Radiohead, but the girls he is with are asking him “What’s a Radiohead?” and demanding that he play Jodeci. The track “Love Crimes” uses one of the more creative samples I have heard in a while; throughout the track and especially towards the end we hear Nicole Kidman’s rants from the Kubrick movie (Ocean is a big Kubrick fan) in the background of the song to great effect and emotional affect. Throughout the whole album Ocean will switch from using out of the ordinary music or lyrics, main stream RNB smooth crooning, and the occasional well known sample, but it all ties together and flows really well.

7.  The People’s Key by Bright Eyes

This album grew on me over the course of the year; There is always a risk with someone like Conor Oberst  who is prolific in the amount of material he puts out (solo, as part of Bright Eyes, and various other bands)  and has such sustained high quality to take it for granted. It is kind of like the New England Patriots. Just winning the AFC East feels like an off year because you have got too used to their sustained excellence. The People’s Key is not a Super Bowl winning Bright Eyes album like “Fevers and Mirrors” or “I am Wide Awake , Its Morning”, but it is a very good to great album on its own right. The best track is “Ladder Song” which is written like an ode to one of Conor’s friends that committed suicide and just features Oberst on the piano. Oberst like Bob Dylan has the ability to write simple but poignant lyrics like “you’re not alone in anything-you’re not alone in trying to be” which ends Ladder song. Throughout the rest of the album, themes of mysticism and religion pervade. In a lesser hands, this style could sound trite or like gobbliegook, but Conor has a gift for melody which he displays on tracks like “Shell Games” and Hailie Selassie. On both tracks he adds whirling digital effects to his guitar and drums that give extra effect to the mystic poetry in the lyrics. The track “One For Me, One For You” is something I like to call a binary song. It lyrics follow this template for the entire song: “One for the bread lines, one for the billionaires
One for the missing, one for the barely there-One for the certain, one for the real confused-One for me, okay, now one for you” It sounds silly to say, but the way Oberst sings these lines is like he is finding the essential humanness in all kinds of people. The track “Beginner’s Mind” is written as an ode to the inexperienced, naïve, and those who start over instead of continuing down a wrong path.  “Triple Spiral” again deals with religion and mysticism and the human yearning to feel like we are part of something bigger. Oberst sings “

“I loved you triple spiral-Father, son, and ghost
But you left me in my darkest hour-When I needed you, when I needed you
And now the dream is over-I want it to be known-I never saw it coming
From my little human prism-How sad it is to know I'm in control
That's the problem-An empty sky-I fill it up with everything
That's missing from my life” Again, in lesser hands, lyrics like this would not work but Bright Eyes always managed to make it work and make it work well.

6.  The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost by Girls

This is kind of what I like to call a sound track album; as far as I know the songs have not been used in the soundtrack of any movie or T.V. show, but I can almost guarantee they will be. Furthermore, when listening to it, pretty much every song on the album seems like it could be playing in the background in a scene in my (and possibly your) life to give the scene more emotional context and gravitas to an outside observer who was watching a life. The track “Honey Bunny” features a Dick Dale style surf guitar talks about continuing to look for the perfect girl while keeping finding girls who eventually don’t work out and could be played during a montage scene of either  a movie or clips from my life of meeting different girls and having things quickly not work out. The track “Vomit” has a sad lonely guitar that gives a backdrop to lyrics such as “Nights I spend alone-I spend 'em runnin' 'round lookin' for you, baby-Lookin' for love-Lookin' for love-Lookin' for love-Lookin' for love” and is perfectly cathartic for to listen to on any lonely night. The song “Alex” is the perfect cathartic life soundtrack song whenever you have fallin for a girl who already has a boyfriend. Pretty much this entire album features songs that can provide lyrical and musical therapy for any bad point in a relationship. 

5.  Camp by Childish Gambino

First off, I will mention the elephant in the room; on this album Childish Gambino aka actor/writer/comedian Donald Glover in terms of production style and rapping is doing a Kanye West impersonation. Hell a lot of the song titles like “All That Shine” “Heartbeat” and “That Power” are slight variations of Kanye West song titles. All that being said, in a year when Kanye did not release a solo album, this album did a very good job filling that void. Like Kanye, the album touches upon themes of race, fame, girls, and class. On the opening track “Outside” he raps about growing up not being able to completely relate to the white kids at his school or even his black friends and cousins: “ I Just want to fit in, but nobody was helping me out-they talk hood shit, and I ain’t know what that was about.” I admit that part of the reason I like this album a lot is that Donald Glover is my age (28). Thus, all the jokes and the pop cultural references that he has in the album whether they current or nostalgic are ones that I can relate to and might not be as funny to somebody who is currently 11 or currently 40. A few examples of what I mean: “She got ironic tattoos on her back, that ain’t ironic bitch I love Rugrats” or “you’re not not racist because The Wire is on your Netflix Queue” or “listening to Sky is The Limit on my walkman, if Biggie can make it through it, man than I can” If did not actually listen to Sky Is The Limit on your walkman, that is most likely not a great line, but if you did, then it is. There are a lot of funny moments on the album, but Glover mixes it all in with genuine pathos and emotion. The track “Heartbeat” features Glover describing a relationship and ends with the lines “fuck this
are we dating?-are we fucking?-are we best friends?-are we something In between that?
I wish we never fucked and I mean that-But not really-you say the nastiest shit in bed and it's fucking awesome” All funny and all true. Camp’s last song is “That Power” which ends with not a rap, but Glover telling a story of falling in love with a girl at camp. The story could easily be used as a plot line for some decent indie coming of age story movie and the eventually punch line is that Glover or at least when he raps under the Childish Gambino persona is emotionally essentially still a 13 year old. While it is possible for “adults” to make good music, I still think most of the best music out there whether it is rock or rap is kind of emotionally still 13.

4. Watch The Throne by Kanye West and Jay Z

The opening track “No Church In The Wild” is a ideal tone setter for both the current mood of the world and the rest of the album. Jay Z’s opening verse of the song is a technical masterpiece with relativist philosophical underpinnings. At one point, I listened to the opening Jay verse a solid 25 times in a row (no bullshit) without even letting the entire song play through because it contains so much brilliance. The opening line is “tears on the mausoleum floors- blood stains the coliseum doors.” The two lines end with words that have 4 syllables that rhyme with each other (mausoleum and coliseum) followed by single syllable words that rhyme (floor-doors). If you don’t appreciate how hard that is, go and try to write a good rhyme that follows that rhyme structure. The opening line also symbolizes how the magnificent structures like coliseums and mausoleums are usually built by the excretion of blood and tears. The verse continues with lines that segue from historical hypocrisies (“lies on the lips of the priests-Thanksgiving disguised as a feast”) to the thoughts of a paranoid drug dealer praying to not get caught and wondering if his prayer falls on deaf ears. The verse persists with a relativist world view when he asks “Is Pius pious cause god loves pious?-Socrates asked whose bias do you’ll seek-all for Plato, screech” First, let’s just point out the complex internal rhyme structure using the words  “pious” and “bias” in the middle of the two lines. Second,  he uses both connotations of the word Pius (the title of many Popes) and “Pious” (a devoutly religious person) both is posing an interesting philosophical question and  in way that sonically sounds great. Third, going back to the previous drug dealer thoughts, the way he says Plato is actually a pun Plato/playdough” referring both to Socrates’ most famous student and playdough as extra money. Jay transitions into the chorus by rapping “Jesus was a carpenter, Yeezy he laid beats, Hova flow the Holy Ghost, get the hell up out your seats, Preach!” which is just a freaking awesome way to end a verse. The chorus sung by rising RNB   star of the moment Frank Ocean with lyrics that take the relativistic moral world view that Jay raps about and then applies that relativism to the idea of power when he sings “human being to a mob-what’s a mob to a king?- what’s a king to a god?-what’s a god to a nonbeliever who don’t believe in anything? No church in the wild” I would argue that the “No Church in the Wild” metaphor described here in the chorus where there is no central locust of power is a perfect description of what is happening it many current events around the world from the riots in London and the uprising in the Middle East to the debt ceiling debate and flash mob attacks.  

         The track “Murder To Excellence” is another stand out. Jay Z starts off dedicating the song to the memory of Danroy Henry who was from Easton MA and died after being shot by a police officer in New York in an incident where many of the facts are still in dispute by the parties involved. Kanye in his verses laments the murders that happen in many inner cities with lines like “314 Soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago”, Is it genocide? Cause I still hear his mama cry”, and “Its time for us to stop we redefine black power, 41 souls murdered in 50 hours”

Jay Z comes in on the next verse to flip the script and instead of lamenting the various tragedies that occur in the black community to celebrating some of its and by extension his accomplishments. However, he laments that the more achieves the few blacks he has as peers with the line “ only spot a few blacks the higher I go-what up to Will? Shout out to O? that aint enough, we gonna need a million more”

            On the track “New Day” Jay Z and Kanye stop taking more of a societal view and get more personal by penning a track dedicated to their unborn sons. A song like this has the risk of becoming corny, but lucky that does not happen here. The production is some of the best on the album with RZA coming in to lend some assistance to the soulful production style that fits the theme wonderfully. Kanye implores his son not to make the same mistakes that he has had telling to “never leave his college girlfriend and get caught up with the groupies and the whirlwind.” Jay Z comes in to promise never to abandon him like his father did even if things don’t work out with him and his mom. At the risk of being corny myself, this songs will most likely strike a chord with fathers and sons everywhere.

            This album is called Watch The Throne and is by Jay Z and Kanye, so of course it is not going to be all social, philosophical, and personal commentary, some of it is going to be about the opulence and partying that sitting on top of throne allows one to do. Not to get too meta, but again this can in some sense be looked at as cultural commentary since the gap between poor and rich is getting bigger in this country and the world allowing some to live the sumptuous lifestyle that Jay and Kanye describe in this songs while others remain in the poverty that Jay and Kanye describe on other tracks.

            The track “That’s My Bitch” samples James Brown, Sugar Hill Gang, and Elly Jackson to create an old school sounding party anthem that sounds like it could belong on the Boomerang soundtrack. Jay Z even gets a little political on his verse asking “why the pretty icons always got to be white?” before praising his wife Beyonce as well as others.

A track like Ni**as in Paris hits an apex showing off Kanye ability to uses random samples for perfect effect; case in point, at the end of Kanye’s verse he throws in a random cut from the Will Ferrell movie Blades of Glory with Jon Heder asking “I don’t even know what that means?” with Will Ferrell responding “ no one knows what it means, but its provocative-it gets the people going.” It is still funny the 20^th time you hear it and it illustrates an important point about lyrics and poetry in general, sometimes it does not have to make complete sense as long as it sounds cool.

Kanye made his bones as a producer using soul samples and Watch The Throne contains some of those; most notably the single “Otis” which samples Otis Redding’s “Try A Little Tenderness.” In some sense, it is borderline cheating sampling a classic Otis Redding song, but Kanye and Jay talking shit over the sample still sounds great and both have some quotable boastful lines like Kanye’s “sophisticated ignorance-I write by curses in cursive” and Jay Z’s “photo shoot fresh-I am looking at wealth-I might call the paparazzi on myself.” The track “The Joy” samples another soul legend in Curtis Mayfield and again with Kanye delivering funny lines like “one room got Bridget, the other got Gidgit-whats tripped out dawg is they sisters-nah you aint listen, they black, they sisters- their momma named them after white bitches”

Not every track works perfectly. My biggest complaint is “Welcome To The Jungle” because the Swiss Beats chorus is pretty annoying after a few listens and Jay Z’s verse is kind of phoned in. Kanye’s verse on H.A.M. is similarly underwhelming; however, Jay Z’s subliminal diss of Lil Wayne and Baby from Cash Money Records is nicely just slipped into his verse. The beat during the versus of the song can be a little clunky too, however when the verses stop and producer Leg Luger goes all epic with the soaring operatic vocals, strings, and more at the end it is pretty kick ass.

While it is not the actual album closer, the track “Made in America” feels like the closer after all an album that is filled with both celebrations of American excess as well as discussions of our deep seeded problems. The theme of the song is nothing new for either rapper or either rappers in general; they both tell their stories off how they came up from nothing to reach prominence. As fucked up as the country and world is, both Jay and Kanye are testament that the American Dream is still alive and well while paying homage to Martin, Malcolm, and others to made that possible.

3. House of Balloons by The Weekend

It was slowly building for years from Metric and Scott Pilgrim to Drake and Broken Social Scene; but, it was the release of The Weeknd’s album House of Balloons that cemented Toronto as the current coolest city in the world. Does House of Balloons live up to the hype? I have listened to around 50  times the last months and the unequivocal answer is yes. One of the underrated aspects of recording a great album is having a great opening to the first song. It is like having a perfect thesis statement that prepares everyone for the rest of the album. The best example of this is Guns N Roses’s Appetite For Destruction which opens with Slash’s kick ass guitar riff, Axl whispering “oh my god”in the background,  the wail of a police siren in the background, Axl yelling “cha”, and culminates in the iconic opening line of “Welcome to the Jungle-We got fun and Games.” While The Weeknd and GNR are two completely different type of bands and I am not saying House of Balloons will go on to be an album that is emblematic of its time the way Appetite For Destruction did; however, the opening of House of Balloons is a perfect thesis statement for this album. On House of Balloons the first thing we hear on the opening track High ForThis are some weird noises that sound like they may be taken from the score of Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey, then we get the first distant sounding drum sounds that seem to be coming from another room right before we hear the lyrical thesis for the album of “You don’t know what’s in store-but you know what you’re here for.” That line kind of encapsulates the entire experience of being young, single, and going out. Though out the rest of the song we get the narrator’s rap (I am using the word rap in the traditional sense and not the musical sense) to the girl trying to get her in bed: “hold tight-love is right-we don’t need no protection-come alone-we don’t need not attention-open your hand-take a glass-don’t be scared-I am right here-even tho-you don’t roll-trust me girl-you want to be high for this” They rest of the album goes along with those general themes of sex, drugs, and love in that order. On the second track What You Need, we again get a great opening refrain of an unknown singer saying “didn’t I hold you close?” which leads into the rest of the song. At times on the song Abel Tesfaye’s vocals sound like yearning but they also almost have a menacing quality. When you sings “he’s what you want, he’s what you want, I am what you need” you are not sure if he is pleading to his love to come back or threatening to kidnap her. The rest of the album never lets go of the level of musical and lyrically complexity. A song like Wicked Games could have just been a good standard RNB songs about ditching your girl for the temptation of a super hot girl; however, lyrically and musically The Weeknd always go with an extra layer of psychological depth. He asks the super hot girl to “bring your body baby-and I could bring you fame” which sounds similar to what you might here in a standard RNB song with the star trying to use his fame to get laid. What makes a track like “Wicked Games” different is that later he confesses that he wants her because he needs confidence in himself and begs her to say that she loves him even if she does not mean it and even if it is only for the night. That type of earnestness and insecurity is closer to something you might here in a Smiths lyric than a Ne-Yo lyric. A song like“Loft Music” first few minutes sound like they could be a solid club song, but the last 2 and half minutes of the song is mostly just a dream like soundscape with vocal sounds but no real lyrics. Musically and lyrically, The Weeknd along with Frank Ocean have broken out from recent stagnant RNB formulas to make some of the best music of the year.

2. Wounded Rhymes by Lykke Li

The Cardigans, Metric, Garbage. Anyone who knows me, knows I love those bands and thus it should be no surprise that I love Lykke Li’s album “Wounded Rhymes.” While not sounding too close to any of those aforementioned bands, Li fits well together in play lists with those artist because she has the similar ability to make a haunting love song one moment and show a sense a humor the next and have it all fit in perfectly together. In the haunting category is “I Know Places” which is nearly six minutes long and only features a few lines repeated throughout the song that are both vague and specific enough that pretty much anyone hearing Li singing them in with her tarry style that seems to linger in the air can relate to in their own way. Li excels at chorus which is an underrated trait as both a writer and a singer. A good chorus has to be catchy, meaningful with the rest of the lyrics, but also not get annoying after you have heard it a bunch of times and Li is great at that. On the chaotic relationship track “Jerome” the way she sings “I am screaming at nothing Jerome” just sounds gorgeous . On the more poppy and funny “Rich Kids Blues” Li on the chorus laments “I’ve got the Rich Kids Blues and they got nothing to do with you” in a way that reminds of Garbage songs like “Stupid Girl” and “Cherry Lips.” But unlike Adele, Li bring more sex and lust into her songs about relationships like “Get Some” and “Love Out of Lust” which brings a needed variety to lyrics which sometimes similar style of singers lack. The way she sings “Don't pull your pants before I go down
Don't turn away, this is my time-Like a shotgun needs an outcome-I'm your prostitute, you gon' get some” is pretty damn hot. Li mixes it up again sonically on the track “Sadness is a Blessing” which sounds like an indie rock track if it had a baby with a 1960s Phil Spector style girl group wall of sounds song. She opens the track with the classic line “my wounded rhymes make silent cries tonight” and on the chorus she sings “sadness is a blessing, sadness is a pearl, sadness is my boyfriend, sadness I am your girl” that also feels like a slight homage and update of the theme of Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains.” The track is just a delightful little piece of indie pop that you will be singing along to in your head long after you hear it. Pretty much every song on this album marries different styles of music to create something mildly new but very familiar and it all just sounds great.

1. Take Care By Drake

“The real is on the rise; fuck them other guys” That line starts off the chorus to the Drake track headlines. For Drake being “real’ is not like 50 Cent being real. 50 was shot 9 times and battled with Kenneth “Supreme” McGriff’s drug distribution organization. When 50 was being “real” he talked about that life. Drake did not grow up like that; Drake grew up in Toronto and was on Degrassi. Thus, when Drake is keeping it real he is talking about the life of a middle class, half black, half Jewish, child actor from Toronto. It’s a life where he most likely gets a bevy of non-famous beautiful women and has been rumored to be involved with famous beautiful women like Rihanna and Nicki Minaj. He is also rich with the success of his EP and first full length album. It sounds like a pretty awesome life and I am sure in some ways it is; but through most of Take Care, Drake is singing and rapping about how unfulfilling his life is. Discussing the down side of that kind of life could make a person come across as an ungrateful douche bag and I am sure to some Drake haters he does; The reason Take Care works even with the overall down beat themes is that it is impeccably rapped, sung, and produced. Every song sounds great and Drake discusses the down side of his life in a way that people can relate to their own lives.

            The center piece of the entire album is the track “Marvin’s Room.” The song opens with Drake drunk dialing an ex girlfriend. Drake goes on to vividly describe the scene; it is late at night, he is at the club, there are hot women everywhere, but Drake is at the bar lonely. He confesses to the women on the other line that “he is addicted to naked pictures and sitting and talking about bitches that he almost had” , that he is worried that he is making monsters of the women he is with, that some of the girls he gets only like him cause he pays for all their expenses, and that “after a while they all seem the same.” He tries to convince the women on the line to be with him on the chorus but he does it in a asshole kind of way singing “fuck that nigger that you love so bad-I know you still think about the times we had-fuck that nigger that you think you found-and since you picked up I know he is not around.” The melancholy production fits the song perfectly and while not everyone can not relate to Drake’s exact situation, most everyone can relate to thinking about an ex or the one that got away or calling someone when you are not in the right frame of mind. In a time when people have many “friends” that they do not feel a strong connection to, Drake’s Marvin’s Room and it’s generally sense of isolation the song conveys strikes a chord.

            On the album’s title track, which features Drake’s on and off again girl friend Rihanna we get a Jamie XX production that works in a haunting Gil Scott Heron sample as Rihanna sings the chorus of “I know you have been hurt by someone else, I can tell by the way that you carry yourself, if you let me, here is what I will do, I’ll take care of you.” In this track both Drake and Rihanna have been hurt and are thus have their defenses up. Drake raps “Pushing me away so I give her space-Dealing with a heart that I didn’t break-I’ll be there for you, I will care for you-I keep thanking you, just don’t know-Try to run from that, say you’re done with that-On your face girl, it just don’t show
When you’re ready, just say you’re ready-When all the baggage just ain’t as heavy-And the parties over, just don’t forget me-We’ll change the pace and we’ll just go slow” Drake raps it all with his half sung flow and it unlike some love songs that with similar themes that can sound overly melodramatic, Rihanna’ and Drake’s lines throughout that song just sound real and affecting. Part of the reason for that is that the production changes throughout the sound. When Drake speeds up his flow the beat and piano speed up to go along with it.

            As a rapper, one of Drake’s strength is his clear enunciation. This is no more evident on the song “Practice” which both sounds at times Drake like he is practicing his rapping and rapping/singing to a girl telling her that all of her prior relationships where practice for him. It is a completely arrogant statement and a hallmark of how despite all his moping around, Drake is still kind of a egotistical douchebag. When I say Drake is almost practicing rapping it is because the entire first verse of the song and part of the chorus is pretty much lifted from Juvenile’s “Back That Ass Up.” However, when Juvenile has more a slurred flow and when Drake clearly and quickly rhymes each of Juvenile’s rhymes it sounds awesome and makes the actual lyrics seem like they are saying something different then when Juv rhymed them.

            Drake sings a lot on this album, but it is most electric when he raps. On the aforementioned “Headlines”, instead of the more traditional style boasting lead single like T.I.’s “What You Know” Drake flow almost makes him seem bored by the idea that he has to boast and brag about why he is better than other rappers which in some ways is a more effective diss and style of bragging then being over the top about it. The track “Make Me Proud” features Drake trading rhymes with Nicki Minaj who starts off with her manic flow then switches up to her half swung flow mid verse. Drake’s versus have a similar fast flow until he switches it up to the half sung flow of the chorus where he tells Nicki “I am so so so proud of you.” For lack of a better word, this is a genuinely sweet song and comes across as an ode to a friend which is actually a pretty new type of track.

            In the past 5 years it would be very hard to upstage both Lil Wayne and Drake on a track; however, that does happen on this album on the song “The Real Her.” On the mellow production of the real her, both Drake and Wayne turn in good verses but it is Andre 3000 popping up with he a guest verse from his self imposed partial exile from the game with one of the best guest versus of the year which I will now quote about have of: If you love hip hop it is impossible not to appreciate all the little things Andre does in this verse: “niggas that are married don’t wanna go home but We look up to them- they wish they were us, they want some new trim, we lust for some trust-Now that both of us, are colorblind, ’cause the other side looks greener-
Which leaves your turf in a Boise State, can’t see a play or the team-cause
Everybody has an addiction, mine happens to be you-
And those who says they don’t, souls will later on say to them “That ain’t true”-
All of them will have an opinion, but y’all know what y’all can do wit’ them-
But if you’re unsure, I’ll take you on tour to a place you can stick that in-
Well, sittin’ here sad a’ hell-listenin’ to Adele- I feel ya, baby
“Someone Like You”? More like someone unlike you, or somethin’ that’s familiar, maybe-
And I can tell that she wants a baby, and I can yell, girl, that you’re crazy
Aw, what the hell, nope, can’t be lazy, please be careful, bitches got the rabies”
            The song “Lord Knows” is nothing too new in terms of production or themes, but it features a classic Just Blaze style soul production and Drake makes some bold claims like “They take the greats from the past and compare us-I wonder if they’d ever survive in this era-In a time where it’s recreation-To pull all your skeletons out the closet like Halloween decorations-I know of all the things that I hear they be pokin’ fun at-Never the flow though, they know I run that-Fuck you all, I claim that whenever-I change rap forever, the game back together”

            I don’t think Drake has changed rap forever, I think that was more so Kanye who started this borderline emo style of main stream rap that is askew from some of raps past major paradigms like gangsta rap, back pack rap, conscience rap, hustler rap, and party rap. Drake does not really fit into any of those things and he has already spawned a generation of imitators like Kendrick Lamar.

            Roger Ebert once wrote that something like for a movie to be great it needs at least 4 incredible scenes and no bad scenes. Well Drake’s “Take Care” has about 7 incredible songs and no bad ones. Furthermore, the production makes everything flow together perfectly so where it sounds like an album with a central underlying them as opposed to a collection of songs. When I think of 2011, more than any other album I will think of Drake’s Take Care. For that, and all the reasons stated above, it is my album of the year.

           
MY Most Hated Album of The Year: Sorry For The Party Rock by LMFAO

What do you get when you combine the worst of pop, hip hop, and dance? You get LMFAO. First off, lets discuss the actual rapping; if you are a 4^th grader who is attempting to rhyme it is ok to use nothing but an ABABABABA rhyme scheme all the time. If you are attempting to rap in 2011, then you can’t actual release album pretty much doing nothing but that because it that type of rhyme scheme and flow sounds so grating to the ears. The actual music of their songs like the ubiquitous party rock anthem sound like someone mashed together a few of the canned tracks that you could get when buying one of those keyboard from RadioShack; for example, the sound effects squeaky lazer style sound effects at the end of the chorus of the lead single have a tinny chalk board quality about them that make me want to put a bullet in my head whenever I have to hear it. The second single “Sexy and I Know it” again features simplistic tired rhymes like “when I walk in the spot, this is what I see-everybody stops and they starring at me.” This is a song that is supposed to get you pumped and want to dance, but how anyone can get pumped when hearing such lame rhymes is beyond me. The album “Sorry For The Party Rock” is the soundtrack for a party I don’t want to be at.

Now For Some Very Good Honorable Mention Albums:

A Token of The Wreckage by Megan Slankard

This is Megan’s best produced and most confident sounding album of her career. Megan is a good literary style story teller. Megan has the ability to go borderline the main stream pop route with songs like “This Is Our Little Secret” and “The Pains of Growing Up” which could easily be a radio hits in different eras to go along side someone like Jewel or even Taylor Swift. But Megan often eschews traditional pop song style dynamics on songs like the title track where she tells a vivid the story of a relationship with lines like “we don’t argue-were tired of that too-spoons click in our soup-we weary so young-it probably means that were doomed” that allow you to have a picture of the scene she is describing in your head. My only complaint is that now with a full band behind her, I wish she tried to rock a little bit harder at times and do a few more up tempo tracks.

XXX by Danny Brown

Danny Brown with his manic delivery and humor kind of reminds me of Dave Chappelle.  Brown. Brown takes joy in being completely filthy whether it is describing in detail his techniques while going down on a girl on the song “I Will” with lines like “I don’t a fuck if shaved or its nappy-long as it aint nasty” or rapping “make Ghadi grab a burner while they shoot shit-rhymes that make the Pope want to get his dick sucked-had virgin mary doing lines in a pickup-make Sarah Palin deep throat till she hick up” on the chorus of the song Pac Blood.  However, Brown also like Eminem at his best turns his fucked up rhymes inward mocking himself on last and best song on the album 30 which he admits to having to borrow Nintendo Power Cords, that he might die from ODind and only be known for a releasing a couple of mixtapes to the internet and closes it with the line “the thought of no success got me chasing death-doing all of these drugs in hope of Oding next-Triple X.

Belong By The Pains of Being Pure At Heart

This guys just write great little indie pop ditties. The song “Even In Dreams” reminds me of the best of the Gin Blossoms singles. It is pretty much impossible not to dance a little and get the chorus of “Heart In Your Heartbreak” stuck in your head after even after one listen. The track “My Terrible Friend” is another standout and sure to be the theme song to anyone who has ever fallen in love with someone they met at some rock show. The song “Belong” rocks with an almost Smashing Pumpkins Gish style guitar intro. Overall, this album is the type of music that anyone who grew up in the 90s most likely would instantly gravitate towards.

1977 by Terius Nash

Nash is better known as The Dream aka the songwriter behind such huge smashes like Rihanna’s umbrella and Beyonce’s single ladies. This is his first album under his own name and it is the second best break up album of the year (with 21 by Adele being the best) (Nash and Christiana Milian were recently divorced). The song “Wedding Crasher” has Nash drunkenly crashing his ex’s wedding and alternating between being angry and sarcastic and also mentioning how beautiful his ex still looks like. On “Wake Me When’s Its Over describes the ups and down of the relationship right before they broke up. Nash is obviously not being metaphorical on this album and even goes into details of pictures of him with a girl that was not Milan in a bikini hit the internet and contributed to his break up. Throughout the album he does a great job of explaining of how both him and Milan screwed up in their relationships. The production throughout the album is expertly handled. The song “Used To Be” matches R Kelly at his best with Nash angryly singing “ you dress half way decent for me-but you dress up for your girlfriends-listening to what they say-got your ass without a husband-put you in a Benz-you did everything to get with me-but ain’t did nothing since-but talking about who I should be-day care-care loans-paid all the fucking rent- stop fucking with me women-if you ain’t fucking me women”  It sounds like Nash is just saying whatever comes into his mind at the moment which gives each kiss off on the album feel all the more real.

Now here are my thoughts on everything else that was new in 2011 that I heard this year from main stream pop, to hipster hip hop in absolute no particular order whatsoever:

Born This Way by Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga did the unthinkable with this album; she made something that was undeniably boring. Songs like “Bad Romance” and “Poker Face” from her Fame Monster album were great updates on Madonna style dance pop. Then came the first single and title track on this album and my and many other WTF reaction to it. The song “Born This Way” is unquestionably a rip off of Madonna’s “Express Yourself.” When Puffy sampled the Police for the megahit song “I’ll be Missing You”, Sting made hundreds of thousands and dollars in royalties. Well “Born This Way” is close enough of a rewrite of Madonna’s Express Yourself that Madonna should have got a similar bounty of royalty money. I still remember when I woke up one morning and still in a half sleep with my Matty In The Morning on Kiss debuting Born This Way and literally having t fight off the urge to sing the lyrics to Madonn’s express yourself as it was playing. It is essentially the same song. The rest of the album is not as blatant but often again she attempts to sound similar in her production and lyrical styling to iconic 80s songs by everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Pat Benatar. I bought this album for 99 cents on Amazon and it is not terrible, but

it soooo similar to other stuff I have already heard that it is a boring listen and I pretty much skip every song on this when it appears on my 2011 playlist on my iPod.

Goblin by Tyler The Creator

Goblin opens with the title track where we get Tyler talking to a psychiatrist; this little motif is very similar to stuff Eminem did on the Slim Shady Lp and in many ways Tyler’s Goblin with all its complaints about his parents, attempts to shock with his gruesome lyrics, and attacks on main stream pop and hip hop stars (footnote 4) is an update on The Slim Shady Lp.  Lead single Yonkers which has a killer beat features all of those motifs at their best like his attack  on B.O.B.’s singles with the lines “What you think of Haley Williams? Fuck Her Wolf Haley robbin, I’ll crash that fucking plane that the faggat nigger Bon is in- and stab Bruno Mars in his Goddamn esophagus-and won’t stop till the cops come in” (Footnote 4)

At this point I have to mention the controversy from Tyler lyrics which can be interpreted as misogynistic, homophobic, anti-religion, and offensive to a myriad of other groups. I would argue that those who get offended by the lyrics are barking up the wrong tree. The overall theme of Tyler’s album is nihilism. He is trying to piss people off and say the most offensive shit possible just for the sake of pissing people off and saying the most offensive shit possible because his and the Odd Future crew’s general philosophy is fuck everything. While one could argue that there are listeners who might misinterpret lines like “I am not homophobic, faggots” or “I am stabbing every blogging faggot with a pitchfork (footnote 5) in a way that actually is promoting homophobia and violence against gay people, I would argue that many people can misinterpret many different kinds of art and use it to justify awful shit. Tyler the Creator is playing a sociopathic character on this album in the same way Eminem plays a sociopathic character of Slim Shady. If people are not smart enough to understand that Tyler and Eminem are not actually sociopaths, but are playing a character much in the same way Anthony Hopkins is playing Hannibal Lector in Silence of The Lambs than that is a problem in our education system and not the music lyrics.  Now back to the actual music.

One of the underrated strong suits of Tyler and the Odd Future crew is the production. The song Sandwitches features a great horn section backdrop that is reminiscent of Pharrell Williams style of production. The track “She” which tells of story of Tyler creepily pining for a girl next door and fantasizing about sneaking into her room features smooth production and vocals from odd Future member Frank Ocean. The song ends with the hilarious motif of Tyler acknowledging his creepiness even while yearning for the courage to ask the girl on the date with the lines “I just want to talk and conversate-cause I usually just stalk you and masturbate-and I finally got the courage to ask you on a date-so please just say yes-let the future fall into place-cunt.” (Footnote 6) Another stand out track is “Radicals.” (Footnote 7) Radicals is a 7 minute over the top opus with Tyler and the crew ranting about fathers not paying child support and refrains like “fuck your traditions and fuck your religions” and “kill people-burn shit-fuck school.”

The music world and the world in general needs nihilists who sometimes just say fuck it all. The underlying message and theme of the Goblin albums is fuck everything. The message is delivered with good productions and twisted sociopathic funny lyrics throughout. When you are in a fuck everything mood, this is the album to put on

I’m Gay by Lil B

Lil B used to be a member of the Southern California  hip hop hipster group The Pack (footnote 8). After the group dissolved and Lil B went solo, he gained a cult following with his prolific amount of free song downloads he released as well as his constant tweeting as well as his general wacked out haphazard themes and lyrics on songs like  “Wonton Soup” and Miley Cyrus. (footnote 9) More recently, he has been the topic of controversy after announcing he was going to name his new album “I’m Gay.” (footnote 10) Well, he recently released the album to itunes followed by tweeting a link to his followers who do not have 10 dollars to download it for free. How is the album?

            I’m Gay is in interesting album. It stays away from of Lil B’s past lyrical themes and for lack of a better phrase goes the “conscious rapper” route and raps a lot of commentary about society’s ills. The production on the album is great. Every song is listenable with soul style beats that are kind of similar to what Kanye does sometimes. On the track “Open Thunder Eternal Slumber “ he raps about how people can’t find jobs, how those working 9-5 still can’t pay the bills, and how he and many are living in their computers. The track “I hate myself” is both a personal lament and discuss how the media can make black people have a negative view of themselves. There is a lot to like, on this album, but there is one major flaw that is holding it back.

            Lil B is technically not a very good rapper. The best rappers switch up their flows and rhymes schemes to their songs for various effects and affect. Lil B does not do this. He almost always uses a similar flow and very simplistic rhyme schemes. No one is going to confuse any of his lyrics with those of Jay Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, Das Racist, Lupe et. al. His lack of skills makes the album a little monotonous at times which really hurts his overall cause. If Lil B eventually can step his game up (Footnote 11) , he might be able to make a great album. But for now, “I’m Gay” is just an average one.

Bad Meets Evil by Eminem and Royce The 5’9

This album has a mixtape ethos with Royce and Eminem just rapping crazy shit using complex rhyme schemes and flows for the sheer fun of rapping. When they do that on songs like “I’m On Everything” and “Fast Lane” it is pretty awesome to listen to even if it does not have great replay value after you have heard all the good rhymes. The only things really terrible on hear is Bruno Mars saccharinely corny chorus on “Lighters”

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

I like this album, but I think it is kind of overrated as many people are calling it the best album of the year; for me it is one of the best albums of the year to be used as background music while doing something else. But, if all I am doing is listening to music the sound scapes and falsetto vocals still sound pretty beautiful but in the end kind of boring. To me this album is a like good painting; while I can get moved by an amazing painting it is not my favorite medium of art because I am not as good as engaging with it as I am music. Bon Iver is kind of like that to me; my personality and by extension my musical tastes.

Finally Famous by Big Sean

With his debut album, Big Sean while being influenced by Kanye who produced some songs here seems to be going for being the Fabolous (i.e.good flow, some funny punch lines, a few memorable songs, and an equal number of forgettable songs)  of Chicago which is not really an insult, but not a huge compliment either. The MC Hammer sampling Dance (Ass) is a good club anthem and the remix with Nicki Minaj on it is fucking awesome. The Kanye assisted Marvin and Chardonnay is another good single/club track.   The track “Memories” which features John Legend is a decent biographical/overcoming obstacles song, but I could name you about 100 rappers who have done similar songs better. That is how a feel about a lot of songs on this album. Big Sean is good at boasting and talking shit on the opening track “I Do It”, but again I have heard many rappers do it better and it does not serve Big Sean when he bring out similar flows and punch lines styles that Drake also does; while it is debatable which one of them revived  the hashtag flow, (neither invented it, as Ludacris points out in a recent diss song), Drake does the flow better.

Talk That Talk by Rihanna

Rihanna is essentially a singles artist which is nothing to be ashamed of because she has crafted some all time great singles and the leadoff single “We Found Love” is another to add to her classic oeuvre. The tracks “Where Have You Been” and “Talk That Talk” will also be solid singles and will no doubt sound good even after they have been played on the radio a million times. However, there are quite a few songs here which kind of sound like half baked filler like “Cockiness” and “Drunk on Love.” In fact part of the problems of her great singles like “We Found Love” or “Umbrella” is that they make the similar sounding and themed songs pale in comparison and when you have an album with 5 different songs with the word “love” in the title sometimes it is hard to distinguish between the secondary singles. That being said, Rihanna deserves credit for being prolific (she releases at least 1 album each year) and for always have at least a few good to great singles and club tracks on each album.

The Greatest Story Never Told by Saigon

So this is a good album, but with one major problem; it is both new and old. It is new in that it was just released in 2011 for the first time, but it is old in that due to label strife this album was literally completed about 4 years ago back when Saigon still had a mixtape buzz and was playing himself on Entourage. Unfortunately, do to label bull shit the album came out and by now it sounds a little dated and many of its songs have already been leaked in a half completed form which makes the album not as fun to listen to. This is not Saigon or producer Just Blaze’s fault. It would be like if someone were to release a movie 4 years from now and during the next 4 years they released a bunch of clips from the movie beforehand that were half finished. Even if the movie was good, it would not feel as entertaining as it should because so much of it had leaked. Getting back to the actual music, there is a lot that is good here. The track “Come On Baby” has Saigon going hard over a nearly classic Just Blaze beat with a guest verse from Jay Z. The track “Too Long” is a good inspirational track.

Lazers by Lupe Fiasco

I loved Lupe’s first 2 albums and consider them both near classics; this album had the potential to be on par with those 2, but the much chronicled beef between Lupe and his label over the creative direction of the album fucked it up. For example, the song “I’m Beaming” was supposed to be the lead single off this album and Lupe made a video for it and everything. It is better than every song that is actually on this album, but was left off of it because most likely it did not feature a radio friendly hook. A track like “Break The Train” does feature a radio friendly hook, but it is a terrible one and the beat and chorus does not suit Lupe’s style as well as the beats on his first 2 albums. The song “The Show Goes On” is a radio friendly jam, but Lupe’s great versus that are both inspirational and feature cultural commentary fortunately save it. The song “State Run Radio” is another case where I like Lupe’s rhymes and message, but I find the both the chorus and beat of the song to kind of annoying. I pretty can say the same thing about the track “Words I Never Said.” Lupe has some great versus and pointing out the bullshit that is the war on terror and even flaws in the educational system; however, again I don’t like the beat or chorus that much. I would much rather Lupe make an album with either rapped chorus or no chorus at all with just the beat playing. Only great rappers can get away with not having a chorus and at his best Lupe is a great rapper that can hold his own with anyone, but the production hear to often overwhelms his rhymes

Femme Fatal by Britney Spears

Britney has hit her comfort zone point in her career; she is not trying anything new, but just doing solid basic dance songs like “Till The World Is”, “Criminal” and “Hold It Against Me” that all do their job of getting people to dance.

Mylo Xyloto by Coldplay

There are a lot of Coldplay songs I have liked, but I admit they can be a pretty boring band; unfortunately I think Mylo Xyloto is the most boring album of their career and that is saying something. They never really even try to rock or bring too much energy to any song here and there are only so many times you can hear Chris Martin stretch out the letter O in a souring way to make a bridge for a song before you start falling asleep. They even got Rihanna on the song Princess in China and even that is kind of snore inducing. (and yes that song also features Chris Martin singing “ooooOooooOOOOOOOOooo.” He really does do that waaayyy too much.

Mr Muthafuckin ExQuire by Mr. Mutharuckin ExQuire

This is a really good mix tape. The opening track Triple F is a lament on how people treat you like shit when things are not going well and ends with the awesomely voiced refrain of “Fuck em, fuck em, fuck em” for a solid minute. Songs like “Fire Marshall Bill” and “Cockmeat Sandwhich” are funny and sample In Living Color and Harold and Kumar respectively. But, the 2 best tracks are Huzzah and the Huzzah remix; the latter of which is one of the top 5 best songs of the year. I wrote about the song and video extensively early in the year and am cutting and pasting that here:

Mr Muthafuckin Exquire’s song “The Last Huzzah” recently got an all star remix featuring Danny Brown, Das Racist, Despot, Danny Brown, and El-P. The video pays homage to another New York rapper posse cut and in doing so it portends a shift in the type of rap that now is dominating New York and influencing Hip Hop in general.

In Hip Hop, the early part of the 90s was dominated by Death Row Records. In 1994 all that started to cane; New York re-rose to take back the crown as the Mecca of Hip Hop with acts like Wu Tang, Mobb Deep, Busta and the holy trinity of Biggie, Jay Z, and Nas. The video song/video that was the opening salvo of that shift back to New York was the remix to Craig Mack’s “Flavor In Your Ear.”  Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8pG1mG7BeI

The video features an opening verse from Biggie, Puffy acting like Puffy, L.L. Cool J, Busta, Rampage, Craig Mack, cameos from a young Irv Gotti, Mary J, Keisha from Total and much more. The opening clanging of the bottles scene of the video where Puffy imitates a classic scene from the cult classic movie The Warriors (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/) has been imitated in numerous other hip hop videos.

            Flash forward to 2011. New York hip hop has produced few mainstream stars in over 5 years and been replaced by the south and even Chicago in terms of relevance. While, New York has failed to have anyone blow up huge on a wide scale, they have been building a consistent underground scene of rappers. Some are NY, natives and others are transplants who made NY and Brooklyn in particular their home. While many of these rappers have slightly different styles, most have the similarity of Grad School level vocabulary and references, a hyperawareness of what has come before them in hip hop, an activist/cultural comedy streak, and a stoner style comedy ethos. The most recent of these New York underground rappers to blow up all over the underground and the internets is Mr Muthafuckin Exquire who released his free mixtape “Lost I Transition” a few weeks back to rave reviews from both hip hop heads and hipster bloggers like Pitchfork and Stereogum: You can download that album here: http://mishkanyc.bandcamp.com/album/mr-muthafuckin-exquire-lost-in-translation Well the opening single of that mixtape “The Latst Huzzah” has been given a remix and all of Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire friends and current hipster underground darling  like Despot, Danny Brown, El-P, and Das Racist are on the track. So try to guess which video they try to emulate for the remix video? Well of course they recreate Craig Mack’s Flavor in Your Ear Remix. While none of these current rappers will become cultural icons like Biggie or Busta, they all have pretty strong following as evident by the solid opening sales week for Das Racist new album Relax. Main stream New York hip hop has been unable to produce a lot of good artists;, the guys featured on this track and video have been producing some of the most creative and interesting albums in hip hop. The size of the seismic shift here is not as gargantuan as the one “Flavor in Your Ear” signaled; however it is a seismic shift non the less. Check out the video for the remix of “The Last Huzzah” to see a great song and an important cultural touchstone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0ijOe3sGEk It even features a Killa Mike cameo.

Good Bye Lullaby by Avril Lavigne

Avril looked shockingly hot in the lead video to “What The Hell”, unfortunately the album does not measure up to her hotness. “What The Hell” is essential a rewrite of her past single “Girlfriend” which was a rewrite of “Hollaback Girl” which was a rewrite of “Hey Micky”. A lot of the other songs on the album like the balled Black Star are pretty boring and go in one ear and out the other without resonating.

Cults by Cults

This is a short album but very good and it feels like eating a tasty desert. The album is filled with indie pop ditties that sound great and mostly upbeat, but the lyrics like Andre 3000’s Hey Yeah sometimes beguile you with their mildly depressing themes.

Relax by Das Racist

This is a good album, but not as good as their first 2 mixtapes so it felt like a little of a disappointment. The lead single “Michael Jackson” is kind of annoying after a while, but that kind of makes sense because a lot of rap lead singles are kind of annoying after a while and with Das Racist one can never be sure when they are doing some sort of meta rap commentary. The track “Girl” is another one that falls under that paradigm. It kind of mocks the typical song for the ladies that people throw on albums to be a second single, but it is actual a pretty good version of one of those songs that it is also mocking. The track “Brand New Dance” with the chorus of “it’s a brand new dance, give us all your money” satires another one of rap single convention the type that teach a new dance (think Teach Me How To Doggie) They still come at you with some of the best random pop culture references like “I am a smart guy-call me Taj Mowry-call me Tia Mowry-call me Tamera Mowery” DR even acknowledge on this album like they did not a past that they are both joking and not joking throughout the entire album with lines like “If somebody fell an old tree-jokingly- and only 3 people got the joke.”

Codes and Keys by Death Cab For Cutie

This is a collection of average Death Cab songs; I do not find myself listening to this album specifically, but it adds to their oeuvre of songs when listening to a general Death Cab mix.

The King Is Dead by The Decemberists

My favorite track on this album is the opening track “Down By The Water” with its harmonica it some ways it sounds like a old Neil Young track. Overall that is the feel this album has. The first time I heard it all sounded familiar like it was something I listened to 15 years ago, but had not heard since.

Various Mix Tapes by Dominque Young Unique

If you listen to nothing but this, Young’s voice can sound kind of grating after a while. But in short busts songs like the Beiber sampling “My Turning” and “Show My Ass” sound awesome and deserve to be played at a club with a good speaker system and would definitely get the girls out on the dance floor and in the end is there anything more important than that ?

Going Out In Style by Dropkick Murphy’s

The Murphy’s don’t’ change their formula in this one, but there are still some great new tracks here amid the filler. My favorite is the union anthem “Take Em Down” with the chorus of “when the boss comes calling don’t sell your soul-we got to organize-let them know we got smash em to the ground-let them know- we got to take the bastards down” The title track is also another good anthem.

The Valley by Eisley

I wanted to like this album more than I did but I did not find myself listening to it that much because while like other Eisley albums it features nice harmonies, it is kind of boring because it is a little too similar to their past stuff.

Last Summer by Eleanor Friedberger

This is a really good collection of story telling style tracks that I admittedly have only listened to once all the way through since I got it from the library a couple of days ago.

Metals by Feist

This is what I like to call a playlist album. I rarely seek this album out to listen to by itself, but when I put the album mixed together with other songs and artists on a playlist I like the songs. My favorite tracks are “caught in a bad wind” and “the bad in each other.”

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

Here the foxes stick pretty closely to the formula that made their first album work so well most particularly lush harmonies. Lyrically there is a lot of sentiment about growing up with the opening line of the first song being “now that I am older then my mother and father when they had their daughter-now what does that say about me?” On the title track they sing about being raised to believe that they were a unique snowflake but that as adult they almost rather be a cog in a more important machine and later wonder  “ what’s my name, what’s my station, oh tell me just what I should be.” These type of lyrics along with the beautiful way they are sung are a good soundtrack to whenever one is having a quarter life or 1/3 life crisis.

Ceremonials by Florence and The Machine

Florescence is adept at souring vocals and displays that again here. The track “Shake It Out” almost follows a similar theme to the Weezer song “The Good Life” in how it laments the pains of growing into an adult and mistakes we have made while offering the solution of some dancing to cure the doldrums. Overall, the album has more songs with more of a dancing feel like the track “Breaking Down” with midtempo dance beat and violins in the back. I could easily see a lot of these tracks being given a techno dance remix and becoming club hits. On tracks like “Seven Devils” Florence goes with more of a wall of sound backdrop with bells and other instruments creating a canvas for her to use her great voice.

Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron and Wine

So I admit if first got into Iron and Wine because of a girl like 5 years ago and by got into them I mean I forced myself to listen to them because she liked them a lot. This is an ok album, but nothing on here grabbed me and that girl has since moved away and I barely talk to her aside from the occasional facebook message so I have no real motivation to try to get into this album after the initial listen.

The Big Roar by The Joy Formidable

Partly Like Its 1995!!! If you miss female fronted bands that perform  stadium sized alt rock anthems then you will like this album. If this actually came out in 95, it would be in the middle of the pack, but in 2011 tracks blasting tracks like “Whirring” and “Cradle” are a nice change of pace to what is currently popular.

There Is Always Another Girl by Juliana Hatfield

I love the title track which is a sympathetic ode to the Lindsey Lohans and Britney Spears of the World. Juliana sings “ Girls are told not to think about the future or the past-it matters not where they came from or if the endure-what matters is if they can make our heads turn because there is always another girl” Many of the other songs like “Sex and Drugs” and “failure” remind me of other stuff she has done, but I love Juliana’s voice and any new music if it sounds similar to past stuff is a good thing in my book.

Various Mixtapes by Kendrick Lamar

Lamar shows off a lot of potential on this and the mixtapes he released this year; He at times reminds me of a mix of Drake and Tupac which I release makes no sense on the surface, but kind of makes sense in that he first started releasing stuff in the past few years and is from Compton. Lamar can switch up his flow and it does it effectively by rapping in different styles when he is lamenting society’s ills vs when he is talking about girls

Tomboy by Panda Bear

Sometimes you hear music and instantly think this is my shit right here. Other times not so much. Listening to Panda Bear falls into the latter category for me.  The airy soundscapes and harmonies just don’t fit my personality so I don’t get much from them. I am sure other people do, but just not me.

Fear of God by Pusha T

No one does cocaine rap better than Pusha T and the opening Track “ I Still Wanna” featuring Rick Ross is another great anthem in that category. Some of the other similar songs are not as memorable. T tries to expand his horizons a little bit here on the track “Touch It” with Kanye were her urges the females to do what the title of the song says.

Collapse Into Now by REM

REM end their career not with a home run but a solid single up the middle. The track “All The Best” shows that REM can still rock like it is 1988 and “Mine Smells Like Honey” shows that Stipe after all these years can still write catchy songs with cryptic lyrics.

King of Limbs by Radiohead

I will say it, I hope at some point Radiohead try to make rock album again. Kind of Limbs is not a bad album, but it is too similar to their last few albums to the point where listening to it does not feel much of a different experience than listening to In Rainbows. Overall, what it does do is expand the number of songs on my Radiohead playlist that I can listen to when I want to zone out and have Tom Yorke’s vocals and the drum loop style background take me to a different type of consciousness.

Ashes and Fire by Ryan Adams

Being inexplicably married to the lovely Mandy Morre has done Adams well; he returns to his alt country singer song writer form on this solid collection of songs.

When The Sun Goes Down by Selene Gomez and The Scene

The beats and lyrics on this are too paint by numbers; but I admit that “Love You Like A Love Song” is a silly but catchy little pop diddy.

The Things That Once Were by The Shelia Devine

Only Bruce Springsteen and a few others can tell rock music that feature every man stories of better than Aaron Perrino. Perrino like he has on the last few Dear Leader albums talks a lot here about trying to maintain during trying economic times and with technology infusing our lives. On “Kardashian Plastic” he sings about the type of relationships people lead that are devoid of any love. On the closing track “We Are An Island” he strikes an unhopeful tone about both society and individual’s inability to change and fix personal or societal ills. On the rocking track “Fragile Thing We Call Man” he is more sympathetic to the plight of humans and our general fucked upness. Overall, this album is good stuff.

Angels by The Strokes

The Strokes have been hypded, backlashed, had a backlash to the backlash, and a backlash to that backlash. Through it all, Julian Casablanca and the boys have not actually changed that much. Angels does not have any classic track like their debut, but “Taken For A Fool”, “Under the Cover of Darkness”, and the borderline 80s synth style track “Games” will no doubt get people moving.

There was a lot of other stuff I heard on the radio and the internet this year, but I only wrote about stuff I heard most of the album from remembered enough about that I felt like I could actually write something about without talking out of my ass.