Favorite Albums - Runners Up - 2011
Guess what everyone?! It’s that time again! My Favorites of the Year time! Wooo!
For those of you who are new to Pop! Bang! Boom!, or for those of you who forgot (although I can’t imagine how you possibly could have forgotten something so epic), I like to do something a little bit different at the end of the year than most ‘critics’. Most blogs/magazines/people who like to feel important make lists of the ‘Best of the Year’. While I understand the need for these lists, and I appreciate them, I don’t necessarily like to engage in them too much.
Calling something ‘Best of the Year’ is so subjective most of the time. Most years there are a handful of about twenty or so albums that each getting placement in the top ten lists of every publication, but they all move around. While there are certain innovations or pieces that everyone can respect (such as in 2010, every critic applauded the work of Arcade Fire’s ‘The Suburbs’), every writer values one aspect of music higher than the other; no one hears and feels the same as anyone else, so there is never a definitive ‘Best’ of anything.
Instead, I would like to present you with my ‘Favorite’. You are all here to read my thoughts on all of this anyway, so why not just give it to you. In the end, it is never what was ‘Best’ that matters to us, but rather what affected us that means the most.
Also note that when I say favorite, I often times do not take into account the artist merit of these items. There are songs and albums on these lists that I know are ‘bad’, but they are catchy and I loved them, so that is all that pertains to this list.
I make two lists – ‘Favorite Albums of the Year’ and ‘Favorite Songs of the Year’, each with fifty spaces. They are, in fact, ranked in order of my favorite, and putting them in said order is an exhausting process that I always promise won’t take me forever, and by the time I am done has consumed far too much of my time.
I will start off my lists with my ‘Honorable Mentions of 2011’ – ten albums and ten songs that I did enjoy, but they did not quite make it into my top 50. These, unlike everything else you will see, are not ranked (so as not to make anyone feel bad for being last in the honorable mentions. We must be delicate with these matters you know).
For those of you who are new to Pop! Bang! Boom!, or for those of you who forgot (although I can’t imagine how you possibly could have forgotten something so epic), I like to do something a little bit different at the end of the year than most ‘critics’. Most blogs/magazines/people who like to feel important make lists of the ‘Best of the Year’. While I understand the need for these lists, and I appreciate them, I don’t necessarily like to engage in them too much.
Calling something ‘Best of the Year’ is so subjective most of the time. Most years there are a handful of about twenty or so albums that each getting placement in the top ten lists of every publication, but they all move around. While there are certain innovations or pieces that everyone can respect (such as in 2010, every critic applauded the work of Arcade Fire’s ‘The Suburbs’), every writer values one aspect of music higher than the other; no one hears and feels the same as anyone else, so there is never a definitive ‘Best’ of anything.
Instead, I would like to present you with my ‘Favorite’. You are all here to read my thoughts on all of this anyway, so why not just give it to you. In the end, it is never what was ‘Best’ that matters to us, but rather what affected us that means the most.
Also note that when I say favorite, I often times do not take into account the artist merit of these items. There are songs and albums on these lists that I know are ‘bad’, but they are catchy and I loved them, so that is all that pertains to this list.
I make two lists – ‘Favorite Albums of the Year’ and ‘Favorite Songs of the Year’, each with fifty spaces. They are, in fact, ranked in order of my favorite, and putting them in said order is an exhausting process that I always promise won’t take me forever, and by the time I am done has consumed far too much of my time.
I will start off my lists with my ‘Honorable Mentions of 2011’ – ten albums and ten songs that I did enjoy, but they did not quite make it into my top 50. These, unlike everything else you will see, are not ranked (so as not to make anyone feel bad for being last in the honorable mentions. We must be delicate with these matters you know).
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Death Cab For Cutie – 'Codes & Keys'
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Drake – 'Take Care'
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Christina Perri – 'lovestrong.'
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Friendly Fires – 'Pala'
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Elliott Yamin - 'Gather 'Round'
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Lykke Li – 'Wounded Rhymes'
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St. Vincent – 'Strange Mercy'
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Corinne Bailey Rae – 'The Love' EP
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Shary-An – 'Love Me For Who I Am'
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Wanda Jackson - 'The Party Ain't Over'
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