Year in Music 2011 - Part Five: Albums 1-10

And the final top 10:

10 Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde (Fat Possum). The Smith Westerns are a 3-piece that formed about 4 years ago in Chicago while still in high school. And for a band young enough to be my kids, they definitely have a retro 60's/early 70's sound to them, recalling T.Rex, the Beatles (or at least more suped-up versions of "My Guitar Gently Weeps"), Cream, along with a dance/rock sound that recalls newer bands like Franz Ferdinand as well. Dye It Blonde is their sophomore effort and there really isn't a bad song on this tight, brief 10-song record. It always feels like it ends too soon. Highlights include "Weekend" (video), "Still New", "Imagine, Pt. 3", "Dance Away", "Fallen In Love", and "Dye the World" (with one of my favorite guitar riffs of the year).

9. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador). Kurt Vile has simply been the best songwriter in Philadelphia over the last 3-4 years. I got him into last year and enjoyed the Square Shells EP and early single for "In My Time", which also appears on Smoke Rings. Vile grew up near Philly and has been on the scene for several years now, first in War on Drugs, and then solo. His sound is classic folk/pop in the mold of Dylan or Springsteen, but also with a hint of artists like Beck or classic Velvet Underground style garage rock. There really isn't a clunker on the album and the best include "Jesus Fever" (video filmed on streets of Philly last winter), "Baby's Arms" (video, filmed entirely on a phone), "Runner Ups" (awesome live clip), "Puppet to the Man", and "Peeping Tomboy" (live). Vile is a bit of an acquired taste, I suppose, but I have a feeling he is poised for more national acclaim as the years go by.

8. Veronica Falls – S/T (Slumberland). This quartet emerged from across the pond in London last year with a different take on the retro surf/garage sound that has been so big in the States the last few years. Roxanne Clifford's vocals along with James Hoare (both on vocals and guitars) are just different enough to help give the band a sound that is close to their peers but also unique and not derivative. They are similar to the Raveonettes or Vivian Girls, but more poppy. They are similar to Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls, but a little noisier. They are kind of in that sweet spot in between. Very few low points on here and lots of highs, namely, "Found Love in a Graveyard", "Stephen" (live at SXSW), "Bad Feeling" (video) with a pulsing 60's surf/rock beat, the title track, "The Box", and "Come on Over" (video). 

7. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong (Slumberland). I took a liking to this NYC quintet a few years back, really digging their retro Brit pop (New Order/Cure/Smith) meets 90's fuzz (early Smashing Pumpkins, My Bloody Valentine) sound. There seemed to be a lot of bands that popped up between say 2003-2008, especially in NYC, who were doing some version of this sort of thing (the Bravery, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, etc), some minus the fuzz part, but for whatever reason it seems that the Pains of Being Pure at Heart pulled it off most convincingly to me and with the most originality. Belong is a tight 10-song offering (notice so many of the albums on this list are only 10-12 tracks with no filler?) whose highlights are "Girl of 1000 Dreams", "My Terrible Friend", "Heart in Your Heartbreak" (live in studio), "Heaven's Gonna Happen Now", "The Body", and the album opening title track (live in studio). The more I listen to this album the more I enjoy it. The only drawback is from the clips I've seen online, a lot of these songs don't translate well live.

6. Yuck – S/T (Fat Possum). Here's another band young enough to be my offspring. Max Bloom and Daniel Blumberg have been together for years already in various projects in the U.K. They formed the quartet, Yuck, a few years back, melding the sonic assault of bands like My Bloody Valentine, Dinosaur Jr, and Sonic Youth with the pop/rock sounds of bands like the Cure. It mixes well with an album of fast-paced rockers and some ballads. Luckily the music on here is good enough to overcome what is perhaps the worst album cover of all time. Anyway, the number of quality tracks are kind of astounding for a band this young. The standout rockers include the lead single "Get Away" (video), "The Wall" (Pitchfork video), the Dino Jr-esque "Holing Out", "Georgia" (live), and the album closer "Rubber" (live in studio). And "Shook Down" (video), "Stutter" (live in studio), and "Sunday" (live) are excellent ballads. 

5. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Mirror Traffic (Matador). No matter the hype surrounding the producer of this release, Beck, this actually does not sound like a Beck production to me. Sonically, it doesn't really sound all that different from Malkmus’ previous releases in the Jicks. When I heard Beck was producing, I expected something overly-experimental, but this is just pretty straight-forward Malkmus greatness. Even back in Pavement, Malkmus always had a knack for being able to capture a leisurely unrehearsed vibe on his studio recordings, with a feeling like he just walked into the studio, sat down and started playing, and singing whatever stream of consciousness word jumble was in his head. One of my biggest regrets of the year was passing on seeing Malkmus live because I didn't think he'd play much from his superb solo debut album. A)He did, B)He covered R.E.M's "Radio Free Europe" the week they announced their retirement, and C)He put on a great show. Anyhow, if you've read this far on the list, you probably like music, know music, and know all about Malkmus and his previous work in Pavement before going solo 10+ years ago. The best tracks were "Tigers", "Senator" (great video with Jack Black), "Brain Gallop" (live in studio), "Tune Grief" (live), "Stick Figures in Love" (live in studio), "Asking Price" (live in studio), and "Gorgeous Georgie."  This is a nearly flawless album, with my only complaint being that at 15 songs it runs a tad long. Overall, this is Malkmus' best album since his 2001 solo debut.

4. Seapony – Go With Me (Hardly Art). Seapony are a 3-piece indie rock band hailing from Seattle. They have an infectious pop/rock sound that recalls the Jesus and Mary Chain, but with a recording style that results in a cleaner sound more along like the lines of the Dum Dum Girls or Best Coast. Like those bands the vocals are really what separate them from other similar artists, and Jen Weidl’s vocals are very good. They actually remind me a little of Monsters Are Waiting, who apparently were about 3 years too far ahead of their time. There are no clunkers in this tight 12-song release, with the only complaint being that the songs do tend to sound too similar on initial listenings. But in an era where hardly anyone really listens to "albums" any more, offering little incentive for artists to put a lot of time and effort into crafting good ones that flow together, bands like Seapony should be rewarded for putting together an album that flows well together. Some of the highlights include “Dreaming” (video), “Into the Sea”, “So Low”, “What You See”, "Where We Go", and “Go Away.”

3. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead (Rough Trade). Honestly, I have never been a big Decemberists fan, even though they've been one of indie rock's darlings over the last 5+ years. I liked some songs on their 2005 release, Picaresque, but that was about it. I heard early good buzz on this record, so I checked it out. And before I even knew R.E.M’s Peter Buck plays guitar on some of it, I actually thought it had an R.E.M. Out of Time-era vibe to it. You can really hear the Buck/R.E.M. influence on "Calamity Song" (video) and "Down by The Water" (live), which also features Gillian Welch on backing vocals. The former has a riff that recalls R.E.M.'s “Talk About the Passion” or "So. Central Rain" and the latter R.E.M's “Orange Crush" or "The One I Love"  This record was just a pleasant surprise in every way, the old traditional folk/pop sound fits Colin Meloy's voice perfectly. I went into it with no expectations and immediately loved it and have not gotten tired of it at all. Besides the aforementioned songs, the best of the rest include "Don't Carry It All" (which sounds a lot like Tom Petty's 90's hit "You Don't Know How It Feels"), "January Hymn", "June Hymn", and "This Is Why We Fight" (video).

2. Male Bonding – Endless Now (Sub Pop). 2011 sort of became a retro bookend of 1991, as noted in my review of the Foo Fighters’ album, so I guess it’s only fitting that an album with a retro-Grunge sound, released on Sub Pop, would be one of my favorite albums of the year. This London trio burst onto the scene in the late 00's and this is their sophomore release. This is another band with similar influences as Yuck, but they seem to lean more towards 90's Grunge, at times sounding a little like Nirvana or Smashing Pumpkins. If you are of a certain age, there's no way you can listen to this album cranked up without wanting to start moshing. John Arthur Webb's smooth vocal style fits these songs perfectly. And Frankie Rose provides guest backing vocals on "Bones" (live), which is a pretty good track, but there are so many better. And those include "Carrying" (live acoustic version), "Seems to Notice Now", "What's That Scene?", "Before It's Gone", "Mysteries Complete", and "Dig You Out" (live - check out the poster hanging near the drummer). 

1. Cloud Nothings – S/T (Carpark). Hailing from Cleveland, OH, this lo-fi quartet is in the same ballpark as Best Coast, Wavves, and Male Bonding with the retro noise pop sound. This is their sophomore album and it's simple, short, and sweet - 11 songs in about 30 minutes. They are the brainchild of Dylan Baldi, who spent earlier years selling cassettes that he recorded at home, and also is, yes, young enough to be my offspring (notice a trend here?). So this is an actual fully produced album in the studio. It's a good listen all the way through and the best songs always seem to end too soon. The standout tracks are "Understand At All" (video), "Not Important", "Should Have" (live basement session), "Nothing's Wrong" (video), "Been Through", the more melodic "Forget You All the Time" (video), and "All the Time." They have a new album due out in early 2012 and will be playing Johnny Brenda's in March. I'd be hard-pressed to find an album I listened to more often in 2011 and this snags the lofty status as the Temple of the Blog #1 Album of the Year.

Year in Music 2011 - Part One

It's that time of year again, in which I attempt the somewhat futile and thankless exercise of trying to rank the top 50 or so new albums I listened to during the year. With music never more disposable and easy to acquire than it is now, these kind of lists at least serve as a useful reminder and a reason to reflect on all that "content" you acquired in the last year. And I guess it helps put some kind of value on it, during a time when it's essentially a value-less commodity to many.  You know that album you downloaded for free somewhere in early March and listened to 3 times, well this is an opportunity and an excuse to go back and listen again.

Part One is below - containing a list of live shows, best EP's/Singles/Compilations/Reissues, etc, and the other albums that didn't make it the final round. Part Two will be the "Honorable Mentions" and albums that just missed the cut. And the final parts will be my Top 25 albums of 2011. So without further ado, let's begin with the usual throat-clearing items.

2011 Shows

Dismemberment Plan – The Starlight Ballroom 1/27/11

Jesse Malin and the St Mark’s Social with Tommy Stinson – The City Winery in Soho NYC 2/19/11

J Mascis with Kurt Vile – World Café Live 3/23/11

Sebadoh – Johnny Brenda’s 3/25/11

Titus Andronicus – the First Unitarian Church 4/28/11

Alejandro Escovedo/Jesse Malin – World Café Live 5/5/11

Face to Face – the Trocadero 5/21/11

Jesse Malin and the St Mark’s Social – Johnny Brenda’s 12/9/11

Best Live, EP, Singles Compilations, Reissues, etc

Ryan Adams - "Wasted Years". Not officially released, but Adams did this great acoustic cover during a BBC radio session of Iron Maiden's "Wasted Years." Worth downloading from You Tube (see above)

Alkaline Trio – Damnesia (Heart and Skull). I found myself liking this more on subsequent listens. This is an album of acoustic re-recordings of some of their best songs. Some of which – “Calling All Skeletons”, “Mercy Me”, “Nose OverTail”, and “Every Thug Needs a Lady” work well in this re-interpretation. Some others don’t. A surprising high point was the Violent Femmes cover “I Held Her inMy Arms.” And “I Remember a Rooftop”, Dan Andriano’s new song included on here (probably a leftover from his solo album), is a keeper.

Best Coast-Wavves – Summer is Forever Split EP (Mexican Summer).  Mostly old songs on here except Best Coast’s gem “When You Wake Up.” Worth seeking out for that.

The Biters – All Chewed Up - EP (Underrated Recordings). The Biters recall Cheap Trick or Thin Lizzy 70's rock so they stand out among their peers.

Dum Dum Girls – He Gets Me High - EP (Sub Pop). This was a nice preview for the LP that would come later in the year.

Frost Watson – S/T - EP (no label). I saw these guys open for Titus Andronicus and was impressed. Solid debut EP that recalls 60’s British invasion pop/rock (Kinks, Beatles) updated to sound fresh with today’s garage rock bands.

Rhett Miller – The Interpreter (Maximum Sunshine). A live solo acoustic covers album from the Old 97’s front man, recorded at Café Largo in West Hollywood at his final show there as a final tribute to the club that closed its original intimate location and moved elsewhere. This was sort of Miller’s local bar where he’d try out new tunes and play lots of solo acoustic shows back when he had an apartment a few blocks away. He covers all of his major influences – David Bowie, the Beatles, the Kinks, Elvis Costello, the Pixies, etc, plus some of his peers like Wilco/Billy Bragg and Elliott Smith. All in all, it was an enjoyable listen, even if it was all covers. But I could listen to Rhett Miller sing the phone book and be o.k. 

Oupa – Forget (Boiled Egg). Solo EP of piano ballads from Yuck’s frontman, Daniel Blumberg.  Sounds like more melodic, but less busy Kid A-era Radiohead.

R.E.M. – Life’s Rich Pageant reissue (Capitol). I listened to this reissue for a solid month this summer, on the 25th anniversary of its release.  The bonus disc is the “Athens demos”, 19 tracks consisting of early versions, outtakes, etc, that were recorded in Athens (duh) before the final less raw recording was made. Among other things, it has the early version of “Bad Day”, plus great outtakes like “Wait”, “Mystery to Me”, and “All the Right Friends” (the first song the band ever wrote together).  If you’re reading this you know who R.E.M. is and you probably know how great this 1986 release was. Go buy it if you don’t have it.

Jay Reatard - You Get No Love/I Am Growing - Single (Shattered). The final recordings of Jay Reatard. RIP. Cover art kind of says it all. 

The Rolling Stones – Some Girls reissue (Universal/Virgin). This was the “last great Stones album” in my opinion and was finally reissued this year, with a 2nd disc full of outtakes that missed the cut. The mid-late 70’s were such a vibrant time in music, where you had punk, rock, funk, country-western honky-tonk (remember Urban Cowboy and the Electric Horseman?), disco, and early hip-hop all percolating, especially in a big diverse city like NY. Some Girls seems to capture the whole late 70’s NY vibe better than most other records at the time, even those made by native New Yorkers.

Toy Soliders – Get Through the Time  EP (Ropeadope Records). Not to be confused with the Martika song. This is a local Philly folk-blues band I’d heard good things about. At times they sound quite a bit like Ryan Adams. I finally checked them out after seeing their really good opening set for Jesse Malin.

U2 – Achtung Baby reissue (Island). This is a reissue of U2’s classic album. For me it was worth getting to hear the alternate take of “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”, along with b-sides of the Lou Reed cover “Satellite of Love” and the “Lady With the SpinningHead.” 

Kurt Vile - So Outta Reach - EP (Matador).  Nice supplement to Smoke Ring For My Halo. “Life's a Beach” and the cover of Springsteen’s “Downbound Train” are worth it alone.

Wavves – Life Sux - EP (Ghost Ramp). You'd have thought the highlight of the year for Wavves would have been having bassist Stephen Pope getting kicked out of the MTV awards for drug possession, among other things. But no, this is one of the best EPs of recent memory for me. It includes “Bug” (song of the year?), “I Wanna Meet Dave Grohl”, and "Nodding Off", along with other tracks included on the expanded version like“TV Luv Song”, and “Mickey Mouse." I’m a stickler for separating EPs and LPs, otherwise this would have probably been in my Top 10.

The Rest

The Elected – Bury Me in My Ring (Vagrant). This is the 3^rd album from Rilo Kiley guitarist Blake Sennett’s side project (or now full time project, I guess). Overall these songs could use more punch.

Get Up Kids – There Are Rules (Quality Hill). The Get Up Kids return after hiatus with a new album that sounds a lot more like Death Cab For Cutie. I give them credit for doing something different than Emo meets Squeeze, as their last few albums sounded. A few decent songs and the rest was boring.

Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts (Matador). Pretty good 2 or 3 songs on this album and the rest sounds nothing like you’d expect from Thurston Moore, for better or worse. But hey when you’re in a legendary band and you make solo records on the side, might as well make very different records than what you’d make in your regular band. And I assume Sonic Youth is calling it quits considering Moore and Kim Gordon are splitting in real life, so it should be interesting to see what Moore does after this.

Tom Morello (The Nightwatchman) – World Wide Rebel Songs (New West).  You could probably guess from artist and title what this sounds like - more stripped down socio-political folk-blues songs from the former Rage Against the Machine guitarist.

Red Hot Chili Peppers – I’m Without You (Warner Bros).  Without guitar god John Frusciante in the band, the Chili Peppers seem more like a funky Sugar Ray with less catchy songs. Honestly, I never really cared  much for what they've done on the albums without Frusciante. Even when the songs were kind of boring and same-sounding, at least you’d hang in to hear what interesting guitar thing he would add. There probably wasn’t a more high profile album I wanted to hear less than this one in 2011. 

The Strokes – Angles (RCA). While there are some pretty good songs on here, overall this just feels like the result of a band getting back together after a hiatus for the paycheck and mailing it in. Too many of their potential best “Strokes songs” ended up on their various side projects instead. And even though "Under Cover of Darkness" was a really good song, there just weren't enough other worthy songs on here. Ultimately this was the most disappointing album of the year for me, since expectations were so high. For many numerous reasons, I wanted so badly for this album to be great and it was just o.k. 

Thee Oh Sees – Castlemania (In the Red), Carrion Crawler / The Dream (In the Red). I really don’t have much to say about these guys. I gave some of their stuff a listen and it just never grabbed me. I didn’t dislike it, but it just never rated on my radar. And overall just too many releases for me to really dive into any particular one.

Eddie Vedder – Ukulele Songs (Universal). What? Yeah one rock’s greatest frontmen put out an album of songs played on ukulele. You know that Pearl Jam song, “Soon Forget?” It’s the one nobody really ever liked, but occasionally he’d play it in concert during the “solo” part of the encore, while the rest of the band rested? Just imagine 16 songs like that. Oddly, neither of the 2 most famous “rock” ukulele songs – R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” or the Who’s “Blue, Red, and Grey” are included among the few covers on here.  Pearl Jam’s “Can’t Keep” however is reinterpreted on ukulele. It’s actually not a terrible album and it puts emphasis on Vedder’s vocals, which is never a bad thing. If you’re a Pearl Jam completist, throw this on a random playlist and you’ll enjoy it more than hearing 16 songs in a row that all kind of sound the same.

Vivian Girls – Share the Joy (Polyvinyl). Not a bad album, but in general I’m just kind of sick of most this retro 60’s garage/psychedelic surf rock/Phil Specter “wall of sound” trend of recent years. And the Vivian Girls are the poster children for it for me. With so many bands like this sounding the same, you have to bring some unique (or just really “good”) vocals to keep my interest. If the vocals sound like the singer is disinterested in the song, I’ll probably be also.

The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian). I really wanted to like this album by a local Philly band. It's not a bad album, just sounds like guys trying too much to sound like Kurt Vile. I just seem to recall Bob Dylan made a few albums (like Empire Burleseque, etc) in the mid 80's with keyboards and synths and such to try to sound more trendy and relevant at the time. That’s what this whole album sounds like to me.

Next: The Top Honorable Mentions of 2011.