Record Geek Heaven’s Top 20 of 2011

Yuck

2011 turned out to be a pretty great year for music. Though it started off a bit slow, an impressive amount of new talent as well as seasoned songwriting vets emerged with stellar releases this year. In some cases, bands and artists returned with their strongest material in years. In others, emerging artists have given us some amazing things to look forward to for the future. And in others still, bands who have been kicking ass for a few years now are, well, still kicking ass. Here are Record Geek Heaven’s Top 20 Albums of 2011:

2011 Thus Far In Rock

Overall assessment: This year is getting off to a slower start than last year. In 2010, we already had a classic by January (Owen Pallett’s Heartland), and I don’t see anything of that caliber as we near the middle of February. Still, there’s a good number of new records worth checking out, amongst them a pretty good representation of the sweet crop of budding new songwriters abound.

Merge Records

Apex Manor – The Year of Magical Drinking

Merge is certainly on a roll so far in 2011 – they have already put out one of the year’s most acclaimed albums (Destroyer’s Kaputt, which is pretty good, I guess, if you like Destroyer), and this Apex Manor record has become very well-played on my iPod’s 2011 playlist.

Record Geek Heaven’s Top 50 Albums of the Decade (part 2)

Now to finish it off!

25. Bjork—Selmasongs (2000)

Like the film Dancer in the Dark did for the musical, “In the Musicals” reinvents the musical number. It has all the rising, uplifting trajectory of the best Rogers & Hammerstein tunes without being cheesy and overbearing like those were. Sure, musicals were the thing back in the forties, but it can be safely said that their popularity and credibility are slipping these days.

The Top 100 Albums of the Decade (part 9)

Sun Kil Moon—Ghosts of the Great Highway
Caldo Verde, 2003

Between the band name and ten song titles on the debut of Mark Kozelek’s post Red House Painters project, the names of four boxers and one Judas Priest guitarist are mentioned. Often sprawling, gorgeous odes to past relationships and experiences, the songs of Ghosts of the Great Highway work like telescopes to memories of old photographs when set among these real life characters of pop culture.