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:

The Best of 2011: Part Two

Fat Possum Records

Yuck – Yuck

Earlier this year, I wrote a pretty lukewarm review of this record. At the time, I liked it, but I couldn’t find justification for how derivative it is – it sounds like a mix tape I made when I attended high school in the mid-to-late nineties. However, I soon realized that’s not a bad thing. It might be if the songs were second-rate rip-offs, but they are not – they are top-notch, grade A rip-offs.

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 2)

RCA Records

The Strokes—Is This It

Julian Casablancas has said that he learned how to “sing cool” from Lou Reed. There is definitely a ton of that New York, Velvet Underground-style swagger to the music of The Strokes, but never was it more immediate and more purposeful than on their debut.