Fucked Up at Neumos for Capitol Hill Block Party (critic also pictured).

​1. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
2. Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
3. Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
4. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong
5. Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness

6. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
7. Das Racist - Relax
8. Nicolas Jaar - Space is Only Noise
9. The Weeknd - House of Balloons
10. The Field - Looping State of Mind

11. Motor City Drum Ensemble - DJ Kicks
12. Battles - Gloss Drop
13. Beirut - The Rip Tide
14. Robag Wruhme - Thora Vukk
15. Iceage - New Brigade

Runners Up:
Architecture in Helsinki - Moment Bends
James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual
The Horrors - Skying
Isolee - Well Spent Youth
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica
Siriusmo - Mosaik
Washed Out - Within and Without
Zomby - Dedication

Seems like I've been talking about a lot of these albums and their inherent merits all year long, so instead of rehashing all that now, I'm going to try to take a look at this list as a whole and see what it says about the past year, or at least my particular view of it. As I mentioned here, the whole idea of these lists being definitive, or set in stone, or whatever, is total nonsense. This list is slightly different than the one I put into order a couple weeks ago; a month from now, it would be different again. The difference between my #1 album and my #2 album might be all but negligible (I keep flipping them around in my head and it's fine), although the difference between my top 10 and all the other terrible music out there seems pretty damn significant. (My runners up, though, are basically just a bunch of random other albums I could remember or still had in my itunes come this month.) So, anyway, what does this list tell me?

1. I only really fell for so many albums this year.

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Black Santa

​Created, perhaps, in the advisory spirit of his insurance peddling alter-ego Brent Amacher, gravel-throated psych-country rocker Brent Amaker has added his own Christmas single to the mix with the tender, yet instructional advice of "A Very Brent Amaker Christmas."

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"Consensus is mendacious." --The Wire

​I'm finalizing my own Top 10 or so albums of the year for posting here on Reverb in the coming days, but to whet appetites and kill time 'til then, I thought I'd run through what have so far been the best, or at least most interesting or illuminating of the Best of the Year lists going around so far (with Reverb Monthly's own localized take on the matter and Chris Kornelis' favorites excluded because, of course, it wouldn't be fair to the others). Here they are, then, in precise numerical order:

5. NPR's "All Songs Considered" Listener's Poll (for the self-selecting truths it reveals about the pejorative of "NPR muzak").
It will seem like ancient Internet history now, but one of the year's most interesting conversations about music was Nistuh Abebe's three-part hand-wringing about "indie adult contemporary" or "NPR muzak," which began with an essay for NY Mag, continued in a dialogue with NPR's Frannie Kelley, and finally played out via his monthly column for Pitchfork. Abebe attempted some serious critical feats here: to get beyond thumbs-up/thumbs-down (or, egad, numerical) ratings of this stuff to instead talk about much more interesting ideas around the music: why "challenging" music is often seen as more worthy than "comforting" music, for instance, or why reasonably growing old(er) is still seen as the worst possible thing in rock'n'roll. Many nerves were touched, including some of Abebe's own, but mostly those of people whose presumably safe, vanilla tastes he was thought to be insulting. So when this listener-submitted list popped up a couple of months later and confirmed everything--behold, the blinding soft whiteness of Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Adele, and the Decemberists!--well, it was a gently soothing driveway moment.

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The Throne.

​

So now that Kanye West and Jay-Z have dropped the most highly anticipated album ever (sensationalism at least partially warrented), what else is on our radar? Here are a few releases I'm looking forward to, both nationally and locally:

Pusha T: Fear of God Part 2: Let Us Pray, August 23.
One half of big-time Virginia rap duo Clipse, Pusha T released the pretty sweet Neptunes-produced single "Trouble on My Mind" which features Odd Future's Tyler, The Creator, and an awesome video to go along with it that gives a promising look at the new project.

Lil' Wayne: Tha Carter IV, August 29.
Whether you like the guy or hate him, or want to get in line to sue him, you have to admit, Wayne is an interesting dude, and whatever he decides to put out will be just as interesting.

Mastodon: The Hunter, September 27.
Trippy prog-metal at its best, The Hunter will be Mastodon's follow-up to 2009's Crack the Skye. After seeing them kick ass at the Gorge for the first time in a while, I'm even more excited to hear what kind of mind-bending heaviness they've cooked up here.

Some local releases after the jump . . .

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Earlier this week, The New York Times ran a review by Jon Caramanica comparing the recently released tribute albums to Nirvana and the Strokes--Spin's Newermind and Stereogum's Stroked, both of which are free downloads--and the article got me thinking: If 1991 had Nirvana and 2001 had the Strokes, what band is the zeitgeist-capturing equivalent for 2011, the act we'll be making tribute albums to in 10 or 20 years?

And damn if I can easily think of one. Now, part of that is down to the micro-fragmentation of listener patterns and the overall ongoing decline of the music industry--perhaps no rock band is going to have the kind (and size) of break-out in 2011 that Nirvana did in 1991 or even that the Strokes did in 2001. Part of it is perhaps perspective--it'll probably be easier to tell what act(s) encapsulated 2011 when we're looking at it from 10 or 20 years down the line. But now, running through all those "best of the year so far" lists posted in June (including mine here), nothing really jumps out. Fleet Foxes? (Or Bon Iver, or one of their many lesser folk followers?) Fucked Up? Odd Future? Oh, wait, I've got it: LCD Soundsystem. Hear me out . . .

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​By now you've (hopefully) picked up a copy of SW's monstrously large Best of 2011 edition, which hits on everything from Best Thai Restaurant to Best Geezer. But with any 144-page endeavor comes a technical mishap or two. Due to reasons far too complex to delve into (real quantum mechanics-type stuff), the Music section got a tad jumbled up in the online edition, getting scattered among Arts & Entertainment and Bars & Clubs.

To save you the pain of searching "Vicci Martinez" or "Third-Best Band Name," we've pulled out all the music winners and made a much more manageable list for you to pick through.

Enjoy!

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