This is my third favourite Radiohead album.

I like "Senator" for whatever reason. It's a silly lyric but the guitar absolutely shreds and sometimes that's enough for a simpleton like me.

What are your #1 and #2?

I also love "Senator." The video with Jack Black and Lumbergh is pretty great, too.

1. Kid A
2. OK Computer

always love reading a drinky list.

Yeah, we never have a lot of overlap but it's always an enjoyable read. And I'll occasionally find something I like .

Fer real. Wish he'd just post it all at once, but I'm just an impatient mf'er.

Appreciate the interest! I'll try to get some more of these out quickly while I have a little time.

#80.
Mr. Heavenly - Out of Love
More "doom-wop" here. (There's even a song here called "Doom Wop" just you case you weren't sure what they were doing.) This is an indie supergroup consisting of Man Man singer Ryan Kattner (aka Honus Honus), Nick Thorburn of Islands/Unicorns infamy, and Joe Plummer from Modest Mouse and The Shins. This is more "wop" than "doom", and the atmosphere isn't nearly as thick and foreboding as that of the Timber Timbre album. The songs here are a little better and more memorable, though, I think. "Bronx Sniper", "I Am a Hologram", and "Pineapple Girl" are standouts. It sounds about like you'd expect an amalgamation of Man Man and Islands to sound. I much prefer the Man Man side of that, but in general the whole record is pretty good. 7/10

#79.
Wild Flag - s/t
And here's another supergroup, this one an all-girl band featuring Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney, Mary Timony of Helium, and Rebecca Cole of The Minders. I approached this one with caution since I've never been a big Sleater-Kinney fan and could tell their sound is a major ingredient here. And while that is the case, most of this is a lot more melodic and pleasing to my ears than the S-K stuff I'm familiar with. "Something Came Over Me" and "Endless Talk" are my current favorites, although the whole record is uniformly good, with only a few moments that feel a little too S-K-ish for my tastes. 7/10

#78.
Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde
This one earns a lot of points on the strength of a single song, "Weekend", that was easily one of my favorite songs of 2011. The rest of the album does maintain that same vibe pretty well, though, upbeat, jangly guitar that sounds sort of like a more Brit Pop version of MGMT. The sort of thing I can't help but like but that's also mostly pretty forgettable. 7/10

#77.
Wolves in the Throne Room - Celestial Lineage
This is the first and still-only album I've heard by this band. They have a lot going on in their sound, and I know from an interview or two that they're big Neurosis fans. So this isn't just one more American black metal band. They're more complex and ambitious than that. But I don't know, I haven't really been able to peel back all those layers and get a feel for what's inside. I feel like I still don't really know who this band is. Maybe it'll take more time, but while I don't mind spending time with this record, I can't shake the feeling that another one of theirs might have made a better introduction. Maybe I'll gain greater appreciation for this with time, but for now it just sort of feels like operatic noise with a few interesting details here and there. 7/10

#76.
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Aside from the general internet buzz and positive reviews, I think I decided to check this out based on the strength of the song "Surgeon". It just seemed really interesting, especially that electronic breakdown sort of thing at the end. Overall this is a pretty dense and heady record with lots of interesting arrangements. She does a pretty good job at this Kate Bush sort of thing, I guess, this really contemporary sound with just the right amount of vulnerability and quirk. I mean this is a legitimately good record. I just... I don't know. Maybe I just haven't spent enough time with it to really get into it, but it just ends up feeling like I just heard a lot of cool sounds but none of it really affects me. 7/10

I think that Wild Flag album is a lot better than anything by Sleater Kenny, but that's basically because I thought that group sucked.

And I need to figure out this whole doom wop thing you are talking about. I listened to and liked that Timbre Timbre record this year but did not know this was a genre or something.

I don't know if it is. I kind of hope it's not a big thing.

I mean as far as I know Mr. Heavenly came up with the label, but I thought it fit Timber Timbre, too.

Completely agree that Sightings was a huge disappointment this year.

With Akron/Family I am somewhere between the two sides here. At this point I have accepted they will never do anything as good as the split with Angels of Light unfortunately, but there was still enough of those strong points on this last record that keep me from totally giving up--unlike Fleet Foxes which I couldn't even get through though I tried multiple times, just bland to me.

That St. Vincent album was my wife's number one of the year. A lot of good stuff on it for sure, kind of surprised that one didn't fare better for you.

Also, I think that Pure X record and the Prince Rama albums were the only things I deleted this year. Sounds like you at least found something enjoyable in that Pure X--I strongly dislike that album.

#75.
Clams Casino - Instrumental Mixtape
As I mentioned with Clams Casino's Rainforest EP, I feel like his tracks stand on their own perfectly well. Even though this is a mixtape comprised mostly of tracks he created for specific rappers, I don't really care about hearing the versions with vocals. These aren't quite as fleshed out and satisfying as the stuff on the EP (which, fittingly, is for sale while this was given away for free), but I'd still rather hear them as is than to hear anyone rap over them. There are some readily recognizable samples used on the last handful of tracks on this - something I'm not crazy about - but overall this is still a strong collection of tracks, especially for a free one. 7/10[/quote]

#74.
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol.2: Judges
It's impressive how Colin Stetson makes these sounds, more or less all by himself on a single instrument, and seeing clips of him playing these things live is pretty eye-opening. It's also a pretty unique sound he's created here. It's maybe a little like what you hear on Arthur Russel's World of Echo (although created very differently), and Laurie Anderson lending some spoken vocals definitely gives it more of that downtown New York art vibe. But there's nothing really like it. Ultimately, though, I feel like it's kind of hollow. The more I listen to it, the less it moves me, the more the repetitive patterns start to bore. I still respect this, but sort of from a distance. 7/10

#73.
Man Man - Life Fantastic
I think that Man Man could go on making good records for a very long time, but they're obviously always going to be bound by the restrictions of their very specific sound. They've sort of backed themselves into a corner and have arguably already made the best record they could possibly make with 2006's Six Demon Bag. It could be that Honus Honus spread himself a little thin with the whole Mr. Heavenly thing, but this is probably Man Man's weakest album to date. Still, it's great to have new music from them just to know they're still around because they are, after all, a truly good, unique band, and they're great live. And they're always fun, even if they're doing the same thing they've done plenty of times before. 7/10

#72.
Blut Aus Nord - The Desanctification
I listened to more metal in 2011 than I possibly ever have, and a lot of it was at least tangentially related to black metal. None of the newer stuff I've listened to is "pure" black metal and may or may not fit whatever criteria serious metal fans have for that or even metal in general. As an outsider looking in, I don't really care what genre or subgenre any of this fits into. I'm just looking for interesting sounds, and this band manages to supply them, at least sometimes. This is the second part of an as yet incomplete trilogy called 777, and I like it a little less than the first one. I'll talk more about that one later, but where it's all searing, gnarled guitars and typically pummeling black metal blast beats, this one has much more measured percussion that at times sounds like a drum machine. Simply put it's not quite as heavy as its predecessor, and I happen to prefer the more chaotic bludgeoning of that one. Both records are good, though, and I'm looking forward to the next installment. 7/10

#71.
Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
I hate to admit it, but this band is actually pretty good. I think the improvements they've made over the course of their previous EP and this album are more than just cosmetic. To me it sounds like they've challenged themselves to dig a little deeper and develop every aspect of their craft a little more. There's still a pervasive feeling of over-familiarity in the music and a little bit of that annoying, sensitive alternative rock star posturing that I find irritating in the vocals, but this feels way more substantial and far less clichéd than Album did to me. I'm still a little baffled by some of the high praise that they get, but I can at least concede now that they're a decent band who've made a decent record. 7/10

I do not get that Girls band at all. I just can't get past that dude's voice. There is something about it that makes me want to punch him in the face every time I hear them.

Yeah, that's how I felt a year or so ago RE: Girls. I guess I just stopped caring about how tremendously overrated they are.

#70.
Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
Sonic Youth is one of my favorite bands, but thirty-or-so years into their career, it would seem like they've pretty much run their course. I think solo albums from the individual members are probably going to be more satisfying than anything new from the band, and given that the band is probably done anyway, I guess that's what we're going to get. And I guess we're going to be getting a lot more stuff like that this rather noisy, improv, fringe stuff since the band members no longer have the band as an outlet for their "songy" stuff. Thurston Moore has done this kind of singer-songwriter album before, but this one is supposedly his best stab at that so far. It's a very pretty record with really nice guitar and a very calming atmosphere. I've never been crazy about Thurston's lyrics, though, and sometimes they feel a little clunky. Aside from "Benediction" it also isn't super memorable. It's still better than the last few Sonic Youth albums, though. 7/10

#69.
Christina Vantzou - No. 1
This is a mostly very pretty, warm, and "cinematic" neo-classical record. It's mostly string-based, I think. At times drone-y and minimal, very rarely dissonant or atonal, it can sometimes sink into the background, but it isn't ambient music. I see that she was part of The Dead Texan, and this does very much remind of that (which I haven't listened to in a very long time). This is very nice music, and it feels very accomplished and nuanced. Ultimately, though, it's just not something I really care about. I can appreciate the craft here, but I don't revel in its beauty enough to ever really crave it or feel any kind of deep connection or resonance. I mean I still to date own only one Stars of the Lid album, and I think that's enough. 7/10

#68.
Africa Hitech - 93 Million Miles
Africa Hitech has a pretty cool sound which I guess is in some related to dubstep because I guess almost no electronic music is untainted by dubstep or other UK electronic dance music trends of the '00s. This has a very Warp Records-type feel to it, though, in that it breaks with trends just enough to feel distinct and just a little bit hard to classify. It's heady and not entirely geared towards dance floors, but you could dance to pretty much all of it. The name really gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect, vaguely African rhythms mutated into current-sounding electronic music. Superficially, it all sounds really good, although at times the knotty rhythmic loops can get a little too repetitive. Some of the vocal samples in particular start to get tiresome pretty quickly. It's a great overall aesthetic, though, and when it all comes together as it does on "Our Luv" (probably my favorite track on the album), it makes me want more. 7/10

#67.
Male Bonding - Endless Now
I was really hoping for more from this band based on their previous album Nothing Hurts. They had a really quirky, energetic edge and sort of sounded like the British Abe Vigoda (the band). Well, Abe Vigoda took a disappointing turn by cleaning up and becoming a fairly ordinary-sounding modern dance-rock band, and Male Bonding seem to have followed suite by becoming a fairly ordinary-sounding, regular British guitar band. Both bands are still good and still write good songs, but both feel like they've sort of retreated into well-traveled territory. Unlike Abe Vigoda, though, there doesn't really feel like there's much mystery or unexplored possibility left in Male Bonding. I like this album just fine, but I can't imagine where they'd go from here except back for more of the same. 7/10

#66.
Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
This album has its fair share of mystique and sexy funk, almost like a sonic heir to Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson. Conceptually I'm sure it's totally different, but I won't pretend to have made any effort to discern what this album is really "about". For me it's always been admiration from a distance with this, not something I've really gotten particularly into. It doesn't groove heavily enough for me to really get lost or feel immersed in it, and it isn't quite intriguing enough for me to really want to put more thought or effort into understanding it, or understanding the hype around it. It's a cool, clever-sounding record but I'm not hearing the brilliance or transcendence or whatever that's supposedly here. 7/10

Getting to the good stuff now.

#65.
WU LYF – Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
This really seems like an unlikely record to have generated buzz in 2011. The band is sort of Explosions in the Sky post-rock, and the vocals are incomprehensibly hoarse, garbled yelps. They also have a terrible name. But there's just something about this that works. The ambitious, soaring grandiosity of it carries a naivete that it comes about honestly since, after all, this is just a bunch of teenagers. All this larger-than-life yearning - or whatever it is - doesn't feel forced or put on. These kids really mean it, as ridiculous as they may seem (WARNING: don't read anything they've written online), and it's not hard to let yourself get swept up in this, whatever it is. There are plenty of easy, obvious criticisms you could make here, but it's a pretty powerful and moving record if you can get past them. 7.5/10

#64.
The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
As beautiful as this record is, it's hard not be nagged by thoughts of how easy it must have been to make. At times it just sounds like Leyland Kirby just let an old record play through a filter or two, and that's it. Like the beauty really lies more in the source material than anything he actually did himself. But then, the name he's chosen for this project kind of covers that: The Caretaker. Sometimes I think of if more as "The Curator". Simply put, I would never have found these recordings or pieced them together this way, and I do think the various atmospheric effects and enhanced pops and cracks do add something. It's just a wonderful sounding album. And the criticism of "anyone could have done this" never really rings true anyway because no one else did do it. 7.5/10

#63.
Washed Out – Within and Without
It seems to me that Washed Out is the most generally well-respected chillwave act. He gets some credit for being an originator, and just generally hasn't inspired as much ridicule as a lot of the other artists in this genre, from what I can tell. He's sort of the "median" chillwave sound, though. It's super smooth and slick, a little bit funky but not as much as Toro y Moi and none of the quirk or playfulness of Neon Indian. It's a really warm and inviting sound, though, both sexy and nostalgic, slow-motion, top-down, sunset, chill-out, feel-good music. I can certainly see why it's a desirable lifestyle soundtrack. 7.5/10

#62.
Ulcerate – Destroyers of All
How great a metal band name is Ulcerate? I mean it's definitely better than Herniate, and "Lesionate" isn't really a word. Yeah, Ulcerate is pretty badass. They've got the appropriate sound, too. Death metal growls definitely feel like the kind of singing that would induce ulcers. The guitars could totally tear up your insides, too. In fact, it's the guitars that I mostly focus on here. The drums are your fairly typical metal pummeling, but with some nice dynamic and textural shifts here and there to keep things interesting. The vocals are... as described above. I assume there's bass here. But the guitars are really pretty cool. Very twisted, atonal, knotty, intricate. It seems almost freeform at parts, but it also totally drives the dynamic of the music and seems like it must be meticulously composed. I don't know, but it's pretty fun to listen to. 7.5/10

#61.
Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow
I have to confess that I never really listened to Kate Bush prior to last year. Pretty late last year, too, like when this album came out, and I've still to date only heard this and The Dreaming. Two very different records, for sure, and both of them very good. The Dreaming is more than just "very good", I'm sure, but I'm still kind of familiarizing myself with it. This album, too, although I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on it already. Thematically, it's pretty quirky and playful, a lot like her older stuff, but musically it feels much more somber, subtle, and subdued. It actually sounds a lot like latter-day Talk Talk in most parts. And that's a very, very good thing, but unfortunately the album kind of stumbles in a couple of places. One, the obvious one, is the duet with Elton John. The main problem with that being that it's a duet with Elton John. The other is the title track which, while great musically, starts to get a little tiresome on repeat listens. You get the "joke", and then it just starts to seem a little too frivolous or something. Overall the record works really well, though, and the longest track, the 13-minute "Misty", might even be my favorite. I'm definitely looking forward to listening to this and a lot more Kate Bush in the coming year. 7.5/10

I've probably listened to that Washed Out as much as anything else this year and it still sounds good. I think it partially works so well because while sure it is lumped into that whole chillwave thing, at heart it is a fairly straight forward, catchy synth pop record.

I like that Washed Out as well (another of my wife's favorites this year). I guess I really don't understand the whole "chillwave" thing though as I don't hear a lot in common with this and that Toro Y Moi from last year (which I also liked a good bit, there were some great bass lines on that record) but have heard them both described as part of this genre/subgenre/lifestyle or whatever it is.

Though I absolutely loved that Caretaker record, I can for sure see your point on creating vice reimagining, I have myself thought the same thing about this (as well as Jeck and Basinski in the past) and still am not sure where to draw that line.

I believe chillwave was a termed coined by a blogger or something a few years ago when Washed Out, Neon Indian, Toro y Moi, Memory Tapes, and a few others like them started getting some buzz around their music. Initially, they all shared a pretty similar aesthetic that was generally kind of hazy/lo-fi/home-recorded. Basically the three main "flagship" artists or whatever are Washed Out, Toro y Moi, and Neon Indian. Their albums from last year had all three of them developing their sounds in different ways, though, and it highlights their differences. Toro y Moi, in particular took an unexpected turn and went from being my least favorite of the three to making the best album to come out of the whole genre. And it's really a pretty big departure, maybe closer to Ariel Pink than any of the other chillwavers, but then Ariel Pink is considered an influence on chillwave, anyway, I think.

I don't want to get backed into a corner for acting like I really know or care that much about this whole thing - because I don't - but I think this is basically the gist of it. Personally I've kind of gotten over the silly genre name and just accepted it as this thing that happened/is happening. I don't really see it as that big a deal or that important or great or exciting, but the artists who've been part of it have gotten more popular and have made some good music.

Or a better way of saying that would have been:

Washed Out, Toro y Moi, and Neon Indian sounded a lot more alike in 2009 than they did in 2011.

And Washed Out isn't "lumped in" with chillwave but is rather the embodiment of it.

#60.
Mark McGuire – Get Lost
Mark McGuire's previous album Living with Yourself became one of my favorite albums of 2010. This album continues in a similar vein, mostly just him playing guitar with enough echo-y and reverb-y effects to make it sound kind of ambient-ish. It's generally more intimate and less "electronic"-sounding than his band Emeralds. His previous record was really affecting and poignant, featuring recordings of himself and his family when he was a child. It felt really genuinely personal. This one is more just pretty wallpaper. I mean that in a good way, mostly, but it also doesn't have the same impact as the previous one even if it is a really pleasing listen. There is a track with vocals this time around that I sort of have mixed feeling about, but on the whole it's a really nice record start to finish. The epic closing track is really strong, but I do also miss the dramatic climax of Living with Yourself. 7.5/10

#59.
Wilco – The Whole Love
This album opens sounding a little like Radiohead, but it's ultimately about as pure a Wilco album as Wilco has ever made. Whatever that means. All their bases are covered here, and it's their strongest effort since A Ghost Is Born (probably my favorite of theirs at this point). "I Might" and "Born Alone" stand up among their best songs, and there are no real missteps here. The downside, if there really is one, is that it all sounds so incredibly familiar by this point. They have one of the most winning formulas out there and can get away with repeating themselves a few times, though. 7.5/10

#58.
Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
Here's another great album cover. I had to buy a physical copy of this thing just to have that even though I'm not the biggest fan of this guy's music. This is a nice development from his previous album, Returnal, though. There are still the same time-stretched samples and a similar overall aesthetic, but it feels a little more musical this time, more melodic and more rhythmic. There aren't any particularly noisy parts, and it just doesn't feel quite as weird. I wouldn't necessarily call it an improvement, but it's not the same thing all over again. There are times when I've really enjoyed this album and been able to listen to it pretty attentively and times when it didn't really hold my attention but just sort of drifted by pleasantly in the background. That it could function pretty well both ways makes it pretty successful as ambient music, whether or not that's the intention. Once again, I'm pleased with this guy's music if not particularly overwhelmed by it. 7.5/10

#57.
Blut Aus Nord – 777: Sect(s)
This is first part of Blut Aus Nord's 777, and it's the one I like a little better of the two that are out so far. It's just generally heavier, more aggressive, and denser. It pummels along at a pretty good clip where I feel that The Desanctification drags a little in parts. Could be because I always listen to the two them together, this one first. Anyway, it's good, intricate, heavy, black-ish metal. 7.5/10

#56.
Dirty Beaches – Badlands
The formula behind Dirty Beaches' sound is transparent to the point of feeling gimmicky. He's basically Suicide gone '50s rock 'n roll. His croon is distant and distorted like a weak radio signal, and the short, steadily repeating loops he sings over sound broken and worn. The whole amped up/distorted '50s sound is hardly anything new. In fact, he even outright samples a Les Rallizes Dénudés (Japanese psyche band from the '70s) song on "A Hundred Highways" and it blends right in with the rest of the songs. Simple as it may be, though, it works. It almost shares a kinship with the album by The Caretaker in that it naturally enhances and very subtly mutates its source material in a way that's very affecting, that really heightens the moody atmosphere. "True Blue" may be the best example of this. As probably the most familiar and least experimental-sounding song on the whole thing, it's also the most captivating. 7.5/10

I think my saying it like that is not so much of my seeing Washed Out on the outside of this "genre" as it is my questioning that this is even a genre. I mean 3 bands? Really? That's a whole genre now because they added some extra reverb to their fuzzy synths? Just a personal pet peeve on this whole subdivided to death thing going on.

Oh...and that Dirty Beaches does kick ass. Sounds like Suicide to me. If someone told me Sweet 17 was a lost Suicide track I can't say I would be stunned.

One thing definitely not worth arguing about is whether or not chillwave is a real genre.

Hell, I'll argue about anything and I can't get too worked up about that outside my general peevishness and belief that genres in general have gotten way too microscopic these days.