MY FAVOURITE ALBUMS OF '11

  2011 was a good year for music; keyword being good. There were a lot of good albums last year but I struggled to choose great albums to include on this list. These eight collections are albums I know I will be listening to for years to come. Additional good albums with questionable staying power have been included as honourable mentions.

Cults

Cults

 New Yorkers Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion have elaborated on the under the radar popularity of their debut EP with this self-titled full length release. Cults is pretty pop music punctuated with the right amount of punk imperfection on tracks like Abducted (below), creating an album that manages to be modern while throwing back to the sweet sounds of the '60s. Other tracks like Go Outside, You Know What I Mean and Walk At Night are strictly pop and just might usher the use of keyboards and xylophones back into indie fashion.

Abducted

What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?

The Vaccines 

 I didn't know what to expect from The Vaccines and it was very surprising to learn that this is the English band's debut. It may be their first album but this Justin Young-fronted quartet already sound like well rounded veterans. The Vaccines have drawn comparisons to The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Ramones but I'd say they are more accurately described as a more industrious incarnation of Interpol. The Vaccines themselves say they are inspired by "'50s rock 'n' roll, '60s garage, girl groups, '70s punk, '80s American hardcore, C86 [a compilation released by UK music mag NME] and good pop music." Just like most good pop music, the majority of their debut effort is incredibly catchy. From the short and striking If You Wanna to the melodic Blow It Up, The Vaccines haven't exactly reinvented rock but they've interpreted it with such clarity that it will inevitably catch on.

Post Break Up Sex

The Hot Sauce Committee Part 2

Beastie Boys 

 It's bewildering to me that The Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 isn't on more critics' best of 2011 lists. Less serious than To The 5 Boroughs and more entertaining than Hello Nasty, this album is some of the most fun the trio has had in decades. Whether they're challenging Santigold (Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win), telling off their wives (OK), encouraging fellow artists (Say It) or rapping along side Nas (Too Many Rappers) The Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 is a sample heavy, smile inducing LP.

Make Some Noise

Wild Flag

Wild Flag

 I did not enjoy Wild Flag at first listen. Maybe it's because as two Wild Flag members are Sleater-Kinney vets I was expecting something else or because Carrie Brownstein's voice is a very acquired taste. Subsequent listens later, I can't deny that Wild Flag's hooks are rock perfection and Brownstein and Mary Timony's guitar work is some of the best fingering my ears have had all year. Making Wild Flag easily the best guitar record of 2011.
 Wild Flag isn't dissimilar from the Sleater-Kinney sound but the absence of Corin Tucker is immediately obvious. What's missing is the softer pop edge Tucker provided. In its place Brownstein, Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, former Helium member Timony and The Minders' Rebbecca Cole deliver neoteric, psychedelic, keyboard infused rock. Standout tracks include Future Crimes, Boom, Glass Tambourine, and Something Came Over Me, which has Timony taking to the mic. Look for a not so subtle dig at Arcade Fire in the video for Romance (below.)


Romance

David Comes To Life

Fucked Up

 I never thought I'd adore a hardcore punk record described as a "a rock opera love story between a boy named David and a girl named Veronica." Then I listened to David Comes to Life by Toronto's Fucked Up and found myself engrossed in their nihilistic narrative. If you can appreciate Damian Abraham's scream-o vocals you too will learn to love Fucked Up's symphonic and sometimes sick story. As a bit of serendipity the track Queen of Hearts (below) features guest vocals by another entry on my best of 2011 list, Cults' Madeline Follin.



Queen of Hearts (listen to the album version here.)




The Other Shoe

Sound Kapital

Handsome Furs

 Sound Kapital is another record I thought didn't get the attention it deserved last year. Montreal's Dan Boeckner and Alexei Perry continue to be inspired by Eastern Europe on their third album but have traded largely guitar based sounds for '80s keyboard kitsch. This amalgamation of the rocky and the retro has become the duo's signature sound. Tracks like Repatriated, What About Us, Damage and Bury Me Standing demonstrate that Handsome Furs are one of the most underrated and inventive Canadian acts creating music today.

No Feelings

El Camino

The Black Keys

 Much like Arcade Fire last year, The Black Keys have been rightfully dubbed the "it" band of 2011. Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have cited iconic '70s rockers like T. Rex and The Cramps as influences for the music of El Camino. These references are spot on as El Camino is full of glam heavy, glitzy riffs, making for an album that is much catchier and livelier than their last record, the amazing Grammy-winning, Brothers. I challenge any listener not to have hooks from songs like Lonely Boy or Run Right Back imprinted on their brain after an earful of this album.


Dead & Gone

Let England Shake

PJ Harvey

 Since I blogged extensively about Ms. Harvey late last year, I'll direct you my post titled 20 Years of PJ Harvey. As I embedded my four favourite tracks off Let England Shake in that post, here's my fifth fav song from PJ's arresting, Mercury Prize-winning album. 

In Dark Places


Honourable mentions:

Mirror Traffic, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Suck It & See, Arctic Monkeys

Endless Now, Male Bonding

Gloss Drop, Battles

Nine Types of Light, TV On The Radio

More Monsters & Sprites, Skrillex

Undun, The Roots

Kaputt, Destroyer

Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Creep On Creepin' On, Timber Timbre

20 YEARS OF PJ HARVEY

  With a second Mercury Prize win for Let England Shake, PJ Harvey has once again struck a successful chord with critics and listeners. Let England Shake finds Harvey returning to the melodic magic last heard on her other Mercury Prize winning creation, Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea.
 Her two albums between Stories and England, Uh Huh Her and White Chalk, had auspicious moments but neither garnered as much recognition.
 Straddling many genres, utilizing varied instruments and performing in irregular vocal styles, Harvey has, for the most part, remained resourceful and inventive over the course of nine albums.

 Raised on a sheep farm in Dorset, England, Harvey took up saxophone as a teen and was a member of three separate bands before she reached her twenties.
 In 1988 Harvey joined the established Bristol band Automatic Dlamini. Founded by future Harvey collaborator John Parrish, Automatic Dlamini also featured Rob Ellis and Ian Oliver. After leaving that band, Harvey would team up with Ellis and Oliver; calling their group PJ Harvey.
 "Nothing felt right or either suggested the wrong type of sound," Harvey said of the decision to perform under her name.
 Oliver eventually decided to rejoin Automatic Dalmini and was replaced by Steve Vaughan. The trio played their first show in 1991, which ended in disaster.
 "We started playing and I suppose there was about fifty people there. During the first song we cleared the hall. There was only about two people left. A woman came up to us, came up to my drummer, it was only a three piece, while we were playing and shouted at him 'Don't you realize nobody likes you! We'll pay you, you can stop playing, we'll still pay you!'"
 Although their first outing was lacklustre, the trio pushed forward and released the single Dress via indie label Too Pure. Dress was voted single of the week by Melody Maker and soon after Sheela-Na-Gig was released to similar popularity. With sexually charged lyrics like "Look at these my child bearing hips/ Look at these my ruby red booby lips/ Put money in your idle hole," Sheela-Na-Gig would set the tone for PJ Harvey's debut album Dry.

DRY (1992)

Dry's sound is rooted in stripped down, post-punk riffs.  From Happy and Bleeding to Plants and Rags, Harvey's debut is on par with the typical early '90s aesthetic. The album's closer Water (below) is a stand out, implementing a loud-quiet-loud outline. Kurt Cobain included Dry on his list of the 50 greatest albums of all time and it is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2004, Harvey told Filter magazine that while recording Dry she thought it may have been her first and last album.
"Dry is the first chance I ever had to make a record and I thought it would be my last. So, I put everything I had into it. It was a very extreme record. It was a great joy for me to be able to make it. I never thought I'd have that opportunity, so I felt like I had to get everything on it as well as I possibly could, because it was probably my only chance. It felt very extreme for that reason."

Water


RID OF ME (1993)

 The trio's next album would find them ditching the (mostly) coherent melodies found on Dry for electric guitar distortion and an even more in-you-face sound. The title track would once again use the loud-quiet-loud outline coupled with Harvey's weirdo baby talk vocals with startling punk efficiency.
 Written while recuperating from exhaustion brought on from touring for Dry, Rid of Me was labeled a feminist album by critics. After hearing the Pixies album Surfer Rosa, Harvey personally sought out producer Steve Albini to produce Rid of Me.
"I was really pleased with Rid of Me. For that period of my life, it was perfect," Harvey said.
Critics thought the album was perfect as well, but not just in the context of the '90s. In addition to being nominated for the Mercury Prize, they lost to Suede, Rolling Stone placed Rid of Me at #405 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list and Spin ranked the album at #9 on their list of the 100 Greatest Albums of 1985-2005.

50 Ft. Queenie


TO BRING YOU MY LOVE (1995)

 Less daring yet more complex than her previous efforts, To Bring You My Love is considered PJ Harvey's breakthrough album. Thanks to the massive, international success of the single Down By the Water, To Bring You My Love became PJ Harvey's best selling album. 
 During the Rid of Me tour, Harvey says she and her band mates began to grow apart and eventually called it quits; making To Bring You My Love the first true PJ Harvey solo album. Written in near isolation, the album's lyrics rely heavily on biblical imagery.
 Critics across the board saw Harvey as their musical saviour of 1995. To Bring You My Love was named album of the year by People, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, USA Today and Hot Press. To Bring You My Love also earned Harvey her second Mercury Prize nomination. That year she lost to Portishead's Dummy.

Meet Ze Monsta


IS THIS DESIRE? (1998)

 Trading personal confessions for fictitious themes, Is This Desire? has been labelled Harvey's blues record by many critics. There are few electric guitar riffs on this record. Instead you'll hear keyboards and acoustic bridges in the place of caustic punk sounds. The track A Perfect Day Elise became a popular single, rivalling the success of Down By the Water.
 "I do think Is This Desire? is the best record I ever made, maybe ever will make, and I feel that that was probably the highlight of my career," Harvey told The Telegraph in 2004. "I gave 100 per cent of myself to that record. Maybe that was detrimental to my health at the same time."

Angelene


STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM THE SEA (2000)

My favourite PJ Harvey album, Stories is her love letter to New York City. The album opener Big Exit, is volatile and speaks of despair and suicide. Yet Stories also features downbeat, willowy tracks like Horses in My Dreams and One Line, and upbeat, hopeful entries like You Said Something, demonstrating Harvey's diversity. Some detractors said the lead single Good Fortune (below) was too much like mainstream pop for Harvey. I think the song, with its effortless hook and syllable repeating, is one of her best works.
"I want absolute beauty," Harvey told Q in 2001. "I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work."
Most critics declared the album a beautiful piece of work. Harvey finally won the Mercury Prize for Stories, beating out Gorillaz and Radiohead and becoming the first female solo artist to win the award.
 I had always thought the ominous song This Mess We're In, a duet with Radiohead's Thom Yorke, sounded as if it were written about the attacks of 9/11. Yet the album was released before 2001, so obviously it is not a commentary on the tragedy. Oddly, the Mercury Prize winner was announced on 9/11. Harvey was in Washington DC and witnessed the attack on the Pentagon from her hotel room.
 Accepting the prize via phone, Harvey said "It has been a very surreal day. All I can say is thank you very much, I am absolutely stunned."

Good Fortune


UH HUH HER (2004)

 Although less popular than Stories, Uh Huh Her was generally well received by critics. The gloss of Stories is gone but Uh Huh Her is not a total throwback to the low-fi days of Rid of Me. The album opener The Life and Death of Mr. Badmouth grabs the listener with a catchy stripped down, rock hook. Much of the album is sparse but this scarcity is usually successful. The Desperate Kingdom of Love, Pocket Knife and Shame are three such examples. However some songs, like Cat on the Wall and one track that is simply over one minute of seagulls, sound meagre and appear to lack effort. Harvey played virtually all of the instruments heard on Uh Huh Her and produced the album solo.
"I was looking for distressed, debased sounds," Harvey told Tracks magazine. "So all of the guitars are either tuned so low that it's hard to detect what notes they're playing or they're baritone guitars or they're played through the shittiest amps I could find."

The Letter


WHITE CHALK (2007)

 Although I wrote a review of this album in 2007, I strained to recall any of its songs while reminiscing for this post. I described it at the time as "so soft it's fucking talcum powder." White Chalk is PJ's piano album. Harvey learned the piano specifically for this album and while the music is softer, the themes remain as hard and eerie as ever.

When Under Ether


LET ENGLAND SHAKE (2011)
  
 Let England Shake could be summed up as a anti-war concept album, yet the genre of this record isn't as easy to pinpoint. With autoharp, xylophones and the organ all making appearances, England sounds like PJ Harvey but broader and more layered than her other albums.
"I was really enjoying this different, enormous, wide breadth of sound that the autoharp gives. It's quite a delicate sound, but it's also like having an entire orchestra at your fingertips," Harvey told Bridport News earlier this year. "I began by writing quite a lot on the autoharp, and then slowly as time went by, my writing started moving into experimenting with different guitars, and using different sound applications, ones that I had never really experimented with."
 Harvey once again pushes her voice to new heights, not unlike on White Chalk, but her soprano sounds better and more fitting on this album than it did on her previous effort.
 After seeing Seamus Murphy's A Darkness Visible, she contacted the filmmaker "to speak to him more about his experiences being there in Afghanistan" and their collaboration gave birth to short films as music videos for the songs of Let England Shake.
 At times the album is mordib; at other times it's symphonic. Let England Shake's complexity makes it one of Harvey's most well thought out collections.

Let England Shake


The Last Living Rose


The Words That Maketh Murder


The Glorious Land

MOM/CHILD RELATIONSHIP SONGS

 The impetus of Mother's Day comes from Ancient Greek and Roman times. The Roman festival of Cybele eventually progressed into the Christian festival of Mothering Sunday that honoured the Virgin Mary and the "mother church."
 Honouring mothers would be modernized in the 1870s as an observance for mothers who lost children in the American Civil War. Then on May 9 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day a national holiday and the day of maternal merit in May spread around the globe.
 I happen to love my Mom and have a great relationship with her. However, talk to enough people and you'll know that isn't the case with everyone. Moms are human and can make mistakes. Mother/child relationships are as varied as a bouquet of carnations purchased last minute on a highway off ramp.
 Below you'll find songs that suit whatever the status of your relationship with your mom may be.  
 

For love/hate mother/child relationships

My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Momma
Mothers of Invention

For those who are distant

Mother Mother
Tracy Bonham

For kids who still live with their moms

Tie Your Mother Down 
Queen



For nosy, meddling moms

Your Mother Should Know
The Beatles

For explosive relationships

Mother
Pink Floyd

For those with fun moms; the kind who will go to the club with you

Take Your Momma Out
Scissor Sisters

For those who never had a mom

I Need A Mother
Eels

For mamma's boys

Mother's Little Helper
Rolling Stones

For those who miss their moms

Momma I'm Coming Home
Ozzy Osbourne

For those who are or will be moms

I Think I'm A Mother
PJ Harvey

15 GREAT DUETS

Without making allusions to Woodstock or that awful (albeit awfully infectious) song from Grease- the words "summer" and "love" are frequently paired together. So what better way to celebrate the sweaty sentiments of summer than to revisit some of the most memorable musical match ups? Some are sugar-coated while others sting slightly sour; here are fifteen great duets for your auditory (and some visual, when I could find the official video) pleasure.

Jenny & Johnny - Scissor Runner - from I'm Having Fun Now (2010)
Jenny Lewis, queen of the '60s melody, has collaborated and shared the microphone with a long list of talent; Elvis Costello, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Rilo Kiley cohort Blake Sennett. Here, Lewis and her boyfriend Jonathan Rice (who produced Lewis' Acid Tongue) have crafted an upbeat tune that proves she made the right decision when she switched from acting to music. Don't hold your breath for Troop Beverly Hills 2. Lewis will also be collaborating with Killers wailer, and owner of the most repugnant jacket ever, Brandon Flowers on his upcoming album Flamingo. In addition you can listen to Jenny and Johnny's next single Big Wave by clicking on the text within the video and download Scissor Runner on their site.




Deer Tick featuring Liz Isenberg - Friday XIII - from Born on Flag Day (2009)
Deer Tick front man John McCauley has been credited with making alt-country cool once more. It's easy to see why with two great albums under his belt, Born on Flag Day and 07's War Elephant, as well as their most recent release The Black Dirt Sessions. Friday XIII pits McCauley's gruff mutter against Liz Isenberg's soft as spider webs vocals. This ultimately makes for a dynamite duet about, in true country form, a doomed relationship.




Raveonettes - Love in a Trashcan - from Pretty in Black (2005)
Masterfully adept at mashing together pop harmonies with slick guitar work, Danes Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo sound best when singing together. The Raveonettes throwback to seemingly opposing music like that of the Raspberries and the Jesus and Mary Chain; whose musical styles are as opposite as love and trash.




Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes - Home - from Up From Below (2009)
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes are kind of like the Polyphonic Spree- but high on weed instead of Jesus. That's not to say Alex Ebert doesn't have a messiah complex. Ebert conceived the character of Edward Sharpe as a figure who "was sent down to Earth to kinda heal and save mankind, but he kept getting distracted by girls and falling in love." Ebert and Jade Castrino's song of love is one part jam band opus and two parts tooth-melting sweetness.




PJ Harvey featuring Thom Yorke - This Mess We're In - from Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)
If I didn't know any better I would think this song was about the tragic events of 9/11. With such ominous lyrics Harvey may have foreseen something the rest of us failed to. Radiohead's Thom Yorke provides a haunting caterwaul that is the perfect addition to Harvey's Mercury Prize winning album.




Gorillaz featuring Bashy & Kano - White Flag - from Plastic Beach (2010)
Grime stars Bashy and Kano were seriously ill with the flu on the day White Flag was recorded. Yet you would never know that fact as the agility of their rhymes and the quality of the track they laid down are impeccable. Kano said of the recording: "We weren't feeling great; the music was out of our comfort zone, it could have been a complete disaster." Rap? Flutes? Strings? Yes. Disaster? Far from it.




Queen featuring David Bowie - Under Pressure - from Hot Space (1982)
Perhaps the most widely known duet on this list, Under Pressure marked Bowie's first released collaboration and soared to #1 on charts around the world. John Deacon's bouncy bass line would later be sullied and sampled by the less talented Vanilla Ice on Ice Ice Baby.




Peaches featuring Iggy Pop - Kick It - from Fatherfucker (2003)
From two of the most avant-garde performers of our time, Kick It is as much fun as any electro-punk aficionado can handle. With a razor sharp hook and lyrics like "Some people don't like my crotch, because its' got fuzzy spots, but if you blame Moses and need burning bush baby, and that is just what I've got," the only thing that would make this better is if Iggy was bleeding all over the place. Or zombies... oh wait... see zombified "Georgia Y Romero" directed video below.




The xx - Islands - from xx (2009)
Brits the xx are the breakout stars of the year. In a short while they went from recording their album in a garage under moonlight to having the intro from that album used as the theme song for NBC's broadcast of the Olympics. Their sleepy, moody debut is chock full of silky duets. My pick, Islands, finds Romy Madley and Jamie Smith trading barbs while navigating through the darkness of a rocky relationship. The accompanying video shows black-clad dancers in purgatory and is trippier than a stilted clown on peyote.




The Breeders - Pinnacle Hollow - from Fate to Fatal EP (2009)
This one takes a while to get rolling, but if you love lo-fi DIY recordings then this Kim and Kelley Deal duet is for you. Pinnacle Hollow is perfect for lazy Sundays or downtrodden times. In addition to self-recording and self-releasing, the Pixies bassist and her twin even screened the LP sleeves themselves. You can read Pitchfork's interview with the Deals where they talk about Fate to Fatal and self-sufficiency here.




No Doubt featuring Sublime - Total Hate '95 - from The Beacon Street Collection (1995)
Before Gwen Stefani was just a girl and Bradley Nowell died of a heroin overdose at 28, No Doubt and Sublime joined forces to bring this pitch perfect ska song to the maladjusted masses.




Joan Jett & Paul Westerberg - Let's Do It - from Tank Girl Soundtrack (1995)
This cover of Cole Porter's cheesy 1928 classic is Jett at her rock grrl best. Interestingly, the track was originally recorded with Bad Religion's Greg Gaffin vocalizing the male half of this duet. Atlantic Records objected to Gaffin's work on the track and recorded Westerberg in his place. The original version can be found on the 2000 compilation Laguna Tunes, released on Jett's own Blackheart Records. The Gaffin/Jett version is strong, but I (and the Heathers at Westerberg High) prefer this take.



 
The Kills - Love is a Deserter - from No Wow (2005)
Allison "VV" Mosshart's and Jamie "Hotel" Hince's vocals separately are surreal in their own right. The combination of their voices comes off as grating and unsettling- in the best possible way. Love is a Deserter combines aspects of blues and punk, which is the Kills at their best. The morphology in the video fits the song perfectly. An odd video from a superbly odd band.




M.I.A. featuring Timbaland - Come Around - from Kala (2007)
Many critics have said that Timbaland's guest spot on Come Around is weaker than Lindsay Lohan's will power. I disagree and think Come Around is the best track on Kala. Sorry Paper Planes lovers (which I do love but mostly for the Clash sample.) As the story goes, Timbaland had planned to produce a large portion of Kala; however M.I.A. couldn't obtain a US visa due to her family's alleged ties to the Tamil Tigers. So Come Around remains Timbaland's sole contribution. Aside from the controversy that seems to always follow this Sri Lankan siren, the fact is M.I.A. is an innovative and original artist as Come Around and her latest single XXXO demonstrate.




Snow Patrol featuring Martha Wainwright - Set Fire to the Third Bar - from Eyes Open (2006)
Angelic and unmitigated, Set Fire to the Third Bar is the stuff great duets are made of. Written with Martha Wainwright in mind, Gary Lightbody claims he wrote the song in twenty minutes, the fastest he's ever written a song. The title comes from childhood memories of his aunt's electric heater. "If we were good and it was very cold, she'd let us put all three bars on," Lightbody said. He went on to say that the heater represents "a beacon of warmth within a song about distance." I feel all warm and happy inside already.