Quick silly poll - Has 2011 been a good year for music?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfVsfOSbJY0

I just listened to Rustie for the first time earlier this morning and literally have no recollection of how it went and no desire to play it again. I just discovered Austra earlier this week and want to hear them again. I love one When Saints Go Machine song to death and am ambivalent towards the rest. Zomby, I dig. Battles was weak compared to Mirrored. Everything else on Dog Latin's list, I haven't heard and/or don't care about.

you don't like katy b?

actually dan you would love the walls album i swear. its called coracle

[q="lex"]2011 has been an excellent year for music, as every year is

it has been a pretty bad year for critics' taste (as...every year is) [/q]

this

Console came out at the very very end of last year, but I reckon it counts as this year. Been playing bits of it in the Outloud room and people have been digging it quite a lot.

I haven't heard Katy B and am not knocking myself out to check her out.

walls is kind of in the same vein as the chemical brothers or underworld in case you were wondering

OH NOES is dan p?

i am fairly sure you would love katy b, dan

What I've heard of Walls (and admittedly I haven't checked out the whole album in its entirety) was more like Pantha Du Prince?

yeah OH NOES is dan p. People shouldn't hold back on at least checking oout Katy B.

I am certain I would dig both more than this relisten of Pablo Honey I'm doing right now

Katy B has been my late-year discovery.

xpost is that the one with the extra disc? some gems on that.

boo no Walls on US Spotify apparently

okay Katy B is making a great first impression

it does have a bit of that twinkly thing going on but also that sun-dappled psych chems thing too xxxxp

I really tried with Katy B, but I'm thinking the problem was with my own expectations more than anything else.

lex is gonna scream at me for this, but now the buzz/backlash has finished, I've found myself enjoying the odd track off the James Blake album. It's got some pretty rank moments on it, but Wilhelm's Scream, Limit, and the very last track are all "good" moments from this year.

FFS OH NOES, go back and listen to Blow Out at least before you spoil your earholes for anything else with the lovely Katy B.

okay I am def coming back to this Katy B album, I think I was put off by the name similarity with Jessie J

i predict "witches' brew" will particularly blow dan's mind

xp oh god i apologise so much on behalf of my nation for jessie j :(

It's all about "Broken Record" and how Katy B pronounces "record."

Oh man the James Blake album was so damned boring, sorry guys. I feel like a little variety could have spiced that up nicely. I'm imagining a decent album's worth could have been made by mixing up some album tracks with the 2010 EP stuff, but I'm not bothered enough to do so. It just felt like a chore to sit through the album proper.

"Easy Please Me" is the one I'd put on if I was asked to play a track. The Katy B album was very instant hit for me, but I soon grew a bit tired of it. It is a really good album, but after maybe 5-6 plays I just didn't really feel like playing it over and over...

OK you don't have to listen to any of the rest of the album, just Blow Out then you can go back to Katy B which is admittedly excellent and awesome.

Back to Radiohead again... someone was right about them being the Godwin's Law of music threads...

My favorite single of 2011 is still Emeli Sandé's "Heaven" and album is Born This Way. After that, everything is somewhat fluid...but I'm beginning to loosely order most of it simply for listmaking/voting purposes.

Jessie J put me off Katy B too

Born This Way is probably my biggest disappointment of the year. Ultimately, I fell that there are 4 great songs on it ("Government Hooker", "Bloody Mary", "Edge of Glory", "You and I") and the rest range from tolerable ("Born This Way", "Marry The Night") to holy fuck embarrassing ("Judas", "Americano")

yeah BTW is this gigantic mess that i expected to cohere, and never did.

unexpectedly my favourite song off it ended up being "electric chapel", which...i just did not expect that. (will rep hard for "government hooker", "scheiße" and "bloody mary" too. "you and i" and "the edge of glory" are kind of frustrating in that they're not horrible but they're just A BIT MUCH.)

I first heard Katy B last year on Magnetic Man's "Perfect Stranger," and still prefer that track to any that are on her own album. It's deece, but doesn't set my world on fire.

I like it more than you guys but I disliked every single except "You & I."

I think the messiness and incoherence of BTW is part of what makes me like it so much, or at least what fascinates me about. Even now, I still keep it in pretty regular rotation trying to parse it. Mostly I just love the songs I love and skip the couple I don't.

Anyone who doesn't mind a bit of Wolf Parade-style stringfelt mood-balladry could do worse than check out the Other Lives album from this year.

OH NOES: you should still be able to stream that very good Walls album http://dummymag.com/new-music/2011/09/29/walls-coracle-stream/.

BTW and Beyonce's record present the same problem for me: uneven yet the stuff that works is next-level shit.

I'm trying to think of an indie schmindie album from this year that I can really stan for. The Joy Formidable put me off by going "big" and I still think they went the wrong way. The Herman Dune album is great as I'm listening to it, but forget it as soon as it's finished. Milagres made a good record, but it's so monochromatic. Does Peaking Lights count? I don't really think of that as a typical indie album, even thought it's a NNF release.

Jeez, albums. I think I'm done with 'em for the most part.

Oh yeah, and the Iron & Wine album - thought it was cack compared to the Shepherd's Dog at first, but it ended up soundtracking a whole week in Barcelona for me, so that's a firm fave.

I was enjoying the Art Department/Soul Clap/Benoit & Sergio thing back at the beginning of the year, but that music is much better suited to dark nights and streetlights so I lost interest throughout the summer. I may well shove on again that excellent mix Soul Clap and Wolf + Lamb brought out earlier this year, now it's Autumn.

yeah i relistened to BTW the other day and most of it left me cold, although i've kinda come around on "government hooker". prefer the beyonce.

i had no home computer for nearly two months and i am sort of overwhelmed by the game of catch-up i'm playing, but holy shit there was so much good music this year. and like alfred this is the first time in a while where i cared more about albums than singles.

I can boil 4 down to four tracks as well ("I Care", "I Miss You", "Countdown", "End of Time") but, unlike BTW, I think those 4 songs are outstanding bordering-on-career-high-point songs and the rest of the album ranks from great to good aside from the still incoherent "Best Thing I Never Had" and the forgettable-except-for-the-horrible-swagu-line "Party"

what about "Love on Top"?

on the "great" or "good" side?

Beyonce album is so great and the only song I would cut is "Girls".

Also glad to see dog latin speaking positively about that Iron & Wine album. I know he doesn't have tons of fans around here, but there's a 70s AM radio vibe and playfulness that I really appreciate.

"party" is the only track that i'm not digging on 4. "i was here" clicked big time two weeks ago for no reason at all

I'd rank "Love On Top" as "very good"

I rate the album like this:

outstanding:
End of Time
I Miss You
I Care
Countdown

great/very good:
Run The World (Girls)
Love On Top
Rather Die Young

good:
I Was Here
1 + 1
Start Over

fucking Kanye:
Party

stop trying to do "feminist ballads", you are terrible at them:
Best Thing I Never Had

btw the thing that is really making Katy B work is how PRESENT she is in the mix, I am really really digging this

okay Katy B cribbed a sample used in the Alley Cat mix of "Charly" on "Go Away"

this is great, between this, Emika and Austra this has been a great week for me catching up on what happened this year

It was the greatest year since 1965--I made up a Top 250 easily...It was a year like all the others. There are usually 10 songs I really like each year; this year there were 11 or 12.

oh shit, I forgot; I liked that Cage the Elephant album

JF--scmindie album of the year for me was Belong's Common Era, though I def also count the Peaking Lights album, which wqas fantastic...

oh shit, I forgot; I liked that Cage the Elephant album

Is this for real? Genuinely curious, because I liked a couple tracks on the debut album but there was enough crap filler on that to scare me away from the new one.