Best Albums of 2011 (Part 1)

Inhale. Do you smell that? Nutmeg. Pine. Holly. Year-end lists. Or is that reindeer droppings? It’s finally time for AudioVole to bring out our favorite albums of 2011. Of course, easily digestible lists aren’t exactly our bag. That would be too…smart. We’re more of the long-winded, prosaic-musing persuasion. But, to appease the masses, we do have a number one. The official AudioVole Album of the Year will be revealed on Friday. Until then, we’re going to discuss every other album that put our headphones in a stranglehold this year. Sarah kicks things off with a few of her intervention-worthy addictions.

St. Vincent – “Cruel”

From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Brandon Hall, Chris Mollica, Ross Angeles, Chris Atto

Hey guys,

I don’t fancy myself a comedienne but I have a new joke that I want to test out on you all: A Best Albums of 2011 List walks into a bar and orders a beer and an orangutan.

Okay, there’s a reason I’m not doing stand-up but I’m trying to make an analogy here. I have a love/hate relationship with year end lists. I understand the joy that comes with bundling up all our favorite things in a neat little stack, but these lists usually come across like a lame excuse to flaunt “know-it-all-ness.” Beyond that, my scientific tendencies are upset when I see Girls, Gang Gang Dance, and Jay-Z/Kanye sitting next to each other at the top of the same pile. It’s a hedonistic oversight to try and distill the last 335 days of music into one cohesive unit. [335 days because, like, what the hell happens to albums that are released in December? Is it like they never happened?] Beyond the fact that all of the items in these lists are in fact albums, I am hard-pressed to find a continuous thread amongst them. I see these lists and I’m left with all sorts of questions about who was in the room when the list took shape, what conversations were had, whether or not there was some white-boarding; did emotions ever get in the way, were pens thrown, looks exasperated; what mathematical equation did they use to weight/score/rank albums that are as different as beer and orangutans – get the analogy, now?

Um, anyway, we’re gonna do kind of the same thing. Except that our final product will not be a list. No, what happens here will, for once, make a year-end discussion transparent! It’s roundtable time and, if you don’t mind, I’ll start by throwing out a few albums that I consider the cream of the 2011 music crop. None of these albums are my number one, though. I’m going to save number one for a discussion with Brandon at the end of the week.

Smith Westerns – “Weekend”

First, let me quickly highlight two fantastic albums before I get to some meatier meanderings. The first is St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy. Annie Clark makes music that is interesting and subtly twisted, and all of her albums carefully showcase her creativity and talent. She has a knack for dichotomy. I’d question your hearing if you didn’t pick up on the polarized dirty/clean, dark/light, full/empty soundscapes she builds on Strange Mercy. And itdoesn’t hurt that I consider her my hair-twin.

I would also be remiss not to mention Smith Westerns’ Dye It Blonde. Did you forget that this came out in 2011? Way back in January, Smith Westerns gave us their sophomore LP and it was good. The album is still garage-y without sounding like it was recorded in an actual garage and these [very young] Chicagoans do not disappoint. Dye It Blonde is ripe with sweet guitar riffs, upbeat indie rock, some serious Britpop moments, and even some shoegazey interludes. “Weekend,” “Imagine, Pt. 3,” and “All Die Young” are hits IMO and they’re in good company on this album.

Dum Dum Girls – “Bedroom Eyes”

Maybe my heaviest, most intervention-worthy addiction this year came from Dum Dum Girls’ sophomore album Only In Dreams. I’ll wear my heart on my sleeve for this group and you’ll note how remarkable it is that my heart looks like a girl in black hotpants, tights, and red lipstick (three wardrobe staples, as far as I’m concerned). You can listen to every song on the album and know exactly what it’s about: While recording the album, leading lady “Dee Dee” (aka Kristen Gundred) lost her mom to cancer (see: “Wasted Away” where her mom haunts her dreams) and her mind to the stress of maintaining a stable marriage (she’s married to Crocodiles frontman Brandon Welchez) with conflicting touring schedules (see: “Bedroom Eyes”). Only In Dreams is a deeply personal album and I like things to be straight forward so I appreciate lyrics that don’t require a rhetorical analysis or previous knowledge of obscure Polish films. But the Dum Dum Girls’ trademark simplicity – which is thankfully less obscured by fuzz than on their debut – doesn’t diminish how potent and heartbreaking the album’s themes are. I saw Dum Dum Girls play at the Magic Stick in Detroit a couple years back (opening for Girls) and more recently as the headliner at the Empty Bottle in Chicago and, hot damn, they’ve come a long way. I’ll be semi-addicted to Only In Dreams for some time yet.

Wye Oak – “Civilian” (Live)

If we were making a list titled “Albums Released in 2011 That Are Most Likely To Make You Cry,” Wye Oak’s Civilian would top it. I know, everyone else probably got weepy over Boner Iver [Freudian non-slip, more on this in a minute] but for me, it’s Jenn Wasner who can really stick the knife in and twist. How a mere two people can create such a majestic “wall of sound” is beyond me but I’m here to listen, not question. On top of the beauty, magic, and stellar dream pop of Civilian, it plays like one of the most cohesive albums of 2011. “Holy Holy” and “Civilian” can stand on their own but, beyond those two, the songs are best experienced in one uninterrupted listen. Heed my words, don’t push pause, and come join me, the crumpled (but satisfied) heap on the floor.

Before I go, let me get back to someone I mentioned just above: Justin Vernon. Okay, okay, I get it; Bon Iver’s self-titled sophomore effort is beautiful. Vernon took four years to pull this one together and it shows; the arrangements are pristine, moments of sonic majesty are a plenty, and every hair seems to be in place on Bon Iver. But I’m concerned for the future well-being of this album. Brandon said it first and I’ll go ahead and second it: Bon Iver doesn’t age well. Vernon brings back a lot of sounds that we haven’t heard much of since the 80’s and, for a hot second, they’re novel and impressive. But when I turn Bon Iver on now – 6 months after its release – I’m sated after a song or two. Don’t get me wrong, I was just as taken with the album as the rest of the world was when it first came out. I saw Vernon & Co. play at The Chicago Theater over the summer and am guilty of tearing up (“Holocene,” obviously), but out of all the albums I listed today, this is the one that I’m not sure I’ll feel compelled to listen to in full over the years to come.

Okay, I said my piece. Now I’ll pass the talking stick over to you, Ross.

“They could take or leave you, so they took you and they left you”
Sarah