Best Albums of 2011 (Part 5)

And then there was one. AudioVole is not about picking “winners” or assigning scores; it’s about the discussion, the dialectic. Even so, someone has to get the last word. Because it’s the holidays, and the last post of 2011, and he happens to be the founder and editor of this behemoth of gesticulation, Brandon has accorded himself the final say.

There is only one album that truly mattered in this year of riots and protests, of police brutality and toppled governments, of nuclear disasters, tsunamis, and assassinated terrorists. The best album of 2011, after the jump.

“The Words That Maketh Murder”
 

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

Three weeks before Let England Shake was released, the Tunisian government fell after a month of violent protests. The day PJ Harvey released her 10^th studio album, February 11^th, 2011, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned after weeks of protests and rioting. It was the start of the Arab Spring, but in retrospect it signified so much more, a daunting thought considering the magnitude already inherent in a wave of revolutions spawned by people desperately seeking freedom from the oppression of their tyrannical governments. How could we have known in February of this year that these revolutions were but a preamble for a tumultuous, violent, terror-ridden 12 months that saw an earthquake and tsunami of unprecedented magnitude destroy Japan; that saw the assassinations of both Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi; that saw a Syrian government ruthlessly slaughter its own people in town squares, at funerals, and in their own homes; that saw London burn for days due to rioting and protests six months after PJ Harvey gave us Let England Shake? How could she have known?

2011 will be remembered as a year when apathy took a back seat, when people around the world finally stood up and dug in their heels. It’s the year that an Ad Busters article called for people to go to Zuccotti Park in the financial district of New York City and just, like, stay, because nothing else was working, nor could it—not when money is power and 99% of us have neither. And so they did. And the movement grew. And spread. From city to city, state to state, and ultimately around the world. And in response for sitting down, for shining a spotlight on the injustices of government sanctioned inequality, what they received was government sanctioned violence, gas canisters, rubber bullets, fractured skulls, pepper spray administered with cavalier impunity, book burnings, and a systemic repudiation of the right to free assembly.

The prescience of Let England Shake unwittingly sounded the battle cry of a world fed up with living under the thumb of the wealthiest and most powerful. With the impending financial collapse of the European Union and the domino effect that will have on the world, the ongoing, seemingly never ending wars, the abuse of power and ramping up of violence by all governments, including our own, and the growing tyranny of capitalism, all signs seem to indicate that the turmoil and unrest are only going to get worse. Let England Shake may be the most underrated, overlooked album of the year—and I say that even though it won the Mercury Prize. That’s how important it is. There wasn’t another album this year, or in recent years past for that matter, that more perfectly embodied the emotional state of the world and the direction it was heading. Unfortunately, it’s an album that a majority of people won’t hear, and even fewer will “get.” It’s not an easy album, but these aren’t easy times. Besides, you know who else people didn’t get? Every important, thoughtful, forward thinking man and woman in history! Ever! And they’re no less exceptional for it. Whether or not people hear this album, whether or not they like it, whether or not they remember it, it is not only the best album of 2011, it is the album of 2011, the only one we need to put in the time capsule. And when it came out February 11th, we had no idea.

“Written On The Forehead”