About Today

About Today’s Favorite Albums of 2011 - 20 to 11

I’ll try and come up with an Rdio playlist or something for tomorrow. But until then, here’s the first ten of twenty albums I really enjoyed this year.

20. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation
(Fat Possum)
This guy makes me understand better why everyone flips out over Beach House. I am closer to flipping out about Beach House because of him.

19. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – Belong
(Slumberland)
This one is damn near a guilty pleasure. It manages to pull all my shoegaze-loving strings, though.

18. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
(Atlantic)
Just love her.

17. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia/Ultra
(self-released)
The fact that this album has gotten so much attention in a year where The Weeknd dropped three similar but ultimately superior dark R&B albums is a testament to how good Frank Ocean is.

16. …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Tao of the Dead
(Superball Music)
It’s no Source Tags & Codes and it’s apparently based on a steampunk talking animal fantasy comic, but it rocks and I don’t care what you say.

15. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
(Souterrain Transmissions)
It’s all about attitude sometimes, and this lady has it in the best ways.

14. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
(Software)
Daniel Lopatin appears later on my list as one half of Ford & Lopatin. Perhaps that bright 80s pop affair had something of an influence on this album, which finds his ambient drone project interspersed with much more dynamic sounds than one would expect. It ends up being one of the most interesting soundscapes of the year.

13. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
(Anti-)
Like he wasn’t going to be on my list.

12. White Denim – D
(Downtown Records)
One of the best rhythm sections in the business right here. Just absolute bad-assery all around here.

11. Washed Out – Within and Without
(Sub Pop)
Ernest Greene’s first full album finds him graduating to a much higher level of production but still creating some pretty, pretty layers of synth and soothing.