The Top Music of 2011: The Also Rans

Before we dive into a proper Top 30, we thought we'd pull back the curtain a bit for a look at the albums that didn't quite make it in. Personal favorites that didn't make the cut, albums that lurked right outside the lists purview, or pieces that just didn't land specifically enough to make a fight worthwhile--a whole bunch of them follow, courtesy of Marty Brown and Tucker Stone.

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Marty Brown

Action Bronson – Dr. Lecter
Cities Aviv – Digital Lows
Kendrick Lamar – Section.80
Lil B the Based God – I’m Gay (I’m Happy)
Spaceghostpurrp – Blvcklvnd Rvdix 66.6 (1991)


Here’s five albums by dudes I’d consider foreriders in the current rap vanguard. Action Bronson pulls off the year’s second-best Ghostface impersonation on a Primo- and Pete Rock-indebted concept album about New York cuisine. Memphis resident Cities Aviv squeezes hard-bodied introspective joints out of high-garbage-content samples from “Float On,” “People Are People,” and, most impressively, the Alessi Brothers’ “Oh Lori,” which, yes, is about riding a bicycle in Springtime with the person you love perched on the handlebars. Kendrick Lamar, who is reportedly taking pole position on Dr. Dre’s mythical Detox, raps dexterously enough to establish himself as the post-Drake Snoop Dogg. Lil B unexpectedly steps his game up for the most anticipated album of his short, prolific career by toning down the self-help verbiage and learning how to get out of the way of his producers. And, finally, Miami-based beat-maker Spaceghostpurrp is responsible for the most intentionally ugly rap album of 2011, mastering sounds at different levels within the same song and inserting horrific/orgasmic screams with the same velocity that AarabMUZIK inserts DJ drops. From Bronson’s immaculate East-coast traditionalism to Spaceghostpurrp’s engrossingly terrible production, each of these guys has a conscientious stake in what hip-hop wants to sound like over the next decade.

The Rapture – In the Grace of Your Love

In the five years since Pieces of the People You Love, dance-punk impresarios The Rapture lost half of their rhythm section but rediscovered disco and, oh yeah, Christianity. For this years’ “comeback,” they toned down the more abrasive aspects of their sound—the primacy and jaggedness that got them so much attention a decade ago as part of the first wave of DFA artists—and came up with an album jam-packed with arena-rock dance-pop. Proving that if old punks never die, they can at least age gracefully, In the Grace of Your Love is The Rapture’s best, most cohesive record to date. It’s about Jesus, but fuck it.

Tiger & Woods – Through the Green

Throughout its 75-minute run time, Tiger & Woods’ full-length debut recalls bits of nearly every hit from the electro-disco era—“Heartbeat” to “Mercedes Boy”—but it plays more like a 12-hour fever dream with Melvin Riley’s exact intonation of the words “oh” and “Sheila” stuck on repeat inside your head. Credit the reclusive duo with taking Theo Parrish-style experiments in tedium and repetition; subbing out the component parts for diva-house vocals and Salsoul orchestral stabs; and ultimately churning out ten lengthy exercises in sustained joy.

Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo

You don’t often think of singer-songwriters as bitchin’ guitar players—part of the draw for “musicians” is that being one usually doesn’t involve much more than strumming and feeling your feelings; it’s not a profession for strivers. So it makes a certain sort of sense that, on an ostensibly “singer-songwriter” album, Kurt Vile plays guitar like he could shred if he really wanted to, but is content sounding like a 90’s teenager sprawled out on a couch in a cement basement, sleepily reconstructing his hazy 80’s memories of 70’s rock radio. He sings as laconically as imaginable, as if he’s barely trying to hit any note, to say nothing of the right one. It’s what you’d call effortless if effortless weren’t a compliment. Yet, in spite—or because—of Vile’s apparent laziness, Smoke Ring for My Halo is one of the most compelling singer-songwriter records of 2011. I guess it’s like Kanye says: When you try hard, that’s when you die hard.

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Tucker Stone

Japanther - Beets, Limes and Rice

The track record seems to be one solid twenty minutes of material every other year with these guys. This is one of the good ones, even with the terrible album title.

Kriedler - Tank

This is what Goblin would sound like if Goblin were a bunch of fans of Goblin, and it was 2011.

Mark McGuire - Get Lost

He gets better with every release, but he’s got a way to go before people start throwing their Tim Hecker albums out the window. There's a really unusual, hard to get past noise effect on almost all of these tracks--it's sort of like a electronic rake being quickly scraped across an electronic plate--and while it's too infrequent to get used to, there is a feeling of satisfaction to be found the first time you proactively suppress the all-too-natural wince.

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

You have to be careful when you’re on the way back from experimenting with noise, because it’s really easy to end up stuck in a Starbucks indefinitely. In the same way that you don't really wish the people you dislike any actual real world harm, nobody wants PJ Harvey to get her heart broken. And yet?

You know what I'm talking about.

Spank Rock - Everything is Boring and Everyone is a Fucking Liar

The best album of the last twenty years?

Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread
Ty Segall - Ty Rex
Ty Segall - Live In Aisle Five

Finally, a Ryan Adams for those of us who want to appear cool with those girls who complement their oversized aviator glasses with oversized novelty t-shirts.

Big Black Delta - BBDLP1

You gotta give it up for a group that could totally make it big on the nerdcore scene, but chose not to.

Big K.R.I.T. - Last King 2 (God’s Machine)

While 21 of the 22 tracks on Last King 2 (God’s Machine) aren’t “Yoko (Remix)”, one of the 22 tracks on Last King 2 (God’s Machine) actually is “Yoko (Remix)”.

Cold Cave - Cherish The Light Years

My only problem with sincerity is the part where you want me to listen to you talk about The Cure.

Gauntlet Hair - Gauntlet Hair

If all the Vampire Weekend fan bands are going to sound like this, maybe the next forty years won’t be an ever-worsening series of moments. (Well, the music part at least.)

Gui Boratto - III

In the same way I would give up on food for a series of life sustaining pills, I would give up on headphones to have Gui Boratto injected directly into the base of my spine.

Comments

[Matt Seneca]

LUV

cold cave album of the year, ahem

[seth hurley]

its not a best of list, its the best list.

[Mateo]

I know nothing about any of these bands. except japanther, I guess. if they have an ex-skate puk named Riley playing guitar, then he celebrated his 21 bday at a bar I worked at about a decade ago. I definitely told that kid a band named Japanther was bound for big things. I can't imagine someone ripped him off for that name.

Does making a list of what can only be a bunch of college-educated slummers and irony-riders comprise big things?

I am certain Dave Sim find all of the above very very shallow. you feel me?