By Marianne Meyer
Every year, NYC’s alternative weekly newspaper, The Village Voice, invites 1500-plus critics to participate in its Pazz and Jop poll, an effort to compile the year's best singles and albums - or at least, the favorites of those polled. The 2011 results, as decided by a mathematically complex computation of points awarded to each album, was released online today.
And the top album of the year is…(drumroll, please)
“w h o k i l l” by tUnE-yArDs (yes, the odd spacing and capitalization are deliberate)
If you’re not familiar with the album, don’t fret. The collection never got higher than #148 on the Billboard sales charts, and has sold a rather anemic 47,000 copies, making it probably the lowest-selling and lowest-charting winner in the poll’s history. More familiar names – Jay-Z and Kanye West, Tom Waits, Drake, Bon Iver – were also in the Top Ten. Here’s the full Album list.
I can pretty much guarantee you’ve heard this year’s winner in the singles category (unless you’ve spent the last 12 months in a sensory deprivation tank) –a little ditty called “Rolling in the Deep” by Adele. She shared the Top Ten with the likes of Foster the People, Beyonce and Britney Spears. Here's the complete list of Singles.
The exhaustive Pazz and Jop online lists don’t end at the Top 100. The poll gives props to any song or album that gets any votes – even if only one – so there are literally hundreds mentioned. The poll truly runs the gamut from inescapable earworms to willful obscurities, and half the fun is seeing just how many you recognize, let alone can sing along to.
And what did yours truly, The DAME, vote for? Thanks for asking. Here’s my ballot.
And if you want to know why I chose what I did…
Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys! (Downtown/Cooperative Music)
Another beautiful album from the Manchester quintet that’s huge in England but has yet to break America. All the better for us lucky fans who attend terrific club shows to hear melodic, passionate songs performed by impeccable musicians and sung by the charming, charismatic Guy Garvey.
Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music)
Over a long career, Simon has had his huge hits, minor masterpieces and a few clunkers. This is one of his best albums in years, engaging the head with its smarts, the feet with its rhythms and the heart with its…heart.
Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (Capitol)
It’s become too easy and somewhat cool to knock Coldplay, as if making uber-catchy arena rock and having a desire to bring some some light to the dim classic rock world is a bad thing. No, you could never accuse Chris Martin and Co. of breaking new musical ground but what they do they do very well and this album has more of the wheat and less of the chaff of any album they’ve released since “A Rush of Blood to the Head.” Save your spite for Nickelback.
Wilco - The Whole Love (dBpm/ANTI)
When a band has been as good for as long as Wilco, the tendency may be for the audience to take great albums for granted. Still, Jeff Tweedy finds ever-new ways to enhance a brilliant catalog with rousing rock anthems and tender ballads. The final song here, “One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend),” is 12 minutes of quiet beauty, capping yet another Wilco triumph.
James Blake - James Blake (Universal Republic)
The London-based Blake first came to the U.K.’s attention as a dubstep producer, but his debut album as a performer shatters the traditional singer/songwriter model with intriguing, eclectic style. Unusual electronic beds and eerie, repetitive vocal lines harken back to the experimentation of early Steve Reich and Philip Glass, while his earnest covers of songs by Feist and Joni Mitchell proved Blake’s willingness to wear his melancholy heart on his sleeve. This album came out of left field and floored me.
Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (Epitaph)
Billy Bragg is alive and well, so it’s not that we actually need a new, younger version of the folk-troubadour with a sharp tongue, great good humor, socially conscious anger and a seemingly inexhaustible knack for wordplay. But let’s let Turner take his turn as the voice of a generation. College kids can singalong with gusto while we older folks remember what it’s like to have a musician speak so well for us.
Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal - Chamber Music (Six Degrees)
Forget Prozac. This collaboration between Ballake Sissoko, who plays the traditional kora (a lute-harp from Mali), and French cellist Vincent Segal is a work of enchanting power to calm your frenzied soul. Theirs is an elegant and beautiful, totally original type of world music (how many other kora/cello duets have you heard?) that reflects the pair’s personal friendship, with no concern for being cool or commercial. If you’re familiar with/fond of the “invented folk music” that was the calling card of the brilliant Penquin Café Orchestra, this is the closest you’ll get to recapturing that magic.
Scattered Trees – Sympathy (Musebox)
A staple of the Chicago club scene, Scattered Trees almost disbanded, but then lead singer Nate Eissland’s father died and he began writing new songs dedicated to his dad’s memory. While no one would wish such sad inspiration upon any artist, the finished album is a stunning, loving eulogy with lush multi-part harmonies that make for bittersweet musical therapy. “A Conversation About Death on New Year’s Eve” is an unwieldy title for an achingly pretty song.
M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Mute)
French musician Anthony Gonzalez named his band after a spiral galaxy (Messier 83) which seems only appropriate given the sprawling, double-disc release that combines shoegaze rock and synth-pop rhythm for worlds of fun. A third-quarter arrival on the scene, with a late October release date, there’s plenty here still to explore, and I expect it will reveal continual pleasures throughout the new year.
Radiohead - The King of Limbs (self-released)
When Radiohead released their debut single, "Creep," nearly ten years ago, the song was catchy, but had the odd tinge of a novelty tune. But what might have seemed a one hit wonder was just the tip of a creative iceberg that continues to supply musical chills. TKOL isn’t an easy album and there’s little here that will appeal to fans of traditional verse, verse, chorus, bridge, verse structure. Don’t fight it; just put on your headphones and lose yourself in the delicious meanderings.
What were your favorite albums and singles in 2011? Feel free to comment, below.
Consider subscribing to this column (the button's up top) and you'll get the Digital Music scoop as soon as it goes online.
Comments