Best (Favourite) Music of 2011

Posting a year-end list in December is, for me, an admission of defeat. It goes against my real feelings about year-end lists and their potential viability and reveals me as an all-too-willing cog in the grips of the blog-o-sphere hype machine. Which is no huge reveal. I am easily one of the most hyperbolic (and nonsensical) writers on the internet and Forest Gospel is not even a blip on the radar of music taste-making--as well it shouldn't be. So I suppose it's not a big deal if I allow myself to get sucked into the pomp and confetti of the season.

Still, I really love these albums and respect the talent and energy of their creators. I see them as adopted children and, that said, have reservations about ordering them: announcing who I love the most. That and I'm hesitant to provide any definitive list of who stands to be recognized and how to create such a list honestly. In all reality, list-making is a flippant endeavor: within a day my list can flip over on top of itself, removing handfuls of solid picks for unsteady ones and vice versa.  If I posted this list tomorrow it would be different.  So, it stands to be noted that in the time I've been working on the list, hordes of worthy albums have, at one time or another, been moving around on the list.  Albums from Lawrence English, Julianna Barwick, Nat Baldwin, A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Car Seat Headrest, Thundercat, Thee Oh Sees, Millipede, Pete Swanson, Lee Noble, Tim Hecker, Emuul, Sharks' Teeth, Matthew Cooper, Bill Orcutt, etcetera, etcetera, all worthy of and at some point securely placed deep in the list.  Time and proximity to the albums always plays a factor and so it should be recognized that these albums and others (surely many that I haven't even heard of) are worthy of attention. 

Is this introduction pathetic enough yet?  I take it all back.  This is the definitive list of the best (not favourite) albums of 2011.  Other lists are subjective, this one is not.  Read and weep: