Jimmy Eat World - Damage

Jimmy Eat World - Damage

RCA/Dine Alone Records, 2013
9.5/10

It’s always been astounding to me the way that songs, albums, lyrics, melodies, instrumental lines—even album titles or cover art—can become more than the sum of their parts when they collide with the right listener at the right time. In a world full of critical acclaim, “best of the year” lists, and verbose Pitchfork reviews, it seems that we have stumbled into an age of relative consensus. How many publications ranked Frank Ocean’s Channel ORANGE or Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D.City at number one last December? Or went with Bon Iver the year before? Or Kanye West in 2010? Few collective outlets, at least within the inner circle of the big critical players, venture too far beyond the same five or six favorite records at the end of any given year. Sure, those same publications review hundreds and hundreds of albums and hand out great scores to a lot of up-and-coming obscurities, but from looking at the top ten lists scattered across the web each year, it seems like the idea of an objective “best album of the year” is becoming more and more corporeal.

But what is objectivity in art? What benchmarks decide which collections of songs deserve the title of “best” in any given year? And why have some genres become punching bags for critics while others have earned adjectives such as “credible,” “relevant,” “important,” or “great”? Perhaps all of this is strange to me because my own personal album of the year has never once matched up with the consensus choice, but I don’t actually believe that objectivity and art, music especially, can exist side-by-side. We all look for different things from music. We all have bands and songwriters who we gravitate toward more than others, and we all bring our own unique biases and experiences into every single record we hear. And finding the right album at the right time, whether it’s an undisputed 10.0 classic or a scene favorite that somehow gets handed a 3.0 from one of the biggest taste-making publications in the world, that trumps everything else. If you came to this website looking for someone to tell you what to feel, if you’re reading these words because you’re searching for the “best” album of the year, you’re looking in the wrong place. In this art, “best” doesn’t exist. What truly matters is the bond that forms between music and listener when they meet at the exact right moment. Those bonds are the vehicles that allow us really feel music and fall in love with it for the first time, the devices that let certain albums to stay with us forever, and that’s something that can’t be shared or given or bought. You absolutely have to find it yourself, on your own terms.

The first album that I ever formed that kind of bond with was Jimmy Eat World’s Futures, and every record Jimmy Eat World have released since has had some huge influence on my life. The best albums, they serve as time capsule snapshots of the times in our life when they mattered most, and this band has done that for me more than most. Suffice to say that, while I’ve loved a lot of albums since that fall of 2004, when songs like “Kill” or “23” broke through my facade and convinced me that Jim Adkins knew exactly what I was going through, Futures remains the most important milestone in my musical development. I love Born to Run more, and Butch Walker is my go-to favorite artist, but without Jimmy Eat World and the 11 tracks that make up their greatest album, I wouldn’t be writing these words. For some, music is trivial entertainment, but for me, it determined a larger part of my life path than I will probably ever be able to realize. And all of that took off when, on some chilly autumn afternoon in 2004, I got a chance to “believe in futures” in a whole new way.

Fast forward eight and a half years, and that band is still at it, but a lot of other things have changed. As listeners, we all grew up. We went from shutting our eyes and humming along to the crashing climax of “23” in our adolescent bedrooms, ruminating about our juvenile crushes, to shouting along with its lyrics in our post-college apartments as we actually turned 23. But for most of us, this band’s music has remained important, even after many of the records we were listening to back then have faded into the background. In that case, it’s somewhat comforting to know that, on Damage, their seventh full-length, Jimmy Eat World are still pretty much the same band we’ve always known and loved.

The first thing most fans are going to notice with this record is the production, and that’s a shame. Due to the towering pop-rock structures and palatable studio sheen of the band’s last few records, the rawer, more live sound of Damage will probably feel a bit jarring. To be fair, many of the more epic moments of the band’s catalog, songs like “Goodbye Sky Harbor,” “Dizzy,” or “23”—in essence, the closers—were as much studio audio art as they were straight emotional pop rock, and it’s hard not to imagine what the songs on Damage could be with the same meticulous attention to detail. In particular, lead single “I Will Steal You Back” sounds a bit muddy, like a leftover demo from Futures or Stay on My Side Tonight that probably would work better if Jim’s vocals were higher in the mix. Similarly, “Book of Love” is a jaunty mid-tempo rocker that would have fit perfectly alongside the shimmering hooks of Chase This Light...if only it weren’t missing that record’s muscular sonic punch.

But more often than not, the production (courtesy of Queens of the Stone Age veteran Alain Johannes) suits the tenor of these songs in a way that Mark Trombino, Butch Vig, or Gil Norton’s more bombastic styles probably wouldn’t have. Taking a cue from Foo Fighters’ back-to-basics analog record, Wasting Light, Jimmy Eat World go for a dirtier, more spontaneous sound here that, at its finest moments, is impossible to argue with. Case-in-point is “How’d You Have Me,” which explodes with defiance and ringing guitars reminiscent of U2’s “Pride (In the Name of Love)” before morphing into the kind of vitriolic, shout-along garage rock song we haven’t heard from this band since “Blister.” Similarly, “Byebyelove” calls back to the Clarity days, with scuzzy production, minimalist structure, and goosebump-inducing crescendos that serve as fitting homage to the band’s ‘90s emo roots. And closer “You Were Good,” though it lacks the floor-to-ceiling sprawl of the band’s previous finales, sends the album out with acoustic guitars and reverb-drenched resignation.

Where Invented was largely an opportunity for Adkins to experiment with his songwriting style (much of the record played around with character perspectives and female point-of-view), Damage is the most straightforward and cohesive set of songs the band has written to date. Dubbed by Adkins as an “adult break-up album,” Damage clings to a love story arc throughout, matching its jagged production with the ragged snapshots of a relationship about to burst apart. There are snatches of that in the first two singles: “I Will Steal You Back” is a yearning plea for better times lost in the fire, while the narrator of the gorgeous title track watches as his lover vanishes into a mess of broken promises and inflated expectations. “I hate the way I feel, but I don’t think I can change,” Adkins sings in the first verse of the latter. It’s a song about falling out of love with someone you still care deeply for, and just as Adkins conveyed the pulsing want of unrequited love on “Kill” (“I can’t help it baby, this is who I am/Sorry but I can’t just go turn off how I feel”), here, he relates the destructive agony of losing connection with the person who once meant the world to you.

Even more powerful is “Please Say No,” an achingly beautiful vignette that stands alongside the very best in the Jimmy Eat World catalog. Adkins has long been one of my favorite songwriters, but his lyricism has often lingered in abstraction. One of the reasons that so many kids have been able to connect to JEW’s songs is that they’ve rarely embraced absolute specificity. On Clarity, Adkins’ poetry was sparse and indefinite. Listeners took those songs, saw what they wanted in them, and filled in the fringes with their own experiences. On Damage though, because the band has really embraced the idea of a thematic arc for the first time, Adkins is finally allowed to write in a more direct storytelling style. These songs aren’t just lovelorn poetry or odes of heartbreak; they’re full stories, five-minute films, expansive novels written in staves, rests, and music notes for the rest of us to bleed to. And “Please Say No,” which burns like a lost Springsteen cut, is the finest example of that. It’s a song about an affair and the toll it takes, not just on the relationships it squanders or on the people it cheats, but also on the lovers locked inside its deadly embrace. “I’ve lately come to wonder what it might feel like/If one last time, we went and did this right/Somewhere no one possibly could know our names/Somewhere no one bothers to remember a face,” Adkins muses during the second verse. But moments later, he begs his lover to refuse him, knowing that a simple “No” is the only thing that can save him from blowing apart his life on this impossible romance. And the way Jim sings those lines, with lush harmonies swelling around him, his voice bursting with passion and pain, it cuts right to the bone.

Jimmy Eat World aren’t going to get a ton of critical accolades for this record, and for as long as they’ve been together, they never have. But Damage is unequivocally my favorite album of the year so far, and I have a feeling that a lot of people who hear these songs at the right moment in their lives are going to share that sentiment. Maybe the connection will come on some late and sweltering summer night, and a teenage kid will be climbing into his car with heartbreak on his mind and nothing left to say. And this record will be playing on the stereo. And he’ll turn up the volume and shout along, and the words and music will crash into him and change his life forever. Or maybe that connection will sneak up on someone the way it came to me, at the end of one major life chapter and on the cusp of something infinitely bigger and more frightening. When people look back at 2013 and think about the albums that proved to be the “best” or “most influential,” I don’t know what’s going to stand up tallest. But I do know that I’ll never forget driving away from college for good while the don’t-take-too-much-for-granted strains of “Appreciation” rang through my car. I won’t forget how terrified I felt in that moment, staring off into the great unknown, or how invigorating it was to be entirely free for perhaps the first time in my life. And this album, this beautifully melancholic disc about sprained hearts, strained voices, and broken mixtape songs, will forever stand immortal because it had the grace and timing to walk into my life when I needed it most. I only hope the rest of you should be so lucky.

On the majestic, bombastic sounds of the summer album...

*I wrote most of this in a one-night creative/nostalgic burst that I had earlier this spring, back when the weather first started to warm up and summertime seemed imminent. I left it behind, thinking it was unfinished, but I read it over and liked it to much not to put it up.

It happens every spring: as inevitably as the blooming of the trees, as sure as that first 60 degree day, where myself and thousands of others jump the gun, throw on shorts and a t-shirt, and roll down the windows in the car, pretending like it's May or June instead of March or April. I am speaking, of course, of my tendency to anticipate summer through music. And it always happens on nights like this: nights where a warm breeze blows through the trees, nights where the ghost of winter finally lifts, disappears, and is replaced by evocative smells and rivers of nostalgia; it happens on nights where my neighbors shoot off fireworks and scream in celebration at two in the morning, on nights where the people on the porch across the street drink beer and shout through their intoxication, and on nights where those things, for whatever reason, don't bother me, where I realize (to quote The Dangerous Summer's "I Will Stay"), "oh my God, it's almost summer."

Summer music is my favorite kind of music: I don't know why that is, but it's most certainly true. Every year, most of my favorite albums seem to drop in the summer (last year, I believe eight of my top ten came into my life between leaving school in the spring and returning in the fall); so many of my favorite songs or records recall glorious moments of summers gone by. And every year in recent memory, it hasn't felt like spring or summer until I've given some solid play time to a few key records. The most obvious is Jack's Mannequin and Everything in Transit, with its whirlwind depiction of a California summer and its power-pop aesthetic. It's a record that has served as soundtrack for a lot of important moments in my life over the past few years, and which has even served as a welcoming committee of sorts for Earth's most flawless season. This record has an interesting connection to the summers that followed my two freshman years: first, when I was fifteen years old, I was a year late to the party (Transit released the summer before), but that turned out to be okay, because the season that it did end up soundtracking instead was remarkable. I still remember long evening runs on the golf course near my house, with the sun setting over the hills and the sounds of that album blasting through my headphones. Andrew McMahon has a lot to say about being young and completely alive on Everything in Transit, and that was a theme that I related to that summer and during every single one after it. The other freshman year, the college one, included probably the most definitive experience I ever had with the album (which, for a record that had been one of my all-time favorites for four years at that point, was saying something). It was two years ago this month, and I'd just wrapped up the last exam of my first year in college. The weather was glorious, with sun streaming down from the sky and the temperature rising. And when everything was packed and I'd checked out of the dorm, I got in my car, scrolled through my iPod, and picked this album out. What followed remains one of my most fondly recalled road trips: the weather, the music, the anticipation to be going home for the entire summer, it all made me feel immortal: it was a great start to what turned out to be the best summer of my life.
`

But even though it might always be the definitive summer record for me, Everything in Transit is merely one of many that fit that qualification. Perhaps the first was either Counting Crows' Hard Candy or Sister Hazel's Chasing Daylight: I don't quite recall which I snagged first, but I know for certain that both came into my life in the summer of 2004, and both were instrumental in shaping my love for music: they're still among my all-time favorites. Hard Candy has probably the best summer bookend lyrics out there: "Up All Night" and the line "we could drive out to the dunes tonight, 'cause summer's almost here" still drives my anticipation for the season to a fever pitch when the temperature starts to warm up, and the part in "Miami" that goes "the bus is running, it's time to leave/this summer's gone, so are we" transformed the song into my definitive, bittersweet end-of-summer ceremonial for years on end. But after those two came along, there were plenty more to come, and I can still hear pieces of my past in each of them: childhood memories echoing through The Wallflowers' Bringing Down the Horse and Third Eye Blind's self-titled album; a perfect family vacation in the strains of Better Than Ezra's Before the Robots; the angsty remains of my first summer with a job and a car in Safetysuit's Life Left to Go; the duality of the summer that followed my graduation, the balance between victory and uncertainty, unbridled freedom and fear of what my life would bring, and of course, day and night, represented by Mat Kearney's City of Black and White and The Dangerous Summer's Reach for the Sun; the first love that I discovered to the final two tracks of Dashboard Confessional's Dusk and Summer; and, though it seems like it was only a couple of months ago, last summer, completely encompassed in the flow of The Dangerous Summer's War Paint.

All of those records have played a massive role in my life, and each is at least partially responsible for my infatuation with this so-called "summer music," but even after getting the "soundtracks" out of the way, there has still been so much more: the boozy bombast of The Hold Steady's Boys & Girls in America,  the soaring voice of Chad Perrone, on his solo records and on Drawn to Revolving Doors with his old band Averi, which still take me back to the beginning of summer 2010; a slew of classics from last year, from the lovelorn pop symphonies of Matt Nathanson and Mat Kearney, to the dusky jams of The Damnwells' No One Listens to the Band Anymore; from the immaculate midnight atmospherics of Bon Iver's last record, all the way to Butch Walker's The Spade, which played as soundtrack for my farewell from town at the end of last summer, and will do the opposite upon my return for this one. And of course, there's Springsteen: Born to Run, which hardly left my stereo for the entire spring of my senior year of high school, soundtracked my graduation, and remained in constant rotation all summer long, and The Wild, The Innocent, The E-Street Shuffle, which is about as perfect an inaugural summer record as any I know.

When I look back at the summers of my life, I do so through the eyes of the songs that latched themselves onto moments from each and immortalized them. When I hear these records, they take me back to hundreds of reflective late night drives, to every brilliant moment spent outside in the glorious weather, enjoying the company of the people I love, and cherishing every splendid moment. I don't know what this summer will bring: I know that it could very well be one of the last I spend in my hometown, this place where I grew up and where so many amazing moments of my life have played out. If it is the last one, if a big chapter of my life ends in four months time, I can only hope that it's one of the greatest as well. And whatever record that comes along to encapsulate that? It's going to be one that I treasure for the rest of my life.

"This is it, boys, this is war - what are we waiting for?"

fun. - Some Nights

Fueled by Ramen/Nettwerk, 2012

4.5 stars

 

Over the past few months, fun.'s "We Are Young," the first single off of their fantastic sophomore album, has been infecting mainstream music in ways that music by bands I love very rarely does: a prominent feature spot as the coda song of a Glee episode, a fantastically well positioned Super Bowl ad, and plenty of facebook statuses quoting the lyrics. A few years back, after my first listens to the gloriously strange pop record that was Aim & Ignite, I can't say I would have envisioned fun. as a mainstream pop act. No doubt, the songs were terrific, from the explosively catchy "Be Calm," to the gospel-infused "Benson Hedges," to the "Boys of Summer" reference at the end of "Walking the Dog," all the way to the Lion King-esque chants at the start of the epic closer, "Take Your Time (Coming Home)." To this day, I don't quite know how to describe the overall sound of Aim & Ignite: Glammy rock? A rave-up block party of musical influences? Some bizarre combination of circus music and alternative rock? The most straightforward song on the record, the lyrically driven love ballad "The Gambler," probably provided soundtrack for a lot of blooming relationships (including my own), but I could never have imagined hearing even that on mainstream pop radio.

Despite all this, when fun. started blowing up with "We Are Young," it really did make sense, because the song, regardless of the band's debut record, is a bonafide anthem in a time of far too few: it's a chorus just begging to be shouted by a crowd in any environment, from a college party to a huge music venue, and it is a song that a lot of people are going to identify with. Frontman Nate Reuss is no stranger to big choruses: he wrote one of the most infectious of the past decade on  "The First Single (You Know Me)" with his previous band, The Format, and he loads this album with so many of them that "We Are Young," while a terrific song, is hardly even a standout. 

The opener, the "Some Nights Intro" (strangely titled, since it's almost two and a half minutes and could easily have been a standalone song), builds from the sound of a broken down piano into a Queen-aping power ballad. Reuss sounds so much like Freddie Mercury here that for a moment, I almost expected a classic-rock record, but the band has other things in mind. The title track, with another killer chorus and a terrific delivery from Reuss, is an early contender for album highlight, while an autotune breakdown late in the song indicates the direction that this album is heading in. Ahhhh, autotune, such a ubiquitous, and yet widely misunderstood, tool in today's music industry: most mainstream pop music is positively drenched in it, always made more obvious when those artists perform live and a trainwreck ensues (several examples could have been found in last week's Grammy ceremony). Still, even the most talented singers in the industry tend to use autotune, mostly due to the fact that we as listeners have come to expect perfection in our studio recorded albums. Recently, a wave of T Pains and the like have given autotune a more gimmicky application, and fun.'s record uses it as such here, but it's done in a way that suits the songs and one that results in a record that is a true sonic feast. Make no mistake, Reuss is a terrific vocalist (for proof of this, look no further than "Carry On," another infectious pop song that would function just as well in a stripped-down acoustic arrangement as it does on record, with bass and heavy drum machines buffing up the sound). Even for those who have trouble getting used to the autotune as a part of this band's sound, by the time "Some Nights" explodes into a climactic spoken word section, I have a feeling they'll be hard pressed to care.

On my first listens to this record, I couldn't help marveling at the classic pop melodies Reuss and co. seem to come up with so easily: melodic verse lines and irresistible choruses that are so instantly memorable that I found myself wondering how no one else had stumbled upon them yet. "Carry On" is certainly one; "Why Am I the One," with an intro guitar part straight out of a Modest Mouse song and sweeping chorus harmonies, is another. "All Alone" and "All Alright" defy their titles, with the former being a ridiculously catchy pop song that's destined for a more than a few dance-in-the-car moments and the latter being one of the album's more subdued numbers (subdued being a relative term). "I've got nothing left inside my chest, but it's all alright," Reuss sings, over a bed of pianos, synths, bass and a choir, and surrounded by a massive wall of pop production. Much like Mat Kearney did with Young Love last year, Some Nights takes what is more or less fun.'s traditional sound and filters it through a more beat heavy, hip-hop influenced production. The result is a record that will prove polarizing among fans, but one that I think is ultimately more rewarding than the band's debut. 

That said, Some Nights isn't free of miss-steps, and when they occur, it's more the fault of the production than it is the songwriting. "One Foot" is a perfect example: it's a good song that circulated in a live version prior to the release of the record, but it doesn't quite gel with the studio arrangement or production. The song is still more than worthwhile, but there's a definitely sense that it could have been something greater. Elsewhere, "It Gets Better" is a textbook example of filler, a throwaway track with a grating chorus that steals a spot that would have been much better occupied by "Out on the Town," the album's "bonus track" and one of the best songs here.

Ultimately, the proper closer, the seven-minute "Stars" will epitomize everything that fans of the album love about it and everything that detractors think is wrong with it. In my eyes, it's the high water mark for the album: a masterfully climactic blend of pop, the band's alt-rock roots, hip hop and electronic music that serves as the perfect showcase for Reuss's vocal talents, the band's new musical direction, and the album's undeniably impressive production work. While it begins as a fairly straightforward pop-rock song, "Stars" builds into a haze of auto-tune and heavy beats, climaxing with a euphoric chorus of vocodor-enhanced voices. "No one's gonna save me now," Reuss sings, and despite the fact that his voice is layered with production and altered ten times over from its original state, it's the most vocally cutting and emotional moment of the album: even after a dozen listens, chills still run down my spine at that moment, and that alone is enough to make me a champion of the electronic influences the band adopts here. 

Just as the album began in Queen territory, it finishes thoroughly enthralled in the influence of Kanye West, whose 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy served as the band's primary influence throughout the recording process. That album's co-producer, Jeff Bhasker, masterminds the sonic orchestra on display here, and Reuss and his vocodor carries the album out in a way that very much recalls West's "Runaway," another epic song that the band actually covered on their last tour. That song and album's influence run rampant throughout the entire record, supplemented here and there by hints of Bon Iver (also involved with Fantasy and another figure who's been redefining what autotune can do), or by the eternal presence of classic pop acts like the Beatles and the Beach Boys. The resulting album sounds as fresh as it does musically-referential, and despite the fact that many fans of fun. and the Format will probably find the pervasive hip hop and electronic motifs jarring, in time I think this record could easily be regarded as the album where one of the best bands working in the industry today rightfully rose to the top. Who knows, if these guys get a few more big hits under their belts, maybe a Grammy could be in their future. And while, in light of the new Bruce Springsteen album (which is a masterpiece--more on that later), I can no longer say what I initially wanted to about this album (that it's the best thing I've heard all year), it's certainly a more than worthy runner up, and I'd be willing to put money on it ending up somewhere in my top ten at the end of the year. There will inevitably be cries accusing the band of "selling out," but as long as their doing so sounds this good, all the more power to them.

The Grammy Post

There aren't a lot of hardcore music fans that take the Grammy Awards seriously these days, and it's not terribly difficult to figure out why: the Grammy Awards have always been a chance for the music industry to pat themselves on the back, often awarding the albums that spawned the most pop hits, or handing out sentimental trophies to old veterans or recently departed legends to pay tribute to them. There is nothing wrong with this practice as, it's worth noting, the Grammy Awards have rarely handed the Album of the Year prize to a legitimately bad album. Indeed, a handful of my all time favorite albums have won the prize, from The Joshua Tree to Rumours to Sgt. Pepper. That said, the Album of the Year award's history, for the most part, is a study in curious decisions. Like the fact that the Beatles only won the award that one time, or that Bruce Springsteen lost to Lionel Richie in the year that he took over the world with Born in the U.S.A. (or the more depressing fact that Born to Run didn't even score a nomination). And recent years have seen the award go to either country-pop crossover stars (Taylor Swift, the Dixie Chicks) or to legendary figures in music (Ray Charles, U2, Allison Krauss, Herbie Hancock): none were poor choices, but it would be hard to argue any of them as the best album released in their individual years.

I really thought that last year, Grammy had turned a corner. Rather than handing the Album of the Year award to a huge seller (Eminem's Recovery) or a newly minted pop music icon (Lady Gaga's The Fame Monster), the Academy opted for Arcade Fire, a critically acclaimed indie-rock act from Canada, and their concept album The Suburbs. In my eyes, that victory was truly magnificent: rather than going for something that was just a collection of singles, the Academy went for a true album, with recurring themes, sounds, ideas and characters. In an age where many have proclaimed that "the album is dead," that album defended the format, and it proved why it not only works, but why it will always be more artistically relevant than the single. Those people who were championing the rise of the digital single as the predominant musical format do have a point, though, since iTunes has indeed rendered the album obsolete to casual listeners. But it's still Album of the Year that is announced at the very end of the Grammy ceremony, and Arcade Fire's victory last year, backlash and all, was a poetic defense of the format that has defined the music industry since the 60s.

After that, I must confess that this year's nominees disappointed me a bit, even though two of them landed on my best of the year list. Still, the Academy is likely to avoid adding to their list of "curious decisions" this year (unless you count the nominees, which no one seems to remember after the fact anyway). Below, I list my thoughts on the nominees for the evening's biggest categories, as well as my reasons for tuning in again this year (however distractedly) and my predictions. (Spoiler: Adele).

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Record of the Year

Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"

Bon Iver - "Holocene"

Bruno Mars - "Grenade"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Katy Perry - "Firework"

Will win: "Rolling in the Deep"

Should win: "Holocene"

A lot of people don't understand the difference between the Record of the Year and Song of the Year categories, but really, they're miles apart. One is simply about the songwriting at hand, while the other is awarded not only to the performing artist, but also to the producers, sound engineers, and other important team members who turned it into a stellar recording. As a result, Record of the Year is far more in recognition of the studio work done on a song than it is of a particular performance, unless the artist someone like Butch Walker who writes, performs and produces the track, which doesn't usually happen in mainstream pop music, and as a result, doesn't usually happen in this category. This year, though, there is one artist in this field who did all of those things, and the resulting recording is one of the most outstanding achievements in production of last year. That artist is Justin Vernon, the mastermind behind Bon Iver, and his song, "Holocene," which builds from a simple acoustic arrangement into full band ambiance. It's not the most sonically spectacular song on the album (that title would belong to one of the album's bookends, but it is, fairly easily, my favorite work here. That said, "Rolling in the Deep" is the biggest hit and will walk away with this category fairly easily. I'm fine with that, since producer Paul Epworth (who also worked on Florence + The Machine's Ceremonials), did some of the best production work of the last year.

2. Album of the Year

Adele -21

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Lady Gaga - Born This Way

Bruno Mars - Doo Wops & Hooligans

Rihanna - Loud

Will & Should Win: 21

Now here's an embarrassment of a category. I had high hopes for this year's album of the year slate after the Academy defied the pop music world and gave the award to a record that not only had no hits, but a record by a band that many Grammy viewers had never even heard of. The ensuing backlash was one of the funniest things I've ever seen take place on the internet, and caused me to lose any faith I had left in the music consumerist population. This year's category could have been a really killer one too, with all of the records from last year that gained a ton of critical acclaim and a fair amount of success (Bon Iver and M83 come to mind), not to mention a handful of leftovers from the previous year, like Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which earned perfect scores from nearly every publication known to man and will likely go down as the most well received album of this decade. And it must be good, because I even like that record, and I've never enjoyed another rap album in my life. Or there was Taylor Swift's Speak Now, which actually does appeal to the pop music listener to me, and is a superior album to the one she won the prize for just two years ago. Kanye will get a consolation prize in the rap album category, but Swift isn't up for anything big tonight.

The biggest waste of a nomination here is for the Bruno Mars record, which I can say from personal experience is terrible. The singles are the only tracks worth hearing at all, and even those display pretty much every pop music cliche in the book. I've never liked Rihanna either, and I'd be willing to wager that her albums are just vehicles for a handful of chart topping singles, and are loaded with filler, but I've never listened to an entire Rihanna album, so I guess I will never know. And even my girlfriend, who loves Lady Gaga, couldn't find much to enjoy with Born This Way, though I personally find it to be a better than average pop music album with a couple of killer songs ("You & I" and "Edge of Glory") closing it out. The latter, which features a self-referencing saxophone solo from Clarence Clemons, was the last song the virtuoso ever recorded or played live, and is the kind of sonic feast that should absolutely be up for Record of the Year.

That said, the other two albums on this list both made my top 25 of last year, and both are terrific. Foo Fighters made their best album in at least a decade with Wasting Light, where the band sounds loud, rejuvenated and nostalgic, all while delivering some of the best tunes of their career. It's all water under the bridge, though, since Adele will win this category by a landslide, and it really is a deserved victory. Not only is 21 the best selling album of the last year (and it just recently had its strongest week of sales, almost a year after its release), it has also unleashed three terrific singles ("Rolling in the Deep," "Someone Like You" and "Set Fire to the Rain") and has truly moved a lot of people. The album's pop drenched break-up songs recall one of the best Album of the Year winners in the award's history: Fleetwood Mac's near perfect masterpiece Rumours, and I can easily see 21 becoming that album for this generation. I've heard way better break up records, but to hear pop music this great captivate the entire world in the way it has is a real triumph, and its hard to remember a winner of this category that defined its year more than 21 has. 

3. Song of the Year

Kanye West - "All of the Lights"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Bruno Mars - "Grenade"

Bon Iver - "Holocene"

Adele - "Rolling in the Deep"

Will Win: "Rolling in the Deep"

Should Win: "Holocene"

A long list of songwriters marks this album's one miss-step, proving that sometimes, too many cooks really do spoil the broth. That song is "Grenade," one of the most cliched and grating pop songs, not only of this year, but in the history of pop music. Rebecca Black's "Friday" is a better song.

The rest of the category is actually pretty stellar (or as stellar as a Grammy category can get), though "All of the Lights" is a better record than it is a song, I think: there are far better songs on that album. I'm glad to see Mumford & Sons up for these awards, although the album "The Cave" comes from released in 2009 and really shouldn't be in contention for an awards show taking place in 2012. "Holocene" and "Rolling in the Deep" round out the nominations, with the former being the better song (Pitchfork agrees), but with the latter taking the prize. I'd argue "Someone Like You" will prove to be Adele's trademark (and her most iconic hit), but "Rolling in the Deep" was a hell of a breakthrough.

Best New Artist

The Band Perry

Bon Iver

J. Cole

Nicki Minaj

Skrillex

Will & Should Win: Bon Iver

This category is one of the biggest jokes in any awards show, as they routinely nominate artists for their sophomore album, or in some cases, much later. One of the funniest occurrences of this took place in 2004, when they nominated Fountains of Wayne for the award, following their one hit wonder success with "Stacy's Mom;" the band had been together since 1996.

Anyway, the obvious outlier here is Bon Iver, who released his first album under that moniker in 2007, a year before Adele released her debut, even though she won this same award three years ago. Regardless of the questionable way in which these voters define the word "new," it's better late than Bon Iver, who completely steamrolls over everyone else in this category. The Band Perry had a pop gem this year with "If I Die Young," but even attempting that holds a candle to Bon Iver's near perfect record is laughable.

Best Rock Song/Best Rock Performance

Coldplay - "Every Teardrop is a Waterfall"

The Decemberists - "Down By the Water"

Foo Fighters - "Walk"

Mumford & Sons - "The Cave"

Radiohead - "Lotus Flower"

Will & Should Win: "Walk"

People have trouble differentiating Record and Song of the Year, but these two categories are, right down to their nominees, exactly the same. Certainly one of the stronger categories of the night, with the Decemberists sneaking in with a solid track from their great record The King is Dead. Foo Fighters should be sitting pretty here, though, with both the best song and the only Album of the Year nomination backing it up.

Best Rock Album

Jeff Beck - Rock 'n' Roll Party Honoring Les Paul

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You

Wilco - The Whole Love

Will Win: Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

Could Win: Jeff Beck

This category often turns either into a consolation prize for a could be/should be album of the year winner (Quentin Tarantino presenting it to Green Day in 2005, when they had the best record but it didn't matter in the midst of the Ray Charles tributes) or part of a sweep on the way to the big prize (U2 taking it for the terrific How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb the year later). This year, I'm going with the consolation prize theory, as Foo Fighters have no chance at Album of the Year, but could do pretty well here. The questionable spoiler is Jeff Beck, a virtuoso veteran paying tribute to a recently departed figure of rock 'n' roll evolution. I'm split either way, but it's actually a really solid category this year, so I'm less inclined to care.

Best Alternative Music Album

Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Death Cab For Cutie - Codes & Keys

Foster the People - Torches

My Morning Jacket - Circuital

Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Will & Should Win: Bon Iver

This is often one of the better categories of the night, and while I think this slate is less inspired this year, the fact that it's one of the bigger categories the Bon Iver will likely pick up keeps it on my list of ones to watch. 

But all of these categories and predictions aside, the real reason I'll be tuning in is quite simple: Springsteen and the E-Street Band will be performing. And really, I'm hoping for a Clarence Clemons tribute, though it seems likely he might get a bit upstaged by the recent passing of Whitney Houston. As predictable as that is, and as great as Whitney's voice once was (I'm pretty sure it wasn't anymore...), she didn't create the most perfect two minutes in the history of rock and pop music...

But Clarence Clemons? Yes, yes he did.

A Year in Review: The Best Music of 2011

It has been one hell of a year, in all ways, but especially musically. The unbelievable slate of releases contained work from many of my top artists, follow-ups to a few stellar debut records that could help earn the artists in question a place on that list, and plenty of brand new discoveries. That slate of releases combined into a perfect storm of albums and songs that made this my favorite music year in recent memory. It seemed like every morning when I signed onto my computer, there was a new album waiting to be heard, or an old one that I was dying to revisit. This list represents the twenty-five records that I lived, loved and listened to the most throughout the past year, but those qualifications didn't make the ordering or the inevitable cuts I had to made any easier. The top ten especially was a battle for me, as there were 11 records I desperately wanted to include but only ten slots to do so. The casualty is no less fantastic than any of the records that come before it, though, and in my eyes, they're all winners. The order is, of course, rather arbitrary: it has changed dozens of times since I started compiling this list a solid month ago, and I'm sure it will continue to do so as these records go on providing the soundtrack to my life in the coming months and years. The top five is pretty set, but beyond that, the order is a mere formality to catalog the musical moments that meant the most to me this year.

1. The Dangerous Summer – War Paint

 

Not since 2004’s one-two punch of personal soundtrack moments (Butch Walker’s Letters and Jimmy Eat World’s Futures) has a new album so thoroughly defined my life or intertwined itself so thoroughly in my day to day experiences. That’s high praise, as those two albums both sit now (and probably forevermore) in my all time top 3, but after spending this past summer with this album almost literally in constant rotation, I don’t think it’s any stretch to say that this thing has cracked my top ten, if not my top five. Every single moment of this album, every line of every song, every vocal melody, every massive wall of guitar chords, engraved themselves into countless moments from this summer that I will never forget and, in doing so, have become a part of who I am. There can be no higher praise for a set of songs than that, and this album, from the first chord to the very last note, is something I will treasure for the rest of my life. It’s been an incredible year for music, but really, this one is a no-brainer. (Full review here).

Key tracks: “No One’s Gonna Need You More,” “Siren,” “Waves,” everything else....

2. Butch Walker – The Spade

 

For those who haven’t read his book (Drinking With Strangers, which is a terrific read), Butch Walker has had quite the career in the music business, full of ups and downs, record deals gone bad, stolen songs, big hits, botched tours and everything in between. But nowadays, Walker has settled into one of the most consistently great solo careers anyone has had in ages, releasing great album after great album, always morphing his sound, and his latest continues that trend. Ever since the wildfire that took his home and everything he owned in 2007, Walker has seemed like a man reborn, a different artist than he was in the Letters or Lets-Go-Out-Tonites! days. The rise-from-the-ashes folk-rock glory of Sycamore Meadows gave way to the experimental alt-country and Beatles pop of I Liked it Better When You Had No Heart. The Spade is, again, a different beast entirely: a spontaneous, raucous rock n’ roll record that Walker and his Black Widows recorded in less than a week. The result is the most fun record of the year, one that shaped one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, one that has provided me with plenty of sing or shout-along moments in the car, and one which, surprisingly, hit me just at the right time. At first, I thought The Spade was a perfect summer record that dropped at the wrong time, but looking back, I’m not sure I would have it any other way. The Spade released on the day I returned to school for the fall, and hearing the album’s dusky alt-country ballad (“Closest Thing to You I’m Gonna Find”), the gorgeous chorus of goodbyes on “Day Drunk,” or a grand send-up to a perfect summer (“Summer of ’89”), as I drove away from my hometown and yet another glorious season felt strangely fitting. Then again, Butch’s music has always come to my aid, even when I least expect it to, and this record is no different. It’s something that has caused me to reevaluate this record since its release as something I didn’t think I would ever call it: one of his best. (Full review here).

Key tracks: “Summer of ’89,” “Day Drunk,” The last four tracks...

3.  Damnwells – No One Listen to the Band Anymore

 

Two and a half years ago, the Damnwells offered their fourth record, the stellar acoustic-based folk of One Last Century, for free download on their site. This record came into my life at the beginning of the summer, and right from the first listen, I was hooked. No One Listens to the Band Anymore takes the folk of One Last Century and adds a little bit of rock and roll and a little bit of pop, leading to the band's best record to date and one of the best sets of songs I heard this year. The album somehow manages to contain what might be the most gorgeously perfect pop song of the year (“Last Day of the New Age”), a pair of instantly nostalgic acoustic ballads (“The Monster” and “The Same Way”), and the glorious summer night classic rock of “Werewolves,” a beautiful, mystifying piece of balladry that came alive for me on late night drives at the end of the hottest days of the year. Those are the standouts, but in between is plenty of roots-rock goodness that amounts to one of the best albums of the year; there’s not a less than great song in the set.

Key tracks: “Werewolves,” “Last Day of the New Age,” “The Same Way,” “The Monster”

4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver

 

The story of Bon Iver’s first album has been recited so many times, in so many different reviews, that it’s become the stuff of myth, a story so open to hyperbolic retellings that it’s hard to know what actually happened. The story goes that Justin Vernon disappeared into the Wisconsin woods to mend his broken heart, lived in a log cabin by himself, and came back with For Emma, Forever Ago. Four years later, a bunch of Kanye West guest features and a few eclectic (read: weird) side projects later, and Bon Iver is back. His latest is a significantly more fleshed out effort, more suited for late summer nights than the winter afternoons and evenings that Emma soundtracked perfectly (as evidenced from the muggy opening of the record on the near-perfect “Perth”). This album is all about atmosphere: Vernon seems to fill every corner of each arrangement, and the flow is hypnotic, sometimes feeling like its all one song, but never coming across as redundant or dull. The gorgeous acoustics of “Holocene” fly the closest to the sound that defined Emma, and the ethereal piano loops on "Wash." make that song a highlight, but the finest hour is the keyboard and synth heavy closer Beth/Rest, an 80’s inspired piece of power balladry that owes a lot to the likes of Peter Gabriel and Bonnie Raitt. For some, it will sound unspeakably cheesy, but for me, on late summer night drives, it sounded immaculate. When the guitar solo comes in during the final minutes of the record, it almost feels like Vernon has transported you to another world.

Key tracks: “Perth,” “Holocene,” “Beth/Rest”

5. Jack’s Mannequin – People & Things

Much like Butch Walker, Andrew McMahon, the mastermind behind piano-rock groups Jack’s Mannequin and Something Corporate, has never been the type to make the same record twice. Though his work with both of his bands has followed an eerily similar arc, where the first and second Jack’s records seem to be perfect companion pieces to the same respective SoCo albums, in mood, theme and flow, each album has arrived with its own unique approach to McMahon's sound. He never made it to record number 3 with Something Corporate though, and from the sound of this album, won’t make it to record number 4 with Jack’s either. People & Things, for all of it’s pop and folk music tribute-paying, is most notable for how strikingly final it feels. Andrew’s perfect pop songs are as good as ever (and there are plenty on display here: “Racing Thoughts,” “Television,” “Amelia Jean,” “Hostage”…the list goes on and on), but it’s in the album’s final two cuts (and on repeat listens) that the album becomes a revelation. The slow acoustic based lullaby of “Restless Dream” is different from anything Andrew has ever done before, and “Casting Lines” is a rousing finale, one about endings and homecomings that hits incredibly close to home, no matter where life has taken you. For Andrew, it feels like the conclusion and realization of a story that began with him taking off to California for a whirlwind summer on Everything in Transit, and if he is to be believed, that’s how he intended it to be. If this is the last Jack’s album though, then it’s a damn fine way to go out. It’s not Andrew’s best or his most immediate, but it’s an album full of meaning and life, and even if it will never displace Transit as a favorite album of mine, it’s one I can see myself returning to in search of answers for years to come. (Full review here).

Key tracks: "Television," "Amelia Jean," "Hostage," "Casting Lines"

 6. The Horrible Crowes - Elsie

 

I’ve never quite bought into the endless stream of Springsteen comparisons thrown towards Brian Fallon, the frontman for punk-rock outfit the Gaslight Anthem (whose last album, American Slang, rounded out my top five last year). On this album though, a side project made with Gaslight guitar tech Ian Perkins, I’ve finally begun to understand what that comparison is all about. My brother asked me if I thought this record was Brian Fallon’s Nebraska, and that’s certainly a fitting comparison, as this album’s darker, more stripped down material echoes the contrast between Springsteen’s early records and the huge departure Nebraska was. And really, Fallon might be this era’s Boss (though The Killers, Will Hoge and The Hold Steady have all made records that sound more definitively Springsteen-ian than any of Fallon’s), but it’s more about the charisma he exudes and about the lyrical content of his songs than it is about that patent E-Street sound. He certainly sounds like a rock star here, whether the songs could have been on Gaslight records (“Behold the Hurricane,” “Go Tell Everybody”) or not (the glorious closing trio or the evocative "Cherry Blossoms"). I still think Fallon has got his masterpiece(s) ahead of him, and the Gaslight album on it’s way for next year might be prime time for him to make good on that promise, but for now, I’m tempted to call this his crowning achievement.

Key tracks: “Crush,” “Black Betty & the Moon,” “Blood Loss”

7. Charlie Simpson – Young Pilgrim

Since it made it’s way onto my computer in mid August, Young Pilgrim has wandered around my list quite a bit, but a recent revisiting has reminded me how utterly splendid it is. This album didn’t get an official release in America, which is a shame, because it’s one of the most gorgeous singer/songwriter records I’ve heard in a long time. I found so much I could relate to in these songs on nights in the late summer, and I continue to find more every time I listen. From the glorious pop/rock hooks that pervade most of it’s first half, to the quieter, folkier and less immediate (but no less terrific) second half, Simpson has created a truly beautiful set of songs. “I get dressed up in my autumn clothes and step outside to look at the leaves/I cannot believe a whole year has gone/I open my arms to embrace you/It’s time to go right back to the start,” he sings on “Thorns.” As the days got shorter and the summer began to fade away, that song, that verse especially, was one I revisited time and time again, like I was trying to hold onto the feeling of the season, even as it slipped away from me. That the record has continued to grow on me through the seasons that have followed is a testament to it’s greatness.

Key tracks: "Down, Down, Down," "Thorns," "Riverbanks"

8. Mat Kearney – Young Love

Kearney’s previous two records are both favorites of mine for different reasons: City of Black and White became the soundtrack to my summer in 2009, with it’s soaring hooks and gorgeous singer/songwriter mentality, while Nothing Left to Lose was a record I revisited over and over again for the emotional, genre-blending rap verses Kearney employed on many of the record’s best songs. Young Love tries to blend the two and, while it comes out as the weakest of the three, it’s still a great record and one that came to be extremely important to me during the summer. Kearney has said he sought to write from a more naïve, innocent point of view on this record, and the resulting set of songs is as thrilling and euphoric as its title suggests. The songs here are among the poppiest stuff Kearney has written, with a few faux-rap sections thrown in for the old fans and a lot of beat-heavy production to convert a new audience (the production is among the best of the year). The album thrives on it’s unique pop sound, and songs like “Ships in the Night” and “Sooner or Later” perfectly transition Kearney’s old sound to this new template. That said, though most of the album is loud, fun and catchy, the few sparse acoustic moments are among the most effective on the album, like the flowing “Learning to Love Again,” a callback to the ballads from the last two records, or “Rochester,” a homage to Nebraska-era Springsteen that sounds a bit too similar to one of that album's songs for comfort. The album’s biggest flaw is relegating it’s natural closer, the gorgeous “Seventeen,” to bonus track status. Without it, the album feels incomplete, but with it, it’s one of my favorite records of the year. (Full review here).

Key tracks: "Ships in the Night," "Sooner or Later," "Learning to Love Again," "Seventeen"

9. Matt Nathanson – Modern Love

At no point this year have I been able to mention Kearney’s record without also mentioning Nathanson’s (or vice versa), and I’m not about to start now. Despite the ironic similarity in the album’s titles (and the artist’s names), Nathanson’s record develops its own theme. Where Kearney explored the innocence of first love, Nathanson’s examines love in a world that has lost its innocence, and the two sit together as perfect companions for one another: two terrific summer pop albums that had similar effects on me, and two records that I simply could not bring myself to separate on this list. Nathanson plays pretty close to the sound that made his last album (2007s Some Mad Hope) one of my favorites of that year. The ballads don’t hit quite as hard this time around, but Nathanson has clearly gained some prowess elsewhere, as he delivers some of the finest hooks I’ve heard anywhere this year. The first four tracks are all big pop songs, culminating with “Room at the End of the World,” the album’s best song, and one that should have been a hit on every radio station in the country this summer. 

Key tracks: "Room At the End of the World," "Drop to Hold You," "Run"

10. Mansions – Dig Up the Dead

The brainchild of singer/songwriter Christopher Browder, Dig Up The Dead is the most heartbreaking album I heard all year: a staggeringly desolate set of songs full of loneliness and pain. From the striking opening of the title track, to the grungy guitar distortion that cuts across the hopeless resignation of “Call Me When It’s Over,” all the way to the shattering conclusion of “Yer Voice,” which takes the album out in truly climactic fashion, there hasn’t been a more atmospheric break up album in ages. “I don’t want your life, where everything’s easy,” Browder sings on “Yer Voice.” “That Midas touch will unwind, that gold has no meaning.” It’s the perfect ending to the heartbreak, a resignation that things have to change, even though it’s so hard to let go. You can hear every ounce of pain and regret in Browder’s voice, and that’s what makes this album special.

Key  tracks: “Call Me When It’s Over,” “Seven Years,” “Yer Voice”

11. Will Hoge - Number Seven

 

Will Hoge’s records sound like they come out of a different era, and this one is no different. His mix of classic rock and alt-country recalls rock and roll and country music legends, from Springsteen to to Petty to Muddy Waters to Hank Williams, and his latest record finds him in familiar but welcome territory. From storytelling acoustics ("American Dream," "Trying to Be a Man," "The Illegal Line") to gospel infused sermons (the fiery album closer, “When I Get My Wings”) to Hoge’s trademark rock n’ roll (the killer opening trio), there’s nothing Hoge doesn’t do well here, and he’s pretty much at the top of the list for must-see live artists at this point for that reason. Number Seven, though it dips a bit in quality when it reaches its mid-section (how could it not, with five straight classics as an opening?), but regains all of it’s power on its final numbers, and ends up being one of the most satisfying and altogether best albums of the year. Not as strong as Hoge’s career best (Draw the Curtains), but from the first moment his voice entered on the first track, I felt like I was listening to an old friend, and that’s always a good sign.

Key tracks: “Fool’s Gonna Fly,” “Goddam California,” “When I Get My Wings”

12. Yellowcard - When You're Through Thinking, Say Yes

 

For how much I played this record last spring and for how much I loved it, it actually makes me a little bit sad to place it this far back on the list, but I honestly can’t listen to it in the same way anymore. It definitely found me at the right time in my life: I was stuck in a seemingly perpetual winter, nearing the end of the worst semester of my life and wanting nothing more than to escape all of this bullshit and get back to the carefree glory of warm summer nights, of being home and in love with my girlfriend and doing shows three times a week for my job. This record came along and seemed to bring a piece of summer with it. Even though it seemed so out of reach in the April snows, that feeling I was looking for came pouring out of songs like “With You Around” and “Soundtrack” in spades, and when I was finally done with school, I ran to my car and got the hell out of that town as quickly as I could, with this record providing soundtrack for my freedom and for a great summer to come. When I hear songs like “The Sound of You and Me,” I hear the end of a year that I’m not at all eager to go back to, and as a result, this record hasn’t gotten much play since that drive, but it’s still Yellowcard’s best set of songs yet, and one of the most well executed pop-rock albums of the year. Perhaps after I’ve put a little more distance between myself and that semester, I’ll be able to look back a little more fondly on this record.

Key tracks: “The Sound of You and Me,” “With You Around,” “Be the Young” 

13. Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials

 

U2's most recent openers made a name for themselves last year with the song "Dog Days Are Over," a rousing pop single that caught my ear immediately. Their first album, Lungs, never quite had the same magnetism for me as that particular single, but the follow-up is a realization of everything Florence Welch's voice was ever meant to do. The darkness closes in quickly and heavily on this record, bringing pounding tribal drums, far-off chants and baroque instrumentation with it, and the resulting set of songs is both atmospheric and deeply emotional. Most of that is owed to Welch's rocker charisma and her willingness to give herself entirely to every song she sings in a way that even the album's weak moments resonate. Whether she's embracing the darkness ("Never Let Me Go," "No Light, No Light") or reaching for the clouds and coming up with one of the year's finest pop songs ("All This and Heaven Too"), the resulting record is one that I've come back to over and over again, even if it's one I never imagined loving half as much. (Full review here).

 Key tracks: "Shake it Out," "Never Let Me Go," "All This and Heaven Too"

14. Switchfoot - Vice Verses

Switchfoot has been one of my favorite bands since The Beautiful Letdown played a big part in making me fall in love with music, and this record is just another solid release from them. The grunge inspired rock n' roll that dominates many of the album's cuts ("Afterlife," "The Original," "Dark Horses") eventually gives way to the kind of earnest balladry the band has made their name on, like on the gorgeous "Souvenirs" or the acoustic based title track, which recalls the music lead singer Jonathan Foreman was writing for his Seasonal EP project. They save the best for last in the form of "Where I Belong," a huge, climactic anthem that recalls U2 and Springsteen, and sits as one of my favorite songs of the year. With this record, Switchfoot continue their streak of solid releases that are just shy of great, but there are a handful of perfect songs in this collection, and just like with the two records that preceeded it, those will keep me coming back, again and again. (Full review here).

Key tracks: "Where I Belong," "Souvenirs," "The Original

15. Adele - 21

The last time the year’s top selling record made my personal best of list…well, that’s never actually happened, but I’d have to go all the way back to 1987 and Born in the U.S.A. to find one of my favorite records on that list. That just goes to show that sometimes, out of the wreckage that pop music has become, a true artist can emerge. Adele is certainly a shining example of this, a true talent, both as a singer and a songwriter, and this album could very well go down as her magnum opus. It’s a break-up record, in the tradition of Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love or Will Hoge’s Draw the Curtains, and its songs run the range from soulful rave-ups (massive single “Rolling in the Deep”) jazzed-out pop (“Rumor Has It”), or gospel catharsis (“Take It All” or “One And Only”, whose building bridge section is one of the year’s best musical moments). The dark pop of “Set Fire to the Rain,” is especially striking, but the best moment here is the final one, the stripped down piano ballad that is “Someone Like You.” It’s as simple as pop songs get, just Adele’s voice over a piano line of arpeggiated triads, but the lyrics and how Adele delivers them make it one of the best songs of the year: a stunning rumination on heartbreak that reminded me of the very best that pop music can achieve. And Adele’s vocal? It’s a revelation.

Key tracks: “Rolling In The Deep,” “Set Fire To The Rain,” “Someone Like You”

16. The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow

 

The Civil Wars at once recall the best moments of both Damien Rice and the Swell Season (and the film Once, whose soundtrack has to be among my favorite albums). Their mix of folk and alt-country sits perfectly on each of this album’s 12 tracks, and creates an evocative, entrancing listen that sounds like it came out of a different era. The best moments come when dual singers John Paul White and Joy Williams let their vocal performances carry the arrangements, like on the gorgeous swell of “Poison & Wine,” a remarkably simple song that is elevated to an emotional tour de force by their voices, or on the heartbreaking “Falling,” a rumination on a break-up where Williams has her definitive moment. I’d listen to either of these artists’ solo efforts, but together, they become the kind of musical force that was clearly meant to be; it’s not hard to see why these songs have become TV and movie soundtrack gold.

Key tracks: “Poison & Wine,” “Falling,” “To Whom It May Concern”

17. Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire

One of the industry's most prolific musical chameleons, Adams' music has ranged from alt-country to rock and roll to folk to metal (true story), but has recently fallen a bit silent. His last full length of new material, 2008's Cardinology, was a decent if somewhat underwhelming collection that epitomized every problem I'd ever had with his work with the Cardinals. On his first solo album since 2007's Easy Tiger, Adams rediscovers the magic he's been missing. The set is sparse, simple and relatively quick, but recalls great moments from every stage of Adams' career, from the alt-country of Whiskeytown to the folkiest moments of the his work with the Cardinals, and the result is probably my favorite front-to-back record he's made since Gold. Ashes & Fire is made up of the kind of gorgeous folk tunes Adams has always excelled at, from the 90s inspired folk rock of "Dirty Rain" (think Counting Crows or the Wallflowers at their best) to the piano led gospel-tinged finale of "I Love You But I Don't Know What to Say." In between, Adams doesn't use much but his own acoustic guitar, but every time there's a piano lick, an organ flourish or a steel guitar moan, it feels like I've been transported back to the music of my childhood.

 Key tracks: "Dirty Rain," "Come Home," "I Love You But I Don't Know What to Say"

18. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

When Nirvana's Nevermind celebrated its 20th birthday this year, Dave Grohl was immediately dragged back under the shadow of a record he's been trying to escape ever since that band imploded. He's done well finding a second career as part of the Foo Fighters, who have evolved from the one-man-band project of their first record into one of the most successful and most respected outfits in modern rock music. The band has switched the sound around with each record, going as far as to close their last record with a piano ballad and populate other parts of it with a folk or heavily classic rock influenced sound. Here though, they're back to their roots: Grohl and co. called up Butch Vig, who produced that legendary Nirvana album so many years ago and made a record in their garage. The result is their most consistent work in over a decade. The hooks on Wasting Light pile high and rock hard right from the get go, recalling that 90s sound without ever taking a step back from the evolution they've gone through since. That's evident on some of the album's darker moments, like the Zeppelin-flavored "I Should Have Known," or the rousing "Miss the Misery," from which the album takes its title. But right from my first listen, the album went from good to great when that epic guitar riff heralded the arrival of "Walk," the album's closer and its shining moment. "Walk" builds into the kind of anthemic rock and roll this band has made their name on, like "Everlong" or "Learn to Fly" or "Best of You," and as a result it feels both nostalgic and remarkably fresh. That the guitar riff pretty much rang in my summer just earns it bonus points; even more bonus points for Grohl's cameo in The Muppets.

Key tracks: "Walk," "Dear Rosemary," "I Should Have Known"

19. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

Sam Beam has made a career out of writing the kind of gorgeous acoustic lullabies that so many artists try and fail to pull off, and his profound lyrics and soothing voice have made songs like “The Trapeze Swinger,” “Fever Dream,” and “Flightless Bird, American Mouth” some of my favorite songs ever. He went a different direction on his last record (2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog), enlisting a full band and inspiring mixed reactions, from fans saying he sold out to many publications calling it his best and most fully realized effort yet. On his latest, Beam continues in that direction, and the results are mixed. Of course, the ballads are typically good: lead single and opening track, “Walking Far From Home, while the gorgeous “Godless Brother in Love” established itself early as my favorite song of the year and will probably still claim the title, all these months later. The full band material runs more of a range, but when it’s good, it’s great, like on the funky “Big Burned Hand,” or the gloriously strange closer “Your Fake Name is Good Enough for Me.”

Key tracks: “Godless Brother in Love,” “Walking Far From Home,” “Big Burned Hand”

20. Dawes - Nothing is Wrong

Yet another great album of roots rock and folk music, Dawes' second album was one of my favorite new discoveries of the summer. Gorgeous guitar solos, vocal melodies and fantastic lyrics are the cornerstones of these songs, and much like Will Hoge's records, they feel like they come to us from a different time. Comparisons to Tom Petty, Jackson Browne and The Eagles are all justified, and that Southern California rock and roll sound permeates every single song on the disc, from the wake-up call on "Time Spent in Los Angeles" to a pair of sweetly mournful ballads ("Moon on the Water" and "Million Dollar Bill"), and a titanic guitar showcase on "My Way Back Home." The lyrics remain strong throughout, but they hit their peak on the album's finale, the piano based "A Little Bit of Everything," which paints numerous portraits of men down on their luck, but finds meaning in them and manages to do so without coming across as heavy handed or cheesy. "It's not some message written in the dark, or some truth that no one's seen," frontman Taylor Goldsmith sings in the album's final moments. "It's a little bit of everything."

Key tracks: "Time Spent in Los Angeles," "Million Dollar Bill," "A Little Bit of Everything"

21. The Decemberists - The King is Dead

It feels a bit strange for me to consider this record alongside others from 2011, as it came into my life almost exactly a year ago, serving as soundtrack for the first leg of my drive home for Christmas break. That was a leak though, and since the release date fell in January, this record is still fully eligible to be here. What a great record it is, too. I've never listened to the Decemberists much, but after this record (and an equally good EP, also from this year), I hope to change that. The King is Dead is a straightforward 70s/80s inspired folk record, drawing influence from the likes of R.E.M. (whose guitarist, Peter Buck, even makes a few appearances), Springsteen, Richard and Linda Thompson and a little bit of Dylan thrown in for good measure. The resulting set of songs ranges from rousing (opener "Don't Carry It All") to gorgeous ("June Hymn," "Dear Avery") and demands to be heard, especially with the season that's just around the corner.

Key tracks: "Don't Carry it All," "Dear Avery," "This is Why We Fight"

22. Augustana - Self-Titled

Augustana made one of my favorite records back in 2008 with Can't Love, Can't Hurt, and even though their latest doesn't come close to that one, it's still one of the best pop-rock records I heard all year. Some members of the band went their separate ways shortly after the album dropped (though lead singer Dan Layus and the other remaining members have decided to keep the Augustana moniker), so this record is the final portrait of the band as they once were, and it's a good one. This record got a bit overshadowed by a torrent of great releases last spring and summer, but it's still as solid a record as I've come to expect from this band. They had a lot of competition in the roots-rock genre this year, from the likes of the Damnwells, Ryan Adams and Dawes, but the album's finest songs stand easily with the best of those, and the band's albums continue to remind me of the golden age of radio rock that was happening when I was a kid. It's a shame that these guys never got beyond "Boston" as far as radio airplay went, but this album is full of great songs that would have made worthy hits.

Key tracks: "Just Stay Here Tonight," "The Wrong Side of Love," "You Were Made For Me"

23. Death Cab For Cutie - Codes and Keys

Despite the fact that it lacks the emotional force of their best work (which, to me, remains the one-two punch of Transatlanticism and Plans), Codes and Keys is an intriguing piece of work from a band that I've always liked but rarely loved. Sonically, it sounds as great as anything they've ever done, with the production and the instrumentation immediately creating a musical landscape that proves to be simply rapturous. The songwriting rarely reaches the height of their best material, but when it does, like on the thrillingly beautiful ride of "Unobstructed Views" (which recalls "Passenger Seat") or the bright acoustic finale of "Stay Young, Go Dancing," the record truly soars. Both of those are among the purest love songs frontman Ben Gibbard has ever written, and even though they take on a heartwrenching edge now that the relationship that inspired them has come to an end, they're still among my favorite songs of the year. One of the year's many great nighttime records.

Key tracks: "Home is a Fire," "Unobstructed Views," "Stay Young, Go Dancing"

24. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

Three years ago, Fleet Foxes' debut self-titled album was the last piece of the puzzle for a top ten that I still regard pretty highly. The order may have switched around, but every record that I placed on my list that year has stood the test of time, and the exquisite, atmospheric vocal harmonies of Fleet Foxes' appalachian folk music were no different. The highly anticipated follow up doesn't quite reach the level of its predecessor as a whole, but the finest moments find the band nearing perfection: I couldn't stop listening to the vocal splendor of the title track when this album came out, and I still think it's one of the year's best songs. "Someone You'd Admire" is a sparse acoustic number that feels both fresh and classic, while "The Shrine/An Argument" has a tumultuous build that allows the anger in frontman Robin Pecknold's voice to really stand out. And "Grown Ocean" is one of the year's most driving and epic closers. Those four songs overshadow the rest of the record a bit, but the first half is exceptional as well, with "Montezuma" picking off where the last record left off; it's not much a departure, but the second the vocal harmonies kick in, you'll be hard pressed to care.

Key tracks: "Helplessness Blues," "The Shrine/An Argument," "Grown Ocean"

25. Transit - Listen & Forgive

Transit spends much of their excellent third full length record recounting nostalgic experiences and basking in the power of music to move the soul. It's perhaps appropriate that I begin and end my list with two records that have a lot in common, as Listen & Forgive is an emotional pop-punk album that reminds me in a lot of ways of both Dangerous Summer records.  It's probably the third or fourth obvious "break-up record" on this list, and while that type of album in this genre can easily come across as whiny and one-dimensional, the songwriting skills on display here escape that fate with ease: see the emotive, wistful chorus of the album's first single, "Long Lost Friends," the instantly infectious hook of "All Your Heart" or the acoustic swell of "Skipping Stone," whose tour-de-force vocal harmonies actually result in some legit overtones (who ever heard of that in pop-punk music?) And even though slot 25 is a precarious position for any record to be in, since plenty of records contended and plenty more could still grow on me enough to take its place, every time the shout along chorus comes in on "The Answer Comes in Time," the album's climactic moment, I can't help but feel like putting it at the end of this list just feels right.

Key tracks: "Skipping Stone," "Long Lost Friends," "The Answer Comes in Time"

The Honorable Mentions

Those 25 records represent a lot of what defined 2011 for me, but of course, there were countless more songs and albums that earned special places in my heart this year, and it hurt to cut a few of them from this ultimate list. Out of the 150 some new albums I listened to this year, here are some of the exclusions I had the hardest time making:

Snow Patrol and The Script made terrific pop-rock albums that I would have been absolutely crazy about 5 or 6 years ago, but that I still enjoyed immensely today for their big, earnest, soundtrack-ready sound. I could not find a way to include either of them.

Peter Bradley Adams and Mree both released gorgeous, moving and incredibly calming records that I found myself returning to over and over again. I still think both deserve more time than I gave them though, and as a result, I could not find room for them either.

The Swellers and The Wonder Years both wrote records that, much like Transit and The Dangerous Summer, took the often formulaic pop-punk genre to another level. Each hit me hard, mostly for nostalgic reasons, but both had individual songs that were greater than the whole, and as a result, I felt inclined to leave them off when all was said and done.

Blink-182 delivered a comeback record that featured some of the most addicting pop rock songs of the year, a set of songs that amounted to one of their finest records, but one that left my regular rotation too quickly to make my top 25.

Sleeping At Last and Jim Ivins both released incredible EPs (in the former's case, a whole set of them), with songs that were easily among my favorites of the year, but I've never felt comfortable putting EPs on a list of full length albums, and the task of getting through 12 EPs of material was simply too daunting for me to get a full grasp on the Sleeping At Last Material.

Chad Perrone, the guy who took my album of the year title last year, released a home-recorded, stripped down project that was half new material, half acoustic reinventions of old stuff. The presence of pre-released stuff made me more inclined to consider it a live album, and as a result, it was ineligible for my list, but it's something I can fully recommend.

The Horrors made a record of retro, 80s-esque rock and roll that reminded me on first listen of how I felt when I first heard the Killers' debut record. It also never got enough listens, though the album's centerpiece cut, "Still Life," hasn't left my rotation.

M83 put together a double album of U2-sized atmospherics that I'm only just getting into. It's far too early for me to judge it as a whole, but suffice to say that Pitchfork might not be too far off in naming "Midnight City" the best song of the year.

Go Radio and I Can Make a Mess Like Nobody's Business both made inconsistent albums whose finest moments resonated with me in astounding ways on summer nights. Those moments will appear on my song list, even though both albums fall a bit short of this one.

Lydia, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and City & Colour all released records that I would classify as disappointments due to the high level of quality achieved on previous records in their careers, but all three records had shining moments that made me really want to love them as a whole. Sadly, I never did.

Matthew Ryan and Jon McLaughlin both released new records, but I believe both deserve more time before I judge them fully, and as a result, I had to leave them behind.

This Love released a moving, inspirational collection of pop-rock songs by interpolating famous presidential speeches into their music. It was a close one, but I ultimately couldn't quite justify its presence on the list. The same can be said for The Cinema, a pop side project (the lead singer of Lydia) that I liked right away, but never delved far enough into to truly love.

Manchester Orchestra created a disjointed, heavily flawed record that I still found myself coming back to repeatedly, for reasons that I still can't explain completely. 

The Summer Set put out an album of catchy power pop that was mostly disposable, but which spawned a few staples for my summer soundtrack.

Frank Ocean made an innovative R&B mixtape that featured originals and clever re-imaginings of other artists' songs. This style has never been my thing, but Ocean's voice is fantastic, and his unique approach to this type of music caught my ear. It deserves a mention.

Meg & Dia made a ridiculously fun summer pop album that I never gave the time it deserved. It's a record I expect will grow on me in the year to come, but for now, it misses the list.

And R.E.M. said their goodbyes to the music industry with Collapse Into Now, where they referenced every one of their eras before closing the book on their illustrious career with the album's coda, "Blue." It's a record I always admired more than I loved, especially since their break-up, but even though it didn't make my list of favorites, it deserves the most honorable of mentions.