Top 10 Albums of 2011

At the end of the year, every single music publication put out a list of their top albums.  Who am I to buck the trend?  So, here's my list of the ten best albums of 2011.  I also included the score out of 10 for each album.  Here's what those mean:

10 - Top 40 Albums of All Time
9   - Classic
8   - Album of the Year Candidate
7   - Amazing
6   - Excellent
5   - Very Good
4   - Good
3   - Passable
2   - A Few Good Songs
1   - One Good Song
0   - Entirely Unremarkable

Also, here's a Spotify playlist of all the good songs from the 6 of the 10 albums below.  Nostalgia, Ultra. and House of Balloons are left out because they were free mixtapes and are thus not out on Spotify.  Just download them, legally and for free, using the links below.  21 and Mylo Xyloto are left out because they're making too much money to be worth putting on Spotify, so I guess you'll have to just buy them or torrent them.


Now, for the list:

1. Drake - Take Care (10/10) - One of the greatest rap albums of all time by the greatest artist of the past year.  It is perhaps a bit bloated, but the amount of genius that has been fit onto an 80 minute CD is staggering. (Full Review Here) Key Tracks: Marvin's Room, We'll Be Fine
2. Yuck - Yuck (10/10) -So what if they sound exactly like My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., and Pavement?  They write killer riffs and killer songs, and that's all that matters.  Twelve brilliant pop songs drowned in melancholic guitar haze. Key Tracks: Get Away, Suck
3. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra. (8/10) - An altogether brilliant debut album from one of the most promising new voices in R&B.  His work on Watch the Throne certainly made him more money, but his work here made his name.  He imbues everything he does with a stunning warmth and soul that has been terribly missed in modern R&B. Key Tracks: Strawberry Swing, Songs for Women, There Will Be Tears
4. Cults - Cults (8/10) - A breezy, throwback summer pop album done by a couple out of their NYU dorm.  You couldn't ask for a better full length follow up to Go Outside.  Key Tracks: Go Outside, Oh My God
5. The Weeknd - House of Balloons (7/10) - The best produced album of the year, by a landslide.  On top of that, Abel Tesfaye is a stunning singer, and, on this album, he applied that voice to some of the best songs of the year.  Key Tracks: Wicked Games, The Morning
6. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (7/10) - She's always had the chops, but on this album she finally found the heart.  Her beautiful singing voice and her ragged guitar playing mix in stunning fashion on the most beautiful and heartfelt set of songs she's ever written.  One of the most interesting musicians in indie rock finally made the album everyone hoped she could. Key Tracks: Strange Mercy, Cruel
7. Wiz Khalifa - Rolling Papers (7/10) - A stupid but enjoyable pop rap album.  Wiz Khalifa is an abysmal rapper, but he sure knows his way around a hook.  It also doesn't hurt that he got his hands on some of the best beats of the past year as well. Key Tracks: The Race, Black & Yellow
8. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch the Throne (7/10) - It lacks the focus of Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but it takes that album's extravagant leanings to interesting ends.  The album benefits hugely from some of the best rapping Jay-Z has ever done, but it's not enough to make up for the far weaker beats and hooks.  It's an uneven album uneven overall, but the good tracks are really fucking good. Key Tracks: Niggas in Paris, Otis, Illest Motherfucker Alive
9. Adele - 21 (6/10) - This album's so big I feel like there's not much more to say about it.  It's just an inoffensive adult pop album with two particularly brilliant songs.  Somehow that's allowed it to become the top selling album of the year, by a 2 to 1 margin, on both sides of the Atlantic.  Key Tracks: Rolling in the Deep, Someone Like You
10. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (5/10) - The logical followup to Viva la Vida.  On this album, Coldplay moved further into the electronic textures they played with on their last album.  Sure, overall, it's the weakest album of their career, but it's still enjoyable through and through.  Key Tracks: Princess of China, Paradise

Now, I definitely left off a lot of highly acclaimed and widely enjoyed albums, but I have my reasons.  All the notable albums that I left off basically fall into three categories:

1. Albums that are interesting but not enjoyable.  This includes albums like James Blake's James Blake and tUnE-yArDs' w h o k i l l; albums that really push sonic boundaries, but don't have much in the way of good songs.
2. Albums that are overrated because of an act's legacy.  This category includes albums like Radiohead's The King of Limbs and M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming.  Basically, these are all decent albums that are hugely overrated because the album that preceded them was a classic.
3. Albums that people like because they don't have a choice.  This includes albums like the Foo Fighters' Wasting Light and The Black Keys' El Camino.  People like these albums not because they are any good, but rather because these artists are the only ones left making music of a particular style.  I mean, the Black Keys have never been particularly good.  They just look so much better now because all their peers in the early 2000's garage rock revival have either broken up (The White Stripes), shat out (The Strokes), or moved on stylistically (The Yeah Yeah Yeah's).