The Sauced Bulletin

Ladies and gentlemen, here we are.  The end of the line.  List season is officially over because this is THE BIG ONE.  Many hours of intense soul searching went into this one, and the final decision was not easy.  Now I’m not trying to make it sound like putting this list together wasn’t fun, because it was.  I’m trying to communicate to you that we here at The Sauced Bulletin really care about this one.  This list is it.  The music that made 2011 what it was.

So without further ado, read on after the jump and enjoy The Sauced Bulletin’s Top 10 Albums of 2011.

Oh wait, also, THIS is our 100th POST!  YAY!  We made it! USA!  USA!

10.  Nine Types of Light by TV On The Radio

TV On The Radio have always been adept at making music that’s dark, funky, and sometimes intimidatingly dense.  However they’ve also been known to create some stunningly beautiful moments, and filling an entire album with them seems to have been their goal on Nine Types of Light.  Where Dear Science sometimes felt prickly and overlong, its follow-up is downright smooth.  Songs like “Keep Your Heart” and “Will Do” are some of the prettiest love songs TV On The Radio have ever made.  This isn’t to say that Sitek and the fellows don’t still tear the roof off from time to time.  “Second Song” wins the award for funkiest opener of the year, while “No Future Shock” and “Repetition” bring the doom like only New York’s finest can.  After the tragic loss of bassist Gerard Smith, it will be interesting to see what the band decide to do next.

9.  Underneath the Pine by Toro Y Moi

Of all the artists originally associated with “chillwave”, Toro Y Moi seems to have moved away from that “genre” the quickest and the most dramatically.  His second LP presents a particularly skewed take on late 70s disco, filtered through Chaz Bundick’s DIY aesthetic.  The whole thing possesses a sepia-toned warmth, keyboards and synthesizers washing over everything as nimble basslines give each song a dancey backbone.  A choir of Bundicks provide beautifully lilting melodies on top of all the studio wizardry, creating a truly unique atmosphere that was unlike anything else this year.  By the time epic closer “Elise” comes around, you won’t be sure what decade it is.

8.  Bon Iver by Bon Iver

 Nobody conjures up feelings of loss, loneliness and isolation quite like Bon Iver.  But, you’re always forced to consider if these feelings come more from his now-legendary backstory than the music itself.  Showcasing an exponentially expanded sonic pallet and a seemingly infinite number of band members, Justin Vernon’s sophomore record is light years away from “one guy with a guitar in a cabin in the woods,” but all of those familiar Bon Iver emotions are still present.  Only now they hit with crushing, almost overwhelming force, rather than quiet dignity.  This albums is incredible, and even after months of listening I still feel like I haven’t fully wrapped my head around it.  The songwriting and instrumentation are impressive, almost to a fault, and with Vernon’s amazing voice leading the charge, the whole thing represents one of the more cohesive albums in recent memory.  That is, until we reach the unexpected “Beth/Rest,” another prime example of how cheesy became the new “cool” in 2011.

7.  Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

Fleet Foxes were put in an almost unfair position following the success of their self-titled debut.  They arrived back in 2008 more or less fully formed, delivering one of the best and most ecstatically received debut albums in recent memory.  So how do you follow something that many people felt was already perfected?  Apparently, if you’re Robin Pecknold, the man with the best voice in the biz, you struggle crazy hard, stress out so much that your relationship with your girlfriend falls apart, and somehow craft an album that is dark, hopeful, inscrutable, straightforward, complex, and beautiful all that the same time.  Oh, and you do all this while preserving the core of your sound and not alienating any of your original fan base.  Got it?  Good.  Listen to stand-out “Bedouin Dress” to hear how it’s done.

6.  David Comes to Life by Fucked Up

 Remember last year when Titus Andronicus released The Monitor, and we said that a ludicrous concept album about the Civil War was the biggest, craziest rock record we’d heard in a long time?  Remember that?  Well, everyone’s favorite New Jersey punk scholars were officially outdone in 2011 by everyone’s favorite Canadian hardcore punk scholars.  Few people were prepared for the scope and complexity of Fucked Up’s magnum opus, a 70 minute rock opera about a disenchanted factory worker, a beautiful anarchist organizer, and a narrator who actually fights with the main character for control of the story while in the bowls of a ship.  Sound ridiculous?  Well it is!  But Fucked Up manage to pull it off with such passion, sincerity, and so many glorious hooks, that it almost seems to make sense.  They sound like The Hold Steady if Craig Finn screamed for the entire duration of Separation Sunday.  David Comes to Life not only contains our Song of the Year, but as a whole it shows that rock can still move mountains in the 21st century.

5.  The King of Limbs by Radiohead

Criminally left out of many a year end list, Radiohead’s latest attempt to confound the music industry, and the public at large, seems to have succeeded.  Last February, nobody knew another Radiohead album was coming out.  Then, all of a sudden, it was!  And then everyone thought there was only a week till it came out, but the boys pulled another fast one and it came out two days later!  Now I enjoy Radiohead’s fun marketing ploys as much as anyone, but it’s the music that’s really important (right guys?) and this album does not disappoint.  It took a few listens to get into, but the initially mysterious and kinda weird nature of Limbs eventually gave way to a beautiful, stunningly put together album.  Split between a glitchy, rhythm-centric first half, and a more accessible second half, Radiohead gave us their strangest effort since Amnesiac.  And it all pays off in moments like the rising tide of synth strings on opener “Bloom”, or the undeniable dance groove of “Lotus Flower.”  So don’t worry everybody, Radiohead are still the greatest band in the world.

4.  Kaputt by Destroyer

In 2011, cheesy became cool.  If chillwave showed us that poking at the best parts of 1980s synth-pop could make for pleasant nostalgia, then this was the year when other artists decided to demonstrate that even the more regrettable elements of that bygone era can now be mined for pop gold.  Destroyer’s Kaputt did it better than anyone. Yes, Dan Bejar made an entire record centered around smooth guitar, even smoother synthesizers, and perhaps the smoothest horn section ever.  And on top of it all is Bejar’s soft, fake British-accented voice, whispering decadent tales of coked-out excess.  It simultaneously feels like a send up of 80s lite-radio-rock, and a love letter to it at the same time.  Dan Bejar is probably the only guy around who could make such a solid, enthralling, and downright entertaining album out of such a bizarre conceit.  Check out the title track here and the epic closer “Bay of Pigs” here.

3.  Strange Mercy by St. Vincent

It’s no secret that I’m in love with Annie Clark and would like to be her boyfriend.  But that’s not why her latest record is so high on this list.  Seriously!  Strange Mercy is up her because it deserves to be.  Clark’s third effort as St. Vincent forgoes some of the more Disney-esque orchestral drama of Actor in favor of her incendiary guitar work.  The move pays off big time since Annie Clark is so scary good, sounding like absolutely nobody else out there on songs like “Northern Lights” and “Surgeon”.  With her fragile, gorgeous voice acting as a counter to her batshit crazy guitar, St. Vincent crafts some of the best songs of her career on this masterfully weird album.  And, Annie, if you ever wanna get a drink sometime, or see a movie, or just stare longingly into each other’s eyes, the offer is always on the table.

2.  Era Extrana by Neon Indian

2011 was really a great year for chillwave acts, with stellar albums released by all three of  its biggest names.  But one of them had to come out on top, and it was absolutely, unequivocally Neon Indian.  Alan Palomo bested his debut in just about every way with Era Extrana (I know there’s ~ over the n, so shut up).  The songs rock harder, the hooks are catchier, and the whole thing is perfectly scaled, flowing seamlessly from one showstopping moment to the next and never dwelling too long in one place.  It’s a fucking thrilling listen; an album where there is truly never a dull moment amidst the laser light-show that Palomo and his band create out of shimmering synths, relentless dance beats and hazy nostalgia.  It’s chillwave taken to its biggest, craziest extreme.  Get down to the album’s rockingest track here and perhaps the year’s catchiest song here.

1.  Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming by M83

In retrospect, this album seems to have been destined to be number one.  Anthony Gonzalez’s most ambitious outing yet as M83, he first described Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming as “very, very, very epic,” which, coming from him, was really saying something.  Then we heard “Midnight City”, the deliriously catchy first single, followed by “Intro” the, well, epic album opener featuring the perfectly handled vocal theatrics of Zola Jesus, and not to mention Gonzalez himself singing more passionately than ever before.  So then there was nothing left to do but wait and see just what gigantic double album from M83 would sound like.  Well, as it turns out, it sounds pretty fucking incredible.

For 22 tracks, spread over 70 minutes, you are in Anthony Gonzalez’s private world.  And that world is big, colorful, and so packed with blockbuster moments it’s difficult to process them all.  Hurry Up starts with probably the strongest, most exciting first three songs of 2011.  Ok, Gonzalez and co. can’t possibly sustain this level of quality, right?  WRONG.  The fact that things never dip below “totally fucking awesome” for the entirety of this record is truly remarkable.  From bangers like “Claudia Lewis”, with its sick slap bass, and “Steve McQueen”, to lovely slow numbers such as “Wait” and “Splendor”, the album flows beautifully.  It seems to breathe like some sort of living thing, inspiring the kind of childlike awe that M83 has always specialized in.  I have to admit that, even after A LOT of listening, this record still feels a bit mysterious and intimidating to me.  I sometimes forget what’s coming next, and find myself surprised by whatever amazing moment turns up around the bend.  I think that sense of wonder is part of the point, and will ensure that we’re all still being transported by this album for a long time to come.  Nothing else this year was as big, impressive, thrilling, or as masterfully executed as Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, and that is why it is the best album of 2011.

So there you have it, people.  List season is officially over and M83 has been crowned supreme.  2011 was a great year for music, if you like the kind of music we here at The Sauced Bulletin report on (i.e. the good kind), and early indicators show that 2012 could be just as good, if not better!  Hooray!  Thanks for reading!  Here’s to another 100 posts!