American Songwriter's Top 50 Albums of 2011

American Songwriter's Top 50 Albums of 2011

Original Source →

50.

Centro-matic - Candidate Waltz
June 21, 2011
Critic Score
69
6 reviews

49.

August 30, 2011
Critic Score
75
28 reviews

48.

Abigail Washburn - City of Refuge
January 11, 2011
Critic Score
77
11 reviews

46.

October 4, 2011
Critic Score
69
14 reviews

43.

Jonny Corndawg - Down on the Bikini Line
August 29, 2011
Critic Score
69
3 reviews

38.

October 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
32 reviews

36.

Old 97's - The Grand Theatre Vol. 2
July 5, 2011
Critic Score
74
5 reviews

35.

KORT - Invariable Heartache
April 26, 2011
Critic Score
75
11 reviews

34.

October 11, 2011
Critic Score
73
8 reviews

In Reverie, Joe Henry and his group have created a raw, raucous and messy masterpiece.

33.

honeyhoney - Billy Jack
October 24, 2011
Critic Score
75
2 reviews

30.

The Felice Brothers - Celebration, Florida
May 10, 2011
Critic Score
70
9 reviews

29.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
78
21 reviews

28.

September 12, 2011
Critic Score
86
37 reviews

Experimental music never sounded like this though. Like St. Vincent’s previous work, Strange Mercy is fresh and punctuated with purpose. Its tangents never evade the listener but surprise and delight.

27.

October 25, 2011
Critic Score
67
18 reviews

26.

Pieta Brown - Mercury
September 27, 2011
Critic Score
70
3 reviews

25.

Sarah Jarosz - Follow Me Down
May 17, 2011
Critic Score
80
6 reviews

24.

August 16, 2011
Critic Score
78
31 reviews

23.

February 1, 2011
Critic Score
78
10 reviews

22.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
68
37 reviews
As much as this album sounds like a final chapter, a loose-end knotting affair designed as a summary statement, there are no subplots left unresolved.

21.

May 3, 2011
Critic Score
83
40 reviews
The words are as woodsy and quaint as ever. Pecknold seems to take his inspiration from classic British poetry, and rarely refers to objects, characters, or events that would place him in the 21st century, relying instead on imagery like old stone fountains, seeds, keys, sand, and the night sky.

19.

February 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
41 reviews

Despite Radiohead’s flashes of their usual self throughout The King of Limbs, the album pales in comparison to their previous LPs.

17.

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me
February 8, 2011
Critic Score
76
9 reviews

15.

June 21, 2011
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

Vernon’s taken the ingredients that made For Emma transcend its bedroom folkie origins and fly – the hushed, multi-tracked falsetto vocals, the indelible melodies, the evocative, heartbroken lyrics – and expanded upon them.

13.

March 1, 2011
Critic Score
75
18 reviews

12.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Here We Rest
April 12, 2011
Critic Score
74
12 reviews

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit's Here We Rest is not what you'd call easy listening.

11.

October 25, 2011
Critic Score
87
42 reviews
Even as he enters his 60s, Waits still sounds as lively and as cagey as ever, indulging both his most brazen and his most sentimental urges to upend all of our expectations.

10.

October 4, 2011
Critic Score
78
35 reviews

Her voice flutters, bounces, and hiccups through the twelve songs on Metal, and her singing is dynamic and never boring.

9.

December 6, 2011
Critic Score
79
37 reviews
It's meat-and-potatoes blues-rock topped with something sweeter, and it's the most consistent thing these guys have ever cooked up.

7.

April 8, 2011
Critic Score
81
20 reviews

According to Paul Simon, his new album So Beautiful Or So What is the best work he has done in decades. That's a bold proclamation. Even more startling: it's not hyperbole.

4.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
72
21 reviews

3.

January 24, 2011
Critic Score
77
28 reviews

2.

June 28, 2011
Critic Score
86
25 reviews

It's a rich portrait, full of unexpected imagery and odd turns of phrase, which means that even though Welch has sung about drunks and prodigals so many times in the past, the songs on The Harrow & The Harvest sound both pleasingly familiar and starkly new.

1.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
37 reviews

If Wilco (The Album) was the band tempering their experimental nature into something more accessible, The Whole Love refines that approach and showcases the full range of Wilco's considerable abilities.

Original Source: http://www.americansongwriter.com/2011/11/american-songwriters-top-50-albums-of-2011/6/
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