A.V. Club's Best Music of 2011

A.V. Club's Best Music of 2011

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26.

October 28, 2011
Critic Score
76
35 reviews

Ceremonials is Welch barreling off a cliff on wings made of dear-diary sentiment, art-school theatrics, and pure-cut sincerity, and somehow, against all odds, she manages to soar.

25.

January 24, 2011
Critic Score
77
28 reviews

The songs hold to simple instrumentation and simple structures that allow Adele’s raspy, expressive voice to develop the story in the verses before she delivers the hook.

25.

July 12, 2011
Critic Score
71
37 reviews

Within And Without feels designed more for meditation than dance moves. The album's freshly scrubbed beats bump insistently but gently against Greene's gauzy vocals and the occasional string interlude.

23.

March 25, 2011
Critic Score
68
20 reviews
While Spears’ vocals are inevitably the least impressive element of any given song, she doesn’t exactly disappear into the production on Femme Fatale; she settles into it, game for whatever and confident in the hands of trusted professionals who know how to best utilize her.

21.

January 7, 2011
Critic Score
80
19 reviews

While Refused deconstructed post-hardcore, Iceage's stunning debut, New Brigade, slaps vibrant new life into the worked-over corpse of post-punk, radiating a breathless, desperate, ramshackle charm that runs counter to the frigid gloom of the music.

19.

January 25, 2011
Critic Score
71
15 reviews

17.

January 25, 2011
Critic Score
85
30 reviews

An album that’s as stunning for its straight-faced chutzpah as for its unrepentant, obsessively well-coiffed lushness.

17.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

Considering the personnel involved, it’s no surprise Wild Flag works as well as it does, or that it picks up in a familiar place.

15.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
75
34 reviews
Yuck's self-titled debut is a well-timed early-'90s period piece through and through.

15.

February 16, 2011
Critic Score
74
6 reviews

Much like the ’80s BMW on the cover of his debut album, Nostalgia, Ultra, gifted singer-songwriter Frank Ocean apparently is out of touch with the times.

14.

April 8, 2011
Critic Score
81
20 reviews
At this stage of his long career, Simon has ready access to every genre he’s ever dabbled in, and he draws on them as needed, while contemplating how an irrational world is sustained by the ultimate irrationality of faith.

13.

November 15, 2011
Critic Score
76
32 reviews
His follow-up album is plenty downbeat, but it’s also gorgeous, an immersive headphone masterwork that’s tender and intimate like little else in contemporary rap and R&B.

12.

October 25, 2011
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

Bad As Me is entry-level Waits for newcomers, and for longtime fans it’s a fun reminder of Waits’ ability to be a badass when necessary.

11.

April 11, 2011
Critic Score
79
35 reviews

Finding the beauty and the beat in unpredictable chaos—keeping the heart when the world falls apart—has always been TV On The Radio’s specialty, and here, it sounds completely effortless.

10.

January 14, 2011
Critic Score
73
37 reviews

It’s hard to deny the power of The Decemberists’ renewed commitment to basic songcraft.

9.

August 8, 2011
Critic Score
75
35 reviews
The album has the flash to dazzle and the substance to last.

8.

September 12, 2011
Critic Score
86
37 reviews

Engaging the darkness (rather than just acknowledging it) adds some flesh-and-blood humanity to an artist whose excellent output has nonetheless been marked by cold distance.

7.

October 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
32 reviews

The bruised, bottomless beauty of Days suggests that growing up hasn’t always been easy for Real Estate.

6.

March 21, 2011
Critic Score
79
18 reviews

Tesfaye breaks from radio sensibilities ... by pushing the unrest and inner turmoil those singers periodically touch on to unsettling extremes.

5.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
37 reviews

The Whole Love breezes by like a sunny Saturday afternoon among best friends. Now that Wilco has finally found its comfort zone, it might be time to venture elsewhere for a change.

4.

April 12, 2011
Critic Score
81
31 reviews

3.

June 21, 2011
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

For all its introspection, Bon Iver feels a lot more open than Vernon’s previous work, the sound of a lonely guy taking his first steps into a larger world.

2.

June 7, 2011
Critic Score
82
31 reviews

David Comes To Life is Fucked Up’s most musically accessible album wrapped up in its most fearlessly pretentious and flat-out incomprehensible concept.

1.

March 8, 2011
Critic Score
76
20 reviews

Civilian continues the progress made by 2009’s excellent The Knot, bringing Wye Oak’s astral drone to blossom on a richer, fuller, and more extroverted bouquet of luminous melodies.

Original Source: http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-best-music-of-2011,66004/
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