Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2011

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50.

The Lonely Island - Turtleneck & Chain
May 10, 2011
Critic Score
70
11 reviews
SNL‘s pop-parody trio show no sign of running out of impossibly brilliant half-jokes.

49.

Wavves - Life Sux
September 20, 2011
Critic Score
72
7 reviews

48.

January 25, 2011
Critic Score
73
10 reviews

47.

February 14, 2011
Critic Score
89
44 reviews

Always an underrated guitarist, Harvey makes use of the jaunty rhythms of British folk music, but takes no comfort in the past. And you don’t have to care about English history — or England in general — to fall under Harvey’s spell.

46.

May 23, 2011
Critic Score
75
19 reviews

44.

May 10, 2011
Critic Score
78
14 reviews

43.

April 5, 2011
Critic Score
76
27 reviews

42.

January 25, 2011
Critic Score
85
30 reviews

Bejar’s ninth disc detours into all manner of early-Eighties smoothness — glassy New Wave bass lines, blue-Monday synths, turquoise- sport-coat saxophones, backup singers straight off a Steely Dan record, all filtered through the obtuse, literary bent that turns Destroyer albums into such fun puzzles.

41.

July 26, 2011
Critic Score
74
32 reviews

Their third set hits a sweet spot between the futuristic soul of their debut and the synth pop of 2009's Machine Dreams.

40.

Gary Clark Jr. - The Bright Lights EP
September 6, 2011
Critic Score
80
1 review

39.

March 8, 2011
Critic Score
78
27 reviews
On Vile's fourth LP, the stoner haze lifts a bit, and he settles on a mood: chilled-out but guarded, and wrapped in gorgeous folk-blues guitar-picking.

38.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

37.

April 12, 2011
Critic Score
76
32 reviews
Noah Lennox makes music swathed in so much synth noise, ambient voices and ricocheting stereophonic WTFs, it can feel like you're swept into a tidal wave of bong water.

34.

SuperHeavy - SuperHeavy
September 20, 2011
Critic Score
53
10 reviews

33.

March 29, 2011
Critic Score
82
23 reviews
This solo debut is as commanding: emotional trial ("Woman, When I've Raised Hell") and despair ("Country Dumb") stripped to Pearson's fraught vocals and hypnotic, irregular fingerpicking.

30.

The Nightwatchman - World Wide Rebel Songs
August 29, 2011
Critic Score
62
9 reviews

28.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
71
15 reviews

27.

October 28, 2011
Critic Score
76
35 reviews
Florence and the Machine's second album is as dark, robust and romantic as ever, but a revving 18-wheeler is no longer the apt metaphor for Welch's voice.

26.

September 12, 2011
Critic Score
86
37 reviews
Annie Clark's third LP under the moniker is as busily inventive as ever. But it's also hookier, sexier, more unhinged.

25.

June 24, 2011
Critic Score
70
34 reviews
It’s a big-budget megapop album with an A list of guest stars and songwriter-producers. Yet it’s as eccentric – as unmistakably personal and quirky – as anything that Sufjan Stevens ever cooked up in his bedroom.

24.

February 16, 2011
Critic Score
74
6 reviews

23.

October 25, 2011
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

It might also be his most broadly emotional set ever; certainly it's his most sharply focused record since the game-changing tag team Swordfishtrombones and Rain Dogs decades ago.

22.

November 15, 2011
Critic Score
76
32 reviews
Mostly, Drake stretches out over languid, austerely plush tracks that blur hip-hop, R&B and downtempo dance music.

21.

June 21, 2011
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

The ideas on Bon Iver — Colin Stetson's shimmery horn parts, Rob Moose's elegant arrangements — are engaging even when they don't lead anywhere, and the music is beautiful, even when it veers into schmaltz.

20.

April 12, 2011
Critic Score
73
37 reviews

The album reunites Grohl with producer Butch Vig, who worked on Nirvana's 1991 monster, Nevermind, and brings the same nuanced approach to weight and release here.

18.

October 4, 2011
Critic Score
78
35 reviews

Metals has nothing with the instant appeal of the 2007 hit-cum-iPod-jingle "1234." But it's her best album, a mood piece that tosses in everything from folk to Malian-style desert blues.

17.

April 11, 2011
Critic Score
79
35 reviews
Well, the end of all things must've been pretty bitchin', because the follow-up is pure heaven.

16.

March 8, 2011
Critic Score
70
33 reviews

On Collapse Into Now, they sound like they'd rather be a band than a legend, which must be why they keep pushing on.

15.

Cage the Elephant - Thank You Happy Birthday
January 11, 2011
Critic Score
70
24 reviews
Cage the Elephant treat their guitars like percussion instruments, filling the songs with all kinds of clanging, crashing and thudding, and augmenting the clamor with buzzing keyboards.

13.

April 19, 2011
Critic Score
85
33 reviews
It all hangs together thanks to Garbus' voice, which slides seamlessly from Joplin-esque howls to delicate coos.

12.

December 6, 2011
Critic Score
79
37 reviews

El Camino is the Keys' grandest pop gesture yet, augmenting dark-hearted fuzz blasts with sleekly sexy choruses and Seventies-glam flair.

10.

Robbie Robertson - How To Become Clairvoyant
April 5, 2011
Critic Score
69
15 reviews

“When the Night Was Young” combines Sixties idealism and voodoo grind with memories of back roads and juke-joint gigs

9.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
81
29 reviews

8.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
37 reviews

The Whole Love seems like a celebration of that freedom, with songs that roam happily all over the place.

7.

January 14, 2011
Critic Score
73
37 reviews
For a band able to push the limits of songwriting, it's a revelation, and a chance to see how deep simplicity goes. Very deep, it turns out.

6.

May 23, 2011
Critic Score
70
28 reviews

Gaga loves overheated cosmic statements for the same reason she loves dance pop and metal guitars – because she hears them as echoes of her twisted rock & roll heart. That's the achievement of Born This Way: The more excessive Gaga gets, the more honest she sounds.

5.

February 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
41 reviews

Limbs keeps the intensity at a low boil, working the body as it follows strange logic down alleys it has no interest in coming out of.

4.

May 3, 2011
Critic Score
83
40 reviews
Too young to have experienced the era he holds so dear, Pecknold has found refuge and inspiration in the echoes.

3.

April 8, 2011
Critic Score
81
20 reviews

It's his best album since 1990's The Rhythm of the Saints, and it also sums up much of what makes Simon great.

2.

August 8, 2011
Critic Score
75
35 reviews
On a record this ambitious, this sonically bold, it's a shame two of music's greatest storytellers don't extend their gaze beyond their own luxe lives.

1.

January 24, 2011
Critic Score
77
28 reviews
The woman is mutable, sometimes to a fault: Her cover of the Cure’s “Lovesong” is a nice idea lost in bossa nova fluff. But when the grooves are fierce, Adele gives as good as she gets.
Original Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-albums-of-2011-20111207
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