My 2011, Part Two: The Top 50 Albums Of The Year…

First, a thank you for stopping by at but one of the exceedingly minor Top 50 Albums Of 2011 lists; but enough pleasantries, let’s get down to business…

 

50. Wounded Rhymes by Lykke Li

Wanna Listen? “Love Out Of Lust”
Metacritic Score: 83

 

49. Angles by The Strokes

Wanna Listen? “Two Kinds Of Happiness”
Metacritic Score: 71

48. Black Up by Shabazz Palaces

Wanna Listen? “Swerve… The Reeping Of All That Is Worthwhile (Noir Not Withstanding)”
Metacritic Score: 82

47. Anna Calvi by Anna Calvi

Wanna Listen? “Love Won’t Be Leaving”
Metacritic Score: 80

46. The Golden Record by Little Scream

Wanna Listen? “The Heron And The Fox”
Metacritic Score: 79

45. We’re New Here by Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx

Wanna Listen? “My Cloud”
Metacritic Score: 82

44. Watch The Throne by The Throne

Wanna Listen? “H•A•M”
Metacritic Score: 76

43. Making Mirrors by Gotye

Wanna Listen? “Somebody That I Used To Know”
Metacritic Score: NR

42. 4 by Beyoncé

Wanna Listen? “Love On Top”
Metacritic Score: 73

41. Sound Kapital by Handsome Furs

Wanna Listen? “Repatriated”
Metacritic Score: 75

40. Watch Me Dance by Toddla T

Wanna Listen? “Cherry Picking”
Metacritic Score: 67

39. Metals by Feist

Wanna Listen? “Bittersweet Melodies”
Metacritic Score: 80

38. Adulthood by CocknBullKid

Wanna Listen? “Distractions”
Metacritic Score: NR

37. I’m Gay (I’m Happy) by Lil B

Wanna Listen? “I Hate Myself”
Metacritic Score: 73

36. Blue Songs by Hercules And Love Affair

Wanna Listen? “Step Up”
Metacritic Score: 68

35. Ritual Union by Little Dragon

Wanna Listen? “When I Go Out”
Metacritic Score: 78

34. Monkeytown by Modeselektor

Wanna Listen? “This”
Metacritic Score: 66

33. Make A Scene by Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Wanna Listen? “Starlight”
Metacritic Score: 51

32. Purple Naked Ladies by The Internet

Wanna Listen? “She Dgaf”
Metacritic Score: 52

31. Knee Deep by WhoMadeWho

Wanna Listen? “Checkers”
Metacritic Score: 75

30. Wander/Wonder by Balam Acab

Wanna Listen? “Oh, Why”
Metacritic Score: 76

29. The King Of Limbs by Radiohead

Wanna Listen? “Separator”
Metacritic Score: 80

28. Burst Apart by The Antlers

Wanna Listen? “Hounds”
Metacritic Score: 81

27. Go Tell Fire To The Mountain by WU LYF

Wanna Listen? “Heavy Pop”
Metacritic Score: 77

26. Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam by Ghostpoet

Wanna Listen? “Survive It”
Metacritic Score: 78

25. The Devil’s Walk by Apparat

Wanna Listen? “Song Of Los”
Metacritic Score: 76

24. Skying by The Horrors

Wanna Listen? “Still Life”
Metacritic Score: 83

23. Oneirology by CunninLynguists

Wanna Listen? “Dreams”
Metacritic Score: NR

22. Era Extraña by Neon Indian

Wanna Listen? “Polish Girl”
Metacritic Score: 76

21. Conatus by Zola Jesus

Wanna Listen? “Vessel”
Metacritic Score: 79

20. Cinderella’s Eyes by Nicola Roberts

Wanna Listen? “Beat Of My Drum”
Metacritic Score: NR

19. On A Mission by Katy B

Wanna Listen? “Easy Please Me”
Metacritic Score: 76

18. Hearts by I Break Horses

Wanna Listen? “Winter Beats”
Metacritic Score: 69

17. Within And Without by Washed Out

Wanna Listen? “Soft”
Metacritic Score: 70

16. Instrumentals by Clams Casino

Wanna Listen? “Illest Alive”
Metacritic Score: NR

15. Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows

Wanna Listen? “Ruins Of Rome”
Metacritic Score: NR

14. The Year Of Hibernation by Youth Lagoon

Wanna Listen? “July”
Metacritic Score: 79

13. Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never

Wanna Listen? “Replica”
Metacritic Score: 80

12. Bon Iver, Bon Iver by Bon Iver

Wanna Listen? “Holocene”
Metacritic Score: 86

11. Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes

Wanna Listen? “The Best Person I Know”
Metacritic Score: 79

10. The Book Of Mormon: Original Broadway Cast Recording by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez & Matt Stone

Wanna Listen? “I Believe”
Metacritic Score: NR

9. Take Care by Drake

Wanna Listen? “Over My Dead Body”
Metacritic Score: 80

8. House Of Balloons by The Weeknd

Wanna Listen? “The Knowing”
Metacritic Score: 87

7.  Thursday by The Weeknd

Wanna Listen? “Lonely Star”
Metacritic Score: 80

6. Echoes Of Silence by The Weeknd

Wanna Listen? “D.D.”
Metacritic Score: NR

5. The Most Incredible Thing by Pet Shop Boys

Wanna Listen? “Act One: The Grind”
Metacritic Score: 66

4. Biophilia by Björk

Wanna Listen? “Mutual Core”
Metacritic Score: 79

3. Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance

Wanna Listen? “Adult Goth”
Metacritic Score: 83

2. Looping State Of Mind by The Field

Wanna Listen? “Then, It’s White”
Metacritic Score: 85

And then there’s my favourite album of 2011, the second release this year from a peerless icon who has always forged ahead on her own path of sonic enlightenment. Though that first LP proved controversial, sparking its fair share of debates with regards to its qualities and merit, the promise of a second album in time for the Christmas did well to assuage any misgivings from those left unimpressed. And with its wintry fables of heartbreak and chilling beauty, featuring a snowman lothario and wayward yeti amongst its cast of characters, it helped to prove just why we fell in love with this enigmatic girl in the first place. So, at the premier point of my chart, I present…

1. 50 Words For Snow by Kate Bush

Wanna Listen? “Snowed In At Wheeler Street”
Metacritic Score: 85

And just to put a geeky pin in this horrid bouquet of chart madness…

My Top 50 Album’s Average Metacritic Score: 76

And that’s all from me this year, peeps!! I’ve attached my Best Of 2011 Spotify playlist below for anyone who wishes to listen a little bit more to some of my choices, but until then, have a Happy New Year!!

Dibder’s Best Of 2011 Chart

xxxo

My 2011, Part One: The Vessalis Music Awards…

And here I am, ready and willing to divulge my opinions on some of the best music to have seen release over the last twelve months. It’s a time of reflection for many, and though I’d like to think there is some unintentional emotional continuity with regards to my specific choices here (be they personal, topical or fanciful), all I can honestly say is that the music featured in this article (bar one horrid exemption) is rather brilliant. But enough lollygagging, here are my annual virtual bestowments for 2011:

Alternative Album Of The Year

Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes
Classically-trained Canadian-Italian soprano hooks up (musically and literally) with frontman of The UK’s Next Genuinely Great Rock Band, only to deliver a beauteous collection of alt-surfer-rock, sad-eyed orchestral pop and ominous psychedelic bombast. Endorsed by the Vatican and snubbed of a Mercury Prize nomination (now how many times can you write that about an album?), its charms are as plaintively soothing as they are deliciously disturbing.

Dance Album Of The Year

Knee Deep by WhoMadeWho
Their first release under the über-cool Kompakt banner, the Danish disco triumvirate delivered a mini-marvel of glitchily-tripped-out Eurodance after coasting around with previously agreeable-yet-unremarkable results, almost sounding like they believe they can be genuinely great. A shame then that it remains otherwise undiscovered by most, as beat pummeling this pleasantly, unadulteratedly euphoric is something to be celebrated.

Electronic Album Of The Year

Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never
New York-based alternative electronica musician’s sixth solo album in four years, using old-school synthesizers and otherworldly samples to create a perfect would-be score to the best existential, martial arts-heavy, sci-fi anime epic that Stanley Kubrick didn’t get round to making. A sublime enmeshing of ambient electronica and tsunamic drone, it’s a fine evocation of what both sub-genres have still got to offer to the pantheon of electronic music.

Folk Album Of The Year

Bon Iver, Bon Iver by Bon Iver
Cumbersome title aside, singer-songwriter-producer Justin Vernon opens up the emotional sonic realms found on his icily-remote debut solo release from 2008 with inspirational results, creating an album that traverses an immense emotional spectrum as well as a sumptuously-varied palette of genres without raising itself higher than that of a wizened, noble whisper. Fragile-yet-strong, intimate-yet-soul-stirringly epic, it’s amazing that the Grammys even noticed it, but thankfully they did.

Hip Hop/Rap Album Of The Year

Take Care by Drake
Rap music’s most endearingly-reluctant superstar (not in a pretentious way obviously, he just happens to be that sexily charismatic) fully delivers after the minor disappointment of his debut LP last year with a mighty-fine album of soul-hop-pop trading in self-effacing rhymes, admirably emotional contemplation and production/arrangement wares from the recent spate of introspective R&B/pop upstarts (alongside main producer Noah “40” Shebib, you have flourishes from the likes of Jamie xx and The Weeknd too). It’d all be for nought though if it weren’t for the mercurial wordsmith at its centre.

Pop Album Of The Year

Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows
Swedish synthpop duo earmarked as the natural successors to Pet Shop Boys make a debut album of utmostly joyous self-discovery and it goes largely ignored by the general public. Whilst everyone somewhat-justly fell in love with M83‘s double-album opus this year, Messrs Gullstrand and Storm created an album that similarly evoked wide-eyed wonder and giddily dreamy awe, but let you rather unreservedly dance to it like an album about such things undoubtedly should.

R&B Album Of The Year

Thursday by The Weeknd
Though the first instalment of this prodigious talent’s 2011 mixtape trilogy is the most critically revered (and also because I hadn’t actually listened to the third effort Echoes Of Silence until after I first announced my nominations), I reserve my right to laud this second album-because-come-on-that’s-what-it-really-is on the grounds of its being more sprawling, uncompromising and violently traumatic than its predecessor. We’re so very lucky to have three of these to savour anyhoo, right?

Rock Album Of The Year

Skying by The Horrors
And we’re back to The UK’s Next Genuinely Great Rock Band with their third album, which presents an even more psychedlic evolution of the 80s-style alt-rock of their second game-changer LP Primary Colours. Nimbly traversing the fine line between honourable homage and timeless rock-pop grandeur whilst still sounding gorgeously fresh, this is their “We Have Arrived” moment of artistic revelation, following through on the promises made earlier and triumphantly surging ahead.

Single Of The Year

“Video Games” by Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey or Lizzie Grant? Faded-glamourous alt-pop mastermind or cynically-minded cash-in musician? Without sounding too much like a fence-sitting shill, what does it matter? Much like the aforementioned Cat’s Eyes’ work, it’s a modern throwback to the gorgeous Hollywood torch anthems that its worldliest dames were singing decades ago, an anthem of all-consuming, passive-aggressive love that renders any and every listener starstruck in their tracks.

Video Of The Year

“Song Of Los” by Apparat / Directed by Saman Keshavarz
There are videos that turn shit songs into great ones and rather good ones into excellent ones, but rarely does it occur when a video enhances a song already so excellently fraught with emotion and resonance. But director Keshavarz does that rather amazingly here, using Apparat’s hyper-electro-ballad as a soundtrack to a short life that takes in all of the joy and horror that existence can give any single person. On top of all that, it contains the most heartbreaking use of emoticons this side of Moon.

Collaboration Of The Year

“My Cloud” by Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx
I can be called up on this being considered a genuine collaboration on account of it, along with the entirety of its parent album We’re New Here, being a remix from The xx‘s frontman with minimal involvement from its key progenitor, though he contractually takes a co-headline credit. That being said, it was more-than canny of Scott-Heron to tap Jamie Smith in the first place, turning this b-side from the Godfather Of Rap’s last album of his lifetime into a prettily-percolating, soulful triumph. R.I.P. Gil. :,(

Best Bit-In-A-Song Of The Year

The “You Wan’ A Key-Change? I’ll Give Your Four!!” finale on “Love On Top” by Beyoncé (1:43-3:07)
Despite, Knowles’ 4 LP not catching the world on fire quite like it should have done, this proteanly-giddy midtempo ballad has finally been dragging some attention back towards it. An infectiously joyous R&B/pop juggernaut reminiscent of the early Mariah years, its reputation as a future-wedding-reception-floor-filler is cemented by the almost-demented vocal powerhouse finale; there’s been no other more impressive moment for a singer in pop this year as when Knowles ascends those octaves in effortless bounds, trust.

Best Live Act Of The Year

Anna Calvi
Diminutive in stature and music-press profile she may have been at the start of 2011, but Ms Calvi rode the enormous hype propagated by her epmonymous debut album incredibly well, thanks in no small part to bewitching performances that constituted a lengthy European tour. I was able to catch her third of four London dates this year and can honestly say that you haven’t heard this girl do herself justice unless she’s strumming that guitar and wailing like a lovelorn banshee right in front of you.

“Where Have You Been All My Life” Award

The Weeknd
To think, this time last year most people didn’t even know who or what Abel Tesfaye’s alt-R&B project was; twelve months later (alongside the production hands of established hitmaker Doc McKinney and fellow upstart Illangelo), he’s delivered three whole albums for our delectation. His beautifully frank odes to debauched nights out of drinking, taking drugs, screwing strippers and cataclismyc heartbreak are now an essential part of any wannabe-cool-dude’s Best Of 2011 playlist. To quote Kanye himself: Could he get much higher?

Producer Of The Year

Justin Vernon
Whether the songs therein are beautiful on their own or not, the main reason for Bon Iver, Bon Iver‘s success this year was down to the hard work done by its progenitor on the album’s production. Working with more foreign elements and players than his previous tome, Vernon’s smarts as a producer brought all the disparate elements (acoustic folk, sunset-coated Americana, glitchy electronica, electro-pop synths) together to create a beautifully yearning whole.

“Get On With It Already!” Award

Burial
Though post-dubstep pioneer Will Bevan did well to actually release some new material via his Street Halo EP earlier this year, given that it’s been four years since his last album, the blisteringly wonderful breakout success Untrue, it’s a case of too-little-too-late. And seeing as he’s been plying his dusty wares on various other projects of late in collaboration with the likes of Four Tet, Thom Yorke, Breakage, Jamie Woon and Massive Attack, there really isn’t even a smidgeon of an excuse against it.

Villain Of The Year

Jessie J
It’s not that I don’t like pop stars who clearly think they are at the centre of everything that we know to be absolutely magnificent in our world; it’s that I don’t wish to be reminded of it every five seconds with a melismic klaxon of a human voice that trades in ear-splitting volume and snotty brattishness for earnest emotion and profound experience whilst singing ballads filled with enough platitudes to make even the least-sincere self-help guru cringe. How the rest of the world has fallen for it is genuinely beyond me!

Heroes Of The Year

Foo Fighters
America’s leading rock ‘n’ roll band became champions to their gay fans earlier this year when they responded to a picket of their arena concert in Kansas City by the batshit-crazy Christian sect Westboro Baptist Church by performing a song concerning the joys of gay sex entitled Man Muffins at the pious morons as they drove past on an eighteen-wheeler. An impromptu gesture for tolerance, it had more power and resonance then at least one so-called empowerment anthem released in 2011.

Debut Album Of The Year

House Of Balloons by The Weeknd
Seeing as he’s given us three albums this year, it only seems fair I acknowledge Tesfaye three(?) times in my end-of-year blog, but what else is there left to say? Well, with regards to House, the album that single-handedly put him on the musicworld map, there is the fact that for a debut album, its statement of intent with regards to its creator’s sound is so sublime, vicious and ultimately beautiful, that it’ll stay with you for months to come after your first listen.

Group Album Of The Year

Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance
There are so many intoxicating facets to Gang Gang Dance’s sound that one has trouble trying to come up with what to label them as, other than the ever-sheltering, pigeonholing umbrella of “Electronic” music. Do they make dance music, synth-driven drone, alt-electronic world pop, swoonsome avant-R&B or indie-electro gone pulsatingly, gorgeously mad? Or do they synthesize all of this into a wonderful concoction? Ahh bollocks, let’s just call them Fucking Awesome, and have done with it.

Solo Male Album Of The Year

Looping State Of Mind by The Field
It’s more-than-something of an immeasurably sweet irony that Swedish DJ Axel Willner has been able to create some of the very, very best dance music of recent years purely via the old adage of looping, especially seeing as his brand of finite twiddling is so peerlessly excellent, he feels no need to deviate too much away from with it. Taking isolated moments of pop excellence and spinning them into sonic opuses all of his own is his gift to the world. I wonder if he takes requests?

Solo Female Album Of The Year

Biophilia by Björk
Björk’s latest LP prompted as many genuinely intrigued reactions as she did typical eye-rolling from those too stuck in the mud to want to bite. And though the iPad-app-based multimedia aspect provided a fascinating enough PR launch for this particular work (which ironically enough knotted its lyrical themes more than ever to her love of nature), the spine-tingling mix of cutting-edge electronica, robust melodies and especially that iconic voice of hers remained just as beguiling as it always has.

And then there was The Album Of The Year…

—

Which will be revealed in a short while along with my Top 50 Albums Of 2011… You didn’t think I’d give everything away now, did you?

😉

Until then… xxxo

Grammys, Schmammys!!! Here Are My Vessalis Music Award Nominations 2011…

What with the Grammy nominations due to be released in a few hours, I thought it customary to get my two cents in before the announcement in an effort to get my word out on a few of the finer examples of new music to come our way over the past year, rather than get into the typically blog-centric spirit of things with lengthy Top 50 charts and such. Alas, there will be no live telecast or glamorous awards ceremony at the end of the year in which these awards will be bestowed upon their oblivious recipients, but I’ve always had a thing about the pat-on-the-back pageantry since I was a young boy who used to stay up late and watch the Oscars live early on the last Monday morning of February, and until I marry wealthy enough to make such things a reality, the web will have to do for such inconsequential piffle. But enough already, may I present to you the nominees for the Vessalis Music Awards 2011:

—–

Album Of The Year

TBA

Solo Female Album Of The Year

Anna Calvi by Anna Calvi

Biophilia by Björk

Conatus by Zola Jesus

Metals by Feist

On A Mission by Katy B

Solo Male Album Of The Year

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

Looping State Of Mind by The Field

Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never

Take Care by Drake

Thursday by The Weeknd

Group Album Of The Year

Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes

Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance

Oneirology by CunninLynguists

The Most Incredible Thing by Pet Shop Boys (or Tennant/Lowe… as some fans have rather facetiously claimed)

Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows

Debut Album Of The Year

Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes

House Of Balloons by The Weeknd

Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam by Ghostpoet

Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows

Within And Without by Washed Out

Single Of The Year

“Lights On” by Katy B featuring Ms. Dynamite

“Still Life” by The Horrors

“The Heron And The Fox” by Little Scream

“Traktor” by Wretch 32 featuring L

“Video Games” by Lana Del Rey

Video Of The Year

“Big Bad Wolf” by Duck Sauce – Director: Keith Schofield

“M.A.G.I.C.” by The Sound Of Arrows – Directors: Oskar Gullstrand and Andreas Ohman

“Song Of Los” by Apparat – Director: Saman Keshavarz

“Survive It” by Ghostpoet – Director: UNKNOWN

“We Found Love” by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris – Director: Melina Matsoukas

Live Act Of The Year

Anna Calvi – Bush Hall, London, 27th April

Beth Ditto – Lovebox Festival, London, 17th June

Björk – Manchester International Festival, Manchester, 10th July

Katy B – Lovebox Festival, London, 16th June

The Naked And Famous – Wireless Festival, London, 3rd July

Alternative Album Of The Year

Biophilia by Björk

Cat’s Eyes by Cat’s Eyes

Go Tell Fire To The Mountain by WU LYF

Hearts by I Break Horses

The Year Of Hibernation by Youth Lagoon

Dance Album Of The Year

Blue Songs by Hercules And Love Affair

Knee Deep by WhoMadeWho

Looping State Of Mind by The Field

Monkeytown by Modeselektor

Watch Me Dance by Toddla T

Electronic Album Of The Year

Era Extraña by Neon Indian

Eye Contact by Gang Gang Dance

Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never

The Devil’s Walk by Apparat

Within And Without by Washed Out

Folk Album Of The Year

Bon Iver by Bon Iver

Boots Met My Face by Admiral Fallow

Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes

Metals by Feist

No Color by The Dodos

Hip Hop/Rap Album Of The Year

I’m Gay (I’m Happy) by Lil B

Oneirology by CunninLynguists

Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam by Ghostpoet

Take Care by Drake

Watch The Throne by The Throne (Kanye West, JAY-Z… They did say that The Throne was what the name of their work as a duo was, didn’t they!?!)

Pop Album Of The Year

Adulthood by CocknBullKid

Cinderella’s Eyes by Nicola Roberts

Make A Scene by Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Making Mirrors by Gotye

Voyage by The Sound Of Arrows

R&B Album Of The Year

1977 by Terius Nash (or The-Dream… I mean honestly)

House Of Balloons by The Weeknd

On A Mission by Katy B

Ritual Union by Little Dragon

Thursday by The Weeknd

Rock Album Of The Year

Anna Calvi by Anna Calvi

David Comes To Life by Fucked Up

Skying by The Horrors

Sound Kapital by Handome Furs

The King Of Limbs by Radiohead

Producer Of The Year

BT

Doc McKinney and Illangelo

Justin Vernon

Kno

Richard X

“Where Have You Been All My Life?” Award

Anna Calvi

Balam Acab

Lana Del Rey

The Weeknd

Youth Lagoon

Collaboration Of The Year

“Ego” by Burial + Four Tet + Thom Yorke

“Like Smoke” by Amy Winehouse featuring Nas

“My Cloud” by Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx

“Raindrops” by Basement Jaxx Vs. Metropole Orkest

The score for The Book Of Mormon by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone

Best Bit In A Song Of The Year

Stevie Wonder’s harmonica solo – “Doing It Wrong” by Drake (3:10-4:25)

The best chorus in a pop song this year – “Beat Of My Drum” by Nicola Roberts (0:45-1:02)

The drillcore breakdown finale – “Crystalline” by Björk (3:01-3:45)

The most heartbreaking lyric/bassline combo of the year – “Holocene” by Bon Iver (1:20-2:09)

The “You Wan’ A Key-Change? I’ll Give Your Four!!” finale – “Love On Top” by Beyoncé (1:42-3:06)

“Get On With It Already!” Award

Burial

Villain Of The Year

Jessie J

Hero Of The Year

Foo Fighters

—–

And there you have it; R&B superstar-in-waiting The Weeknd leads the haul with six nominations (not including the production nomination for both of his albums for Doc McKinney and Illangelo), with multiple nods also going to baroque troubadour Anna Calvi, pioneering alt-electro goddess Björk, Kanye West’s new best friend Bon Iver, misunderstood cuddly lothario Drake, R&B/dance upstart Katy B, swoonsome pop duo The Sounds Of Arrows, gothic retro-pop outfit Cat’s Eyes and hip hop music’s very own Eeyore Ghostpoet.

Winners, as well as a breakdown of the awards already announced, will be announced before the year is out. Until then… xxxo.

My 2011 in Playlist Form, Part Two

And here we are, halfway through the year 2011. I honestly hope it’s been better for you than it has for me, but then I spend most of my days being needlessly miserable and drowning out the continuous mess of the world with any great new music I can get my ears to listen to (plus much drinking and partying, it must be said), so that shouldn’t be too difficult. But rather than bore you with such regaling, let’s get down to business and have a listen to some of the best music to have been released over the past three months, eh?

1) “Perfection” by Oh Land

Kicking things off is the lovely Nanna Øland Fabricius, a singer-songwriter from Denmark who had previously trained as a ballet dancer only to have it torn away from her as a result of a nasty spinal injury. Turning her hand to pop music, she received enough local acclaim for her 2008 debut Fauna for Epic Records to sign her up and help her release her eponymous sophomore effort, which just so happens to contain some of the most head-turningly gorgeous pop you’re likely to hear this year. One highlight from the LP is this contender for Best Opening Track For An Album Of The Year, riffing on Fabricius’ dance background not just through the beautiful orchestral backing and her lyrics that evoke an obsessive scrutiny of her subject (is she singing about an unrequited love, a rival or herself?), but mostly on her vocal, so nimble and graceful as it pirouettes past the drum-machines whilst still retaining a wrenching yearning for something she feels is so out of reach, the irony being, with this song at least, she can lay claim to having achieved what her song’s ultimately about.

2) “Starlight” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Let it be known right now that Mrs Ellis-Bextor really is the present generation’s unsung disco queen. Despite being a natural successor to Kylie Minogue‘s niche of blissful, charismatic, swathed-in-poppers dance-pop, our dear Sophie has had a tough time getting her fourth album out into the world, thanks mainly to clangers perpetrated by her prior record label that have ultimately seen her release the frankly fabulous Make A Scene independently. To be honest, “Not Giving Up On Love” would have been on this list if it hadn’t have been ignored by everyone (including myself) on its initial release last year, but “Starlight” is another just-as-sterling example of Sophie’s star-power, a wistful disco-ballad about love that cements its superiority through Ellis-Bextor’s adorable plummy-mummy cadence , not least when she offers one of the best lyrics of the year: “‘Cause tonight/We’ve found Heaven in the dark”… I’m pretty certain she’s not singing about drunkenly staggering through Soho trying to find G-A-Y, and even if she is, it’s because she loves us gays that much! The Eurovision campaign starts here!

3) “Checkers” by WhoMadeWho

But don’t worry, it’s not all gay-friendly music around this place, I do have time for somewhat deranged dance music too. The first example being this pummeling piece of arm-throwing decadence from a Danish triumvirate who have coasted cult success with their previous releases but now, on the back of new mini-album Knee Deep, released under über-cool electro-label Kompakt, they seem to be poised to take no prisoners with regards to anyone caught under their meditative wares of dance-rock. Coasting on danceability for the previous few years from their self-released works, “Checkers” is a prime example where they let rip with utter confidence, but not before illustrating some intoxicating teasing courtesy of some of the finer slow-burn builds 2011 has yet heard.

4) “Adult Goth” by Gang Gang Dance

This was the band that threatened to sue Florence + Her Machine and won before it went to court. If that doesn’t make you love this band, then how about the fact that they’ve composed the best club-friendly indie-electronica album you are likely to hear for the rest of this year (it’s called Eye Contact, and it is fucking amazing!)? Describing it would be futile, so you’d just do well to listen to it for yourself. If you’re still not convinced, then there’s something wrong with you… and I would apologize on your behalf, but that would just be patronizing in the extreme.

5) “NYC” by Burial

There are those who dislike Burial, if you can believe it, for the fact that he doesn’t deviate enough from his signature sound of dusty jungle beats and ambient distortion punctuated by otherworldly sampled vocals. Still, you can’t really take those critics seriously if the likes of Four Tet and Thom Yorke are knocking on your door for a collaboration, and though those sessions brought a couple of mighty fine tunes on their own, Burial’s own Street Halo EP is where the future of electronic music can be found. The best of the recent tunes is this one, which has already got his last.fm fans excited enough in order to prepare for a state of seemingly eternal rapture (I mean “ejaculating forever”? Really??)

6) “House Of Balloons/Glass Table Girls” by The Weeknd

And if he collaborated with this singer-songwriter, they could very much take over the whole of the music-geek blogosphere with their thematically-familiar wares of alienation and loneliness filtered through with their post-modern perspective on urban decadence. If Wikipedia’s to be believed, this particular R&B crooner isn’t even legally allowed to enter the kind of establishments that his premier mixtape, House Of Balloons, describes in such dark worldly beauty, but that doesn’t stop him from composing some of the most sublime prog-rock R&B that the world needs to hear right now. There’s a reason why the likes of Drake and Jamie xx  are collaborating with him, and this title track is a prime example of the luridly epic scope that this young man’s music has to offer, especially with regards to his impressive vocal skills.

7) “Easy Please Me” by Katy B

One of the breakout stars from the dubstep scene that exploded last year was Miss Kathleen Brien, a 22-year-old London native who raised a few impressed eyebrows when her debut single, “Katy On A Mission“, sauntered into the UK Single Chart’s Top 5 last year. Fast forward eight months later and her debut album On A Mission fulfills that single’s promise tenfold, Katy emerging as a star blessed with a mercurial likeability that is amiable and easy-going enough to sate mainstream radio listeners but still possesses a gritty enough edge so as not to sell herself out and betray her musical background. The album has plenty of wonderful moments to savour (not least one heralding the long-awaited return of one Ms. Dynamite), but as a succinct summation of the witty intelligence to be found on this R&B/Dance/Pop crossover, as well as having a video keenly demonstrating Katy’s immense charm, “Easy Please Me” is the one that finds a spot on my playlist (and for the last time, no she doesn’t sing “Africans”…)

8) “Right Thing To Do” by SBTRKT

And yet there’s even more lovely urban dance music to celebrate on this blog entry; I blame the hot weather we’ve been having, because this South London producer’s debut album in particular sports a mix of club-friendly sweatiness married with moments of chilled contemplation that provides the perfect soundtrack to strolling through the city during a hot summer. Having gained attention via some well-received remixes for the likes of M.I.A. and Little Dragon (who happen to feature on lead-off single “Wildfire“), as well as his somewhat-secretive nature in performing whilst wearing a formidable tribal mask, Aaron Jerome’s LP has confounded a few listeners with its subtle production smarts that don’t crash around your ears on first listen and immediately demand you throw some shapes, which is an assured curveball from a premier disc from an electronic dance artist. Still, you can’t argue with sounds that send out as good a vibes as these, one highlight being this particular tune that may have the cutest bassline of 2011.

9) “Second Song” by TV On The Radio

I can’t help but be moved every time I listen to this particular song from TVOTR’s fourth studio album, Nine Types Of Light. Not just because of its innate awesomeness, it being a sublime mix of funk, rock and soul that has been an assured characteristic of the band’s output since they first started ten years ago; but also because the band’s bass player Gerard Smith passed away due to lung cancer this year. I’m not normally moved by this kind of stuff to the extent that I write about it (I mean, people die; it’s sad, but that’s a given) but the fact that a member of my Favourite Band In The World died on my birthday isn’t something I can’t not think about.

10) “Holocene” by Bon Iver

In keeping with the Let’s Just Have A Big Cry motif that my playlist seems to have inexplicably taken a drastic turn towards in the space of one song, here’s one of the more beautiful tear-stained moments from Justin Vernon’s eponymous follow-up to 2008’s For Emma, Forever Ago, which could very well turn into the biggest album of the year, given the reaction from both critics and fans. Arriving after landing the most head-scratchingly curious guest spot on last year’s hugest event record (mind you, pretty much everyone else in the world ended up on that album, didn’t they?), Bon Iver‘s return is delicate, emotional and rich with ornate beauty, the kind of wonderful album that will get played relentlessly by BBC Radio but will still retain enough gorgeousness to survive continuous airplay for the next year or so.

11) “Grown Ocean” by Fleet Foxes

And following Iver on this list we have another folk outfit from America who made a big splash in 2008 after quietly selling over a million copies of their eponymous debut LP. Their sophomore effort Helplessness Blues boasts the typical features of a band taking a bigger-budgeted and more confident stride into the world after carving their own niche of wintry acousticisms, the arrangements being just that little bit more robust to sound more accessible to the passing listener whilst keeping their fans sated with plentiful examples of the beautiful harmonies that made everyone swoon in the first place. Closing track “Grown Ocean” is one such moment where Foxes are at their typically wistful best but also delivering something more emotionally accessible to the previous album’s heartbreak, opening with an agreeable rumble that would have had no place on their previous album before giving way to a lovely flourish of woodwinds as frontman Robin Pecknold intones a dream-based narrative wherein he seems to experience a transcendent epiphany of the world’s beauty. Some times, letting the light in will make everything alright.

12) “Your Radio” by Little Scream

Of course, the ebullient light of the Foxes’ latest work can’t stay around for long round these parts, and to begin the crash back down to earthy reality, we have the debut album from Laurel Sprengelmeyer, a self-learned multi-instrumentalist who has finally gotten round to releasing her debut album The Golden Record after spending years performing alongside the likes of Atlas Sound and Handsome Furs. Named after the 1977 Voyager 1 Space Shuttle‘s audio-visual disc that cataloged various sounds and images from Earth intended to be viewed by any other sort of intelligence the universe may yet behold beyond our own, Sprengelmeyer’s premier disc is a strange beast boasting a head-turning mix of alt-indie electronica and soft moments of folk-tinged melancholy. An example where this particular one-two punch works best is when the almost-illegally pretty “The Heron And The Fox” is followed by this track, wherein Sprengelmeyer’s layered vocals extol reassuring resolve to an unnamed comrade in her apocalyptic plight as the guitars and drums grow ever-larger and finally consume them. It’s sublime stuff and worthy very much of your time.

13) “Putting The Dog To Sleep” by The Antlers

Having already established their reputation as one of the leading purveyors of emotionally-harrowing indie-rock with their well-received third album Hospice in 2009 (on which frontman Peter Silberman is still more-than-reluctant to be drawn into the events that provided the LP’s inspiration), it makes sense to follow Little Scream with a cut from The Antlers’ latest disc, Burst Apart, eerily so considering that she is supporting these guys on their current US tour. And though Burst isn’t nearly so much on the emotional offensive as Hospice was, it still has its fair share of downer-inducing wares, the most clear-cut of which is this piece that closes the album with all of the subtlety of a sledgehammer making violent contact with a sheet of sugar glass, featuring Silberman wailing after his antagonist who is very much keen to put their relationship out of its misery, punctuated by a belligerently bluesy guitar riff whilst organs moan reservedly in the background. Still, with a title as tasteless and baiting as that, you’re not expecting a barrel of laughs really, are you? (And don’t worry, I’m certain they didn’t have to put any animal down to make this song!)

14) “We Bros” by WU LYF

World Unite! Lucifer Youth Foundation. The name alone just screams pretentiousness, and the Manchester collective have been courting plenty of hype and controversy thanks ironically enough to their cagey affections for both the music press and major record labels keen to snap them up after courting substantial cult success in the native town, eventually opting to self-release their debut album Go Tell Fire To The Mountain and thereby cementing their reputation as British Indie Rock’s Next Big Genuinely Exciting Thing. And lo and behold, be damned if the album itself exhibits enough surprisingly moving barminess to warrant such attention, combining post-rock, punk and world music to create a unique texture that doesn’t sound like anything else around these days, particularly via the yell-along regularly-incomprehensible vocals that give the songs an urgency as dramatic, coarse but ultimately as uplifting as being trapped in the thrall of a joyous chant in the stands of a football ground. Galvanizing stuff, the best of which the band has to offer being found on the above track.

15) “Sooner Or Later” by Cat’s Eyes
***CAN’T FIND A VIDEO LINK FOR THIS SONG, SO PLEASE JUST TRUST ME ON IT***
And we finish up on some ultra-hip fuzzy indie-pop courtesy of The Horrors’ Faris Badwan and classically-trained singer and composer Rachel Zeffira, whose shared fascination with girl group pop from the 1960s, especially works produced by the legendary Phil Spector, have yielded a curiously special little album, composed and produced whilst Badwan’s bandmates built their own studio to record their highly anticipated third album. Endorsed by the Vatican after performing an impromptu concert for various of its cardinals via Zeffira’s classical connections, the results have yielded some of the sweetest and lovely sounds to have been released this year, amongst some of the most doom-laden and forboding, a prime example of the latter being this Badwan-led mood piece wherein his dread-filled moans are punctuated by sinister electronics and a horrifically ominous horn section that appears to be playing live from the underworld. It might not be characteristic of some of the more indelible charming moments that the album has to offer, but it’s the song I can’t seem to stop playing most from this rather wonderful collection Badwan and Zeffira have wrought so wonderfully.

But I shan’t end this blog entry on such a sour note, but rather ask that you follow this link, wherein you will find a free download of Will Wiesenfeld‘s latest EP under his Geotic band name, Bless The Self. It constitutes of fourteen minutes of the most beautiful music you will listen to all year, it’s that pretty.

Now, enough of this blog malarkey. Until next time, take care!! 😉 xxxo