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#5-1
THIS IS IT, friends. TC's top 40 albums of 2011 comes to an end right here, right now, with my top 5 albums of the year.
Lady Gaga conquered music in 2009 with the unbeatable double album,
The Fame with
The Fame Monster, which took the top spot on my list that year. In just one year, she defined an entire generation of pop. She created new boundaries and destroyed them in the same breath. Where could she possibly go from there? The answer is
Born This Way, an album that looks as much to the past as it does the future, drawing in heavy influence from her predecessors like Bruce Springsteen, Whitney Houston and Madonna. The music is much more varied and the lyrical content is deeper in several cases than her past works. Nearly every track on the deluxe album is noteworthy, so let's march down the line: "Marry The Night", "Born This Way", "Judas", "Hair", "Scheiße", "Bloody Mary", "Black Jesus † Amen Fashion", "Bad Kids", "Fashion Of His Love", "Highway Unicorn", "Heavy Metal Lover", "Electric Chapel", "The Queen", "Yoü And I" and "The Edge Of Glory" were all among my most played songs of the year. It should be clear to anyone who gave
Born This Way a listen, Lady Gaga once again demonstrated to the world that she's leading the way in music and culture.
When there are still four albums that managed to best the high praise I awarded
Born This Way, you know that means 2011 had to be an unusually fantastic year in music. First case in point: Adele, who reinvented blue-eyed soul in 2008 with her debut album
19 and followed up this year with the almost too great for words
21. Look, you don't need me to tell you Adele dominated pop music this year. The millions of records she sold can speak for themselves, and her permeation of culture was obvious, all the way down to the brilliant and unusually topical
SNL sketch featuring her heartbreak anthem "Someone Like You" this fall. But before "Someone Like You", the story of the year was "Rolling In The Deep", the powerful song and video that drew from blues, gospel and disco to take control of 2011 from the very beginning, and eventually became my most played song of the year by any artist. Songs like "Rumour Has It", "Turning Tables", "Set Fire To The Rain", "Take It All" and "Lovesong", her cover of The Cure, cemented
21 as one of the best albums of the year. We are lucky to live in an era of music that would give us a talent as wonderful as Adele.
Man, this is getting intense. I can't keep outdoing myself with acclaim, so let's strip it all away right now to present the most raw, volatile, surprising, shocking, puzzling and unnerving album of the year.
Past Life Martyred Saints by EMA earns all those adjectives and then some. Previously known as leader of the drone folk band Gowns, singer-songwriter and musician Erika M. Anderson set out on her own this year after that project imploded, leaving her without a partner of any kind. The pain, both emotional and physical, is on terrifying display throughout
Past Life. This album is disturbing to me as a listener, and I intend that as the highest possible compliment. You might find similarities between EMA and early Courtney Love, Patti Smith and Cat Power,
Pitchfork suggests, but the only way to truly understand is to listen to the album yourself. You will feel the abrasive, agonizing desperation through "Grey Ship", "California", "Anteroom", "Milkman", "Coda", "Marked", "Breakfast", "Butterfly Knife" and "Red Star", the entirety of the album. EMA's
Past Life works because it feels completely genuine. Through emotional release, aggression and conviction, EMA emerges fearless.
If you're still with me after the anguish of the last entry, let's pick things up and celebrate the best new group to come about within the last year, Wild Flag. The band brings together Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss (previously of Sleater-Kinney) with Mary Timony (previously of Helium) and Rebecca Cole (previously of The Minders). Carrie Brownstein is more recently known as the co-star of
Portlandia, so it only makes sense Wild Flag is based in her hometown of Portland, Oregon. I would call Wild Flag a supergroup, but even that would be an understatement. I became a fan as soon as I heard "Future Crimes" and "Glass Tambourine", the exclusive Record Store Day release. The band's self-titled album followed in late summer, and to come full circle with my silly metaphors, it blew my face off. It's hard to imagine a more brilliantly executed, masterfully perfected album of post-punk indie rock. "Boom", "Electric Band", "Racehorse", "Something Came Over Me", "Black Tiles" and the outstanding, raucous single "Romance" are some of the best records of the year.
Wild Flag is more than a riot grrrl revival; it's music that captures its enduring roots and catapults into the future.
I've been saying since approximately 1999 that Foo Fighters is my favorite band. Well, it's finally time to make good on that superlative. Foo Fighters' previous albums,
In Your Honor and
Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace were both great but were edged out for the top spot in 2005 and '07, respectively. Not this time. Mark it down, 2011 was the year the snubbery came to an end. Dave Grohl and crew went back to basics for
Wasting Light, an album that deserves this space. Let's review: Pat Smear was brought back to the band, Krist Novoselic contributed to some of the tracks, Butch Vig oversaw the production, and the whole thing was recorded on analog tape in Dave Grohl's garage. That's a veritable powerhouse of rock, and as for the results?
Wasting Light doesn't mess around. These tracks give us some of the most massive, energetic, crunched and shredded music I've heard in years. It's not heavy on hooks, but the svelte consistency of the album rises above traditional expectations. The songs on
Wasting Light, "Bridge Burning", "Rope", "Dear Rosemary" featuring Bob Mould, "White Limo", "Arlandria", "These Days", "Back & Forth", "A Matter Of Time", "Miss The Misery", "I Should Have Known" featuring Krist Novoselic and "Walk", are a cohesive realization of Dave Grohl's retrospective vision. It comes together flawlessly, both on the record and on stage, which I saw this fall in their unrivaled, nearly three-hour live show. No wonder Foo Fighters is my favorite band. Make no mistake about it,
Wasting Light is my #1 album of 2011.
SINGLES (SPRING)
Rebecca Black - "Friday"
Britney Spears - "Till The World Ends"
Death Cab For Cutie - "You Are A Tourist"
Caroline & The Dust - "I Know It Ain't Cool"
Sloan - "Unkind"
Peter Bjorn And John - "Second Chance"
Cee Lo Green - "Bright Lights Bigger City"
Sky Ferreira - "Haters Anonymous"
Oh Land - "White Nights"
Santigold f/ Karen O - "Go"
The Civil Wars - "Barton Hollow"
Regina Spektor - "Riot Gear"
Foster The People - "Helena Beat"
Lenka - "Heart Skips A Beat"
Paramore - "Monster"
SINGLES (FALL)
Marina & The Diamonds - "Radioactive"
Beady Eye - "Millionaire"
Pistol Annies - "Hell On Hells"
Demi Lovato - "Unbroken"
Cobra Starship f/ Sabi - "You Make Me Feel"
Beyoncé - "Countdown"
Kelly Clarkson - "Mr. Know It All"
Bush - "The Sound Of Winter"
Rihanna f/ Calvin Harris - "We Found Love"
Little Boots - "Shake"
The Roots f/ Big K.R.I.T. - "Make My"
Kate Bush - "50 Words For Snow"
Lana Del Rey - "Video Games"
Lana Del Rey - "Born To Die"
Sleigh Bells - "Born To Lose"
TOP 40 ALBUMS
20. Charlotte Gainsbourg - Stage Whisper
19. Dev - The Night The Sun Came Up
18. Warpaint - The Fool
17. Jay Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne
16. Katy B - On A Mission
15. The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
14. Christina Perri - Lovestrong.
13. Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
12. The Black Keys - El Camino
11. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
10. Kate Voegele - Gravity Happens
9. Lights - Siberia
8. Florence & The Machine - Ceremonials
7. Ximena Sariñana - Ximena Sariñana
6. Feist - Metals
5. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
4. Adele - 21
3. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
2. Wild Flag - Wild Flag
1. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
Thank you so much for reading TC's top 40 albums of 2011. I feel great about this year's extraordinary set of music, and I hope you enjoyed this event as much as I did. Many things came full circle this year, but I look to the future with as much anticipation as ever for great things to come. We have so much in culture and in life to be thankful for. I hope you have a very happy and healthy new year. I wish you the best in 2012 and beyond!
and amazing #1 
Well deserved for the Foo Fighters 
21 was far less surprising. The fact is that there's a reason why 21 has been so successful at the end of the year and award ceremonies. The pop renaissance is here, and Adele is leading the way. And it wouldn't be a TC list without an album in the top five that COMPLETELY went unnoticed by yours truly...as well as Wild Flag. But, as always, your blurbs have intrigued me. The EMA one, in particular, sounds RIGHT up my alley.