best of 2011 (that i listened to)

So I'm definitely not one of those people who keeps up with new music lightning-quick, listening to the next big thing the second it comes out. It usually takes me a while. Sometimes it takes me a long while. (I still haven't listened to The Suburbs). I get to it when I get to it.

That being said, this list is going to be pretty awful. I'm doing it mainly to see how many albums from this year I actually got around to listening to. So here goes and such.

1. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life

2. Doomsday Student - A Jumper's Handbook

3. Black Lips - Arabia Mountain

4. The Vinyl Stitches - The Vinyl Stitches

5. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

6. The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

7. iceage - New Brigade

8. Boston Spaceships - Let It Beard

9. Andrew Jackson Jihad - Knife Man

10. Algernon Cadwallader - Parrot Flies

11. Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee, Part Two

12. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Mirror Traffic

13. Yuck - Yuck

14. Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil

15. Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness

16. The Raveonettes - Raven in the Grave

17. Radiohead - The King of Limbs

18. Okkervil River - I Am Very Far

19. British Sea Power - Valhalla Dance Hall

20. The Dodos - No Color

21. The Dirtbombs - Party Store

22. The Strokes - Angles

Yikes. Not a whole lot. More than I thought I'd have, admittedly, but still...not good. I need to work on that.

Pretty good year, as far as I've heard from it. A few major disappointments (Radiohead, The Strokes), but a ton of albums that I'm going to cherish for years to come--pretty much the entire top ten, really. Great albums.

LOTS of albums I still have to get to though (Bon Iver, PJ Harvey, etc.), but I have a system I like to keep to that helps me listen to everything in my collection while slowly filtering new music through. I have a 160gb iPod that's constantly full, and I like to make sure I'm not leaving any music unlistened to. And the two times I deviated from that system this year, I was crushed. (Radiohead and The Strokes).

P.S. - People seem to be sleeping on Doomsday Student for some reason, but they're carrying on the spirit of Arab on Radar wonderfully, and I really think their new album rivals anything AOR ever did. Not everyone's cup of tea, to be sure, but I've heard damn near NOTHING about this band from anyone else.