2011 Year in Music

The music scene in 2011 featured still-declining sales figures (although at slower rates) but no shortage of available product. Artists increasingly found new ways to reach their audiences and bypassed record companies entirely. But smaller labels still flourished with their more modest goals and less needy profit margins.

I’m a stone cold sucker for year-end lists of all stripes. Books, movies, music, television, best, worst, whatever. It’s fun to see what others value and to see what consensus develops around certain picks, especially when the herd convinces itself something is awesome despite all available evidence to the contrary.

It’s also a daunting task to assemble one. It’s hard not to give more weight to those appearing later in the year, and even harder to rank them, with the implied value judgments smacking of some dopey awards show.

With those qualifiers squarely in place, here goes my list of those records that floated my personal boat:

• Paul Simon: So Beautiful Or So What. The ageless Woody Allen of music hits a grand slam. Using elements of every phase of his career, Simon reminds us that melody, swing and poetry can coexist. He looks at mortality with the clear-eyed wit we all wish we had.

• Iron & Wine: Kiss Each Other Clean. Sam Beam gets out of his stylistic template and rocks, with saxophones and a dirty mouth. The beautiful moments stand out more by contrast.

• Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming. Sixty-two years into a career marked by obscurity, Bradley gets his shot with the living-gloriously-in-the-past Daptone Records label, and nails it. He sings his heart out with not one wit of insincerity. Soul music for the ages, especially now.

• tUnE-YaRdS: w h o k i l l. Merril Garbus is a frenetic dervish of ideas, gall and talent. She fearlessly goes where few would dare, telling her tales of so-wrong love and power struggles set to a soundtrack of African rhythms and studio wizardry. She also has a great set of pipes, leather-lunged one minute, cooing bird-like the next. The pleasant surprise of the year.

• Middle Brother: An almost-super group of leaders from middling groups (Deer Tick, Dawes and Delta Spirit), this one’s got a vibe of “Let’s turn on the tape machine and sing the songs we’ve been hoarding from our bandmates.” Relaxed and earnest, it hits a sweet spot their regular day jobs largely miss. Their cover of the Replacements’ “Portland” is worth the price of admission alone.

• Warren Haynes: Man In Motion. The Govt. Mule frontman and Allman Brother replacement for Dickey Betts delivers a killer set of original rock ‘n’ soul tunes backed by a dream band featuring George Porter (original Meters’ bassist) and Ivan Neville. His guitar solos are a marvel of grit and invention, and his voice exudes soul without artifice.

• Booker T. Jones: The Road From Memphis. Backed by the Roots and key guests (Jim James, Sharon Jones, Dennis Coffey), the legendary organist clogs arteries with saturated grease. Except there’s no deleterious effects. only soul-cleansing and booty-shaking. His beefy B-3, ?love’s whipcrack drumming and Coffey’s loose-wristed wah-wah guitar are a guaranteed cure for what ails.

• White Denim: D. The Austin smart boys stay focused and the result is a unified batch of progressive rock. Featuring an old-is-new sensibility that will have you playing guess the influence, it stands on its own. Ensemble virtuosity and just enough groove keep this one in rotation.

• Gillian Welch: The Harrow and the Harvest. Ms. Welch and her always-partner, Dave Rawlings, make a much-overdue return with a gorgeous set of doom, gloom and mordancy. Her vintage voice and way with a melody are in full flower, and we hope she doesn’t wait another eight years to release another one.

• Ry Cooder: Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down. In which Mr. Cooder keeps up his bid to carry the pissed-off torch of Woody Guthrie, except this time he remembered to write and record some great songs, too.

• Joe Lovano Us Five: Bird Songs. This list’s token jazz album, one of but many great jazz releases this year. Lovano’s got the brains and chops to have stood out in jazz’s heyday, and this one could please even the neophyte. Charlie Parker reimagined and reinvigorated.

• Stephen Malkmus: Mirror Traffic. Pavement’s leader gives us his most accessible and rewarding solo effort to date. But this is relative of course; Malkmus still manages to shock a little, but the songs are not overtly contrarian and even welcoming in no small measure.

• Feist: Metals. The singer strips things down to better accentuate these songs’ core of naked emotion. Striking and utterly true, this record’s probably going to age well and grow in stature. For now, I’ll think I’ll give it another spin.

• Megafaun. These Carolinians do better when they stay off the mushrooms, for they write melodies that sound classic without being derivative, and they harmonize like identical twins. The weirdness is kept to a minimum and therefore doesn’t grate.

• Mayer Hawthorne: How Do You Do. I just reviewed this one, and I haven’t stopped listening to it. Soul knows no boundaries.

• Tom Waits: Bad as Me. Say the title of this one fast, five times. Get it? Well, he is. And all the more deadly for being brief and to the point.

The lack of numbering was intentional for reasons I alluded to above. I also like the new ones by Wilco, Ryan Adams, Wood Brothers and Girls, and a bunch more. And I can’t wait to see and hear what lies ahead in 2012.