Words of Wisdom

Best Albums of 2011: 11-20 December 21, 2011

This week we’ve been looking at my favorite albums of 2011, beginning Monday with those ranked 31-40 and continuing yesterday with 21-30. Today we move into the next tier of greatness, 11-20.

20. Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots

It’s no secret that I’ve had a longstanding love, going back some ten years, of the Drive-By Truckers, but because I hold their earlier albums (Southern Rock Opera, Decoration Day, and The Dirty South) in such high regard, it affects my view of their more recent works. This was especially true with 2009’s The Big To-Do, which I really liked from the first time I heard it, but it took time and a few shows for that to grow into a true appreciation for it. This story repeated itself with Go-Go Boots because I must admit I was not particularly impressed with it at first. Over time, though, it has blossomed in my eyes and ears and now I am more convinced than ever that it belongs in the holy canon. There are several standout tracks, including a new live staple and probably the most uncharacteristic track on the album, an R&B-tinged cover of the late Eddie Hinton’s “Everybody Needs Love.” Others to check out are the dark title track, a very DBT-esque tale of an adulterous, murderous Southern preacher, and “Used to Be a Cop” with its bass line made to be played live and its story of a mentally disturbed former police officer, but the real highlight from the album in my eyes is the closer, “Mercy Buckets,” a song that really captured my attention with a transcendent performance earlier this year in Memphis. With lyrics like “I will bring you buckets of mercy / And hold your hand when you’re crossing the street / Pay your bail if you need it / I will be your saving grace,” it’s a love song as only the great Patterson Hood could tell it. If you want to know why I’m obsessed with the band, start here and work back. You won’t be disappointed.

19. Cults – Cults

Though it may seem like it at times, not all of the music I enjoy is gloom and doom, with intricate intellectual themes weaved through the notes and words. No, sometimes there are bands like Cults who blow the entire dark-hued obelisk to bits, the type of band who can act as the lone sunbeam on an otherwise dreary day. Much like other recent bands like Camera Obscura, Brooklyn’s Cults reach back to 1960’s pop for their influence, dispensing rays of upbeat happiness like a lighthouse in the dark. This is an album full of pop gems, of innocence and puppy love that are sure to put a smile on your face and skip in your step. The catchy sing-along lines of “Go Outside” (I really want to go out / I really want to go outside / And stop to see your day) will ingrain themselves in your brain and it’s borderline impossible to not tap your foot along to the nostalgic beats of “Most Wanted.” Just put this one on and enjoy yourself. My kids love it, too, so that’s an added bonus.

18. Jay-Z/Kanye West – Watch the Throne

Some two decades ago, rap legends Public Enemy made the declaration, “Don’t believe the hype,” and it’s true that hype is a tough thing to reach. That being the case, when it was announced that two of the biggest and most revered hip-hop artists were going to join forces for an album, an impossibly high bar was put in place. It’s tough not to be guilty of high expectations, though, considering that Jay-Z is responsible for classics like The Blueprint and Kanye West released what I think may be the greatest rap album ever recorded, My Dark Twisted Fantasy. With expectations at that level, it’s hard for anyone, even those regarded as being among the elite, to reach that kind of height. Watch the Throne is a good album, one that may be regarded as excellent by another act, but it is hard to separate oneself from the legendary status of their past work when judging it. Jay-Z’s swagger is in full effect on songs like “Ni@@as in Paris,” when he doles out lines like “What’s fifty grand to a motha****er like me / Can you please remind me?” and in “Otis” (with its great Otis Redding sample” when proclaims, “I’m ‘bout to call the paparazzi on myself.” Kanye isn’t one to be outdone, though, when he blasts out in “Gotta Have It,” saying “LOLOLOL to white America, assassinate my character.” In the end, the album is somewhat underwhelming when compared to their past work, but it is still worth getting, with its great beats and rhymes from two of the best in the business.

17. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light

First off, I must admit that I’m a bit of a late comer to TV on the Radio. Sure, I had heard some of their stuff in the past, but had never been moved enough to reach out and grab any of their albums. But the overwhelming positive reaction to the band was more than I could hold out on any longer and I grabbed a copy of Nine Types of Light soon after it came out. Needless to say, it was a great decision. This genre-hopping outfit is not easily defined, but that fluidity is perhaps their greatest asset as they effortlessly flit between soul to the sound of early 80’s post-punk to jazzy excursions, from electronic bleeps to distorted guitars, mixing it all together into a glorious whole, turning chaos into a sublime experience. You can feel the heartbreak in songs like “You,” where Tunde Adebimpe sings “You gave no reason for letting go / I just thought you might like to know / You’re the only one I ever loved,” and then the hopes for reconciliation in “Will Do,” (But I’ll be there to take care of you / If ever you should decide / That you don’t want to waste your life / In the middle of a lovesick lullaby). It’s a very personal work and one that requires several listens to fully appreciate, but once it reels you in there is no escape and that’s really the best thing you can ever hope for with an album.

16. Wild Flag – Wild Flag

Back in the late 1990’s, the riot grrrl movement of left-wing, feminist activism found an audience through the music of great punk-influenced indie rock bands like Sleater-Kinney. They certainly made their mark on the music scene, but by the mid 2000’s, many of those bands were no more and, though there were a number of great female-led groups, few matched the punch of those earlier ones. Finally, though, somebody stepped back in to fill the void. In 2010, Carrie Brownstein, guitarist and co-founder of Sleater-Kinney as well as a music contributor to NPR, announced her new project, Wild Flag, a collaborative effort between people from a few different riot grrrl era bands, and by September of this year their triumphant debut work was released. Despite having a sound that harkens back to a decade ago, the album sounds fresh and important, timely and needed, its indie pop calls for reckless abandon, for letting go of your worries and dancing without concern. When Brownstein urges the listener to “Shake, shimmy, shake,” you want to do it, regardless of where you are or what you’re doing. It’s a great throwback and a lot of fun.

15. Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’

At the risk of sounding like someone far beyond my years or mindset, they just don’t make music like they used to when it comes to soul and R&B, so there has long been a gap existing in the music community, waiting for some eager people full of that special, heart-wrenching spirit to fill. Last year hip-hop artist Cee-Lo stepped up, producing an album of incredibly fun tunes with a sound akin to a potty-mouthed Stevie Wonder. This year another artist who has been around for some time, Raphael Saadiq, is picking up the soulful baton and taking his own turn. Saadiq first came to prominence in the late 80’s-early 90’s R&B group Tony! Toni! Tone! (“Feels Good,” “If I Had No Loot”) and since then he has worked as a producer for other top-selling artists as well as creating his own acclaimed music, but this is the first solo work of his I have acquired. Needless to say, I’m hooked. Listening to Saadiq, I hear a huge Sly and the Family Stone influence, particularly on the opener “Heart Attack,” while other tracks seem to draw from the likes of Ray Charles and other greats of times past. Make sure and check out songs like “Over You” and the title track and I’m sure you’ll agree: this is old school soul at its best.

14. My Morning Jacket – Circuital

Over the past ten years, there have been a number of bands that have entered and become fully planted in my consciousness, so much so that I wait with great anticipation for every release and passionately yearn for them to visit our city. There are those like the Drive-By Truckers who I have seen numerous times and then there is a band like My Morning Jacket, who I follow religiously but have somehow not made their way to Memphis in the time I’ve been living here. Their latest release, Circuitous, is another stellar release, complete with their trademark hazy, reverb-drenched sound and a bunch of excellent songs from Jim James and the boys. Following the incredible Z and the psychotropic freak out of Evil Urges, which I loved even more, MMJ fans wondered about the direction in which the band was headed. Would they return to their earlier sound or continue down the rainbow hued path to the always-elusive hallucinatory nirvana? Well, the answer is somewhere in the middle and this may be just as good, if not better, than either of those releases. The trippy seven minute “Circuital” (Circuits / Connect the Earth to the moon / And link our heavenly bodies / Not a moment too soon) is a must hear, as is the wonderfully weird “Holdin’ on to Black Metal” (Oh black metal, so misunderstood / Don’t turn yourself into Lucifer’s fool), but it is the carefree joy over somber tones of “Wonderful (The Way I Feel)” (I’m going where there ain’t no fear / I’m going where the spirit is near / I’m going where the living is easy / And the people are kind / A new state of mind), that for the moment is my favorite cut on the album. Once again, MMJ strikes gold.

13. Saigon – Greatest Story Never Told

The story of Saigon is a rags to riches story of the best kind. While doing time for assault in the late 90’s, he became friends with a fellow inmate named Hakim, who rapped and employed both positive messages and an impressive vocabulary. After his release, he began to pick us some underground buzz and flew just below the mainstream radar for the next decade, collaborating with some of the biggest and most acclaimed artists in the genre while fighting with his record label over creative differences. So, the album sat on a shelf for some time before he was finally dropped by Atlantic in 2008, a situation he described in the song “Believe it” saying, “”They rather me pretend to be something that I’m not / I’m the new Public Enemy / I’m different that Young Joc.” The album finally broke through to the public earlier this year, having been released on an independent label, and this rap tour-de-force proved to be one of the best hip-hop collections of the year. His penchant for speaking candidly about social problems using the context of his own hard luck background shines throughout the work, though he’s certainly not above the braggadocio of hip-hop, claiming that “My flow is like the Cuban Missle Crisis” in “Come on Baby,” while saying in the title track that his personal story “is realer than 9/11 / I rhyme about lyin’ reverends / While showin’ all total respect to the Big Guy in Heaven / I rap about politicians, how money’s their acquisition / To get it they gotta keep us without a pot to piss in.” If you like good, socially conscious rap music, this is definitely one to check out.

12. Yuck – Yuck

Having come of age in the 1990’s, it’s only natural that I would be a bit nostalgic for the music of that era, so it is refreshing to find artists whose vision of the past is similar to mine. Over the years, the results of this endeavor have varied wildly, but occasionally a band breaks through the ever-thickening shroud of time and channels the energy of that fondly recalled era with such flair that you feel as though you’ve stepped into a flannel-covered time machine. Yuck, despite their name, is one of those wonderful memory-laden bands, their loud and fuzzy guitars eliciting a sense of euphoria rarely felt any longer. If Thurston Moore and Stephen Malkmus had a child who was then raised by J Mascis, it would sound like Yuck. It opens with “Get Away,” and a guitar that sounds as though it’s being played through a wall of white noise and the repeated intonation to “Tell me when the pain kicks in.” From that point on, the band rolls through a grunge litany long thought extinct, from the lovely “Georgia” to the distortion-filled “Operation,” making us believe again that stalwart indifference may be the answer to all of life’s questions.

11. Mastodon – The Hunter

As a teenager, metal music played a vital role in my music development, from Metallica (Black Album and earlier) to Megadeth to the savage violence of Pantera, but over the years I lost interest in the genre. Part of that may be from my aging sensibilities, but much of it, I believe, stems from my grumpy old man insistence that they don’t make it the way they used to. Then I heard Atlanta natives Mastodon and, once I recovered from the initial face-melting experience, I was hooked. The band made their mark with loud, intricate concept albums, Leviathan being loosely based on Moby Dick and their last album, 2009’s Crack Skye, telling the story of a quadriplegic traveling the astral plain before getting stuck in Tsarist Russia. The Hunter eschews the use of a central concept in favor of collecting a number of incredible songs showing their killer musicianship. It all kicks off with the guitar blast of “Black Tongue,” with its undeniably great riffing, then follows that up with the excellent, almost 70’s riff rock sounding, “Curl of the Burl” with one of the most awesome opening lines of the year, “I killed a man ‘cause he killed my goat. / I put my hands around his throat.” They may never be a household name like Metallica (and that’s a good thing because you can see how that turned out), but they have made an indelible mark on the world of metal over the past ten years and, if The Hunter is any indication, there is a lot more greatness to come.

Thoughts?