My Beef with "There's no new good music": an argument supported with 10 of 2011's finest albums by Daniel Ford

My beef with “there’s no new good music”: an argument supported with 10 of 2011’s finest albums

For some music lovers out there, the medium quit evolving the moment when the Beatles broke up, or the Sex Pistols, or the Velvet Underground, or Pink Floyd. The world, for them, is now a cold, grey, empty place with nothing to provide them comfort but a well-worn copy of their favorite band’s opus—recorded and released 15, 20, even 30 years ago—and whose members are now dead or dying. For these lost souls, the day that the music died is quite real. And so when one of these “there’s nothing worthwhile or exciting happening in music today” subscribers passes a line of excited concert goers stretching and winding its way up the block it’s not just confusing, it’s verging on sacrilege. Why spend time and money listening to a band whose songs are just parodies and desperate echoes of what came before? The following are 10 of 2011’s finest albums, proving that music today is alive and well.



• Strange Mercy by St. Vincent (2011) Beautiful voice, nasty, fuzzy guitars, and lines like this: “best, finest surgeon, come cut me open” (that’s straight out of Marilyn Monroe’s diary, FYI). Strange Mercy, released this year, is St. Vincent’s 3rd album, and what an album it is. Ferocious, weird, pretty, and so damn hummable (just one listen to “Dilettante” and its guitar riff will stay in your head for days…in a good way). Also, Pitchfork rated it 9 out of 10. I don’t think Sgt. Peppers even got that out of Pitchfork.

• Take Care, Take Care, Take Care by Explosions in the Sky (2011) An all instrumental album that doesn’t leave you thinking “wow, this is great…but it’d be even better with some vocals.” Didn’t think that was possible? Or maybe you hear “instrumental” and you automatically yawn. Then let this Texas band change your mind about what instrumental rock can do. Because this album is that good.

• Wild Flag by Wild Flag (2011) Wild Flag keeps getting tagged as a supergroup, but that’s missing the point entirely. This is a new band set on doing one thing: rocking. Rocking hard. And rocking well. And also, making awesome music videos. But mostly rocking. Case in point: “Glass Tambourine” and “Racehorse”…and the rest of the album.

• Kiss Each Other Clean by Iron and Wine (2011) Back in the early days of the new millennium, Sam Beam was whisper-singing into a mic with nothing more than a guitar and maybe a simply-strummed banjo or a mandolin; take, for example, his cover of Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” heard round-the-world on the Garden State soundtrack. Placed beside his latest release, 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean, the differences are immediately evident. From the Spin review: “‘Me and Lazarus’ dribbles squeaky synths atop his increasingly sure voice before dropping in a tasteful sax. That sax gets decidedly more skronky on ‘Big Burned Hand,’ which rides a '70s groove into…a DJ scratching? From the guy who made his name whispering?” Just to be clear, that’s not Sam Beam giving a middle finger to his roots. That’s evolution.

• Civilian by Wye Oak (2011) Haven’t heard of this band? Then pick up Civilian, the duo’s third LP, and it should make you a believer. Sharp song writing, strong, well-crafted melodies, and an album that knows where it’s going with clear direction from the first track to the last.


• Nine Types of Light by TV on the Radio (2011) This is one of those rare albums that just gets better and better with each listen. Also, TVOTR is a band that had already proven itself with four previous albums and, really, still had us all pretty impressed. With Nine Types of Light, they just upped the ante.

• King of Limbs by Radiohead (2011) Radiohead revels in the weird—you either love them for it, or you scratch your head at tracks like “Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors” from 2001’s Amnesiac or “Feral” from this year’s King of Limbs. But it’s hard to deny that Radiohead are trying their damndest—and often brilliantly succeeding—at pushing popular music into exciting new places. And with King of Limbs, they continue charging onward and outward.

• Circuital by My Morning Jacket (2011) This LP showcases what MMJ are already masters of—chicken fried rock that gets spacey and deliciously weird—and adds in a healthy dose of fresh new sounds and textures. It gets epic (“Victory Dance”), it gets pretty (“Wonderful”), and it even gets Motown brass-heavy (“Holdin’ On to Black Metal”).

• Bon Iver by Bon Iver (2011) This album is lush, it is bold, and it is so damn good. From the Pitchfork review: “Instead of something that scans as ‘folk,’ the music here is more like rustic chamber pop with an experimental edge that makes careful use of arrangement and dynamics. After the closeness and austerity of For Emma, Vernon has given us a knotty record that resists easy interpretation but is no less warm or welcoming. You can feel it even as you don't completely understand it—a testament to its careful construction and Vernon's belief in the power of music to convey deeper meaning. It's a rare thing for an album to have such a strong sense of what it wants to be.” Ditto.

• The Suburbs by Arcade Fire (2011) Arcade Fire’s first effort is a testament to how thrilling music can be, how emotionally impactful. And then they released Neon Bible and, somehow, it was even better. This year with the release of The Suburbs I was expecting to be let down, and I was OK with that. How could a band release three amazing albums in a row? And then I listened to The Suburbs, and I lost my shit.