Shawn Campbell writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Shawn Campbell)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. Our final list is from CHIRP Radio President and Founder Shawn Campbell.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. Seapony – Go With Me (Hardly Art)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Who needs groundbreaking when you have a record this lovely and breezy? As a sucker for a great pop song, I fell under the spell of Seapony the first time I heard them, and probably listened to this album more than any other in 2011.
2. Wax Idols – No Future (HoZac)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Wax Idols meld multiple decades of sound into their hyper-catchy garage rock. There’s a bit of 60s girl group, some 70s postpunk, 80s tough grrrl rock, all blending together nicely in a record that reveals a little more with each listen.
3. Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2 (Capitol)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   This old school blast from the Beastie Boys made me tremendously happy. Clever enough to be satisfying, dumb enough to be fun.
4. Disappears – Guider (kranky)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   There’s always been something enticingly ominous about Disappears, and Guider delivered more of that dark, driving energy. In fact, it almost feels like the second half of a double album with last year’s Lux – there’s not a lot of evolution, but there’s an equally strong set of songs.
5. Gold-Bears – Are You Falling in Love? (Slumberland)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   While I liked this year’s Pains of Being Pure at Heart record, Gold-Bears grabbed the fuzzy C86 spot in my heart that The Pains’ self-titled album held in 2009. Catchy songs buzz and soar, teenage heartache abounds, and there’s just a little more oomph behind it all.
6. The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar (Atlantic/Canvasback)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Giant, swirling walls of guitar and a tremendous sense of intensity, that great build-up and release, made The Big Roar perhaps the best shoegaze album since the heyday of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive.
7. Wild Flag – Wild Flag (Merge)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   I loved the fact that one of the most anticipated records this year was from a group of women in their 30s and 40s – and that, at the end of the day, all the excitement was completely merited with a strong set of rock songs and a really great energy.
8. Tashaki Miyaki – 12” EP (Self-Released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Fuzzy, druggy pop songs, heavy on the reverb, half girl group, have Velvet Underground – a formula I’m virtually powerless against when the songs are good. And these are good. Bonus points for the cover of Buddy Holly’s “Heartbeat.”
9. Mickey – Rock ‘n’ Roll Dreamer (HoZac)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   What’s not to love about scuzzy glam garage from Chicago? Replace a few ‘s’s with ‘z’s, a few ‘y’s with ‘ee’s, in titles like Bright Lights Big City, Kids in Love, and Baby We’re Gold, and this album could sit proudly next to the likes of Sweet and Slade.
10. Stone Darling – All I Wanna Do 7” (Self-Released)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    I don’t particularly like including a single on my best-of list, but this song haunted me for the second half of the year. Gorgeous harmonies, lush and lovely, and no, not a lost Mazzy Star track.

Honorable Mentions

• Beach Fossils / What a Pleasure EP / Captured Tracks
  
  A Classic Education / Call It Blazing / Lefse
  
  Swiftumz / Don’t Trip / Holy Mountain
  
  Charles Bradley / No Time for Dreaming / Daptone
  
  Evans the Death / Threads 7” / Fortuna Pop!

Tony Breed writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Tony Breed)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from Tony Breed.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. tUnE-yArDs – W H O K I L L (4AD)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   It’s rare to find an album that really grabs you and smacks you around this way. There’s something about these afropop-inspired polyrhythms combined with Merrill Garbus’s balls-out singing style that just gets under my skin.
2. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (Vagrant)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   PJ Harvey has been making music for years and is still totally on top of her game. This album is really top-notch.
3. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Yes, Fleet Foxes. Folky harmonies, sweet melodies, beards. I’m not made of wood, people.
4. Grace Jones – Hurricane (Play It Again Sam)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Thanks to a long-delayed US release, I get to put this album on this year’s top ten despite having had a copy myself for two years. I can tell you it stands the test of time; I still listen to it often.
5. Dengue Fever – Cannibal Courtship (Fantasy)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Dengue Fever has been doing more or less the same thing for a while (and doing it well). With Cannibal Courtship, they finally break the mold, with excellent results.
6. John Vanderslice – White Wilderness (Dead Oceans)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   I love John Vanderslice, but for me his albums have always hovered at about 11 on my end-of-year list. But on White Wilderness, he teams up with the Magic*Magic Orchestra and really kicks his game up a notch.
7. Daniel Knox – Evryman for Himself (Chicago Independent)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Basically, sardonic piano cabaret music. I love this guy. (If the description “sardonic piano cabaret music” doesn’t pique your interest then I don’t know what to say to you.)
8. Jens Lekman – An Argument with Myself (Secretly Canadian)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Oh Jens. Everything you do is so enjoyable.
9. The Mast – Wild Poppies (Channel A)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Like Dead Can Dance with Guitars, and fantastic drumming that propels it along.
10. Radiohead – The King of Limbs (Tiker Tape Ltd.)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    I would think that by now Radiohead would have worn out their ability to make this kind of music so well—you know, said everything they can say? Anyway, they haven’t.

Honorable Mentions

• 
  Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
  
  Kate Bush – 50 Words for Snow
  
  Wild Flag – Wild Flag
  
  The Feelies – Here Before

Songs of the Year

• Dessa – Alibi
  
  Battles feat. Gary Numan – My Machines
  
  Malachai – My Ambulance
  
  Wild Flag – Romance

'O Celestial Golfball That Rules The Night... writesCHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (David Staples)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from David Staples.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient (Secretly Canadian)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Springsteen, Dylan, Petty are the common comparisons.. but with a hypnotic bend. Roadtrip music that makes you drive faster.. be safe, use cruise control instead. (Fav song.. Come to the City)
2. Wye Oak – Civilian (Merge)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Dynamic…Loud when it needs to be, Hushy when it feels right to be hushy… and Jenn Wasner’s smoky voice! It’s all so haunting and mesmerizing. (Fav song.. Holy Holy)
3. I Break Horses – Hearts (Bella Union)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Vocal effects and pedal tapping… hypnotic shoegaze rotates around from time to time even now… (Fav song.. Hearts)
4. Panda Bear – Tomboy (Paw Tracks)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Like a psychedelic Brian Wilson. Best enjoyed alone with headphones and ice cream. (Fav song.. Alsatian Darn)
5. Low – C’Mon (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Their 9th album and I’m still enthralled. Minimalist royalty in the music world. Also one of the least depressing of their body of work. (Fav song.. Witches)
6. Lumerians – Transmallinia (Knitting Factory)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Garage psyche from the Bay Area that sounds like it could have come from the 60’s. Heavy and droney with African percussion, this album would go great with oil-wheel projector visual effects.. and a mean case of the munchies.. (Fav song.. Melting Space)
7. Tennis – Cape Dory (Fat Possum)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Released way back in January, it shoulda been the soundtrack to summer. Created by a husband/wife team from Colorado about the romance of boats, sailing, beaches, sand… Gorgeous album indeed! (Fav Song.. Baltimore)
8. National Skyline – Primitive Parade (Hype Music)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Synth rich, ethereal, warm, emotional guitar driven electronica created by Jeff Dimpsey (ex Hum). It’s a fine follow-up to 2009’s Bliss & Death (I’m not counting the film soundtrack material in between). My single favorite song of the year is Dream Like Me, and it’s on this album. (of course, favorite songs change places with each other like popcorn in a popper, but as of this writing….)
9. Cross Record – Magnetic Current (Another New Calligraphy)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   A lo-fi collection of delicate, beautiful and haunting songs. This album stopped me in my tracks. Pull the covers up and stay inside today. Hope ya like clarinets. (Fav song.. Black Cat)
10. White Hills – H-p1 (Thrill Jockey)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    Loud, loud, loud psychedelic free-form space-rock that drones you into hypnosis, but in a scary way. It’s as unnerving as it is addictive as it is intense. I would walk about with this on my iPod and occasionally find myself looking over my shoulder, worried about what’s behind me. I suppose I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a twelve foot praying mantis looming over me, holding a boom box over its head like John Cusack. Ok, surprised isn’t the right word. (Fav song.. Paradise)

Honorable Mentions

• Yuck – Yuck (Fat Possum)
  
  Implodes – Black Earth (Kranky)
  
  Wooden Shjips – West (Thrill Jockey)
  
  Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)