V9K's Best Tracks of 2011

BEHOLD!  Victor's Best Tracks of 2011 have arrived!  While I hope that 2011 was a good year for you, I can report that it was a solid year for singers and young rappers, and the lines between indie rock, electronica, pop and hip-hop were more blurred than ever, which is to be celebrated.  Unlike years past, this year didn't feature a clear number one song or album that stood out from the moment it was released.  But nonetheless, 2011 saw some great music, and my top seven songs are closely bunched in terms of quality.  

Download the tracks as a zip file here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/rqz18b ; Once downloaded, double click the file and extract the tunes to your computer.

Without further ado, here are my top 30 songs of 2011, counting down to number 1...

30. The Weeknd – House of Balloons/Glass Table Girls

The Weeknd's sound results from the inevitable braiding of indie electronica with hip-hop and R&B, genres that have been borrowing from each other for a while now, but The Weeknd solders together those strains into a unit that gets it done for fans of all three genres. Also, this track marks the first instance of a great 2011 trend – the return and embrace of traditional singing.

29. Kendrick Lamar – HiiiPower

It's obvious that Lamar springs from the Tribe-Mos Def-Kweli hip hop continuum, but with a great flute-like melody and solid wordsmithing on HiiiPower, he's staking a claim to be worthy of his forebears.

28. Odio Paris – Nana Blanca

The only hatin' going on around here is the band's name, which means “I hate Paris” in Spanish. This is music to daydream about flying to.

27. Cocaine 80s – To Tell You the Truth

Cocaine 80s sounds like they kidnapped a crooner from 1974 and forced him to sing over a heavy guitar line at knifepoint, but the tension totally drives the song.

26. Lykke Li – I Follow Rivers

The Swede returned in 2011 with a more confident sound, exemplified by this ethereal but aggressive jam backed up by deep percussion.

25. John Maus – Keep Pushing On

Maus channels a fair amount of New Wave in his synthy compositions, but the Joy Division-esque vocals push this track into powerful faux nostalgia territory, making you wonder how it is a song released in 2011 makes you yearn for the 24 Hour Party People era.

24. A$AP Rocky – Peso

With the best flow among 2011's crop of young rappers, A$AP Rocky is from Harlem by way of Houston, as his rhymes are delivered with the laconic crawl of the South. At 24, he has a good chance of changing the game before he's through.

23. Future Islands – On the Water

Combine one Joy Division melody with one androgynous operatic vocalist, throw in a dash of unexpected growls, and you've got a great song.

22. Das Racist – Power

I don't understand why these guys aren't bigger than cheese. As evidenced once again on Power, Das Racist have M.I.A.-quality beats minus the sanctimony, flows and rhymes that are next level, and deploy their Wesleyan educations to throw the best party they can.

21. Araabmusik – AT2

This is electronic music to think to.

20. Oliver Tank – Last Night I Heard Everything in Slow Motion

Songs like this make me want to thank all those synth-tone-loop experimenters of the last 40 years, as their work created a new platform for Tank and others to mine and harness in the service of producing great new songs like this one.

19. Tyler the Creator – Yonkers

The id speaks.

18. Rebecca Black - Friday

It's the musical version of The Room.  This may be the most important song of 2011, as it unintentionally peeled back the lid on societal assumptions about our judgment of amateurs vs. professionals. Why is it so enjoyable to make fun of this but not of your cousin's bad Britney Spears cover on Youtube?

17. The Weeknd – The Morning

I love how a 21 year old can sound world-weary while singing about the hollowness of sex and money. Also he makes a Scottie Pippin reference.

16. M83 – Midnight City

Though perhaps now forever linked to Wonderbras and supermodels, Midnight City is a high water mark in M83's refinement of their epic sound. Also, watch this amazing Midnight City audition tape.

15. Youth Lagoon – July

This sweet and light concoction slowly grows legs to support a sonic narrative that ends with a climax of conviction.

14. Kendrick Lamar – ADHD

Stretching out from under the shelter of the Mos Def mold, Lamar crafts a darker mood on ADHD and raps about the sadness of addiction and its suppression of human connection.

13. Clams Casino – I'm God

This super-talented producer applies his skills to an Emancipator-type sound in his solo work. More please.

12. A$AP Rocky w/ Clams Casino – Wassup

Oh, two prior Best of 2011 artists collaborated on a track? I'll bet it's good.

11. Das Racist – Booty in the Air

Let me say that I'm surprised a song about booties is the eleventh best song this year, but Das Racist are so damn good, they get right to the musical core of the idea of bootyness, and that's worth recognizing.

10. Jhameel – Bernal Heights

On this track, San Fran's transgender wunderkind pairs an incredible singing voice with raw drums and a lilting melody, and you'll have trouble not liking it.

9. The Weeknd – High For This

This is the kind of song that in the 1940s would have triggered accusations that the singer sold his soul to the devil for the power to seduce pure young girls and make them stray.

8. Nicky Minaj – Super Bass

Minaj wins pop song of the year with this wonderful ditty, though for a song called Super Bass, it surprisingly lacks a low frequency punch.

7. Bon Iver – Perth

I can't believe that this is the first track on the follow up to For Emma, Forever Ago, which is one of the great recent albums. Never have I so quickly stopped mentally comparing a musician's new record to their old one.  That guitar line just emerges from the darkness, willing itself to be born.

6. ACME – Gone
This DC pair have staked out an intersection between the cool and the sincere, musically tapping LCD Soundsystem, Aretha Franklin and Peter Gabriel among others. The result is a huge sound that builds and jumps and spirals upward into the air.

5. Phantogram – Don't Move

This is collage music, assembling assorted genres, samples and references with the singular intention to break down whatever's getting you down and make you smile.

4. Gotye – Somebody That I Used to Know

A last minute entrant to the 2011 pool thanks to a friend's Christmas rec, Gotye is something special. It's one of the best breakup songs ever written and the music subtly brings you in close, but when Gotye opens up his big pipes at 1:35, the piece sears its way into your heart.

3. Fucked Up – The Other Shoe

Apologies to the ladies, who I'm told don't seem to care for this band at the same intensity as the fellas, but holy shit, Fucked Up lays down a helluva track here. With a refrain about dying on the inside, it sets the stakes high from the start. But what makes this track so special is the journey from a couple spare licks and a couple verses through to a full on maelstrom of rock. Throughout the deluge, the band always keeps sight of that perfect little melody as it flits along precariously like a hummingbird over a riot, making sure this pure little nugget of beauty stays safe while everything's out of control and the roof might not hold.

2. Tune-Yards – Gangsta

“What's a boy to do if he'll never be a gangsta?” is the lyric of the year. It's hard to describe this song, but a) it's really great and sounds like nothing you've heard before but also a little like everything you've heard before; b) it makes you work to keep the beat in your head; c) when you want to have your mind blown (after listening to it), google a picture or video of who sings it.

1. Jogger - Nephicide

Okay, so this song didn't come out in 2011, but the video for it dropped in December 2010, and it's so great I can't let the release date keep this from my best of list. So what we have here is an initial guitar lick, then a synthy tune breaks in, but both are quickly usurped by death metal growl, then what ho, a speed beat drops, with each strain fighting and clawing for control of the song.  After tussling with each other for two minutes, there seems to be a cease fire, with a young Tom Petty-esque voice calming the chaos over a funk bass line, reassuring everyone that “it's just a feeling.”  Finally though, let's get everyone in a room together to have their voices heard and sort this damn thing out, shall we?  Fantastic.

The video is one of the best things of 2011, and watching it helps the song work.

Victor's Top Ten Albums of 2011

10.  The Strokes - Angles
9.    Gotye - Making Mirrors
8.    Acme - Why Not?
7.    Odio Paris - Odio Paris
6.    John Maus - We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
5.    Jhameel - The Human Condition
4.    Das Racist - Relax
3.    Bon Iver - Bon Iver
2.    Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
1.    The Weeknd - House of Balloons