I love year end “best of” lists but recognize that without hearing everything released in any given year it is impossible for these lists to be anything other than an extremely subjective selection of a small fraction of music produced in a twelve month period. The fact that more and more artists are releasing their own work, bypassing the handful of media conglomerates that still exist, music that may be fantastic but few will hear, makes “best of” lists anything but definitive. These lists are just a reflection of what the listmaker (with the help of buzz, promotional hype or through sheer diligence) was able to access in the massive amount of pop culture information available out there.

So this is not my “best of” list for 2011. It’s just some of the best music I encountered in the past year, songs and albums that made me feel good about the state of rock and roll. I also felt a few of these artists deserve more exposure. As the avenues for sharing music expands, some good stuff is getting lost in the shuffle. And artists that don’t need my help are getting some of my love anyway, as in the case of Watch The Throne by Kanye West and Jay Z.

Sometimes hype can distract from music worthy of serious attention. It seems that we’ve returned to an era in which we need to remind uppity Black folk of their place. On the radical tip, Watch The Throne deals with race, power, subjugation and fear of a Black planet with the incisively self-critical, self-defining and proudly defiant attitude that energized Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide. As a musical message, Kanye and Jay Z brought Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On state-of-the union address into the moment and everybody missed the point. You had better watch the throne, white boy. Blacks have grown tired of proving they can beat you at your own game. Time to level up.  

I listened to a lot of new music in 2011. I’m always looking for a new rock and roll thrill, hoping that some band will give me one of those four hour hard-ons that the Viagra commercials keep warning us about. But most of the stuff out there doesn’t get a rise out of me. Which makes me wonder if I’m just too fucking old and jaded to have those musical experiences that alter the chemistry in my brain.

Listening to the recently released Smile sessions by The Beach Boys reminded me of a time in which rock and roll could be a mindaltering event that occurred between musicians and their audience. We got high together. That collective evolutionary process triggered by rock and roll seems to be a thing of the past. When was the last time a band elevated your consciousness? Is it my problem or the state of the art?

An album that raises the hairs on my neck and seems to aspire to something transcendent is from a band that I knew nothing about until I saw them perform live in Austin this past summer. AWOLNATION’s Megalithic Symphony (don’t let the title put you off) is a stunning pop creation that amazes over the course of 15 beautifully crafted tracks. The brainchild of lead singer, producer and songwriter Aaron Bruno, Megalithic Symphony seamlessly mixes punk, L.A. hardcore, funk, hip hop and pop that recalls some of the best of Prince, The Clash, Trent Reznor, World Party, Shuggy Otis, TSOL, The Stones, Beastie Boys and countless other really good bands…I know it sounds like I’m stretching here, but I’m really not. AWOLNATION is a thrilling compression of several decades worth of rock and roll goodness. Aaron Bruno has the chops to be a major force in music. He could also end up crashing and burning like Terence Trent D’Arby, with whom he shares a brilliant sense of pop craft and psychological complexity (his songs are filled with self-doubt and yearning for redemption). Bruno’s delectable tunes have shiny surfaces that contain dark undertows and his vocals veer from hellbent to heavenly. This cat deserves your attention.

Let England Shake, P.J. Harvey’s lament for EngLand’s lost soul, is the sound of ghosts pressing against the strings of an autoharp and voices fluttering like bleached butterflies from a box of decaying daguerreotypes. Shapeshifter Harvey becomes the militant cry of a woman betrayed by country, seared with the high-pitched pain of a wife mourning the death of husband, brother and father.

Thrice and The War On Drugs create road music that has cost me at least a few gallons of gas as I circle the block, their CDs spinning like hubcaps, giving me all kinds of reasons not to cruise to a stop and shift into park..

EMA’s California is so spookily seductive that I forgive her for getting the state wrong. She took the wrong exit and actually ended up in Las Vegas.

Florence Welch’s machine has erected the sonic equivalent of a Cecil B. DeMille set and the artifice is exhilarating.

Had I heard it in its entirety before putting this mix together, The Black Keys’ El Camino would have made the cut.
  

01. “The Other Shoe” - Fucked Up
02. “Blinded” - Thrice
03. “Midnight City” - M83
04. “California” - EMA
05. “Not Your Fault” - AWOLNATION
06. “No Church In The Wild” - Kanye West/Jay Z
07. “Baby Missiles” - The War On Drugs
08. “I Can See Through You” - The Horrors
09. “Burn It Down” - AWOLNATION
10. “Vessel” - Zola Jesus
11. “Leave My Body” - Florence And The Machine
12. “Human Condition” - Joan As Police Woman
13. “Your Love Is Calling My Name” - The War On Drugs
14. “Revelation Road” - Shelby Lynne
15. “Heroes And Villains” - The Beach Boys (“Smile” re-master)
16. “Written On The Forehead” - P.J. Harvey
17. “Chinatown” - Destroyer