Paste Top Songs of 2011

Paste Magazine has released their top 50 songs of 2011.  I really appreciate their willingness to make it a list of songs instead of CDs.  I just downloaded the top 20 (or at least the portion of the top 20 that I didn't already have), and I'm enjoying making my own decisions about their worthiness for the list.

Follow the link for the whole list, but the top 5 are:
1) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
2) M83 - Midnight City
3) Typhoon - The Honest Truth
4) tUnE-yArDs - Powa
5) Phantogram - Don't Move

None of these were 5 star songs on my iPod, but the Generationals, who came in at #6, do make my short list of 2011 releases with personal 5-star ratings.  Fleet Foxes has 5-star songs too, but not from 2011.  I do see the appeal of their new release, but it's just a bit bland in a late 70s CSN-ish way as opposed to the more interesting CSNY-ish vibe of their first EP.

I'm going to keep M83 and Phantogram on at least medium rotation on the iPod for a while.  I can see how their indie-oriented pop confections could grow on me, but they also might be no better than Katy Perry or Lady Gaga, just with a different target audience.  OK - I paused for a few minutes to watch a few Katy Perry and Lady Gaga videos.  I was unfair to M83 and Phantogram.  They're better than that, but I'm still not sure they belong in a top 5.

I wasn't familiar with tUnE-yArDs, even though it's music tailor-made for former free form DJs (and of course current free form DJs, but I don't know any of them).  I'm on the fence about the 2011 tracks, but I also downloaded some 2009 tUnE-yArDs tracks and I think "Sunlight" may have been one of the many late-decade omissions from my best songs of the 2000s list.  I think I may also like the older Typhoon song I downloaded better than the newer one.  Sometimes I think bands make these lists with their second best records because of critics regrets about omitting their earlier releases which were discovered too late to make any year-end lists.

2011 Year-end Best-of Lists

I feel like the best-of lists are showing up early this year.  I prefer to read them while relaxing after having finished all my Christmas shopping for others while contemplating a post-Christmas record shopping outing on my own.  No such luck this year.  I could only skim the NY Times in a fatigued and harried state before rushing off to a Chuck E Cheese birthday party this morning, but there was at least one new discovery for me.

Like most of blue-state America, I'm pretty oblivious to current country music.  I sit comfortably distant from red states listening to alt-country, but the chasm between commercial-radio country and alt-country is still something I find astounding.  There's virtually no cross-over in either direction.  I think the Pistol Annies could be an exception.  Miranda Lambert is a huge country star, and if she's ever shown up on any NY Times year-end lists, I've certainly missed it.  Her side project, however, showed up on a couple of lists this year, including Ben Ratliff's.

I was intrigued by the write-up and figured it wouldn't be too hard to find a video, and it wasn't.  I hope things slow down enough during the holidays that I can explore the rest of the list and many others as well.  I was very happy with this first discovery.