2011 brought a blizzard of tremendous music, and while we sadly saw the demise of The White Stripes and an occasional wildly ill-conceived musical misstep (here's lookin' at you, Lulu), rock made a roaring comeback with a wide range of strong albums. It was a great year for the '90s-nostalgia crowd, with Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction and more commanding renewed respect with powerful albums.
Here's my take on the Best Albums of 2011, with the rationale for each - click each thumbnail to read the original album review!
1. Foo Fighters – Wasting Light
A fantastically searing accomplishment birthed in full analog from Dave Grohl’s home garage, Wasting Light finally sees the Foo Fighters reaching a balance between the raw power of their first two albums with the consistently evolving songwriting of their latter releases. A riff-rich tapestry of snarling guitars and punch-rock drums accentuates a songwriting maturity and fluency that stands on two decades’ worth of trial by fire in an ever-shifting and treacherous industry.
Grohl & company, no strangers to the mega-hit Rock anthems, have doubled down on the fire that made Monkeywrench such a buoyant thrill, with a concentrated emphasis on songwriting that constantly strives to go bigger, hit harder and add more color. They succeed, and it’s unquestionably Grohl’s finest work as a songwriter, a relentless pursuit of peak potential that’s yielded the best Foo Fighters album since 1997’s The Colour And The Shape.
2. Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne
Watch The Throne possesses all the glory and gaudy gluttony of the two most iconic Hip-Hop figures of the me-me-me generation, who no longer have a need for dreams as commoners experience them. With melodrama on high and an appetite for spirited lyrical one-uppery, Hova and Yeezy swing for the fences while backed by a tapestry of production contributors. It’s a bacchanal of depth, decadence and vanity, an album that 2011 will be remembered for. Two rap kingpins have managed to both throttle and rein their gargantuan egos and supreme grandiosity, resulting in a largely fantastic body of work over a fittingly decadent sonic mural shaped by far-reaching contributors. Is that a sequel we smell?
3. The Black Keys – El Camino
The Black Keys‘ seventh LP sounds nothing like its predecessor Brothers, the album that took them from secret gems to superstars. Tighten Up producer Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton returns for the entire ride this time, and the living blues legends from Akron have risen to meet the Gnarls knob turner with an album that hip-checks the sensational hit factory of Brothers for boundless pockets of catchiness and full-throttle gut-rock. The core of El Camino’s magic is the visceral connection rather than the cerebral eclecticism that drove much of the previous record. It’s a record to bridge genres and generations, with enough rockabilly stomp-funk goodness to be precisely the right album after midnight with a few rolled, a few tipped and some good friends. Sounds like a modern classic to me.
4. The Kills - Blood Pressures
Four albums deep, The Kills are as confrontational and compelling as ever, in the slow-burning, whiskey-in-the-ashtray sort of manner. And with Blood Pressures, the duo of Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart reach their highest realization of potential yet with a kindled confidence and dedication to songwriting. The new emphasis on balladry and artful hooks that don't snap to the grid is a delightful turn, and Blood Pressures is a perfectly stated collection of tracks out to prove little - but in doing so, proves a great deal about the duo's ability to craft sounds not hard to fall hard for. Stewing tension while bleeding you dry with subversive melodicism has become something of a calling card for The Kills, and they're inching closer to perfecting the balance with each passing release.
5. Red Hot Chili Peppers – I’m With You
There was plenty riding on Chili Peppers’ 10th album and first to feature new guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who replaces the departed savant-like six-string wizardry of John Frusciante. To offset the void, a newly intensified focus turned to the bass and rhythm, shifting from the flamboyance of Frusciante’s guitar work to more groove-oriented designs (with Rick Rubin’s steadfast help). Klinghoffer holds his own, and I’m With You strikes the listener on first impact as a double down of effort and focus in the vein of By The Way, far more than the overload of safe style adherence and mass quantity that was Stadium Arcadium. It’s a keeper.
