Best of 2011

As a general rule, I hate those "Best Of" lists that pop up everywhere at the end of every year.  The reason for my distaste is that the vast majority of those lists only contain critic-friendly crap.   You know: Coldplay, Feist, Adele, Katy Perry, Radiohead...junk that for some reason the people who are supposed to "know" about this stuff always love but I always really, really don't love.  Because the things I want to listen to are inexplicably absent from the majority of the lists out there, I'm making my own damn list.  Screw the in-the-know critics/journalists, they don't know shit about what I like.  So here is possibly the only music fan oriented "best of" list that you're likely to find out here.

Here are my top 20 music items that I acquired in 2011 (it's my list so the only criteria is that I love it and came to own it this year):
20. "Sour Cherry" - The Kills (from Midnight Boom)
19.  "Liquor Store Blues" - Bruno Mars (from Doo-Wops & Hooligans)
18. Wasting Light - Foo Fighters - vinyl and digital
17. Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes - vinyl and digital
16. "Get Out" - White Arrows
15. "U.R.A. Fever" - The Kills (from Midnight Boom)
14. "I Want to Forget" - Psychic Twin
13. "Lost and Found" - The Kill Van Kulls
12.  "Today" - Smashing Pumpkins (from Siamese Dream)
11. "She Talks to Angels' (acoustic) - The Black Crowes (from Shake Your Money Maker)
10. Some Mad Hope - Matt Nathanson
9. "The Boxer" - Simon & Garfunkel - (from The Best of Simon & Garfunkel)
8. Heart on Fire EP - Scars on 45
7. Airports EP - The PKO
6. Coast to Coast - Micah
5. Black Sheep, Run - Ryan Schmidt
4. "Disarm" - Smashing Pumpkins (from Siamese Dream)
3. At The Point - Matt Nathanson
2. Beneath These Fireworks - Matt Nathanson
1. Modern Love - Matt Nathanson - vinyl and digital

Just the last few months of 2011 have been a chain reaction of amazing music and people for me.  Technically, I have Train and Maroon 5 to thank for starting it all because they had Matt Nathanson on tour with them, which is how I discovered him back in July.  That discovery led me to Scars on 45 and Aaron Tap who led to Paula Kelley who recommended Ryan Schmidt.  Then by a complete fluke (because they all follow/are followed by a lot of other musicians), I found Micah through Ryan's twitter account and was inclined to follow him based on a single hilarious hashtag.  I gave him a listen with little hope (because I have sampled so many of them and not been inspired) but ended up loving what I heard.  So, as apparently awesome begets awesome, I have high hopes for 2012.

One-Hit Wonders of My iPod

The best and by far the worst thing about the way we buy music these days is the fact that you can buy one song at a time.  Sure, there have always been singles released, but they had cover art and a B-side, in other words, they were packaged as a mini experience. These days, you can buy pretty much any song you want, one at a time, with no respect for the album it was a part of.  Songs aren't really supposed to be stand-alone things.  They are part of something bigger.  But in today's culture of instant gratification, we want to buy it quick, download it quick, listen to it quick, move on.  Who can be bothered with an entire album?  That's like, almost an hour! 

Well, I can.  I love albums.  It is a wonderful thing when I have time to listen to a full record from start to finish.  To experience the whole thing the way it was intended.

That being said, I am super guilty of buying individual songs.  I do that shit all the time.  Usually because it's the only song I know by that artist, or it's the only one I like.  Or because I preview the rest of the album and it it doesn't sound anything like the single they released and it doesn't appeal to me.  Or sometimes it's just a music budget thing.  I have $1.29 I want to spend on that artist, but not $10.  It happens. 

As a result, I've ended up with a number of artists that only have one song in my collection.  Some of these I'd like to get the full album, but not all of them. To clarify, these artists are not one-hit wonders in the traditional sense (well, I suppose some of them are), these are just people I only own one song from.  Once I scanned through my entire iPod, I found that I had over 70 songs that were the only song I owned by that artist, so narrowing this down to my favorite 20 of those was quite a task.  You would not believe some of the crazy shit I have that ended up on the cutting room floor (so to speak).

So for your viewing (and potential listening) pleasure, here are my own personal Top 20 One-Hit Wonders:

20. "Creep" - Radiohead
19. "Good" - Better Than Ezra
18. "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" - Urge Overkill (I know it was Neil Diamond's originally)
17. "Counting Blue Cars" - Dishwalla
16. "A Girl Like You" - Edwyn Collins
15. "John the Fisherman" - Primus
14. "Closing Time" - Semisonic
13. "At Last" - Etta James
12. "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" - Cake
11. "New Age Girl" - Dead Eye Dick
10. "Tempted 1994" - Squeeze
9. "Sex and Candy" - Marcy Playground
8. "Feeling Good" - Nina Simone
7. "My Sharona" - The Knack
6. "You Can Call Me Al" - Paul Simon (I guess this counts - it's the only song I have of him solo)
5. "Laid" - James
4. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" - Def Leppard
3. "I Wanna Be Sedated" - The Ramones
2. "Fade Into You" - Mazzy Star
1. "Hold On Loosely" - .38 Special

And, only because I just couldn't cut it down to 20, here are 10 honorable mentions in no particular order:
"Sour Times" - Portishead
"Time of the Season" - The Zombies
"Pepper" - Butthole Surfers
"Possum Kingdom" - The Toadies
"Once Bitten Twice Shy" - White Snake
"Seventeen" - Winger
"Fire and Rain" - James Taylor
"Don't Know Why" - Nora Jones
"If You Could Only See" - Tonic
"Naked Eye" - Luscious Jackson