^_2011

63 songs.

Much like my 2010 playlist, 2011 needs some work. The last time I ranked the songs, I only had 42 entries; however, this time I have 63, so, 21 new songs that I still need to rank. When I do get around to that, I’m pretty sure Widowspeak and Y La Bamba both have a good shot of getting in my top 5 albums list for 2011. As it stands now, their songs are at the bottom of the playlist. I do not anticipate any movement for my favorite album of 2011, Magic Trix from Xenia Rubinos. She also has my favorite song of this year, Hair Receding.

Top 6 albums

1. Magic Trix | Xenia Rubinos
2. Bad Penny | Spectrals
3. Nightlife | Phantogram
4. Outside | Tapes 'n Tapes
5. Portrait | Circuit des Yeux
6. Apocalypse | Bill Callahan        

Top 12 tracks

1. Hair Receding | Xenia Rubinos
2. Luck Is There to Be Pushed | Spectrals
3. Turning Into Stone | Phantogram
4. I'm On Fire Live | Circuit des Yeux
5. Sail | AWOLNATION
6. Midnight City | M83
7. Pan Y Cafe | Xenia Rubinos
8. Recharge & Revolt | The Raveonettes
9. Baby | Sea Power
10. Cruel | St. Vincent
11. Cherry Tree | Xenia Rubinos
12. 16 Years | Phantogram

About yearly playlists

The yearly playlists were originally built as an aid in determining my favourite albums released from every year since the beginning of the popular/rock’n’roll music era. Currently I have every year from 1960-2024 but plan to go back and do the 50’s, 40’s, 30’s, etc. eventually. An important limitation is the songs need to be available on Spotify. At least two of my favorite albums of all time are absent for this reason: The Swimming Pool Q’s The Deep End (1981) and The Colorblind James Experience’s Why Should I Stand Up?  (1989)

The intent is to include only those songs that I really like a lot. Of course, there will be plenty of great songs left out, but I am trying to include only my favorites. My target number of songs for each year is between 50 – 100 but there are some exceptions. For example, I had to struggle to get my list down to 159 songs for 1979, while for 2000, I could barely scrape together 37 songs. The default state of the lists is for them to appear, under custom sort, wherein, the songs are ranked from high to low, mostly in terms of how much I enjoy listening to them, but other considerations are significance, uniqueness, innovation, influence, value, etc. So my favorite would be number 1 on the list, for example.

The lists consist of songs that appear on an album released the same year as the name of the list, for the most part but I do make some exceptions. Compilations albums, Soundtracks, etc. do not count. This means that there may be songs that were not released on a studio album that are not included, though I have to make some exceptions for songs that were not released on a studio album. Also, for the most part, I do not include covers or songs released by artists who do/did not write their own music. Again, I do make a few exceptions for covers if the cover version is much better or very different from the original, and for songs performed by artists who did not participate in the creation of said song, if they do otherwise write most of their material, which is the primary reason there are only a handful of songs listed from some artists/performers whose music I do enjoy, but who did not write most of the music they performed. Some examples are James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley.

This is an ongoing project, and the lists are constantly being updated, sorted, etc. Suggestions are always welcome.