T. Cole Rachel’s Critical Albums Of 2011

I love lists. I love making them and I love reading them. Still, every time the end of the year rolls around and it's time to cobble together my various "best of" lists, I always find myself locked in the same mental debate. Do I list the records that were my "critical" favorites of the year, or do I just be honest and pick the albums that got the most spins on my turntable (or the highest number of plays in my iTunes library). I typically always go with the latter option, as I did this year, not only because it seems more truthful (revealing things like how I only listened to Watch The Throne one and a half times and how I am largely indifferent regarding Adele), but it's also a reasonable indicator of where my head was at over the past year. I listened to Real Estate's Days more than any other record this year, mostly because it's beautiful, pastoral, and utterly nostalgic and that's what I needed to hear in 2011. Caveman (New York's most criminally underrated band) and Cass McCombs appealed to me in similar ways: when the world felt so totally insane, these records felt intimate and smart and safe and strangely familiar. When I felt like taking drugs (but realized I am now too old to actually do that), there were things like the new John Maus and Pure X records, each of which seems to inhabit their own particular chemically-enhanced universes. I guess over the past twelve months I just had a deep, almost physical need to hear really beautiful, well-written songs that were maybe also a little bit sad. There were plenty of other records that made a bigger and more bombastic noise in 2011 (I'm looking at you, Wild Flag), but these ten records felt the best...at least to me.