CHIRP: The Chicago Independent Radio Project

Bobby Evers writes

CHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (Bobby Evers)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. Our first list is from CHIRP DJ Bobby Evers.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

In making this list, I realized 2011 has been a year of “Don’t Miss” albums. Like, you should absolutely make it your business to listen to “The King is Dead” “21” “Watch the Throne” and “Bon Iver, Bon Iver.” The word “epic” gets thrown around a lot, but 2011 seems to have turned out to be a pretty important year albums-wise.

First, The Honorable Mentions: Artists whose Albums I regret not listening to more that likely would have made the list had I gotten around to it: Peter Bjorn and John, Bill Callahan, Fleet Foxes, Radiohead, Tapes N’
Tapes, The Joy Formidable, Feist, Death Cab For Cutie, Beyonce, Fruit Bats, Mister Heavenly, Saves the Day, Wilco, Bjork, St. Vincent, BOBBY, Eleanor Friedberger.

And now, the top 10…

1. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead (Capitol)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The first #1 for Pacific Northwestern indie folk troupe The Decemberists saw them stripping away 100% of their theatrics to get back to their roots and do what they do best: simple, sweet folk songs with an alt country bent. Play to your strengths, Meloy.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Rise to Me, January Hymn, June Hymn, This is Why We Fight

2. Bon Iver – Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   At first I was listening to it over and over again because I was trying to see what all the hype was about. It charted at #2 on the Billboard 200 and everyone was talking about it. I couldn’t quite figure it out, but eventually I was listening to it over and over again because I couldn’t stop. It had become the film-within-the-book in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest that renders the audience incapacitated.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Holocene, Michicant

3. Wye Oak – Civilian (Merge)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   “I still keep my baby teeth, In the bedside table with my jewelry, You still sleep in the bed with me, My jewelry, and my baby teeth. I don’t need another friend, When most of them I can barely keep up with. I’m perfectly able to hold my own hand, but I still can’t kiss my own neck. I wanted to give you everything but I still stand in awe of superficial things I wanted to love you like my mother’s mother’s mothers did…Civilian…”
   
   No explanation needed.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Civilian, Holy Holy, Doubt
   

4. Thao & Mirah – Thao & Mirah (Kill Rock Stars)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   What started as a tour together between Kill Rock Stars darlings Thao Nguyen (of her assembled Get Down Stay Down) and Mirah Zeitlyn of Mirah quickly turned into collaborative songwriting and the world was made better for it. The album was produced by Merrill Garbus (see #5).
   
   Recommended tracks: Eleven, Teeth
5. tUnE yArDs – W H O K I L L (4AD)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   This is the year Merrill Garbus exploded with her musical project tUnE-yArDs, a collage of multi-instrumentation and sound effects. The album is bombastic, fun, and incredibly original. I seriously didn’t understand what I was listening to the first time I heard it streaming on NPR.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Gangsta, Powa, Bizness
   

6. Nicole Atkins – Mondo Amore (Razor & Tie Music)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The follow-up to her debut Neptune City, singer-songwriter Nicole Atkins is moody and soulful and dark. Taking inspiration from Ennio Morricone, a lot of the songs give you the unsettling feeling you’re living a David Lynch movie. It was actually her poster hanging at Subterrenean the night after she performed there that made me listen to this record, making me immediately regret missing her there.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Cry, Cry, Cry, Hotel Plaster, This is For Love, War Is Hell

7. Adele – 21 (XL)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Another #1 record, this is the sexy, soulful followup to her debut album 19 (I hope she titles all of her albums the age she was at the exact moment she wrote them, like a diary). It is all at once empowering and heartbreaking soul pop.
   

   Recommended Tracks: Rolling in the Deep, Rumor Has It, Someone Like You

8. Tennis – Cape Dory (Fat Possum)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Ridiculous album cover aside, this is a record by a married couple who traveled the world and then made an album about it. It is dumb, fun twee pop and one that I listened to over and over again at work, alongside Bon Iver and Civilian. Unfortunately I missed them at Lollapalooza, but I could still hear them.
   

   Recommended tracks: Take Me Somewhere, South Carolina, Cape Dory

9. Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck (Merge)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   2011 saw a return-to-form for John Darnielle’s songwriting project The Mountain Goats after a dissappointing response to 2009’s Life of the World to Come. It is driving, full, and dripping with the cleverness audiences come to expect from Darnielle.
   
   Recommended tracks: Damn These Vampires, High Hawk Season, For Charles Bronson
10. Jay-Z and Kanye West – Watch the Throne (Roc-A-Fella/Roc Nation/Def Jam)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    Another collaboration that once it came together seemed fairly obvious with fantastic results. An annoying ad campaign for a pretty brilliant hip-hop album that is dark and fun and has a cornicopia of special guest stars including Beyonce, Frank Ocean, Mr. Hudson and a polarizing use of an Otis Redding track. The songs that have “featuring” credits are the best ones on the album. This album is kind of a big deal. If you haven’t heard this, you’re basically out of the loop.
    

    Recommended Tracks: Otis, No Church in the Wild, Lift Off, Made in America, That’s My Bitch

P.S. I also made a Spotify playlist that is accessible to anyone with Spotify that has a lot of the aforementioned recommended tracks.