New York electronic duo Holy Ghost finally gave us their debut full-length this year, and it rightly thrust them up onto a level with Cut Copy and—well, now that DFA’s flagship LCD Soundsystem has retired, few others in this very global scene. Make no mistake about it, these guys equally prioritize the electronic (read: dance) and the pop components of what they do. Most of the tunes here would both fan the flames of a dance-floor-in-motion and also settle in on your bedroom iPod dock (or basement party). The synth figure tucked within the beats and harmonies of "Wait and See" is yanked out of the ’80s but doesn’t seem like a retro-exercise, while the vocal hook could make even Martin Fry blush. "Jam for Jerry" is—we believe—dedicated to a lost drummer friend, and if we’re right, a more positive evocation of his spirit couldn’t be imagined. "It’s Not Over" comes on a bit harder, mechanized synths and beats trading blows, yet still retains the group’s pop M.O.

Yes, bands should be given points for taking risks. But they should be given even more points for taking risks and making great music. The Dirtbombs may be confined to the garage-rock ghetto, but a survey of the band’s entire career shows a mind-blowing wealth of influences and interests: bubblegum-pop to hardcore soul with pretty much every stop in between. This year the Dirtbombs’ legacy stretched even wider with Party Store, their homage to another classic Detroit sound: techno. Before you say "heck no!" trust that this is live rock & roll versions of some of the Motor City’s mechanized hits, including a 20-minute-plus take on Carl Craig’s legendary jam "Bug in the Bass Bin" (Craig pitches in some synth work on it to boot). You don’t need to know who people like Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson are; all you need to know is that this is straight-up Dirtbombs rawk with an added emphasis on that put-your-head-down-and -groove thing. One of the year’s great party albums.

Every year, it seems, the fine folks at the Daptone label discover some prodigiously talented soul singer, and this year’s entry was Charles Bradley. He’s 62 years old, but this is just his first album after a lifetime of hardships. His singing is definitely James Brown-esque, but the accompaniment here, by the Menehan Street Band, is horn-drenched sweet Southern soul, and the combination works beautifully. This is an album of catharsis; not only are there songs of suffering such as "The World (Is Going Up in Flames)," "Trouble in the Land," "How Long," "Why Is It So Hard?" and "Heartaches and Pain," but even the love songs ooze desperate intensity. This is one powerful debut, one of the year’s best, in any genre.

This one kind of came out of nowhere. We’re big Fiery Furnaces fans, but none of us expected how much we’d fall in the love with the first solo album by the band’s Eleanor Friedberger. The Furnaces have a good eight albums or so under their belt, so Friedberger’s solo effort bore the mark of a veteran’s assured hand. In fact, surprises as such were few here; Friedberger just wrote some really good songs that had an ineffable ’70s air to them without sounding styled at all. You get the sense she had these lyrics first and wanted to adorn them smartly but without overdoing it. "My Mistakes" breezes in to start things off, a sharply tuneful song marked by a bouncing piano (hm, maybe that’s what makes me think Rickie Lee). The cryptic "Inn of the Seventh Ray" follows, slower, and featuring Friedberger’s talk-sung vocals, which make the mystery-lyrics sound bigger than the song. Want more direct? Try "I Won’t Fall Apart on You Tonight," which is that sentiment in song.

This was one of our most beloved albums of the year, one we’re proud to have championed and managed to turn into a minor hit in Sound Fix land. Yes, these two dudes are brothers (not "bros"); no, neither of them is named Jeff. But as rock duos are concerned, you’d be hard-pressed to find any with a fuller or more wide-ranging sound. We Are the Champions is the fifth album by Nashville’s Jake and Jamin Orrall, and working from a straightforward garage-rock base, it strikes out into tons of different rock sounds: metal ("Cool"), proto-punk (the forward-charging "Shredder") and, well, "Ripper" kind of checks in at several stations over the course of nearly five minutes. Sit with this expansive Southern-rock mini-opus and you’ll stop casually tossing around the word "epic," let’s just say that. The best part of Jeff the Brotherhood is you never think they’re missing a bassist or anything: Jake’s guitar tone is full and raw, his vocals a throaty growl; Jamin’s drum-pounding is heavy but precise and nimble. Oh man’the last minute of "Ripper" is just so dominant! Exhibit #4,000,000,000,000,000 in the defense of rock & roll’s immortal life.

If we had to criticize Dutch punk legends the Ex—and believe us, this is something we never do—it’s that their albums don’t quite match the thorough awesomeness of their live shows. And yet, after all these years, nay, decades, the Ex gave us the spectacular Catch My Shoe. More than a quarter century after forming in an Amsterdam squat, this perfect quartet followed its collective nose through Eastern European folk and Ethiopian jazz, and every sound the Ex had picked up was synthesized beautifully on this rousing new album, their first since a mind-blowing 2006 collaboration with Ethiopian sax legend Getatchew Mekuria. It was also their first with new vocalist Arnold de Boer, who settles right into the trademark jagged rhythms and shards of guitar noise. Recorded with necessary punch by Steve Albini, Catch My Shoe—presumably a reference to something George W. Bush could not do in Iraq—was only the latest vital chapter in this most vital band’s career.

Around here we’re kind of experts in the usage of saxophone in less than traditional environments. But few have developed the instrument’s language as much as Colin Stetson, a frequent touring member of Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and others. Far from those indie-popular sounds, Stetson’s New History Warfare Vol. 2 bears out the intricacies and forces suggested in its title: This is bristling stuff, rigorous and firmly within most people’s estimations of avant-garde, yet also, not the least bit stuffy or academic. "The Stars in His Head" is a fluttering storm of bass-sax notes, evoking a passage of some massive classical-music epic, with percussive figures carved out of modified sax tones. "A Dream of Water" places comparable waves of ululating runs behind a bracing spoken piece by another artist Stetson has played with, Laurie Anderson. She makes a good comparison: furiously artistic but relatable and even accessible. Which is what makes Stetson’s fearless album one of the most compelling of 2011.

Gorgeous, just gorgeous. Those are usually the only words we could find when telling customers about this gorgeous (okay, we’ll stop), wondrous new album by Brooklyn’s own one-woman ambient vocal-loop artist, Julianna Barwick. Her voice is the focus of her music to a far greater degree than any other modern artist this side of Diamanda Galas, and that’s still true after the expansion of her musical palette on this, her third album, recorded at Sufjan Stevens’s studio. While a bit of piano is heard on occasion, bass a few times, and a slight touch of synthesizer, mostly her music is built around electronic treatments of her vocals, seemingly wordless—amid the impressionistic blurs of reverbed, overdubbed, and looped harmonies, it’s hard to say. What’s easy to say is that this is some of the most beautifully ethereal and uplifting music around these days.

The first big blog record of 2011 was also one of the year’s best: Chicago’s young (but growing up fast) Smith Westerns proved that this band will be relevant on the indie scene for as long as they can stay together. Where their self-titled debut drew on glam influences from a good decade or so before these guys were even born, Dye It Blonde (as opposed to painting it black?) invokes the memory of George Harrison a bit more than Marc Bolan. Listen to the way the guitars practically sing out choruses on "Still New"—straight-up goose-bump material! Influences are nice and all (they nod to another Beatle with the title of the bounding and fuzzy "Imagine Pt. 3"), but Smith Westerns are really just an energized indie-rock band with a great talent for synthesizing the best of the past into thoroughly modern, catchy and distorted pop songs. Did I mention that all the songs seem to be about girls? (Well, they are 20-year-old dudes.)

You can say Mirror Traffic was just Malkmus doing Malkmus, and we reply—yeah, and? We haven’t had a dose of new songs from Pavement Man since around 2008, and the familiar sounds fresh: Album-opener "Tigers" is classic Malkmus in melody, pacing and demeanor, a nugget at two and a half minutes. "Senator" puts the whole band on display, and you know, you can kind of forget about how good these Jicks are sometimes, the songs being fairly unpyrotechnic for the most part. But behind a searing and fun guitar line from the frontman, the crew turns in a superb and organic jam. The group’s expertise is on more subtle display on the following "Brain Gallop," an electric piano humming and chording forward (another note: Beck’s solid and unflashy production). "Stick Fingers in Love": classic Malkmus again, yet (also again) so nimble and fresh-sounding, a melody just breezing around a crisp beat as he convincingly sings, "So fine / In Carolina." Another great line: "When they talk about bad blood / They don’t mean us" in the nearly perfect "All Over Gently." Malkmus! He’s older and wiser but still the same dude you know.

Das Racist have been toiling in the Brooklyn underground hip-hop community for some time now, dropping one killer mixtape after another. This year we saw their first commercial release, and it lived up to the hype. Who would’ve thought there’d ever be a hip-hop record featuring production from both El-P (El-Producto!) and Rostam from Vampire Weekend? The subject most people trip on is whether this is joke rap or something deeper; our vote is the latter, and it isn’t even a topic for debate! The message of potent jams like "Michael Jackson" can be found in both the forcefulness of the delivery—"Michael Jackson! One million dollars! You feel me?"—and the way the line gets repeated, driving the thinkers into the words to construct their intent. (Late-era capitalism angst? I’m not reading too much into it, am I?) The cockeyed thumper "Shut Up, Man" (featuring El-P) is the sort of thing Das Racist does too well to not take them seriously: deceptively complex spittin’, a beat that jerks you around a bit and the suspicion, no longer sneaky, that there’s more than meets the eye here. Relax, people!

We said back in June that there was no way we’d hear a better roots/Americana album in 2011 than Frank Fairfield’s haunting, lovely Out on the Open West, and we were right. What makes this recording so special is how Fairfield manages to pull off a modern album with a genuinely old sound that doesn’t descend into parody. For this we can thank Fairfield’s talents as a songwriter and instrumentalist. He now records with Tompkins Square, the best roots label, and here we have his sophomore effort. His 2009 debut too was a stunner, winning high praise from the likes of Greil Marcus, but here Fairfield takes us in a few new directions. He’s no longer purely a solo act, and he jams nicely with guitarists Tom Marion and Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton and shares vocal duties with Willie Watson. Most important, Fairfield shows his songwriting chops, from the powerful opener, "Frazier Blues" to the melancholic "But That’s Alright" and "Ruthie." We also get three traditional instrumentals, with Fairfield in fine form on guitar, fiddle and banjo. Out on the Open West has a warm, crackling sound throughout that’s worthy of the old 78s he cherishes. It’s a charming and moving record. Ignore this great talent at your own peril.

It’s true that Dum Dum Girls are one of many good bands drawing on ’60s Spector-pop to have arisen over the past few years, both here in the States and (as proved by the recent arrival of Veronica Falls) in the UK and Europe. A lot of the markers are shared: an emotional quality that splits the difference between melancholic and nostalgic; guitars that push their melodies into fuzz and distortion; and most of all, reverb. But when you lump bands together like this, you forget to notice what’s special about each, and Dum Dum Girls are pretty much the best of the lot. That’s because in addition to their devastating style (if you haven’t seen pictures...), frontGirl Dee Dee is a bona fide pop genius. Only in Dreams blasts off in fire: the guitar line on "Always Looking" is a killing weapon and Dee Dee’s vocals could carry a wickedly melodic hook (as she does several times here) even without a great band behind her. Handclaps factor in on "Just a Creep," and another trebly reverbed guitar line wriggles into your head. Setting off the speedy, hooky songs is the long, slow gracenote of "Coming Down," which’ll have you wishing this band had played your prom. If you get just one record of this sort this year, make it Only in Dreams!

You know what we hate? When a band puts out a really good album and then a few blogs pooh-pooh it and then we have to deal with "Eh, I hear it’s not that good" from lots of customers. The latest from TV on the Radio was typically superb. Nine Types of Light begins (typically) cryptically—for one thing, the opening tune is called "Second Song"—but unmistakably positive, signaling a more emotionally upbeat band on its fifth studio album. Perhaps it has something to do with the record being made in L.A., where it’s always sunny and 75 degrees? But this is still TVotR: The emotions are slippery, the light always shifting; you need to, as Tunde Adebimpe sings on "Second Song," shift into the light. "No Future Shock" sounds like it’s counseling otherwise, the band’s patented multifarious brand of art-rock galvanizing even as it casts blue skies above in the form of cresting backing harmonies. Like with Dear Science, many of the tracks are suffused with a secondary purpose as challenging but satisfying dance-rock; the beats on "You," "Repetition" and "New Cannonball Blues" especially could inspire curious revelry on the dance-floor. Another TVotR album to sit with and move to all year long! (The deluxe CD includes three bonus tracks.)

The always reliable Kills did more than give us another reliably good album; this year they delivered the kind of shredding blues-stomper we always need more of. The Kills are easy stars: They are in that rare and sweet place as a band where (album title aside) there must be few, if any, pressures to do this, that or the other thing. Hence Blood Pressures unfurls with confident, unbothered swagger—Alison Mossheart (by now there must be some people out there thinking Dead Weather is her main band and this one the side-project) and Jamie Hince casting louche spells that revive the bluesy noir-pop that PJ Harvey used to specialize in (leaving out the messy psychological stuff). So you’ve got the lean, hip-shimmying "Heart Is a Beating Drum"—one of many rock tunes that will work well for DJs—and Dead Weatheresque (had to be said) "DNA" rubbing up next to the hypno-pop of "Baby Says," which happens to flow like a classic Strokes song. Altogether Blood Pressures is another hard-to-dislike romp through rock’s cooler environs, with two experts guiding the way.

It should surprise no one that Dev Hynes, formerly of Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion, would deliver this easy-listening gem—the man’s enormous talents were always obvious to anyone paying attention. But his latest transformation, Blood Orange, nevertheless became an instant favorite. Here the skillful guitarist plied crisp indie-pop with an ’80s atmosphere, somehow steering clear of retro-shenanigans. "Forget It" tinkles and skips along, like Beach Fossils with a more polished (and also high-pitched) vocalist who can shred a bit if he wants to. Coastal Grooves has a shadowy side as well, where Hynes perhaps finds his truest self: "Can We Go Inside Now?" flips the light switch, a delicate and dark indie-pop ballad for shut-ins, all reverbed guitar strings bending this way and that, and it would seem our man has romance on his mind as he sings in part-whispers. "Complete Failure" takes a similar tack, with Hynes sounding like he’s alone in a dimly lit room, until the chorus of backing vocals comes in. Sweet, cool and precise, Blood Orange is a winning addition to his quiver of personae.

It’s a fantastic and disorienting time to be a fan of African music. While genius imprints like Analog Africa, Soundway and (now) Dust-to-Digital excavate the incredibly rich musical history of the continent, others such as Sublime Frequencies cast their woolly gaze around the here and now. But where to file a band such as Group Doueh, the stunning Western Saharan outfit that sounds as if it belongs equally to past and present? Part electric guitar and part traditional rhythms and melodies, Group Doueh (named for its guitarist, vicious in any time or place) puts forth a danceable party that never forgets its roots. "Zaya Koum" erupts in the style of a garage-rock song, a wah-wah’ed guitar carves itself into the air and a very on-it drummer picks up the beat, oddly 4/4 in this context, as a chorus of female singers call and chant, an alien blues that’s as much at home here as what we call blues. "Jagwar Doueh" is more overtly exotic, damn near irresistible really, a circular spell of chant-singing, Doueh’s unmistakable effects spinning his electrified strings in even tighter circular patterns, and the galloping staccato clap-CLAP of the beat. The magic of the old desert, alive and full of heart in the bracing present. One of the world’s best musical groups right now, and Zayna Jumma is the group’s best work to date.

This album put a little pep in our step all summer long and continues to provide thrill after thrill all these months later. Perhaps a nice complement to James Blake’s more inward, somber-seeming record, the full-length debut by SBTRKT—pronounced "subtract" (and there just ain’t much more we can tell you, as the South London producer favors anonymity, even wearing a mask while DJing)—takes late-era dubstep sounds into quasi R&B territory, keeping things upbeat and moving and, as a result, lots of fun. The playful and softly thumping "Hold On" is one of several tracks here to feature the soulful high-register of vocalist Sampha, who can sound convincing even when xylophone (or something like it) chimes around his lines. The pick-hit here is "Right Thing to Do," a simmering groove with vocals by the slinky-sounding Jessie Ware, who rides the bass-waves like an expert surfer. Eleven snapping tunes in all, this album was a perfect way to change up your porch/basement/bedroom party!

If there’s any musician we should thank for being prolific, it’s Bradford Cox. Whether he’s recording as Deerhunter or Atlas Sound, he drops a terrific album on us every year and makes our job of putting together an annual Top 50 list that much easier. Cox’s latest as Atlas Sound is a lush swirl of endlessly surprising pop songs, even after several listens. How to select just one, or even a few, to highlight in a review? You can’t go wrong. First one, "The Shakes," a classic vocal hook over a full-bodied strum—timeless; next, "Amplifiers"—is this a different record? Cox is murmuring and cooing over burbles and a crisp snare, bewitching. Then, "Te Amo," the kind of elegantly experimental pop idea that 2011 should be swimming in, its circular guitar (or maybe it’s a keyboard?) ebb-flowing under his vocals, Reich-ian in its simplicity and as lovely as anything you’d think to compare it to. Shall I continue? Next is the title track, which makes me think of the band Eels, in a favorable light. More? Really? Or will you trust us that the ensuing eight songs hold equal charms, just waiting for your ears?

How nice to see a band deliver a standout debut and then segue neatly into an even better second one. Days is so coolly understated that it’s hard to make a ginormous fuss about their move to ginormous indie Domino. From one song to the next, this album blurs into breezy, hazy imagery, and in another review this could be meant negatively. Not so here. The lead instrument is guitar, handled in varying combinations by no fewer than three Real Estate agents; classic in a UK-’80s indie-pop style, the guitars are always tinkling, tracing out heartache and gently urging these ten songs onward. In a sense, all the band does is modulate the pacing and placing of hooks, and yet, the whole of Days sounds so incredibly right on. While it seems particularly silly to draw out song highlights here—neither a bummer tune on the album nor one that blows away the rest—the bittersweet "Green Aisles" makes a romantic play in its vocals toward the end (wish we knew which dude was singing which song), while the "oh, oh oh, oh OHH, oh oh, it’s real" vocal hook on single "It’s Real" stands out as a casually devastating move.

The Fleet Foxes’ follow-up to their enormously successful debut is aglow with everything the band’s cult of fans love—namely, harmonies, harmonies and more gorgeous harmonies. But despite the persistent and undeniably awesome multilayered singing (led by frontman Robin Pecknold), the real magic on Helplessness Blues comes just as often from instrumental moments. "Sim Sala Bim" (bonus points if you know the old cartoon that title comes from) flutters along for a couple of minutes, shifting between soft acoustic-guitar picking and full-force harmonizing teamed with strings and piano, but it raises goosebumps when, with about a minute left, the acoustic bursts into a florid strummed romp. A similar moment occurs within "The Plains/Bitter Dancer" upon the low-light dramatic entry of a keyboard to support the Foxes’ voices, already in full CSNY formation (and as that must be the 10,000th CSNY comparison they’ve gotten, we should maybe win a prize?). The 12 songs on Helplessness Blues provide a lush jungle of treats for fans—just don’t think this band is only about those vocals. Expect nothing but good things from Fleet Foxes for a long, long time.

OK, maybe this record didn’t blow our minds the way Person Pitch did, but make no mistake: Tomboy is an excellent record, showing us once again why this Animal Collective member is one of the most vital artists today. The first song on Tomboy is called "You Can Count on Me," a warm sentiment embedded in Panda’s trademark billowy vocals and tricked-out echoes. From there—thankfully—he simply pushes the edges of a gorgeous and unique sound that is his and his alone. It’s pop that winks at both classic harmony groups of the ’60s and a pulsating techno impetus that’s made him friends with the Kompakt label. "Slow Motion" stands out as one track where he finds arresting new ways to play with his toolbox (melody, repetition, solar energy), while "Drone" bends its namesake mode toward pop by stretching an achingly beautiful vocal part through a dense but complementary soundfield. Fans of Person Pitch didn’t want a bold new direction; we wanted more of the not-quite-same and a handful of new ideas in Panda-style, and Tomboy delivered all that in grand style.

By now, it’s pretty superfluous to point out Tom Waits’s bona fides; he’s been making uniformly great records for nearly 40 years now. But it’s still time to rejoice—we hadn’t had a Tom Waits album of new material in seven years, and Bad As Me is just terrific. And yet, as kaleidoscopic as Tom Waits’s sound is, Bad as Me seems to be both nothing too new for him stylistically—a deep sack of moves, typically bold and theatrical, all served from the underside (real and imagined) of life—and a typically varied set of songcraft that no one besides him could dream up. For such a splatter of imagery and emotions, he’s assembled a supporting cast (from Keith Richards and Marc Ribot to um...Flea?) as vast as the sprawling canvas needed to display all the color and shadow that a Tom Waits record requires. There’s also perhaps a bit more of the elder’s wisdom that only comes from time served (on Earth)—as on the tender, knowing "Back in the Crowd." Always the attentive observer, he’s also on-point politically, when he opts to go that route, such as on the wailing lament "Talking at the Same Time." Musically, fans will find their man in fine fettle, as songs like "Raised Right Men" prove; no matter how intensely he turns up the temperature in his kitchen, his gruff caterwaul can handle the heat. It even thrives in it! If only more artists could be as "bad" as Waits . . .

There are an awful lot of women with acoustic guitars making their way out there, and precious few of them do anything to distinguish themselves. Enter young Laura Marling of the United Kingdom, already on her third album at the ripe old age of 21. A Creature I Don’t Know is the work of a veteran in every way, save for the implied snooziness of a tag like "maturity." Comparisons are like shackles for women in the singer-songwriter game, so we’ll be clear that when we say Marling makes us think of Joni Mitchell, we mean the way her voice practically dances along a melody’s path, and the innate poeticism in her lyrics. To stand alongside someone like Joni will obviously require years of work this beautiful and tangled. But her singing in "Don’t Ask Me Why"—the way she engages the acoustic guitar and violin that account for much of the backing—and the fullness of the haunting "Rest in the Bed" are indicative of a true artist at work and play in the fields of songdom. One to watch, now and hopefully for a good long time to come.

Don’t call it a comeback? Too bad. This is a comeback, and one of the year’s great ones. You may think that four years is a long gap between albums, but take a look at the Beasties’ discography: They’ve always taken their time with new releases. (And this time they had to give MCA a chance to deal with a health issue—which it appears he’s done.) So what new Beastie-innovating comes down on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two? Hardly any! This is that classic Beasties sound you’ve loved since they evolved from bratty punks into hip-hop (now somewhat elder) statesmen: deep grooves, multicolored samples drawn from all over the place, and three MCs with a telepathic sense of rhythm and rhyme—and a good Rolodex. Check out the booming "Too Many Rappers" with Nas, not to mention the slinky "Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win," a possible pop hit due in no small part to Santigold’s sing-songy vocal. Elsewhere, it’s business as usual, and Beastie business is good.

Some of you might be tempted to dismiss Wilco. Jeff Tweedy & Co. are now in their third decade, and most bands, even great ones, are usually long past their prime by that point. That might be true for most bands, but this is Wilco we’re talking about, and The Whole Love is, with the exception of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, the band’s finest album. There’s nothing particularly bold about this album; in fact, Wilco has been sticking to a formula it’s been using for a while now. The Whole Love once again encompasses so many forms of pop—rootsy, alternative (whatever that means), orchestrated and borderline experimental. The album begins with a long, impenetrable opus, "Art of Almost," which is structured like a piece of classical music, with passages tied together like movements. While such a song is undeniably Wilco-esque, so is the burst-of-clarity tune, the kind that so often follow their longer, more difficult pieces: "I Might," the crisp single from The Whole Love, does the trick here, a percussive gem that makes an excellent hook out of a brief organ flourish. Lovely slow ballads are another Tweedy specialty, and "Open Mind" comes on like a familiar friend; it’s followed yet still another hallmark of this band’s sound, the gleeful slight bounce of "Capitol City." If it sounds like I’m saying that you’ve heard all this before, well, the other thing—which you already know—is that Wilco is a band of peerless craftsmen with a solid grip on their place in the music world.

The much-anticipated debut from the supergroup Wild Flag (with members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium and the Minders) arrived in September with unbelievable hype, and it delivered. Carrie Brownstein and Mary Timony blended their singular voices and guitar-playing styles to create a sound that was both familiar and totally fresh, with plenty of rock and roll swagger surrounding a pop heart. Opening track "Romance" shimmies and sparkles like a Go-Go’s single, while "Future Crimes" pairs Brownstein’s yelpy urgency with a lively keyboard riff, and "Black Tiles" finishes things off with an energetic burst of noisy psychedelia. Overall, Wild Flag’s self-titled debut is a joyous love letter to music—making it, needing it, and dancing to it all through the night.

This album came out of nowhere and completely won us over. Youth Lagoon is the latest one-man-as-band project that you might slot into the chillwave subgenre, but Trevor Powers of Boise, Idaho, maintains individuality within what would otherwise seem to be a tired genre. Reverbed vocals? Check. Pop songs, hooks, simple and infectious beats? Check, check and checkmate. As basic as it sounds, Powers’s strength on The Year of Hibernation is that he keeps everything so simple. There are eight songs, and all of them but one ("The Hunt") bear one-word titles. "Afternoon" is an exercise in simple pleasure, the "Oh, oh oh, oh ohh"s drifting along a clapping beat and sea-foam melody. "17" makes use of an electric piano, ambling along without a care in the world—a vibe that, of course, draws in people who similarly would like to have not a care in the world. The opening "Posters" is a carousel of stained-glass tones, keyboards and maybe a guitar all getting along so easily in this Youth Lagoon.

They’re English but look and sound American—and a bit dated, which resulted in a few criticisms of unoriginality. But we think that’s missing the point of Yuck. It’s the songs, ya stupids! And Yuck has tunes in spades, all in (yes) that rakishly unkempt indie-rock style you (or your older siblings) remember from the late-’80s and early-’90s, when things were maybe indie-simpler but you didn’t exactly get a free pass for just sounding a certain way. "The Wall" shares jumping-up-and-down DNA with some of Superchunk’s early jams, while the following "Shook Down" lowers the temperature just a bit to allow through a deeper sense of emotion, with the same emphasis on melody and momentum. Songs like "Sunday" and "Suicide Policeman" show they can play it more indie-pop than -rock, too, proving that, even if this band stays well within preset lines, they’ve got plenty of versatility as well. They’re also a bit of a cottage industry of creativity, already spurring a deluxe version of the album (with B-sides), a book of drawings and more. Yuck tastes just fine!

Truly one of the year’s most exciting records, the exhilarating third full-length from James Pants is delightfully difficult to classify. We were only mildly familiar with his previous releases, which were noteworthy to our eyes only for being so different from the usual hip-hoppish Stones Throw fare. This album has a smattering of hip-hop beats, but it’s truly protean, a dark, hazy trip through ’80s pop that touches on post-punk, new wave, fuzzed-out psych, videogame music, and electro-funk. Most impressive of all are the album’s catchy melodies and eerie vocals, almost like Ariel Pink teaming up with Timbaland. This is an experience best enjoyed as an album, something to sit through from beginning to end, because there’s never a dull moment on this wild trip.

Remember about ten years ago, when indie-rock labels started signing hip-hop artists? Most people have forgotten that brief period, because it was an utter commercial failure. Something different went down altogether for Sub Pop’s brilliant Shabazz Palaces: This stuff is hot, first and foremost, and also rides in on a magic carpet of deserved hype and a set of much-viewed Youtube clips for older tracks. Black Up, the Sub Pop debut from Ishmael "Butterfly" Butler—if your memory goes back even further you might recognize him as a onetime MC with Digable Planets—is ten tracks of mystery-rap, backgrounds of noirish, shuddering beats and moods over which Butler lays cryptic lines that resemble neither his ’90s group nor any hip-hop coming out on indie labels. "Yeah You" drives it home with a cocking-gun sample (which strangely, doesn’t seem meant in a threatening way) and Butler’s insistent, knowing delivery. "An Echo from the Hosts That Profess Infinitum" is—well, what could be said to improve on that title? Though it makes excellent use of a free-flowing quasi-dubstep track, through which Butler expertly weaves. "Are You...Can You...Were You? (Felt)" reaches toward some vision of mainstream rap, a persistent synth supporting the MC’s best outright flowing on the album. For all its crypticness this is a great album that needs to be heard (if not understood).

A lot of fuss was made over young James Blake of the United Kingdom, and if you heard the fuss before you heard the record, you might have come to the record feeling sure it wouldn’t be all that, like we did. Well...it’s really pretty damn cool. There’s a formula here: Blake’s vanilla-soul vocals plus tamped-down dubstep-like rhythm tracks equals success. I could have mentioned what’s missing though, and what really makes this record work on so many levels—soulful in the most modern way, slow-dancing sexy, headphone euphoric—is the vast empty spaces that allow Blake’s croon to be effective (like, "good" almost doesn’t factor in) and the backing tracks to be so moving. This is a very cool minimalist soul record, with wide-open fields of sadness and longing ("Why Don’t You Call Me?" and the piano-touched "Limit to Your Love") and the occasional bass-drop that hits you lovingly in the groin ("I Mind"). Blake’s album was one of our year’s best sellers, and new fans keep coming in for it, signaling a bright future for this new talent.

What a total blast the second album from Moon Duo is, like a psychedelic gateway drug: Through Mazes, their new full-length on the Sacred Bones label, a larger audience of innocent indie-rockers could be corrupted and coerced into the limitless void that is heavy psych—mwah-ha-ha-ha! As if that’d be a bad thing! The pleasures of Moon Duo (one of the two members being guitarist Ripley Johnson of Bay Area psych-repeaters Wooden Shjips) are simple yet rich: Guitar and keyboards, the kind of vocals that you’re sure are sung by someone wearing shades, and steady beats. The Moonies have always been hypnotic but we’ve never heard them so poppy: The title track has so much cool Velvet Underground energy you could die—strumming guitars that catch fire, keyboard grooviness wrapping around it like a hug. "Fallout" repeats the formula but heavier, and besides, it’s never a bad thing when Moon Duo repeats themselves. But Mazes’ sharpest moments come when the band plays with pop forms, as on "When You Cut," which buzzes along with synthetic finger-snap-like beats until eventually, like most Moon Duo songs, the guitars burst into ice-blue flames.

Nicolas Jaar is a young electronic-music producer based in New York—so young, in fact, that when he made this record he may not have been able to get into the sort of clubs that would play these esoteric but sexy quasi-house tracks. Jaar generally works at slower than normal BPMs, using the space between beats as spare canvases for his modulated vocal samples, hinting at slinky R&B, and flicking percussive crackles across piano chords to dramatic yet understated effect. "Colomb" is the song best described above, but those moods pervade Space Is Only Noise. "Too Many Kids Finding Rain in the Dust" is a bit like Nick Cave’s "Red Right Hand," except with all the theatrics turned inward to radiate noirish vibes and potential decadence. "Problems with the Sun"—and hey, who hasn’t had those?—foregrounds a shuffling beat and Jaar’s tweaked-down vocal, resulting in a leftfield dance-floor classic waiting to happen. DJs: Keep this record close at hand after midnight. Others: You will blow minds at the party when you drop this stuff.

In terms of sheer quantity of music, no record gave us more pleasure than this one. The spooky Manchester duo known as Demdike Stare gave us a staggering three-disc set of thoroughly modern, explosively evocative electronic work, more than two hours of phenomenal music. Tryptych covers a spectrum of sounds and moods, from shadowy ambience to borderline club fare (one of the two, Miles Whittaker, has a number of left-field club-friendly releases), though darkness in all its many shades dominates these three CDs. The packaging is equal to the music: a tri-fold set with esoteric imagery (all designed by the keen-eyed Andy Votel) that will stop you from thinking that the CD format is dying. It’s gorgeous stuff all around, and really difficult to sift out highlights—there are way too many amid the roughly three hours of music. Highly recommended for ambient-demons and goths with taste!

Here’s a band that never lets us down. In terms of sheer exuberant fun, it’s hard to top the latest from Melbourne’s synth-pop act Cut Copy. As we predicted back in February, Zonoscope was the first indie dance-floor hit of 2011—which was a good thing, since who knows when Hot Chip will make another record. Like that UK group, Cut Copy’s formula is fairly simple but deadly reliable: pop hooks plus inventive beats plus kind of stunningly smooth vocals equals hands-in -the-air bliss. It’s lightweight and summery and hit the spot no matter what time of the year it was. The squelchy synths of "Hanging Onto Every Heartbeat" will get you swaying, "Take Me Over" will turn up the heat and "Corner of the Sky" picks things up toward the end of Zonoscope with a heavier 4/4 impetus.

Not surprisingly, Tim Hecker, the world’s best electronic composer today, gave us the year’s best electronic album, Ravedeath, 1972. Talk about making use of your surroundings: Hecker holed himself up in a church in Reykjavik and recorded this album in little more than a day, using primarily the church organ. The results are stunning. The organ gives the music remarkable depth and texture, far deeper than the usual electronic fare, particularly on the gorgeous three-part "In the Fog" and the rich, densely layered "Studio Suicide." On "Analog Paralysis" Hecker employs subtler sounds, lush and lovely, without losing the grandeur of the instrument. Meanwhile, the title track, which opens the record, is a feast of choppy synths and bold rhythms. "Ambient" just won’t do in describing Hecker’s music, not when it comes to music this rich and alive. On Ravedeath Hecker worked with the Iceland-based musician Ben Frost, and the two have great chemistry. Stravinsky once famously intoned about the church organ: "The beast doesn’t breathe." This music not only breathes, it pulses with life and energy.

Truly one of the year’s warmest, most beautiful albums, the latest from Bill Callahan only further cements his status as one of rock’s great artists. With its flute and fiddle, guest spots by Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater, ex-Okkervil River) on piano and organ, and epic droning grooves, Bill Callahan’s new and strongly ’70s-flavored album has a bit of a Van Morrison feel—Callahan’s Astral Weeks, one could say (the jazzy "Free’s" is an especially dead-on example). He also rocks out on "America!" with fuzz-tone electric guitar, very psychedelic. Callahan’s casual vocals and clever lyrics are the great constants in his otherwise shifting music; every new Callahan (and previously, Smog) album is like getting together with an old friend who’s got a new batch of wryly funny, philosophically truthful stories. The settings change, the warm feelings abide; Apocalypse came in 2011 and we liked it.

The Field is one of the few acts in pop music today that can transcend its own genre. Producer Alex Willner, a.k.a. the Field, anchors his music with driving melodies, shifting beats and basslines, and hypnotic loops, making his third release, A Looping State of Mind, one of the year’s most exciting albums, and not something to consign to the techno ghetto. One of the few artists on Cologne’s Kompakt label to enjoy some crossover success, Willner burst on the scene in 2007 with the spectacular From Here We Go Sublime, only to follow-up with the lesser major-label release Yesterday and Today. On Looping, Willner returned to top form, mixing his unique blend of micro-samples, live instrumentation, experimental and ambient music to create a one-of-a-kind form of electronica that will thrill Kompakt fans and convert a few naysayers to the cause too. The opener, "Is This Power," could almost pass for a Crystal Castles song with its driving synths and beats; "Then It’s White," with its piano melody and vocal cut-ups, also shines; "Burned Out" and the sublime title track are endlessly compelling and enjoyable. Give A Looping State of Mind a listen, people—it’s a gas.

We love to be surprised, really. It’s no shocker when Bill Callahan and Bon Iver drop a great album on us, but we never saw this coming. For this, their second full-length, Philadelphia’s the War on Drugs have wedded a traditional, anthemic rock sound (think Seger, Petty, Springsteen) with number of unexpected sounds and influences. Like the recent work of Marissa Nadler and Sharon Van Etten, there’s more than a hint of an ambient/drone influence running alongside the riffs and hooks heard on this album. It might look odd on paper, but the sonic experience is deeply rewarding, creating richly detailed songs that offer numerous pleasures on repeat listens: The organ that hovers throughout "Come to the City" and occasionally plays off the sinewy guitar is one; the brightly blistering melody of "Brothers" is another. Slave Ambient clicks on a number of levels: These 12 songs satisfy on both a gut level and an intellectual one.

Owners of the best first song on any rock record released this year—you can take that to the bank—New York City quartet the Men made a significant splash in 2011 with their first widely distributed album, Leave Home. Let’s spend a minute on that opening track, a sprawling seven-minute epic called "If You Leave": No OMD cover, this; a few minutes of guitar-tones ebbing and flowing leads into a blood-raising cacophony of melody and noise, worthy of comparisons to your Bloody Valentines and Dinosaurs in both scope and scale. It’s stupefying and gorgeous, and there’s no way the rest of the album could possibly live up to it—and the band seems to have understood this, so they didn’t try to. The following "Lotus" smashes its head on the punk rock, a furious but straight-ahead charge through the same massively blown-out guitar sound they offered on "If You Leave." The surprises aren’t over though: Spacemen 3’s classic "Revolution" gets dragged into the fray on a song titled "( )," while "Bataille" indicates every important hardcore lesson has been taken to heart. One of the rock records of the year, in this town or any other.

Here’s a release that dazzled us back in the summer and somehow managed to get better over the ensuing months. This stuff is smooth as fitted sheets. (Which is good enough reason to also commend the sexy cover art, in which bedsheets are, shall we say, quite actively rumpled.) Chill-wave vanguardist Washed Out, a.k.a. Ernest Greene, delivers his Sub Pop debut and it’s for hazy young lovers everywhere: Within and Without is a frictionless marbled palace of ’80s-isms, with grand layers of synths propping up his lazily soulful vocals. "Eyes Be Closed" is like a perfect romantic moment held in place for five minutes, the synths pushing that bedroom scene higher into the clouds. "You and I" features guest vocalist Caroline Polachek (from Chairlift) and a slow, slippy beat that angles the synth melody toward yearning. "Far Away" is more upbeat, a bit of shuffle in the rhythm and a softly chiming melody that’s balanced out by a brief, somber violin part.

One of the most remarkably thought-out and heartfelt rock records of the year may have been skipped over by some for either the band’s name or its frontman’s perpetually shouted vocals. Behind the noise—and Fucked Up, Canada’s best rock band, makes a lot of fantastically beautiful noise, with triple-guitar oomph and even more ringing melody—is a depth beyond the ambition most bands can drum up. For those who can listen past the endless growling of the brainy, brawny Pink Eyes and hear the disarming story of this 78-minute opus—just a love story, really, with everything, I mean everything that goes with it—David Comes to Life is one of the standout records of the year. "Happiness always comes with a price," says the band, as a subtitle to the lyrics (on their website) of "The Other Shoe," and rarely has a rock band gotten so inside of it all. "We’re dying on the inside" chimes guest singer Madeline Follin of Cults on this song, providing a valuable counterweight to Pink Eyes. They called themselves Fucked Up perhaps through punk impulse, but I think they’re just trying to get at the truth of things, such as is possible. Massive album, great band. Fans of the Ex, Titus Andronicus and any punk-rock band that just transcends the form—check this out.

The most highly anticipated record of the year didn’t disappoint. Listening to Bon Iver’s self-titled second album, it’s fair to wonder if it was he lending cred to Kanye West or the other way around. Sure, it was good fun watching tens of thousands of Yeezy fans wondering just who the hell this bearded white kid starting his concerts is. But at a time when indie rock has been making overtures toward pop moves of the past (Vampire Weekend’s affinity for Paul Simon’s globalist pop being just one example), Justin Vernon’s sophomore effort could be the most sincere and well-built bridge between the indie world and the mainstream yet. Or ever. In other words, it kind of makes clear that those distinctions mean less than ever, if they’re still there at all. Perhaps that’s only in the caliber and the openness of the melodies though; it might be hard at first to notice the music as more than support for Vernon’s now famous voice, hovering among clouds, but he’s constructed an understated marvel of an album: On an album dotted with places real and imagined ("Perth," "Hinnom, TX", "Lisbon, OH") Vernon sends our imagination into almost unbroken reverie. You’ll want to spend all summer dreaming of those places, as well as "Calgary" and (more temporal) "Holocene." Who’d have guessed that the Bon Iver album not about a broken heart would be the heart-stopping one?

On their sophomore LP, the Bay Area duo Girls gave us a genuine rarity: a bold and ambitious rock album that not only delivers all the goods but sounds fresh and retro all at once. Singer-songwriter Christopher Owens’s melodies and warbly vocals are still in fine form, but what makes this album stand out is the high caliber of musicianship. In short, it rocks. Owens and his sidekick Chet "JR" White have a created a true pop masterpiece of the old-school ’70s kind, with Mellotrons, swirling organs, flutes and guitar solos that will bring to mind the likes of Pink Floyd, the Stones, even Brian Wilson at times. But what makes the album so endearing is Owens’s vulnerable and charming singing and lyrics. He gives the album soul and warmth. The highlights are numerous. Topping the list is "Alex," a driving pop ditty that will go down as one of the year’s catchiest tunes. "Vomit" is an epic, thunderous ballad with organs and soul singers. "Die" will bring out the prog geek in you, especially once the guitar solo kicks in. "Honey Bunny," "Saying I Love You," the eight-minute "Forgiveness"—all tremendous. These dudes have some scary talent.

EMA is Erika M. Anderson, and she was perhaps the most talked-about (sigh, okay—blogged-about) new artist of 2011. Her old band Gowns released one darkly perfect album, Red State, in 2008, and the roiling emotions on it—and in the band itself—tore them apart. Anderson hasn’t really remade herself; she simply ducked out for a spell and returned with an album that’s of a piece with Gowns but so full in conception and power that it doesn’t feel right to associate it with anything that’s come before. Over stark, bracing arrangements of synth, guitar and percussion she holds her soul up to the light for all to see, then tears from it, claws at it and howls sacraments to it. That she does all this with vulnerability and a staggering musicality—her pop sense wins out but she structures her songs like the human-scale epics they are—is what made Past Life Martyred Saints the debut of the year. "Milkman" is a pop song that simmers, then boils, and finally fries itself dry. "Coda" is a one-minute layered vocal round of gospel intensity, and "Marked" features the most-quoted lyric from the album. To get to those, though, you first have to encounter opener "The Grey Ship," not to mention the nerve-charging follower "California," and those? Just plain—damn.

If we’re lucky, we get a year when an album comes along that’s damn near impossible to dislike. Prince of dudes Kurt Vile’s second Matador album was—well, let’s not say "mature," but it was a definitively refined version of the affectingly unkempt rock he’s been turning out for the past few years: still scruffy and cigarette-raspy but mellow and honestly emotional. Smoke Ring for My Halo could be your new soundtrack to laying around in bed all day. "On Tour," a lackadaisical tune that just shuffles along without any push from Vile and his band, is one part romantic, one part optimism and one part brilliant indolence. "Puppet to the Man" is a slacker resistance anthem, a street-rock cousin to Spacemen 3’s "Revolution" in a way, and a drop-dead classic song that’d give any mixtape a whoa-factor. "Runner Ups" captures everything that makes this such a great album: Vile’s world-weary yet insistent vocals, the sparkling picked acoustic guitar that contrasts so well against his vocals, and an almost orchestral hum of electric guitar filling out the background.

We were worried for a moment that we might never see a great PJ Harvey record again. Her last few albums were respectable but didn’t wow us. But boy, did Let England Shake wow us. For this album Polly Jean tried out a variety of vocal tones for characterization; a warped, somewhat lost folk-song feeling dominates, and autoharp is frequently heard. Then again, she’s on record citing the Pogues as influencing this album, and there’s a Big Concept here that I can’t imagine anyone in freak-folkland getting anywhere near: the songs are about wars from World War I to the present, England’s participation in them, and their costs, all delivered in a serious tone (aside, perhaps, from her "Why don’t I take my problems to the United Nations?" nod to Eddie Cochran). Don’t worry, these aren’t lectures with musical accompaniment; the music pops and jangles in attractive ways, and each song has a laser-like focus on particulars; she’s not painting with broad brush strokes, and there’s genuine ambivalence at times. As albums go, it’s a deeply moving experience.

Yeah, we saw this coming. Merrill Garbus, a.k.a Tune-Yards, quietly put out a brilliant album two years ago that was a little too eccentric even for avant indie tastes, but it was obvious the woman had a world of strange and beautiful talent. On her second album, Garbus added a bassist and two saxists and thus set up Whokill as the first breakout indie record of the year, extending all the clattering brilliance that made her last release, Bird-Brains, so compelling. Dig the hard-edged stutter-shuffle beat on "Es-So," as brightly colored darts of horns and whatnot draw cross-hatch designs all around. She follows that with "Gangsta," and if she’s a few years (or a decade) late to start throwing around that word, wait till you hear this monster beat. Left-field dance-hit potential? Cause there’s some incredible center-field dance-hit business happening on "Bizness," the video for which weaponizes Feistian visual cues to make one of the most hands-down joyful clips we’ve seen in ages. At year’s end we’re still dancing.