Consequence of Sound’s top albums of 2011 list came out today!  Always intense, always exhausting, always a labor of love. To make the list, each CoSer creates his or her own top list and that is integrated into the whole.  My list is missing some key players due to me simply not having had the chance to explore them.  Case in point: I haven’t listened to the new Bon Iver or St. Vincent and I know I know… I really freaking need to.  Catching up with the music of 2011 is what 2012 is for and so on and so on for ever and ever and ever.

1) Gotye - Making Mirrors

One-by-one the countries of the world are falling in love with Gotye. The Austrailian multi-instrumentalist’s third album, Making Mirrors, has found its way into U.S. playlists in the wake of his video for “Somebody that I Used to Know” featuring Kimba. In it we see Gotye, with the charming anarchistic boyishness of Sting, singing with the heartrending honesty of Phil Collins. Ultimately it’s Collins’ bandmate Peter Gabriel that Gotye gets compared to the most, and for an obvious reason - the album is a musical wonderland of deeply layered and sophisticated pop sounds the likes of which we haven’t heard since So. From the Miracle Mile-like nuclear romance of “Eyes Wide Open”, to the lavish electro-reggae of “State of the Art”, Making Mirrors is sonically diverse, and with Gotye’s disarmingly genuine lyrics, it pulls madly at our heartstrings. Making Mirrors officially hits U.S. shores January 31^st.

2) Thomas Dolby - A Map of the Floating City

3) Astronautalis - This is Our Science

4) Grace Jones - Hurricane [Originally released overseas in 2008, US this year]

5) The Strokes - Angles

6) The Non-Commissioned Officers - Money Looking For Thieves

7) My Morning Jacket - Circuital

8) Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow

9) M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

With Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, M83 set out to capture the stuff that dreams are made of – and succeed. This is nothing new in the world of dream pop and electronica, but M83’s ability to distil childhood longing and teenage nostalgia into spirit lifting, anthemic, synth opuses is second to none. He captures it. If you were a dreamy kid, adventuring at night, and trying to live out your dreams in the day – these songs crystallize that special feeling, that certain time, that tragic, beautiful, ever-fleeing youth. It’s an incredible thing to put on some headphones, curl up in bed, and go back.

Picking up where Saturdays = Youth left off, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’s sound matures while its subject matter remains in the same vein. That said, this is not a repeat performance. Anchored by far more analog instruments, and a thematic concept that spans two discs, M83 uses the space he’s created to its fullest with both gripping singles like “Midnight City” and affecting, transcendental instrumentals and interludes. “Claudia Lewis” recaptures the lavish art pop production of the 80s and lovingly reinstates it as the ideal sound for rooftop dancefloors. “New Map” couples epic modern synth tracks with a smooth 70s flute and sax arrangement for an exciting new sonic experience. With Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming M83 has proven himself as the most exciting electropop act of the current age – a musical mind inevitably looking back, but always pushing forward.

10) Tom Waits -Bad As Me

11) Yip-Yip - Bone Up

12) Yes - Fly From Here

13) Peter Gabriel - New Blood

14) The Cars - Move Like This

15) Marc With a C - Motherfuckers Be Bullshittin’

16) The Decemberists - The King Is Dead

17) R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now

18) The Aquabats -  Hi-Five Soup!

19) Bjork - Biophilia

20) They Might Be Giants - Join Us

The CoS 2011 albums list

My 2010 list

My 2009 list