Song of the Year
Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass”
Try not to fall in love with her after watching this video. Kane Beats produces an earworm-laced backdrop for Nicki’s personality to shine.
Album of the Year
A.A. Bondy
Believers
This record is stark, haunting, gorgeous southern gothic. Like Flannery O’Conner set to music. Aching, smoky vocals and guitar lines more emotive than other band’s vocals.
Rap Producer of the Year
Clams Casino
Super dope mixtape and heat on the solid RockyASAP release, this guy is for real.
Clams Casino - Realist Alive (Lil B Instrumental) by simplexanonymous
Other strong releases
M83
Hurry Up, I’m Dreaming
Surfer Blood
Tarot Classics
Hooks galore and great vocal melodies. Helping redeem Florida in the wake of Flo-rida and Khaled. Every song on this EP is good.
Handsome Furs
Sound Kapital
Jay Z and Kanye
Watch the Throne
Other than Ninjas in Paris, this album didn’t kill me. But that song is truly amazing, and this ridiculousness of playing multiple times at the same show is totally justified. What was interesting to me was how much Jay and ‘Ye drew from this Nero essential mix that was one of my 2010 faves. There are 3 or 4 blatant references to this mix on Watch the Throne. Dubstep’s influence still echoes.
The Antlers
Burst Apart
This slow burning white boy soul is the best Annie Lennox song not actually sung or written by Annie Lennox.
Honorable Mention Song
DJ Khaled
I’m on One
Khaled (what does this guy actually do? He doesn’t rhyme. He doesn’t produce.) somehow gets his name attached to one the best set of hooks and pieces of production of 2011. Best song about getting faded in 2011.
MMG rapper Gunplay never blew this year but I still have high hopes for the first half of 2012.
Books that shifted my thinking:
Jacob Lund Fisker
Early Retirement Extreme: Physicist writes a philosophy book and shakes the foundations of our notions of consumption and income.
William B. Irvine
Guide to the Good Life
An argument for why you should have a life philosophy and that stoicism just might be the right one.
Neal Stephenson
Reamde
Stephenson returns to his Cryptonomicon style. This book is nails.
