I've been meaning to do a list of favorite albums so far from 2011, but I haven't really been feeling it (and I've listened to maybe 6 albums... as most of my current music listening has been restricted to The Current... which, you know, oh well), so I've kept putting it off and off.

So let's just do a list of songs I like, because I actually feel motivated to do that:

In alphabetical order:

Antlers: I Don't Want Love



I really liked their last release, Hospice. Well, no. I REALLY liked about three songs, and my love of those three songs made me forgive the fact that the rest of the album was pretty forgettable. Their newest release--Burst Apart--seems to be the opposite: consistent throughout, but not a whole lot of highlights. I think I lean more towards Hospice. So I guess I lean towards this song the most since it reminds me the most of Hospice. Yep.

Battles: Ice Cream



This is one song that I've heard a lot on The Current which I haven't automatically hated because I heard it all the time on The Current, so it has that going for it. I've heard the band's stuff briefly before, and wasn't too keen, but this is I suppose weird/accessible enough for my tastes, even if the best part comes in the first minute. Too bad I'm going to hate it when 30 different car companies decide to use it to play over their ads millions of times.

The Decemberists: Don't Carry It All



I think I prefer the Decemberists when they are more bombastic/pretentious/ridiculous, so I wasn't *too* huge on their "return to roots" album. But this song sounds as if they've been casually writing great country songs for their entire career. It's quite clearly (to me) the highlight of the album, which makes it confusing when any praise is reserved for the other songs in the batch. Man, screw everyone else....

The National: Think You Can Wait



It's not even that this song is really that great, really. But I would have to say that since they're probably my favorite band currently operating in their prime, I feel compelled to put something on this list anyway. And this is much better than that damn song from the Portal soundtrack that they had. So there.

Okkervil River: Your Past Life As A Blast



I'm not really sure exactly how to describe this song other than it's quite different than their usual output, as this sounds less indie-folkish and more Arcade Fire aping. But it works nonetheless, even if it's not going to really ascend to "biggest song in the world" status that Arcade Fire's best stuff sometimes reaches towards. Then again, it's not trying to reach for that at all...

Radiohead: Little By Little



OK. So... The King Of Limbs kind of sucked. But as I mentioned when it came out, I'm OK with that. They're in their 40's, and a decrease in quality to be expected at that point (example: just about every 60's artist putting out crappy release after crappy release in the 80's.) But this is good... if not great Radiohead. It probably would not sound out of place on Hail To The Thief, and if it were... it'd probably be something like by 5th favorite on the album. And that, my friends, is all it takes to get on my list of favorite music of 2011 so far...

Raphael Saadiq: Go To Hell



I had the album recommended to me by someone/something during a phase in which I was going through a lot of Motown. I only listened to it once, but I wasn't too high on it, as it seemed to be trying to ape a lot of different 60's/70's soul sounds without actually sounding cohesive. But this stuck out as a nice throwback... although the man sounds pretty much exactly like Stevie Wonder, which is good but kind of creepy.

Tom Waits: Bad As Me

I don't have a video here. But just imagine it being great, because it's Tom Waits.

There are a couple bands with releases that I could have included here, but I couldn't be bothered to try to go with the effort.

You can tell I am committed, folks.