Best Albums of 2011

It may have been a bad movie year, but the music industry did not disappoint. I actually had a hard time narrowing down this list to fifteen. There are certainly others that were in the running, others that didn't make the list because of one track or another--it was that hard. Here it is:

1. Tom Waits: Bad As Me
2. Bon Iver: Bon Iver
3. Wilco: The Whole Love
4. Black Keys: El Camino
5. The Civil Wars: Barton Hollow
6. Trampled by Turtles: Palomino
7. The Roots: Undun
8. Glenn Campbell: Ghost on the Canvas
9. Foo Fighters: Wasting Light
10. HARDTOBREATHE: The Reckoning
11. Bush: Sea of Memories
12. Miranda Lambert: Four the Record
13. Lucinda Williams: Blessed
14. Matt Nathanson: Modern Love
15. Christina Perri: Lovestrong

Narrowing it down to fifteen may have been difficult, but picking the number one album of 2011 was incredibly easy. After listening to one track of Tom Waits' seventeenth studio album, I was sold. If you haven't listened to it, go. Now! It's that good.

It was a great year for upstarts (Christina Perri and The Civil Wars) and artists that have been around for what seems like ages (Lucinda Williams, Tom Waits and the incomparable Glenn Campbell). And that I can only think of two disappointments (return of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ryan Adams' Ashes & Fire) is saying something. The music industry better get cracking because 2011 is going to be hard to beat.