over the course of this week, i’ll be posting my annual best of lists. as a complete list nerd, this is my favorite time of the year here on the ol’ blog. here’s the lists i’ll be posting:
tuesday: best new music discoveries
yesterday (wednesday): cover songs
today: songs
tomorrow (friday): albums
the last couple days—with best new discoveries and cover songs—have been list appetizers. but now we’ve reached the main courses: songs and albums (we’ll get to albums tomorrow). i’ve listened to, um, a few songs this year. and while many were good, there were a select list of great songs. from grunge rock veterans to luxury rappers, here’s the songs that made 2011 a great year for music:
over the course of this week, i’ll be posting my annual best of lists. as a complete list nerd, this is my favorite time of the year here on the ol’ blog. here’s the lists i’ll be posting:
yesterday (tuesday): best new music discoveries
today: cover songs
tomorrow (thursday): songs
friday: albums
i assume that if you don’t love a good cover, then you must hate america. they’re great. while there’s a whole lot of bad covers, there’s always a good list (my initial list before narrowing them down was about 48 songs) of great cover songs each year. from youtube sensations to old country singers trying something new, here’s my list of 2011′s best cover songs:
at about this time last year, i posted a list of my favorite albums of 2010 up to that point. at the end of 2010, it was fun to look back and see if i still had similar feelings. the black keys’ brothers was able to hold onto the top spot whereas albums by jennifer knapp, janelle monae & fair (among others) didn’t make the year-end list at all.
so i thought i’d do the same this year. there’s been a lot of good music, but admittedly, in looking at this list, it’s not necessarily been a great year for music so far. i’m anticipating quite a few albums (kanye/jay-z, u2, coldplay, amy winehouse (maybe?), dr. dre, fiona apple (possibly?) and a list of others) by year’s end that will almost certainly bump quite a few of these from the list. we’ll see.
ast year, i began a new blog series, of sorts, in which i compiled a mix of the best music i had discovered in the preceding two months. the series and mixes are called, two in review. read the original post for details of why i started this.








