2011 was a good year for music. not necessarily a great year, but certainly a good year for music. it featured quite a few surprises and new discoveries and also had its fair share of albums that were highly anticipated. personally, i haven’t anticipated albums as much as i did elbow’s build a rocket boys and kanye/jay-z’s watch the throne (among others) in quite some time.

much the same as last year, there’s a handful of albums that i expect to be great albums. and while it’s always dangerous to inflate expectations to non-attainable levels, i’ve narrowed down a list of nearly 50 albums to 12 that i am eagerly anticipating this year.

i’ve broken down the list into 2 categories: confirmed (or as close to confirmed as possible) and i’m-not-holding-my-breath-but-this-rumor-is-worth-believing. first, the confirmed albums:

over the course of this week, i’ve been 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’ve been posting:

tuesday: best new music discoveries
wednesday: cover songs
thursday: songs
today: albums

the granddaddy of all the end-of-year music lists is the best albums. so here we are.

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:

[the above photo was taken a couple days ago at her birthday party. yes, it was an alice in wonderland party and yes, olive was alice. ]

today, our little olive becomes a little bigger olive as she turns 3 years old. as much as one might tend to say, “i can’t believe she’s already 3″, i almost can’t believe she’s only 3. i really can’t remember a time when olive wasn’t here. avoiding all cliché, my life is deeply incomplete without hers.

another couple months have passed by, so it’s time to once again bring you two in review. the past couple months have been a mixed music bag. there’s been some stuff i’ve really love and looked forward to, but all in all, there hasn’t been the long list of music that i couldn’t fit in like past two in reviews. regardless, i think this is another great collection. hope you enjoy.