The methods of how people approach music and my own getting older has made the idea of viewing the best in music on a yearly basis to be old fashioned. As you drift out of the “free money” demographic, it becomes unlikely that you can keep up without being a paid media critic/blogger.

Another element of selection, besides the year criteria, is how can you choose an album that you have just got to be the best of year? It seems to me that you have to live with it for at least month before you claim it as the best. Impact is key yet you really have to live with a piece of music before judging it. This element will become harder or more obvious as we have to spread our dollar and attention thinner and thinner.

Enough quantifying, here’s more music that made my year

Hype has the opposite effect on me. However Kurt Vile‘s connection to The War on Drugs made me take the leap.I must admit that I was not immediately taken with Smoke Ring for My Halo. And yet the hooks dug in quick. Its spin on psych flecked folk rock manages to be both sleepy and taut. If I got into earlier it would place higher.

Last year, I decided to figure out what all this Kinks talk was about. And I finally made contact with Muswell Hillbillies this summer. What took me so long? The interaction between British and American styles creates a perfect backdrop for Ray Davies’cynicism and humorously defiant lyrics. Deserves its classic status.

Loudin Wainwright III is an acquired taste. His voice, his tact on folk rock, and his sense of humor is not for everyone. I am at a loss to place this in the continuum of 70s singer-songwriters. Slanting towards early Prine or possibly a really cynical/sarcastic Chapin, I guess. Unique.

The Great Destroyer was my entry point into the discography of Low.The album contains multitudes: the trio offers variety. The ability to be expansive while maintaining an identity is not an easy feat. A bittersweet (or just plain bitter)strand runs through the lyrics. I think anyone who enjoys good 90s indie should give it a listen. A depressed Mid-Western Yo La Tengo? (Too inside?)

For me, Liars‘ Sisterworld cemented the band’s reputation in my mind. The art/noise rock here is wonderfully balanced between menace and humor. They have outstripped their influences and turned into an adjective. Adventurous yet swinging!

The final third of Fugue Sounds will be arriving by the end of the week.

While I am feeling enterprising, let’s run through some albums quick.

Real Estate‘s influences are obvious. A common complaint of the jaded music fan is that they have heard it all before. This New Jersey band encapsulation of the late 80s-early 90s pre-grunge guitar pop is well crafted and heart-felt in a way that makes such claims effete. The dreamy dynamics of Days is a real stand out for those seeking calming but never dull rock.

After an early encounter with a previous album , I thought Thee Oh Sees were not for me. Damn was I wrong! Castlemania explores a lo-fi space between Syd Barrett and early Cramps. There is something subversive in this mix of punk and psych elements. A generous album with plenty of highlights and a concise style in spite of its rambling and rollicking style. 60s rock for 21st century heads.

The War on Drugs‘ Slave Ambient mixture of classic Rock/Americana flavors with krautrock influenced rhythms is no simple gimmick. The production details bring a real shine to it which manages to invoke influences before drifting off into a wholly original atmosphere. For me this was the album to beat this year. That such a band exists in the same state as me is a nice bit of civic pride I don’t get very often. Be sure to check out Future Weather, a companion EP to the album, which includes a great alternate version of the album track Brothers.

I had not kept up with Wilco. So I missed all the backlash and “dad rock” accusations. When I bothered to check back in, I found a very flexible recording in The Whole Love. A nice mesh of styles delivered in an approachable but varied form. It doesn’t try to change the world just your mind.

Red Barked Tree from, veteran post-punk unit, Wire truly floored me. That they could take the span of their career and condense it into this diamond of a record was wholly unexpected. It sounds emblematic without being formulaic. Seek it out and see how indie/alt could’ve been in an alternate universe.

So there we are. I am doing this a bit on the run so it may not be all it could be but I got it rolling. Next up, a collection of honorable mentions and stuff definitely not from this year.

I got a New Year’s wish. And I know I can fulfill it. One of the reason for creating TSFI was an unchecked desire to write about music. I was posting reviews on Amazon near compulsively. While it was fun to get feedback and the baby rush of forum posting, something was lacking. So that lead to blogging and shortly thereafter my problem. The form of the expression started to dictate how I would do this. More correctly, my perception of it started to mess with me.

As a firm believer in I would never write something that I would not read, I started to look at how I “read” the web. I am a nibbler, I am a saver, and I am a surfer. So this told me how I had to create a blog. The rest I learned after I got going. I don’t want to spend a day making a post. Simply there is not enough time. The first sites I followed were very opposed to this and all the better for it. There was thought, density and, importantly, length. And all for free. I was estatic! Imagine my disappointment when I realized I could not do it that way!

Sometimes when the site would go dormant, I’d think you just gotta post something. These post are always done in the spirit of the show must go on, keep the party going. After a few of these types of post, certain corner cutting tricks became evident. The world makes it impossible to be all soul all the time 24/7. Not to say I’ve ever supported something I did not love just it’s never been in the way I would present it if time was no object. Time? That shit’s priceless.

Which brings me back to my wish. Writing about music. I am not saying that I have not written about music in the past, online and otherwise. I mean something like Lester Bangs or Greil Marcis or Ira Robbins. The Trouser Press Record Guide, like The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, has been guide to me. I’ve spent a majority of my life living in areas where I am the torchbearer of the weird and off-beat. Hair always a little too long, no odd facial hair, no tats or piercings, and this unruly mind. So I don’t know no icons beyond the obscurest kind for me. To be honest, I have yet to figure out who I am writing for. The best I can up with is my audience is mixed. I am going to pretend you know somethings and not others. I could be wrong.

So for the next few days, I am going to try this experiment. I am going to do a four part list of my favorite music of the year. This will be in three parts. My favorite five new “albums”, my favorite five “old” albums, and a third part which will be much less list-y and way rambly. Could be done as early as 31st of December or as late as 3rd of January. Anyone who saw my twitter posts about songs of 2011 this is what that turned into. Should be fun to see where this goes….

This is the street of the mundane