The end of the year… A time for retrospection. And Top10 lists.
My favorite songs of 2011? After seeing the BET “Top 100″ (where everything by Beyonce, Rhianna, Jay-Z, Kanye, Nicki Minaj, or Drake was apparently a winner), or the hipster lists from Spinner and Wired (which seem to go out of their way to ignore lamestream artists), I decided to take a look at my iPod’s most-played list and filter for all the releases of 2011. I’m not embarrassed to admit to having some Top40 in there:
- The Airborne Toxic Event – Welcome To Your Wedding Day
- The Black Keys – Lonely Boy
- Adele – Rolling In The Deep
- Christina Perri – Arms
- Mumford & Sons – The Cave
- Mayer Hawthorne – The Walk
- Two Door Cinema Club – What You Know
- Ra Ra Riot – Boy
- Tom Waits – Satisfied
- Super Heavy – Miracle Worker
- Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know
- Sara Bareilles – Gonna Get Over You
- Snow Patrol – Called Out In The Dark
- The Joy Formidable – Whirring
- Gavin Degraw – Not Over You
- Florence + The Machine – Shake It Out
- Wilco – One Sunday Morning
- Maroon 5 – Moves Like Jagger
- Everything Dies – El Mariachi Bronx
- The Kooks – Junk Of The Heart
- Death Cab For Cutie – You Are A Tourist
- Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’
- One Republic – Good Life
- Katy Perry – Firework
- Guster – Do You Love Me
The only artist that all four lists have in common is Adele. (And she can be found on pretty much any 2011 compendium out there.) Perhaps a preview of things to come for the Grammys in Feb, with a consensus “Artist of the Year”, and maybe “Song of” and “Record of the Year” for “Rolling In The Deep”…
