Your Top Ten for the 2011 Year in Music

Well, we’ve closed the books on 2011 and before BearTiger shows up to do the TV/Movie poll, I’d like to get the MTV board’s thoughts on the year in pop music. It was a solid year with lots of good releases but few, if any, great ones. So there should be a huge diversity in ballots with lots of different stuff mentioned. This was definitely a year without critical consensus (except for the grossly overrated Wye Oak).

Anyway, post your ballots in this thread for your top ten releases of the year. I’ll try and compile and release our consensus list.

But before we do, let’s reflect again on how awesome 2010 was. With a year of perspective, I’m just shocked how great that year was as there were probably 30 releases that had they come out this year, I would’ve put ‘em on my top 10 of 2011.

Look at the bands who may have released their best album of their career in 2010: The National, New Pornographers, Ted Leo, Midlake, LCD Soundsystem, John Mellencamp, Frightened Rabbit, Dr. Dog, Talib Kweli, and Arcade Fire. Furthermore, we had either debut or at least early career albums from new bands such as Titus Andronicus, Surfer Blood, John Ritter, Free Energy, Deer Tick, Mumford & Sons, Tokyo Police Club, Henry Clay People, Trampled by Turtles, Motion City Soundtrack, Frog Eyes, and Vampire Weekend. And that’s leaving out sustained excellence from established acts like the hold Steady, Drive-by Truckers, the Thermals, Black Keys, Dead Weather (Jack White), Spoon, wolf Parade, Kate Nash, Gorillaz, Gaslight Anthem, Mark Lanegan, Los Campisinos!, Clem Snide, Blitzen Trapper, BRMC, Alkaline Trio, and Band of Horses. What a great f’n year. Maybe the best year in pop music since 1991.

This year’s not as good and it seems like a bad year just because of its proximity to 2010. But it was a solid year. So hit me with your ballots in the next week or so in this thread. I’ll have mine up in a bit.