2011 rocks

a few months ago i'm sitting in church when this girl comes up to me and hands me a couple of cds.
"i think you'd really like these guys," she says.

now, there are a couple reasons why i was a little hesitant about this.  first, i couldn't recall ever discussing music with her, so how did she know what i liked? sure, we'd talked here and there at church, but music had never come up that i could remember. second, as anyone who's tried to get me to listen to their favorite band knows, i'm not the most open to being given music that people think i'd like. i view it in the same category as being setup on a date: someone else's opinion of what will click with me based on a few general facts. in matters of music and of the heart, i prefer to find what i like naturally and organically, rather than forcing any attraction. still, out of politeness, i took the cds.

the band is called quiet company, they're out of austin, and, to my genuine surprise, they were great. i loved them. couldn't get enough of them, shared them with other friends, and am i'm listening to them as i type. they're somewhere between tally hall (though not as eclectic or whimsical) and arcade fire (though not as full or theatrical), packing impassioned and heartfelt lyrics with skilled musicianship. their facebook statusi suggests that they're cool and down to earth guys and their brief Christmas ep is most excellent.
if you're looking for something new, they get my highest recommendation. start with "everyone you love will be happy soon." it's sublime.

in fact, 2011 has been an excellent musical year for me. in march, i started to notice something: r.e.m. had just released a new cd in and tally hall's long-overdue sophomore effort was finally coming out in june. radiohead had put something out and the beastie boys had a new album on the way, too. this had me curious if some astrological musical alignment would be bringing forth releases from any other my other favorite bands this year. as of spring break, it seemed that coldplay just had a single coming out and i couldn't see anything on the horizon from tmbg.

by the end of the year, however, pretty much everyone had released something. what was remarkable was that, it had been several years for many of these bands and some of their most recent releases weren't that good, but nearly everything this years was solid (sadly, tmbg's "join us" hasn't inspired me to give it a second listen lately.)
check it out:

band	this year	previous release
the decembrists	the king is dead	hazards of love (2009)
radiohead	king of limbs	in rainbows (2007)
r.e.m.	collapse into now	accelerate (2008)
the beastie boys	hot sauce committee pt.2	the mix-up (2007)
tally hall	good & evil	marvin's marvelous mechanical museum (2005)
they might be giants	join us	here comes science (2009)
quiet company	we are all where we belong	everyone you love will be happy soon (2009)
coldplay	mylo xyloto	viva la vida (2006)