Sam's Favorite Albums of 2011

Only four this year...

Emily King - Seven

I had no idea who this woman is before I heard her. (Shannan, thanks for the heads up.) And I really didn’t care to find out. When you listen to her EP, “7,” you really don’t care about anything else. That’s the point.

Of every album I’ve heard this year, for me, this one’s it. No question. You hear it and you think of brighter skies and warmer weather and nicer people. You smile without knowing it. You stop what you’re doing and just sit with the music.

This EP seeps a musical luxury in every measure, a quiet opulence in every verse. It is exquisitely layered, and carefully executed. And so subdued. That’s the best part.

There’s this part on the 6th track, “Sides,” towards the end. The song is building to a peak, and this simmering drum roll starts to build. With ANY other R&B singer, you’d expected a full-throated yelp to come next, or a holler, or a yell. SOMETHING big.

With King, there are none of these things. The crescendo falls into itself. The drumroll ends. Emily King stops singing, and just lets the track play. Before you know it. It’s all over. That’s the genius of this album. It knows when to stop. It knows when to breathe. It paces itself.

It’s the album Norah Jones would have made if she were really into D’Angelo. The EP India Arie would make if she had better producers. The disc Lauryn Hill could have made if she’d just slow down.

It is the album I can’t say anything bad about. The album you need to hear this year. That she ended up on no major year-end lists is a sad indictment of the current state of affairs. But I’ll try to do my part. I implore you, download this LP. Listen to it. Then listen to it again.

Thank me later.

Kendrick Lamar - Section.80

The hardest thing about hip-hop is having to defend it. For every innovation, there is an inopportune “bitch.” Behind every cosmic revelation, a “slut,” or a “suck my dick.” For every breakthrough, an indictment on “the government” for giving Black people AIDS, or “The White Man,” whoever that is, for doing every single bad thing that has ever occurred. EVER.

Section.80 is no different. It is misogynist and profane. It has some convuluted views on race and gender I would not play this in front of my godson, or my mother, or even some of my friends. It is offensive.

It is worth defending.

Because it's beautifully earnest, in a way other rap albums I wanted to be this year just weren’t. “Watch The Throne” was too boastful. “Camp” wasn’t sure what kind of person it wanted its hero to be. Kendrick Lamar, on Section.80 is himself, flaws and all.

It’s soul-bearing in the way “The College Dropout” was. Only Kendrick’s a better rapper than 2004’s Kanye West. The aesthetic channels The Pharcyde and Souls of Mischief -- early 90’s cross-colors rap. Jazz-sampling, bouncing rap. Riding rap.

Did I say it’s earnest? On “Kush & Corinthians” Lamar raps about reading the Bible, while smoking weed:

“As I open this book and then burn up some of this reefer

My plan is to figure out the world and escape all my demons

I’m dying inside, I wonder if Zion inside the heavens

A condom, a rollie, pain, a fat blunt and a mack 11

That’s all I see in my life and they tell me to make it right

But I’m right on the edge of Everest and I might jump tonight

Have you ever had known a saint that was taking’s a sinner’s advice?”

“When I lie on back and look at the ceiling, it’s so appealing to pray

I wonder if I’m just a villain, dealing my morals away

Some people look at my face then tell me don’t worry about it.”

Verses like these make mucking through the profanity worth it. It is revelatory in a way few albums have been for me this year. And Lamar is quite the lyricist. Check out "Keisha's Song" and "Rigamortis." As well as "Hol' Up," -- it's the smoothest rap track of the year.

Thundercat – The Golden Age of Apocolypse
There was a time when I thought I could make it as a jazz musician. I was a music major in undergrad, and had totally figured out the genius of the major 7th, the tritone, the diminished scale. But my mind wasn’t big enough, my fingers weren’t fast enough, I couldn’t get my head around it all. I got ok enough to respect artists like Thundercat. 

He makes music that sounds like the musicians I once wanted to be. I am living vicariously through “The Golden Age of the Apocalypse.” It is dense, heady stuff. Jazz with a side of hip-hop. And you may not like it. But it’s my list. So there.

Beyonce - 4

There’s this really great YouTube video of Beyonce, backstage before a performance at the American Idol Finale. She’s in her dressing room, in a ballroom gown, with perfectly crimped blonde hair. She’s facing a wall length mirror, and singing. Jay-Z’s recording on what seems to be his cellphone, with a shaky hand.

Beyonce. Is. Singing. SANGIN’

Rehearsing “1+1” with her keyboardist beside her, and three soul sisters of backup singers to her rear. It is perfect. Family and friends sit on the sidelines transfixed. It’s better than what she’d do onstage later. Impeccable. Controlled. Emotive. Dynamic.

This is Beyonce, version 2.0. No longer just a pop star. She’s now an impresario.

Anything you can sing, she can sing better. And that’s what makes her album “4” amazing. Not all of the songs are incredible, but they don’t have to be. Beyonce could sing the phone book and you’d be caught up in the rapture of it all.

That fact that she made an album full of ballads when the rest of R&B is going either emo (The Weeknd) or Euro (Rihanna, Chris Brown, etc...) shows she’s very assured of her talent. And this is a good thing. It lets her languish in powerhouse R&B on songs like “Rather Die Young” and “Love On Top,” but push the genre on tracks like “Countdown,” and the sparse and stunning “I Miss You.”

That this disc gave her no top ten singles is not a surprise. Beyonce’s not particularly making songs for radio on this album. She doesn’t need to -- she’s Beyonce. She can bring down the house in dressing room.