EDIT: I am ashamed to say that, after posting this, I realized I left out a couple of albums that were indispensable to me this year. They will replace two of the albums that were already in and the changes will be marked by asterisks.
Hello, everyone!
So, here we are again. The end of another year. And it’s that time where us music directors are looking back on all the great (and terrible) music that we’ve gotten in. I think you all know what’s coming in this post. Yes, I have my Top picks…of many things. I’ve got my top albums, movies, reissues (can’t leave out the old, bad stuff) and maybe something else at the end. Since I’m Loud Rock Director, I’ll post my top metal picks in the Loud Rock section.
I’ve never really written out my top picks before. When I worked at a video store, my boss made me pick my top 5 new releases of the year. We weren’t allowed to pick movies that other employees picked. Being the last guy to pick my top 5, I had a rough time. My boss picked first. He picked one movie…The Inside Man. Okay, one down. Can’t pick that one. Oh! I can take Little Miss Sunshine. Got it. Number 1. My other boss, he picked…The Departed. Well fuck! Okay…well Children of Men hasn’t been taken. Okay! I can’t remember the last one I was happy picking. Maybe it was Pan’s Labyrinth. I don’t remember. All I know is that the other good movies got taken and I was forced to make my last two picks Beerfest and Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest…shit. At least someone picked Cars with their own freewill before I had too.
Fortunately, our station manager, Landon, is a cool dude and let’s our lists overlap (or does he?). I’ve seen Josh’s (our former station manager) “Dance Party Killers”. So I’ll take a little bit o’ inspiration from him. I’ll stop rambling. Don’t hate me if you disagree with my top 2 choices on albums. It was a tough call for me too. Here our my top picks of the year (and then some!).
Top 10 Albums of 2011:
10. Ga’an – Ga’an*
9. tUne-yArDs – w h o k i l l
8. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
7. Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
6. Bjork – Biophilia*
5. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
4. The Beach Boys – Smile Sessions (FINALLY)
3. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
2. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
1. Panda Bear – Tomboy
Greatest Re-Issues from this Year:
Can – Tago Mago
Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis
Talk Talk – Laughing Stock
10 Albums Released This Year by Bands I Couldn’t Care Less About (no particular order):
Mr. Big – What If…
Avril Lavigne – Goodbye Lullaby
Ke$ha’s dumb remix album
Sum 41 – Screaming Bloody Murder
Journey – Eclipse
Limp Bizkit – Gold Cobra (WTF?(“WTF?” is not part of the album name))
Kidz Bop Kids – Kidz Bop 20
Psychostick – Space Vampires vs. Zombie Dinosaurs in 3D
Chickenfoot – Chickenfoot III (Chickenfoot has already made 3 albums?)
Nickelback – Here And Now
Yes, as I looked back on the albums made this year, I took note of these ones…They’re on wikipedia.
The Collaboration and Album of the Year that Never Should’ve Happened:
Loud Reed & Metallica – Lulu
Albums I’m Eagerly Anticipating:
Dr. Dre – Detox (Soon?)
Meshuggah’s new album (Q1 2012)
Tool’s new album (Someday)
My Top 9 Movies of 2011 (because if I made it 10, then I’d have to put Season of the Witch in):
9. X-Men: First Class (Michael Fassbender Man-Crush)
8. Troll Hunter
7. Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
6. The Trip
5. American: The Bill Hicks Story
4. Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest
3. Warrior (Tom Hardy Man-Crush)
2. Drive (Ryan Gosling Man-Crush)
1. 13 Assassins
Movies IMDb Tells Me to Look Forward to in the Future (I am and I’ll tell you why):
The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) It’s being directed by the RZA.
The Hobbit (2012) I’m a total nerd. And The Hobbit is awesome.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Needs no explanation
Underworld Awakening (2012) Kate Beckinsale is super hot in the Underworld movies.
The Avengers (2012) See first reason for The Hobbit.
Django Unchained (2012) Can’t hate Tarantino.
The Expendables 2 (2012) Van Damme is going to be in this one.
47 Ronin (2012) Keanu is going to pretend to be Japanese.
The Grey (2012) Liam Neeson is probably going to kill everything.
G.I. Joe 2 (2012) …Uh…why not?
Skyfall (2012) It’s James Bond. I dare you to tell me that you won’t see it.
TOTAL FUCKING RECALL (2012) ARNOLD MOVIE + PHILIP K. DICK + REMAKE = FUCK YES (But Arnold isn’t in it(fuck))
24 (2013) DAMMIT!
WESTWORLD (?) Holy shit are you serious?! The first one was awesome! I mean, not really. But it’s still a great movie to watch. A remake of this and Total Recall?! All we need now is another installment in the Chronicles of Riddick series.
Untitled Chronicles of Riddick Sequel (?) WHAAAAAA???
Robopocalypse (2013) The movie is called Robopocalypse.
So I know it’s a long list of stuff. But I hope you guys enjoyed reading it. In the not-so-distant-future, I will be putting up my Top 10 Metal Albums of the Year in the Loud Rock section. So look out for that.
Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!
-JAKE (Loud Rock Director/Grand “Dad” Master)
