To tackle the cliché head-on, if you’re a big music fan, every year is a good year for music. People (and their Droids) seem more cynical than ever, but only a true curmudgeon could make it through any given 12 months without liking anything (well, the mid ’90s had a couple grim moments). That said, 2011 appears to have more than enough to keep even the angriest amongst you smiling amid the steady unemployment, nostalgia-act reunions, oil spills and explosions, celebrity sickness/divorce/death, chillwave, and even Glee.
Kanye West and his Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy owned the latter part of 2010 — with the news of his five-song 2011 Watch The Throne collaboration with Jay-Z, he may very well own a chunk of next year, too. Speaking of owning: 2010 — also known as the year post-Merriweather Post Pavilion — was a somewhat quiet one for Animal Collective outside of ODDSAC and Avey Tare’s Down There. The next one brings us the next best thing to a new AC collection, Tomboy, Panda Bear’s much anticipated followup to 2007’s Person Pitch. We’ll also have the first proper Aphex Twin full-length since 2001’s Drukqs. In the time after Richard D. James paused, guitars have definitely taken a bit of a backseat in many corners of underground music and for the general listener — think chillwave, witch house, death disco, homemade GarageBand mashes, the sampled guitar-rock of Girl Talk, etc. With this landscape as his backdrop, it’ll be interesting to see how much further James, a popular electronic musician even non-electronic music fans have always liked, can spread his reach. (He’s said he’s recorded six albums worth of material since we last heard from him, so it’ll also be interesting to see how much these outside shifts have influenced his own output.) As far as other long waits, it seems Strokes IV will see the light of day in 2011, or at least that’s what the @band says. All in all, the old guard is well represented in the following list: The Cars, Beastie Boys, U2, Foo Fighters, etc. (What year is this again?)
Speaking of our list: We chose the 50 most important or enticing. And while it’s limited primarily to releases that have been confirmed, we have made a few assumptions (e.g., that the Wrens and Avalanches will finish their Chinese Democracies).
Click on an artist name for recent news, and in some cases MP3s, from these forthcoming LPs.
01 Aphex Twin – TBA
02 Fiona Apple – TBA
03 The Avalanches – TBA (via Modular)
04 Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee, Vol. 2 (via Capitol)
05 James Blake – James Blake (2/07 via Atlas/A&M)
06 The Cars – TBA
07 The Cave Singers – No Witch (2/22 via Jagjaguwar)
08 Cloud Nothings – Cloud Nothings (1/24 via Carpark)
09 Cut Copy – Zonoscope (2/08 via Modular)
10 Death Cab For Cutie – TBA (via Atlantic)
11 The Decemberists – The King Is Dead (1/18 via Capitol)
12 Destroyer – Kaputt (1/25 via Merge)
13 Dr. Dre – Detox (February via Aftermath/Interscope)
14 Fleet Foxes – TBA
15 Foo Fighters – TBA
16 The Go! Team – Rolling Blackouts (2/14 via Memphis Industries)
17 PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (2/15 via Island)
18 Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean (1/25 via Warner Bros.)
19 Krallice – TBA (April via Profound Lore)
20 La Sera – La Sera (Early 2011 via Hardly Art)
21 Lady Gaga – Born This Way (Interscope)
22 Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes (3/1 via LL Recordings)
23 Lil Wayne – TBA
24 Liturgy – TBA (Thrill Jockey)
25 The Lonely Island – TBA
26 M83 – TBA
27 Jessica Lea Mayfield – Tell Me (2/8 via Nonesuch)
28 MINKS – By The Hedge (1/12 via Captured Tracks)
29 Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. (2/15 via Sub Pop)
30 My Morning Jacket – TBA (ATO)
31 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – TBA
32 The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Belong (March via Slumberland)
33 Panda Bear – Tomboy
34 R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now (Spring via Warner Bros.)
35 Radiohead – TBA (via Teh Internetz)
36 Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo (2/14)
37 The Rome (Danger Mouse & Daniele Lupi) – The Rome
38 Santigold – TBA
39 The Shins – TBA
40 Paul Simon – So Beautiful Or So What
41 Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde (1/18 via Fat Possum)
42 The Streets – Computers And Blues
43 The Strokes – TBA
44 Tennis – Cape Dory (1/18 via Fat Possum)
45 Shugo Tokumaru – Port Entropy (2/15 via Polyvinyl.)
46 Toro Y Moi – Underneath The Pine (2/22 via Car Park)
47 The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps (2/15 via Subpop)
48 Kanye West & Jay-Z – Watch The Throne (via Def Jam)
49 The Wrens – TBA
50 U2 – Songs Of Ascent
HONORABLE MENTIONS & SPECULATIONS:
…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Tao Of The Dead Part I: Tao Of the Dead (2/4 via Richter Scale)
Akron/Family – S/T II: The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT (2/8 via Dead Oceans)
Damon Albarn/Flea/Tony Allen Project – TBA
Asobi Seksu – Fluoresence (2/15 via Polyvinyl)
Banjo Or Freakout – TBA (via Rare Book Room)
Battles – TBA
Beady Eye – TBA
Beck – TBA
Black Lips – TBA
Bon Iver – TBA
BRAIDS – Native Speaker (1/18 via Kanine Records)
Bright Eyes – The People’s Key (2/15 via Saddle Creek)
British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall (via Rough Trade)
Burial – TBA
Cake – Showroom Of Compassion (1/11 via Upbeat)
Coldplay – TBA
Cornershop – Cornershop & The Double ‘O’ Groove Of
Crystal Stilts – TBA
Danielson – Best of Gloucester County (2/22 via Sounds Familyre)
The Death Set – Michel Poiccard (via Ninjatune)
Deerhoof – Deerhoof Vs. Evil (1/25 via Polyvinyl)
DeVotchKa – 100 Lovers (2/15 via ANTI-)
Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots (2/15 via ATO)
Ducktails – Ductails III: Arcade Dynamics (1/10 via Woodsist)
East River Pipe – We Live In Rented Rooms (2/15 via Merge)
Eleventh Dream Day – Riot Now! (3/22 via Thrill Jockey)
Esben & The Witch – Violet Cries (2/8 via Matador)
Explosions In The Sky – TBA
Matthew Friedberger – Solos (Jan, March, May, July, Sept, Nov via Thrill Jockey)
The Feelies – TBA (Spring via Bar/None)
Lupe Fiasco – Lasers (2/14 via Atlantic)
The Forms – Derealization (2/15 via Threespheres/Ernest Jenning)
Fujiya & Miyagi – Ventriloquizzing (1/25 via Yep Roc)
Peter Gabriel – New Blood
The Get Up Kids – There Are Rules (via Quality Hill Records)
The Good, The Bad, & The Queen – TBA
Gorillaz – TBA
The Human League – Credo
Islands – TBA
Jane’s Addiction – TBA
Keren Ann – TBA
The Kills – TBA
Talib Kweli – Gutter Rainbows (1/25 via Talibra)
Avril Lavigne – Goodbye Lullabye (3/8 via RCA)
Jens Lekman – TBA
Low – TBA
The Luyas – Too Beautiful To Work (2/22 via Dead Oceans)
MEN – Talk About Body (2/1 via IAMSOUND)
Mister Heavenly – TBA
Neon Indian – TBA
Noah & The Whale – TBA (via Lost Club/Mercury Records)
Okkervil River – TBA
Beth Orton – TBA
Portishead – TBA
Red Hot Chili Peppers – TBA
Rick Rizzo & Tara Key – Double Star
Sic Alps – Napa Asylum (1/25 via Drag City)
The Skull Defekts – Peer Amid
Britney Spears – TBA
Tape Deck Mountain – Secret Serf EP
Telekinesis! – 12 Desperate Straight Lines (2/15 via Merge)
John Vanderslice – White Wilderness (1/25 via Dead Oceans)
VEGA – TBA
White Lies – Ritual (1/18 via Fiction)
Wild Flag – TBA
Lucinda Williams – Blessed (3/1 via Lost Highway)
Win Win – Win Win (Vice
Patrick Wolf – TBA (via Hideout)
Wye Oak – Civilian (3/8 via Merge)
Yuck – Yuck (2/15 via Fat Possum)
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