The Hype Machine, the highly valuable MP3-blog aggregator, has given us the latest 2011 best-of list, and it's an uncommonly democratic one. To put this particular thing together, the site canvassed the year-end lists of 403 different music bloggers, ranking the results and putting them all together into a single list. This must've been a lot of work!
The resulting list doesn't have a whole lot of surprises. Bon Iver tops yet another list, and plenty of other usual suspects show up in the usual places. But when you're dealing with music bloggers, you're going to get a few curveballs -- this is the first year-end list I've seen, for instance, that shows any love to Foster The People. And if you don't like this list, there's something you can do about it: Start your own MP3 blog, and make sure the Hype Machine takes your list into account next year. The Hype Machine has links to Rdio streams of all the albums, and we've got the full list below.
50 Tim Hecker - Ravedeath 1972
49 Gillian Welch - The Harrow And The Harvest
48 Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde
47 Cults - Cults
46 The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Belong
45 Wild Beasts - Smother
44 Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra.
43 WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Moutain
42 Wye Oak - Civilian
41 Beyoncé - 4
40 Panda Bear - Tomboy
39 Feist - Metals
38 Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise
37 Lady Gaga - Born This Way
36 Cut Copy - Zonoscope
35 Metronomy - The English Riviera
34 Mastodon - The Hunter
33 Youth Lagoon - The Year Of Hibernation
32 Drake - Take Care
31 Florence & The Machine - Ceremonials
30 Wild Flag - Wild Flag
29 The Horrors - Skying
28 Washed Out - Within & Without
27 Foster The People - Torches
26 The War On Drugs - Slave Ambient
25 The Roots - Undun
24 Foo Fighters - Wasting Light
23 The Antlers - Burst Apart
22 Fucked Up - David Comes To Life
21 Yuck - Yuck
20 The Weeknd - House Of Balloons
19 Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
18 Tom Waits - Bad As Me
17 Real Estate - Days
16 The Black Keys - El Camino
15 Radiohead - The King Of Limbs
14 Destroyer - Kaputt
13 Wilco - The Whole Love
12 Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
11 Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne
10 St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
09 James Blake - James Blake
08 The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
07 Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
06 Adele - 21
05 tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l
04 PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
03 M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
02 Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
01 Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
