Michael Doherty's Picks For The Five Best CDs of 2011

There were so many excellent CD releases this year. So choosing five favorites was actually fairly difficult, and a lot of excellent albums didn't make my list. For my list of the top five, I only included original releases of new music. That means no compilations or re-issues or live albums. That eliminated a lot of great records, by folks such as Ray Charles, Paul Kelly, Buck Owens, Slaid Cleaves and Kelly's Lot. Also, the CD had to come out this year, which eliminated the excellent new Willie Nile album, which saw a European release last year. And it had to be a full-length CD, not an EP, which eliminated new releases by Dean Fields and Finding Fiction.

Okay, here are my favorite CDs of the year.


5. Tea Leaf Green: "Radio Tragedy!"

When I reviewed this CD in May, the first line of my review was this: "Fourteen seconds into the first track I fell in love with this band." That first track is "All Washed Up," a catchy and original tune. It begins with some wonderful percussion, and then kicks in like a strange electronic gypsy carnival. The lyrics start, "I am standing here today/Without a dollar to my name/I've paid my dues," lines many of us can relate to in this economy. There is an insane manic section in the middle that is simply delicious. On top of it all, you can dance to it. There is a definite reggae influence in the rhythm.

But the entire album is really good. Check out tunes like "Sleep Paralysis," "Honey Bee" and "Nothing Changes."

Radio Tragedy! was released on June 7, 2011 through Thirty Tigers

4. Wagons: "Rumble, Shake And Tumble"

Wagons was a band I hadn't heard of before this album, and I immediately became a fan. That is to say, by the second song I was a fan. The first song I still consider the weakest on the album. But the rest are all gems. And the third, "Moon Into Sun," is one of my favorite songs of the year. And "Save Me" is a song I love to sing along to, with the volume up nice and high. In addition to those tunes, this album features "I Blew It," which has a deliciously fun rhythm and good energy, and "Willie Nelson," an incredible ode to one of the world's best song writers.

By the way, Wagons put on an excellent concert.

Rumble, Shake And Tumble was released in the U.S. on August 16, 2011 on Spunk Records through Thirty Tigers. It was released in Australia on May 6, 2011.


3. The Grownup Noise: "This Time With Feeling"

The Grownup Noise has become one of my favorite bands. I saw them in concert a couple of years ago when they opened for Kay Hanley in Boston, and I was impressed. Then when I listened to their CDs, I became even more impressed. Then they came out to L.A. and put on a phenomenal concert. And just when I thought they couldn't possibly top everything that had come before, they released This Time With Feeling, which features "Carnival," one of my favorite songs. "Carnival" is seriously fun, with a bouncy rhythm to the vocals as well as the guitar and bass. This song always makes me happy.

This album also features "Flower," which is more in a folk vein. This song is a good example of the band's sense of humor - the lines are funny, and yet sung earnestly and beautifully, almost sadly. Check out lines like, "a flower is a strategy only good for I'm sorry please/like nature's bubble gum ring fun when you're seventeen." Other tracks to pay attention to include "Six Foot Solemn Oath" and "The Artist Type."

The band features excellent vocals as well as wonderful songwriting. And of course it doesn't hurt that there is a cello. Definitely a band to check out.

The Grownup Noise had their CD release party for This Time With Feeling on March 26, 2011, and the CD was officially released in April.

2. Holly Golightly And The Brokeoffs: "No Help Coming"

I love the delicious raw power of Holly Golightly And The Brokeoffs. They can take folk, blues, rock, country and garage, spin it all together and make it something completely original and wonderful. This is a kick-ass album, and then suddenly toward the end is the absolutely beautiful "River Of Tears." It's a gorgeous acoustic number that I just can't enough of. But the album grabs you from its opening track, the title track, "No Help Coming." This CD grabs you by the throat, shakes you about, and has you smiling. This band has a world all its own, and it's a thrill to visit it. And No Help Coming ends with a song written by Wavy Gravy. So there.

No Help Coming was released on April 26, 2011 on Transdreamer Records.

1. Diana Jones: "High Atmosphere"

My favorite album of the year is Diana Jones' High Atmosphere. I have listened to this album so much this year, probably more than any other CD. This album has made me cry multiple times, possibly because her voice works best on the sadder tunes. There have been times when I've listened to just "Funeral Singer" over and over. Other times I'll sing along to "Poverty" and "I Don't Know," two of the album's best. But most of the time I just let the entire album play.

"I Don't Know" is one of the sadder tunes, and one of the best on the album. It starts, "Where do you go when you're tired in your soul/it's too soon to join the choir in the sky/do you rest your bones in the low land low/I don't know I don't know I don't know." I love that the song offers no answers. This is part of why this album is so effective. Diana Jones is not singing to us; she's singing with us - for us. This song has the lines, "Some say love is a beautiful thing/some say love is the trouble it brings." Wonderful.

"My Love Is Gone" is one of the best songs on the album. It's a sadder tune, and beautiful in its forlorn tone. It begins, "The branches bare on every tree/a hawk is mournful as she cries/the winter sun veiled in the sky/now that my love is gone from me." And check out these lines: "Lord build a boat that I may go/a saddled steed that I may ride/or dig a grave to lay me low/now that my love is gone from me." There is also some wonderful work by Ketch Secor on this one, particularly toward the end of the track.

"Funeral Singer" is another of this album's gems. This is a great folk tune, and has become one of my favorite songs. It's sad and beautiful, and it raises the spirits - Diana Jones is so adept at this. She can make you feel better while driving you to the edge of tears. I don't even know how she does it. I just have to count it as some sort of miracle. This is one of the songs that could easily become a standard folk song in the years to come. I hope it does. Here is a taste of the lyrics: "I have lost my little bird/I have lost my sunshine/must I stay in this world/with you gone from my side/I sing a sad song/and another for you."

High Atmosphere was released April 5, 2011 on Proper American Records.

Now that I'm finishing this list, I feel that maybe I should have gone ahead and done my ten favorites rather than five. Because this year saw the release of some outstanding material by The Greencards, Thomas Dolby, Fur Dixon & Steve Werner, Patrolled By Radar and Over The Rhine. I also really dug Modern Field Recording's 2011 release.