{"id":47657,"date":"2011-12-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/2011-looking-back\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T07:31:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T07:31:34","slug":"2011-looking-back","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/2011-looking-back\/","title":{"rendered":"2011: Looking Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing makes you feel old like a year in which you liked more reissues, retrospectives, and restarts than new music.\u00a0 But frankly, 2011 felt like a year in which the market was flooded with new music that, with a few notable exceptions, didn\u2019t live up to the promise of what came before.\u00a0 That, of course, doesn\u2019t mean there weren\u2019t high points\u2014it just means they were achieved by bands I was already well aware of when the year started. <\/p>\n

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Best Idea That Shouldn\u2019t Have Worked This Well (But Did)<\/b><\/p>\n

Tedeschi Trucks Band — Revelator<\/i><\/p>\n

What to do when husband and wife are both formidable bandleaders in their own right, but want to raise their family together rather than apart? The answer that Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi came up with was brilliant in its simplicity: combine their bands into a 12-member powerhouse blues-rock ensemble the likes of which hasn\u2019t been seen in years.\u00a0 Revelator <\/i>was indeed a revelation.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Best Reissue<\/b><\/p>\n

The Jayhawks \u2013 Tomorrow The Green Grass (Legacy Edition)<\/i><\/p>\n

The original was the high-water mark for alt-country cult favorites The Jayhawks; the Legacy Edtion reissue of Tomorrow The Green Grass <\/i>adds a full disc of what were once known as \u201cThe Mystery Demos,\u201d a much-bootlegged collection of terrific demos from the same period.\u00a0 A sweet package heralding one of those reunions that may have seemed better in concept than in execution, judging by the rather tepid Mockingbird Time<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Best Revisitation<\/b><\/p>\n

The Cars \u2013 Move Like This<\/i><\/p>\n

This album should have been a pale shadow, a momentary blast of nostalgia from 80 percent of a once-great band. Yet the 25-year gap between albums and the absence of deceased bassist-vocalist Ben Orr seems to have, if anything, fueled the determination of the remaining quartet to deliver their best album since their turn-of-the-\u201980s prime.\u00a0 Imitators, take note: this is how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n

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Best Retrospective<\/b><\/p>\n

Ben Folds \u2013 Best Imitation Of Myself (Expanded Edition)<\/i><\/p>\n

A handpicked, quirky collection of hits and album tracks, plus a dynamite disc of live cuts, plus a disc of rarities and unreleased material\u2026 *and* the first new Ben Folds Five recordings in 12 years?\u00a0 This is the unusual deluxe package that lives up to the hype, from one of the most talented songwriters of his generation.<\/p>\n

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Yes Or No? Award<\/b><\/p>\n

Jon Anderson \u2013 Survival And Other Stories<\/i>
Anderson\/Wakeman \u2013 The Living Tree
<\/i>Anderson\/Wakeman \u2013 The Living Tree In Concert Part One<\/i>
Circa \u2013 And So On<\/i><\/a>
Billy Sherwood \u2013 What Was The Question?<\/i><\/a>
Yes \u2013 Fly From Here<\/i><\/a>
Yes \u2013 In The Present: Live From Lyon<\/i>
Yes \u2013 Union Live<\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n

There were so many Yes<\/a>-related issues this year it might have made Pete Frame<\/a>\u2019s head spin.\u00a0 Ironically, the best of the bunch came from those individuals farthest removed from the current divide within the group itself.\u00a0 Ousted lead singer Jon Anderson\u2019s solo album Survival<\/i> was pleasant enough, but made little impact musically, and his Living Tree<\/i> collaboration with Rick Wakeman was similarly gentle and sparse. \u00a0Meanwhile, their old band put out an album of Buggles<\/a> music with tribute band singer Benoit David that succeeded mostly in demonstrating how creatively barren the touring machine still calling itself Yes has become.\u00a0 It was left to ex-Yesman Billy Sherwood<\/a> and his band Circa<\/a> \u2013 featuring founding Yes keyboardist Tony Kaye \u2013 to issue the two most enjoyable Yes-related albums of the year.<\/p>\n

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EP of the Year<\/b><\/p>\n

Last Charge of the Light Horse \u2013 Curve (EP)<\/i><\/p>\n

I might not have been crazy about the emphasis on electronic over organic tones this time around, but those details melt into the background once you focus on the power of the poetry flowing from extraordinary singer-songwriter Jean-Paul Vest. If you enjoyed the deeply insightful suburban everyman angst of \u00a0Getaway Car<\/a><\/i> and Fractures<\/a><\/i>, you need this one, too.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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Indie Of The Year<\/b><\/p>\n

Chris Cubeta & The Liars Club — Chris Cubeta & The Liars Club<\/i><\/p>\n

There was really no contest for this one this year.\u00a0 An abundance of good-but-not-great indie material found its way into the in-box in 2011, with precious little reaching the upper tier.\u00a0 The best of the best by a substantial margin was the self-titled disc from the hard-truth-telling Chris Cubeta And The Liars Club, \u201ca cycle of songs about love and need, solitude and togetherness, truth and lies that simultaneously rocks as hard as anything Cubeta has ever recorded\u2026 a majestic, heartfelt, beautifully crafted album.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Album Of The Year<\/b><\/p>\n

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4.\u00a0 Switchfoot \u2013 Vice Verses<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

A pretty good album from these guys is better than most everything else on the shelf.\u00a0 Not quite on par with either last year\u2019s Hello Hurricane<\/a><\/i> or their pinnacle as a band, 2005\u2019s Nothing Is Sound<\/a><\/i>, Vice Verses<\/i> remains a terrific example of Switchfoot\u2019s trademark blending of anthemic rock, soaring ballads, and heartfelt idealism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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3.\u00a0 R.E.M. \u2013 Collapse Into Now<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Way to go out on top, boys.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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2.\u00a0 Death Cab For Cutie \u2013 Codes And Keys<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

These guys are just so, so, so good.\u00a0 Supple melodies, brilliant lyrics, and in Ben Gibbard, a voice for the ages, full of vulnerability and stark beauty.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

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1.\u00a0 Fountains Of Wayne \u2013 Sky Full Of Holes<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Talk about a grower.\u00a0 Sky Full Of Holes<\/i> started out as my third favorite of FOW\u2019s five superb albums.\u00a0 That\u2019s still its standing vis-\u00e0-vis its catalogue brethren \u2013 Welcome Interstate Managers<\/a><\/i> is probably my favorite album of the last decade, and Traffic And Weather<\/a><\/i> isn\u2019t far behind — but another 20 listens or so to Sky<\/i> crystallized the brilliance of these tunes for me.\u00a0 The generally-acknowledged “Dean Of American Rock Critics” Robert Christgau has called Fountains Of Wayne “lyric poets” and “true art heroes” — what he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Nothing makes you feel old like a year in which you liked more reissues, retrospectives, and restarts than new music.\u00a0 But frankly, 2011 felt like a year in which the market was flooded with new music that, with a few notable exceptions, didn\u2019t live up to the promise of what came before.\u00a0 That, of course, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":50280,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tags":[],"feature_type":[5609],"class_list":["post-47657","feature","type-feature","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","feature_type-best-of"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/feature"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47657"},{"taxonomy":"feature_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature_type?post=47657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}