1. “Brains” – Lower Dens

The song I probably listened to most. The song I thought was best constructed. The song that sounded the best. And a great music video. Tough to beat this one.

2. “Baby” – Ariel Pink

I know it’s a cover, but hot damn it’s good.

3. “Her Fantasy” – Matthew Dear

My favorite “party” song. I forced it on everyone every party I went to so we didn’t have to listen to Usher. I have no regrets.

4. “Myth” – Beach House

This one means a lot to me. It’s easily the most emotional of the group. It’s just a touch too short, or else it’d be number one.

5. The Fall – Rhye

Who? What? Only a few singles out, but she’s great.

6. “House Shape” – Mount Eerie

This and “Through The Trees pt. 2″ made for a great album. This one was my favorite of the two though.

7. “Oblivion” – Grimes

Best song off the album of the year for me. It beats out “Genesis” because it has a better music video.

8. “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” – Tame Impala

Alright, I get it.

9. “Modern Driveway” – Luke Abbott

Title track from his five-song EP. The song I listened to most through headphones while walking. It makes me feel happy and refreshed when it’s done.

10. “Flower Lane” – Ducktails

This song was an early single off Matt’s full length album coming out early 2013. He knows how to tweak my heart.

Honorable Mentions

“Lover” – Blondes
https://soundcloud.com/blondes/lover

Great “get in the groove” song.

“Sweetie & Shag (The Field Remix)” – Battles

No list is complete without Four Tet or The Field in my mind.

“Cooking Up Something Good” – Mac DeMarco

Late 2012 entry. Glad I found him.

“Headcage” – Matthew Dear

Matthew Dear had two spectacular singles. This wasn’t quite as good as “Her Fantasy”, but it’s a blast.

“Depak Ine” – John Talabot

When music was sparse in Spring, I found myself listening to this album more than I probably should have. Part of the reason was because I could not get this song out of my mind. It’s fun.

1) Grimes – Visions
My single most important criterium is quantity of quality. From first to last, does each song challenge me? grow on me? sound great? Grimes’ album was that rare masterpiece we all live to discover: we get hooked on a fantastic single or two; then we check out the album—woah, a few more great songs, but the rest of the album is only ok; then you find yourself three months later contemplating if the one song you thought was the worst on the album is actually the best. Hats off to you, Claire. Your style is appreciated and will be in my queue forever.

2) Beach House – Bloom
With subjective rankings, often we have personal reasons for rating something higher or lower. This year, Bloom is overloaded with personal moments that admittedly puts it higher than others.

See, I share a lot of music with my lovely wife, Rena. Most of the time it’s a miss, but once in a while I hit a bullseye that becomes something fun to share with her. In the past, Animal Collective, Passion Pit, Grizzly Bear, and Real Estate were major successes. (Sadly, Grimes is not!) Well, this year Beach House was the hit, which I parlayed into an introduction to her first music festival, Pitchfork in July 2012. Beach House was tremendous closing out a fine summer Saturday, a day we’ll soon not forget.

The duo’s impact didn’t stop there. During their tour, they stopped in Milwaukee to play at The Pabst the weekend of our one-year anniversary, and promptly blew our minds. One of the better shows I’ve seen.

So what about Bloom itself, beyond just seeing it live? It’s a style all its own, and it doesn’t deviate from it. So if you like the style, you’ll love the album. If you struggle to get past the first song, everything else will be difficult. For me personally, it’s great summer music.

3) Luke Abbott – Modern Driveway
Luke is my little gem. I found him via a Four Tet remix in 2010. Kieren covered Holkham Drones in a two-hour DJ set. The sound was so unique I had to find out the source. After much research, I discovered Luke. This year saw him release two separate EPs, one in summer and one in winter. Frankly, the winter EP was only average. But summer’s effort, Modern Driveway, was my second most-played album this year. Five songs to play anywhere, anytime. I always feel good about tomorrow when I’m done listening.

4) Grizzly Bear – Shields
Not as good as Yellow House nor Vecktamist. I see a lot of Modest Mouse in them—the history, not the sound. The gritty, folksy, honest, unpolished sound that made their first work so real is slowly giving way to nicer studios and evolving musical ambitions, resulting in music that is well done but missing heart. But it’s fun and well crafted, and guldarnit, I play it loud every time.

5) Lotus Plaza – Spooky Action At A Distance
Late entrant. Deerhunter’s Lockett Pundt sure does do simple, strong bedroom rock well. Spooky rose up my list as I realized how much I love Deerhunter’s sound. Retrospectively, I don’t praise Halcyon Digest enough. This album is the closest thing to Deerhunter’s sound, and included heartfelt personal anguish. This one is filed under “I didn’t realize I liked it this much until I thought about it.”

6) Matthew Dear – Beams
I’m a Matthew Dear apologist. Why can’t I find more Matthew Dear fans? Beams did not get a lot of pump, both by press or peers, but I loved it. A few of my favorite dance tracks lead the charge—if you haven’t given “Her Fantasy” or “Headcase” a good strong listen to on a Friday night before you’re about to meet friends, you’re missing out.

7) Tame Impala – Lonerism
Alright, I get it.

8) Lower Dens – Nootropics
Man I love these guys. “Brains” is one of the best singles of the year. They could have risen higher, but quality really drops after “Propagation”. All good stuff, but to go from the perfection of the first four tracks to the average display in the last six was disappointing.

9) Mac DeMarco – 2
Weird and fun.

10) Blah
Couldn’t even make it to number 10. I’m proving a point: this was a disappointing year in music for me. I look back at years past—like the best-music-year-ever 2010—and scratch my head why I couldn’t find as many diverse works of art this year. Frankly, only the top three albums on this list will stay in my roation long-term. Everything else is just average and I’ll revisit in a couple years.

Another way to phrase it: I like to collect vinyl records, but I make it a point to only buy albums that I hold in high regard and wish to play 30 years from now with my kids. Grimes, Beach House, and Luke Abbott were the only albums this year I plan to purchase. Everything else is relegated to MP3 consumption.

It’s striking to me how many bands, with past music I adored, produced clunkers this year:

• Animal Collective (so, so bad)
• Blondes (Touched EP made my top 5 in 2010, think about that! Terrible LP follow up)
• Lower Dens (could have been better)
• Matthew Dear (could have been better)
• Grizzly Bear (could have been better)
• Nada Surf (meh)
• Bear In Heaven (lost what made them great)
• AIR (not AIR like)
• Of Montreal (nothing catchy)
• Sleigh Bells (not as good)
• Andrew Bird (forgot about it)
• The Shins (commercial music)
• Sigur Ros (boring)
• Sun Kil Moon (good, not great)
• Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (great singles, always too much wink wink nudge nudge; very frustrating music)
• The xx (also boring)
• Ben Folds Five (he should stop)
• Tame Impala (I honestly think Innerspeaker was much better)
• Crystal Castles (they keep getting weirder)

I’m sure there are others I missed, which proves the point further.

And the biggy… Four Tet! I appreciate Kieren Hebden’s adaptation the most. He moves with what interests him. So Pink gets a pass because this year he was simply more interested in making club music. But boy what a letdown. Let me be clear: Four Tet is my favorite musician of all time. The shear amount of beautiful music he makes is staggering. It’s remarkable how he can make music as uplifting and positive as Bob Marley without using lyrics. So any year with a Four Tet album is a good year. But Pink is easily his worst effort to date.

Before I part ways, there are several musicians I would like to give a hat tip to. They produced great music, but simply did not resonate with me, so did not make my list.

• Frank Ocean
• Jack White
• Godspeed You! Black Emperor
• Kendrick Lamar
• Sharon Van Etten
• Norah Jones
• Fiona Apple
• Yppah

I’m looking forward to 2013.

Nodal won second place at a recent Oracle Openworld Hackathon. I participated with Matt Stockton and Jesse Vogt.

We have since ported it to a live, independent experience available at Nodal.me. For more information about the project as a whole, check out Matt’s release post.

A list of some of my favorites from 2011.

Albums

2011 wasn’t a very deep year for music, but there were some outstanding efforts submitted. Overall the quantity of quality was lackluster compared to 2007 through 2010. I think it’s because I found less new artists. I’m finding myself now looking more forward to new albums of recent favorites, such as Grizzly Bear, Bear in Heaven (lol at bear references), Floating Points, Luke Abbott and more in 2012 than I am new artists out of the blue.

I flip flopped between Real Estate and Washed Out for months. I loved both releases. In the end, I thought Real Estate did some things that will make me listen to the album a lot more 10 years from now than Washed Out, and it was the difference.

Julian Lynch is one of the most underrated artists out there. He has a completely unique style. Terra is his best record to date.

Twerps and The War On Drugs were good finds for me this year as well. Very happy I found them. But I, belatedly, decided to go with The Field to round out my top 5.

• Real Estate – Days
• Washed Out – Within And Without
• The Field – Looping State Of Mind
• Julian Lynch – Terra
• Twerps – Twerps

Songs

Individual songs that stood out to me. Bon Iver’s album is highly celebrated, as well it should be. But the album as a whole had gaps, which kept it off my top 5. “Holocene” though is my favorite song from this year, and shows why people are going crazy for Justin Vernon. I applaud his new celebrity!

Cass McCombs is one of my favorite artists, period. He had two albums this year! Many good singles, and “The Same Thing” was the best.

Gold Leaves was a pleasant find this year. “The Silver Lining” was an exceptional take on an “Arthur and Yu” sound. The Rapture had a very weak follow up release this year, but the single “How Deep Is Your Love” was my favorite party jam. tUnE-yArDs is as unique as it gets, and “Bizness” is a jarring yet fun exploration on being yourself.

• “Holocene” – Bon Iver
• “The Same Thing” – Cass McCombs
• “The Silver Lining” – Gold Leaves
• “How Deep Is Your Love?” – The Rapture
• “Bizness” – tUnE-yArDs

Rdio playlists of my favorite songs from Fall and Winter. (I didn’t start Rdio until half way through 2011. I recommend it to all!)

Movies

I missed a lot of movies this year, I admit. My list is probably missing some really good ones.

• Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Hanna
• Bridesmaids
• The Ides of March
• Anonymous

Articles

I read a lot of long-form articles, which is different for me from years past. I would like to thank Instapaper for this lifestyle change. Here are the five best articles I read in 2011.

• “When Did The GOP Lose Touch With Reality?”
• “Generation F*cked”
• “A Theory of Everything (Sort Of)”
• “The People Who Hate Tim Tebow”
• “A Brief Rant On The Future Of Interaction Design”

I’ve started to realize the therapeutic benefits of publicly writing.

• It forces you to be clearer with your thoughts, even if no one is reading them.
• Ideas become easy to share if you need to. For example, a technical problem you solved, and want to share on communities like Stack Exchange, etc.
• If the content is good, it can help boost your public awareness. Not necessarily in a selfish way, but in a manner to help others understand who you are, how you communicate, are and how you think.

In the 24-hour-long Spreenkler Talent Labs Hackaton held in May 2011, Matt Stockton and I took home first place for our project Blurbs.

The idea was simple: could we wrap any URL on the web (e.g. http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/) with a personal audio conversation? A driving inspiration was what Disqus does for comments on the web.

Example use cases:

• I’m looking at a pair of shoes on Zappos that could be a neat gift for a family friend, and want to send the link to my wife, but also describe what I like about the shoes.
• I’m a researcher who needs to annotate a financial report and send it to some constituents.
• I’m a manager and need to critique something and send back to my team.

After sign up, the user is prompted to install a bookmarklet and do a one-time enabling of Flash microphone settings.

Let’s say I’m visiting this web page AnnArbor.com webpage. I would click the bookmarklet that inserts a bar at the top of the page. From there I can click the record button to record myself.

When I’m done recording, I can add an optional note and save.

Blurbs will give me a short link that I can share with others. Privacy is available: just need to enter a password. Otherwise the link can be accessed publicly.

When someone visits my shared link, they will see a player and my notes.

Back on my dashboard I can see all my past blurbs and manage them from there.

This was a fun event. Matt and I really killed it. It was done with Java and published on Google App Engine, but is no longer available for public use.