Top Eleven Of 2011

After much consideration, here are my top eleven albums (which is not to say songs) of the year, and YES, i AM aware how WHITE i am:

1. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy





2. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming



3. Destroyer - Kaputt




4. Washed Out - Within And Without


5. Bon Iver - Bon Iver



6. Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams



7. Real Estate - Days



8. Tune-Yards - Whokill



9. Tom Waits - Bad As Me



10. Tennis - Cape Dory



11. now here is where i cheat, because i don't understand how to choose between Wye Oak's Civilian and Atlas Sound's Parallax and White Denim's D and James Blake's self titled album and i STILL haven't even listened to PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.

so:

here's the video for the runaway song of the summer 2011 and let's just pretend all of the above albums shared that 11 spot.

Coney Island Is Where September Is Born

Look, I know perfectly well that Coney Island is really a much dingier, less romantic place than this beautiful video makes it out to be, but I also know that Coney Island still resonates as a semi-mythic American place positively throbbing with Septembral Americana. And I know that this video captures that perfectly.