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Listen to the 10 best songs of 2011 as selected by Time Out's team of music critics.
The Time Out editors have all picked their favourite events and moments of 2011. See if you agree with them.
Time Out's experts celebrate the city's finest moments on record
The big names were busier than ever – Rihanna released two albums as well as a whole library of S&M themed photo shoots. Lady Gaga still demanded the most column inches thanks to a new album and a seemingly never-ending tour. Kanye West and Jay Z defied the laws of ego-gravity to produce their collaborative 'Watch the Throne' album, which almost lived up to the hype. But life wasn't all dandelions and roses. Simon Cowell’s ennui-assisted overreach means ‘The X Factor’ faltered on both sides of the Atlantic for the first time in a decade, and the indie world was rocked by the riots, with a warehouse fire claiming millions of pounds worth of stock from labels such as Domino and Moshi Moshi.
The leftfield, fittingly enough, decided to get back to nature, with Radiohead releasing a minimal funk album about a tree and long-lost Kate Bush putting out a concept album about snow (both of which, incidentally, are among the year's best releases). And, of course, the reformation game continued, with The Stone Roses the latest shock-horror zombie band to crawl out of the grave.
Wretch 32
Any illusion that this music might still be staking out territory alien to all but the most ‘urban’ and edgily hip audiences was comprehensively smashed by chart-topper Wretch 32’s flirtation with MOR rock and R&B-pop on his ‘Black and White’ LP, by Example’s ascent to the nation’s stadiums (he graduated from Shepherd’s Bush Empire to the O2 in just nine months) and by rapper Professor Green’s December support to those well known mavericks Coldplay on their European dates.
James Blake
James Blake. Psychologist. Jamie Woon. Ed Sheeran. All wrangled a new, vocal-led hybrid of brooding post dubstep and down-tempo electronica cheekily tagged ‘blubstep’ by its detractors. The least credible – and thus the most commercially successful – was the weird-haired Sheeran, whose cynical pitch to the mainstream was via his shameless aping of Woon’s (lovely) glitch-affected cover years earlier of ‘Wayfaring Stranger’. The Proper Dubstep fraternity, of course, just shrugged and went back to its bass-punishing business.
© Seamus Murphy
PJ Harvey became the first artist to win the Mercury Music award twice, this time for the highly evocative examination of the bloody history and shifting identity of her homeland that was ‘Let England Shake.’ It follows her gong for fifth album, ‘Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea’, an award which she found herself having to accept on 9/11. Her second win was recently followed up with the release of a DVD matching the tracks to 12 short films by award-winning reportage photographer Seamus Murphy.
She may have been stricken by worrying throat troubles for much of the year and been forced to cancel numerous live dates, but 2011 was far from an annus horriblis for soul-pop sweetheart Adele. Her surgery was a success and in December, her second record ‘21’ became the biggest-selling album (3.4 million copies) in the UK since 2000, outstripping Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’. Even her debut, '19', sold over a million copies in 2011, making it the second-best-selling album of the year. She was also nominated for six Grammy awards. Not bad for someone who's been communicating by Etch-A-Sketch for the last three months.
'Til death do them join: Gnarls Barkley as the corpse bride and groom
Although there was no new material from the future-soul twosome, that doesn't mean they weren't busy. Cee Lo Green became the surprise crossover sensation of the year, especially given the radio-unfriendly lyrical content of his breakthrough single 'Fuck You' (co-written by Hawaiian golden boy Bruno Mars). His former partner Danger Mouse, meanwhile, released one of the understated sleeper hits of the year in the form of his 'imaginary soundtrack' album Rome, produced with Italian film score maestro Daniel Luippi and featuring vocals from Jack White and Norah Jones.
Amy Winehouse plays Summer Series at Someset House July 20
The famously troubled queen of Camden and talented singer-songwriter with the grit ’n’ honey soul-jazz voice left us on July 23, after being discovered dead in her flat. Despite the inevitable swirl of rumours, it transpired she did not die of a drug overdose, but probably of respiratory failure due to excessive alcohol consumption.
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