Looking Back to Good Albums and Forward to More

I'm actually pretty optimistic about the year ahead, but this illustration, from yesterday's New York Times, was too good not to share:

Anyhoo, as 2011 was drawing to a close, I got my reminder from the Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll to list my ten favorite albums and singles of the year. I had a hard time whittling the album list down to ten, but here's the final list as submitted to the poll, which will be published in the January 18th edition of the esteemed alternative weekly:

Elbow - Build a Rocket Boys! (Downtown/Cooperative Music)

Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music)

Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto (Capitol)

Wilco - The Whole Love (dBpm/ANTI)

James Blake - James Blake (Universal Republic)

Frank Turner - England Keep My Bones (Epitaph)

Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal - Chamber Music (Six Degrees)

Scattered Trees - Sympathy (Musebox)

M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (Mute)

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (Ticker Tape)

As for the singles, in sharp contrast, I had a hard time coming up with ten songs that reached out and grabbed me in the way that a great single is supposed to do. What made the list? I'll get to that tomorrow.  (I'm really gunning to blog every day, if possible, so I need to pace myself!)