What a long strange trip it has been. All obligatory yearbook quotes aside, 2011 has been an interesting year for music. I spent all year questing after that one (or ten) album that would kick my ass, make me want to dance and/or make me fall in love so hard I can’t breathe by the end of it. Odd requirements, I know, but at least now I have many excellent contenders for future ex-husbands.

10. The Cell Phones – Hospital Spaceship
There’s just something so undeniable about music that dares to skip the hellos and get right down to hard and fast grooves. On the Cell Phones’ recent EP Hospital Spaceship, the band cranks up the bass, pounds the hell out of the drums and lulls you into submission with dulcet harmonies that skyrocket into powerful wails. The Cell Phones gathered their DNA from bits and pieces of art rockers Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Pretty Girls Make Graves, but I’d dare to go a step further that singer Lindsey Charles has a bit of a Monique Powell of 90s ska outfit Save Ferris in the mix due to Charles’ impressive range. Hospital Spaceship definitely leaves you wanting more.

9. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light
Who knew moving to Los Angeles was all TV on the Radio needed to get its mojo back? Living in Brooklyn allowed TVotR to absorb and incorporate darkness into its music but its latest, most aptly named, album Nine Types of Light focuses on the brighter, shinier aspects of subjects, like love. The atmospheric noise has taken a backseat to more conventional pop rhythms. If you need a soundtrack in which to aggressively spaz out, then cool it down and bring it back around, Nine Types of Light is that record.

8. Tiny Fireflies – Change
Truly this EP is all puppies and rainbows. Chicago duo Tiny Fireflies managed – over the course of four songs – to create an aural experience that is the true equivalent of baskets filled with rainbow-colored puppies. The vocal harmonies are innocent, yet sweeping and the guitars are forlorn and heartwrenching. Somehow we all come out a little bit better for the struggle.

7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mirror Traffic
’90s alternative rock veteran Stephen Malkmus proves again and again that he doesn’t need to re-invent the wheel to create an album jam packed with sexy guitar solos and his trademark cutting wordplay. Malkmus may never fully escape Pavement’s shadow, but Mirror Traffic shows he’s not necessarily afraid of that legacy.

6. Das Racist – Relax
It’s easy to dismiss Das Racist rhymes as silly, especially when they craft songs around the idea of a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell, but the simple truth is the group can rap about anything and it will sound amazing. The flows, much like the beats are effortless. Before you know it, your head is dizzy from all the bopping its been doing. Plus “Brand New Dance” is the jam.

5. Sloan – The Double Cross
Canadian power-poppers Sloan celebrated their 20th year of existence by releasing their 10th album of upbeat, saccharine goodness. There’s nary a track on The Double Cross that doesn’t fill you with warmth, harmony and good time jams. It doesn’t really matter that the lyrics get a bit serious here and there (“Shadow of Love” or “Beverley Terrace”), but you gotta dance it out.

4. Wilco - The Whole Love
For someone who hasn’t spent a whole lot of time worshiping at the altar to Wilco, this entry is fairly surprising to probably no one but me. Somehow, I stopped fighting and let The Whole Love in. From its attention-grabbing experimental pop opener “Art of Almost” to its upbeat Beatles-style rocker “Dawned on Me” to its grassy, Americana-tinged “Capitol City,” Wilco prove that they can do it all, and do it pretty damn well. Well played, Wilco. Well played.

3. Disappears – Guider
2011 was a pretty big year for Disappears. The Chicago noise rockers lost drummer Graeme Gibson, gained Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, traversed the continents and managed to record and release a few records. Guider introduced us to Disappears as an experimental outfit, moving away from its predecessor’s (Lux) more accessible garage rock-colored chops. With Guider Disappears got spacey, ramped up the distortion and created tracks that were full of vibrating, hypnotic rhythms. You literally couldn’t ask for anything more.

2. Wild Flag – Wild Flag
The term supergroup is thrown around quite a bit, but when the members of Sleater-Kinney, Helium and The Minders combined their old-fashioned rock prowess with genuine love of creating and performing, the outcome (to no one’s surprise) was intense, magical, and above all the definition of super.

1. Le Butcherettes – Sin, Sin, Sin
About every ten years, music gets a female musician so ferocious, so talented, so off-the-fucking-walls that their star rises well above everyone else. Le Butcherettes frontwoman Teri “Gender Bender” Suarez takes this torch and runs with it both live and on the group’s debut Sin, Sin, Sin. Suarez’s sensuous moans, raging wails, accompany lyrics that cover everything from injustice to politics and the art world with ruthless alt-rock precision. The music cuts to the bone, enters your bloodstream and infects your brain. I could live with this album on repeat, and probably will.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks performed a lively and loose set Thursday night at the Bottom Lounge. Having already toured on last year’s Real Emotional Trash, this run of shows has allowed the band to work out some new tunes in front of a live audience.

An obviously relaxed Malkmus took the stage to a jam packed club and though the doorman stated the show was not technically sold-out, I could hardly imagine many more bodies fitting into that crowded room. The group wasted no time in breaking out the new material by starting the hour and a half long set with two new songs that mixed the familiar syncopated rhythms with intricate and quirky lyrics for which the former Pavement frontman is known.

The whimsical “Hopscotch Willie” from Real Emotional Trash followed and garnered loud cheers from those in attendance. Between songs, Malkmus took every opportunity to banter with the audience, carrying on about seemingly random things for minutes at a time, which grew a bit tiresome as the evening went on and the room got more crowded and warm.

Mid-set came the highlight “It Kills” from the 2005 release Face the Truth, which featured an extended guitar solo from Malkus and great interplay between bassist Joanna Bolme and drummer Janet Weiss. The rhythm section provided a solid backbone throughout the night and both also deserve high praise for the lovely backing vocals they lent to most songs. Multi-instrumentalist Mike Clark provided layers of synthesizers and handled the keyboard duties when he wasn’t trading guitar licks with Malkmus like on the moody new tune “Expressway”.

The quartet closed out the encore with catchy rocker “Dragonfly Pie,” the opening track from Real Emotional Trash, which was well received by the attentive audience. At the end of the night, Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks had delivered a solid show mixing up old and new songs with a heavy does of chatter that made for a laid-back and cheerful-yet-crowded atmosphere.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks -- “Bill Fay” -- Live at the Bottom Lounge July 2, 2009

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rZJj1D2eqA