Everywhere you looked this year there was an absurd or chaotic or turbulent situation that made absolutely no sense whatsoever — people all over the world seemed so fed up that they were willing to make shit up on their own, on the spot, damn the consequences. And here at home, who knew what to make of the pop-culture universe — how were musical provocateurs like Kanye West or Lady Gaga supposed to shock anybody when a craven disgraced troll like Newt Gingrich was getting away with posing like a distinguished statesman? Music has been scrambling to keep up with the delirious whir and whoosh of society and technology for several years, and in 2011, there were finally a substantial number of artists, mostly stalking the margins, who fired off album-length field reports on the fucked-upness afoot. From the Weeknd and Frank Ocean in R&B to Danny Brown and G-Side in hip-hop to Liturgy and Yob in metal to Eric Church and Hayes Carll in country to Girls and Kurt Vile in indie rock to PJ Harvey and Wild Flag and EMA in bare-bones rock, there were plenty of skewed truths to be found. And nowhere moreso than in our Album of the Year, a towering epic that made very little literal sense yet spoke meaningful volumes. Similarly, after reading this list you may feel like Alice in Wonderland after she read the poem “Jabberwocky”: “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas — only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate.” Onward to 2012, the Mayan cataclysm awaits! CHARLES AARON
• One Fucked Up Year: SPIN’s Best of 2011 Issue
• SPIN’s 20 Best Songs of 2011
• Video Premiere: Fucked Up’s ‘Turn the Season’
• SPIN’s 40 Best Rap Albums of 2011



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