Music is too important to be relegated to the background – Conan Neutron’s Best of 2011 in Music

Music is far too important to be relegated to the background. And while many “Best of” or “Top 10” lists are full of background music for background people, I reject that wholesale. We live in a world overburdened and surrounded by tawdry flacks and cheap howling sideshow men yelping for your attention at every level. All demanding that they and ONLY they have found the NEXT.BIG.THING. Finding a filter for this isn’t just a nice thing, it’s nearly a requirement.

In any case, it’s a world gone topsy turvy when certain other sites of “music writing”, never to be confused with actual music criticism, FAMOUS for being a closed system are suddenly soliciting a reader’s poll. What do you think, is this progress?

In any case, just because something is popular means that it is good, it just means that it is popular. However, certain powerful forces that have dominated the majority of the music world have been awash in pushing forward a certain branded identity. Whether they admit it or not, there is culpability and an aesthetic that favors the Starbucks variety of sensitivity and vaguely inoffensive background melody and music. So therefore, let us all give thanks that there is a place on the Internet that you can read and INTERACT with actual music criticism. A place where people who truly LOVE music will both tell you when they see miserable failure, but can present to you what they love. Sometimes in an easy list form.

2011 was an incredible year for music and here are some of the things that made it even more incredible for me, as a fan of rock music in no particular order

Look at the list here.

neutron

“Conan Neutron’s just this guy… you know?”

See author's posts