01: 25-21

25. The Weeknd - House of Balloons

by grodsuflex‎

24. Frank Ocean - nostalgi,ULTRA.

by grodsuflex‎

23. The Throne - Watch the Throne

by Kevin McF

22. The Decemberists - The King is Dead

by Spilled Milk

21. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation

Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation was my favorite record of 2011 but, before I started writing this, I didn’t think I could really explain why. My recommendations of the record had been vague—“It’s really heartfelt, nostalgic bedroom pop”—and, let’s face it, not all that convincing. The best I could do was say: “Just listen to it.” I mean, “Seventeen” brings me close to tears, with its deeply earnest plea (“Don’t stop imagining, the day that you do is the day that you die”), but I can’t recite another lyric on the album.

Maybe I’m just a sucker for emotionally poignant records, I thought. Last year, with tracks like “Bloodbuzz” (don’t know what it’s about, but damn does it make me happy) and “Afraid of Everyone” (“I don’t have the drugs to sort it out”), High Violet topped my list. In 2009, it was MPP, not because I appreciated the latest expression of the band’s “constantly evolving sonic identity” (Pitchfork, Jan. 5, 2009), but because I, for whatever reason, connected on some deep, emotional level, to the songs. See, it doesn’t have to make sense, I thought. One needn’t be able to boil down one’s affinity for a record to its component parts. It’s not an equation. It’s not susceptible to logic.

But, I realized, Hibernation is different. Powers, the boy-genius behind Youth Lagoon, knew exactly what he was doing here. He wrote eight songs about, yes, youth, and infused them with the things that transport us back our childhoods. Warmth, fuzziness, awe. One can imagine Powers waking up one day and thinking, Fuck, adulthood is overrated. We’ve all felt it because, with the exceptions of sex, drugs and alcohol, it kind of sucks. If it didn’t,Hibernation wouldn’t be so damn appealing. So transporting. So effortlessly gorgeous. We all yearn to be responsibility-free, imaging a world much more beautiful and promising than the one we were offered. Hibernation provides that escape. A way out of days filled with dread, debt, and upheaval. The songs all build to crescendos because they’re meant to be hopeful. They’re supposed to sound like lullabies. These are songs for adults who just want to feel like kids again. In a world of hipsters and trends and things that try too damn hard, Youth Lagoon succeeds with honesty and yearning, and it’s pretty fucking remarkable. Youth Lagoon’s The Year of Hibernation was my favorite record of 2011 but, before I started writing this, I didn’t think I could really explain why. My recommendations of the record had been vague—“It’s really heartfelt, nostalgic bedroom pop”—and, let’s face it, not all that convincing. The best I could do was say: “Just listen to it.” I mean, “Seventeen” brings me close to tears, with its deeply earnest plea (“Don’t stop imagining, the day that you do is the day that you die”), but I can’t recite another lyric on the album.