I know this is probably rather late, but I have been having so many projects in the last few months, so I never really have time to review what sort of music I have been listening to in the past year.
2011 was a rather strange year for me. My return to Indonesia put me back to listen to Indonesian indie bands again, which was really, really nice, but in the other hand the indie music seemed not as exciting as two or three years ago.
I was also happy that two of my most favourite bands, Pet Shop Boys and erasure, released their albums in 2011. However, I was not very excited about them. Well, Pet Shop Boys’ album was not really a studio album.. it was a musical for a ballet performance. The music was really nice of course, but it was nice if you listened to the album from the beginning to end, not to shuffle it in your media player. And it seemed that I expected too much from erasure. I thought their latest album would be more like “Nightbird”, especially after knowing that they held several concerts in forests, which really sounded like a great concept.
Anyway, since I finally joined last.fm (yes, I’m terribly late, I know) I finally have the statistics of albums and tracks I listened to throughout the year 2011. It’s easy and quantifiable. But the drawback was that not all tracks I listened the most were the ones I like the most. Some because I wanted to go to their concert, some because I wanted to make a mixtape, etc.
So first, I will just put my top 11 albums and tracks of 2011 based on my likings (not the total number of the tracks/albums being played)
top 11 albums of 2011
1. Mirrors – Lights and Offerings
2. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes and Battleships
3. Acid House Kings – Music Sounds Better With You
4. Pet Shop Boys – The Most Incredible Thing
5. Moby – Destroyed
6. Erasure – Tomorrow’s World
7. Elbow – Build A Rocket Boys!
8. Jens Lekman – An Argument with Myself
[this is an EP btw, but i think it's eligible for the list..]
9. Luky Annash – 180 Degrees
10. Beach Fossils – What a Pleasure
11. Future Islands – On The Water
top 11 tracks of 2011
1. Mirrors – Searching the Wilderness
2. Acid House Kings – Are We Lovers or Are We Friends?
3. Darren Hayes – Perfect
4. Moby- Sevastopol
5. VCMG – Spock
6. Tahiti 80 – Easy
7. Pet Shop Boys – The Grind
8. Elbow – With Love
9. Erasure – Just When I Thought It Was Ending
10. The Mummers – Call Me A Rainbow
11. Beach Fossils – Fall Right In
last.fm
Now to the last.fm. I must say I listened to a lot of old songs too, so only a few tracks and albums from my chart were those released in 2011.
Here’s the album chart first:
1. Fran Healy – Wreckorder [64]
2. Erasure – Erasure [59]
3. Billy Joel – The Hits [55]
4. New Order – The Best of New Order [54]
5. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes & Battleships Disc 1 [53]
6. Tom Jones – Greatest Hits Rediscovered [50]
7. Darren Hayes – Secret Codes & Battleships Disc 2 [46]
8. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – The OMD Singles [43]
9. The Bluetones – A New Athens [43]
10. Candle Thieves – Sunshine And Other Misfortunes [42]
11. Acid House Kings – Music Sounds Better With You [42]
As you can see, only two albums were released in 2011 
It’s the same thing with the top 11 tracks:
(ps there are 9 tracks being played 10 times from #10-19, so I will write my most favourite ones)
1. Au Revoir Simone – Another Likely Story [15]
2. Belle and Sebastian – I Want the World to Stop [13]
3. Darren Hayes – Perfect [13]
4. Math and Physics Club – Baby I’m Yours [12]
5. Pet Shop Boys – Being Boring [11]
6. Spring – Baby Blue [11]
7. The Bluetones – Culling Song [11]
8. KT Tunstall – Fade Like A Shadow [11]
9. Mirrors – Ways To An End [11]
10. erasure – Sono Luminus [10]
11. Tom Jones – It’s Not Unusual [10]
I also had a look of my top 11 artists in the last 12 months from last.fm, and the number one was, still..
pet shop boys
1. Pet Shop Boys [207]
2. Erasure [176]
3. Saint Etienne [144]
4. Darren Hayes [133]
5. Travis [125]
6. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark [122]
7. Bee Gees [112]
8. Au Revoir Simone [106]
9. Sheryl Crow [83]
10. Aztec Camera [80]
11Math and Physics Club [78]
