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1YRON was born out of the notion of reviewing records exactly one year after their initial release date. This alternative to reviewing a record as and when it is released is an attempt to understand a record better within the context of its fairly recent absorption into mainstream or underground consciousness. For the past seven months 1YRON has focused on reviewing some of 2010's best records. With 2011 drawing to a close and with 2012 just around the corner, it's almost time to focus again on 2011's releases. Over the next year 1YRON will continue to review records on their first birthdays, the majority of which will feature in this list.

There's never much sense or clarity when putting together end of year lists because individual opinion ultimately rules over structure and ordering in such instances. However, we all feel compelled to at least attempt them. As usual, 2011 was a brilliant year for music in a similar vein to 2010 and, as usual…

I’m more predictable than I like to think.

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1. Thurston Moore – “Demolished Thoughts”

“There’s lots of secrets and lies in these songs that I probably won’t ever be able to talk about.” – Moore talking about "Demolished Thoughts"

I’m a new Sonic Youth fan. Intimidated by its expansive catalog I’ve attempted to get into them a few times since college. But the last two years I’ve immersed myself with their music. I was struck by the anxiety and pain in the lyrics of Demolished Thoughts, reminiscent of Beck’s “Sea Change”... who produced "Demolished Thoughts". The arrangements are beautifully haunting and are as sparse as they are full. The album made much more sense later in the year when we found out about he and Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon were splitting after 20 some years. I was disappointed to think that waiting till now to get into Sonic Youth would cost me seeing them live… but…

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1 Tom Waits - Bad as Me
Bad as Me is Tom Waits' first collection of new material in seven years. He and Kathleen Brennan -- wife, co-songwriter, and production partner -- have, at the latter's insistence, come up with a tight-knit collection of short tunes, the longest is just over four minutes. This is a quick, insistent, and woolly aural road trip full of compelling stops and starts. While he's kept his sonic experimentation -- especially with percussion tracks -- Waits has returned to blues, rockabilly, rhythm & blues, and jazz as source material. Instead of sprawl and squall, we get chug and choogle. For “Chicago” -- via Clint Maedgen's saxes, Keith Richards' (who appears sporadically here) and Marc Ribot's guitars, son Casey Waits' drums, dad's banjo, percussion and piano, and Charlie Musselwhite's harmonica (he appears numerous times here, too) -- we get a 21st century take on vintage R&B. …