Best music recordings of 2011

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Wild Flag, "Wild Flag" (Merge)Tune-Yards, "Whokill" (4AD)Van Hunt, "What Were You Hoping For?" (Godless Hotspot)F----- Up, "David Comes to Life" (Matador)Feelies, "Here Before" (Bar/None)Raphael Saadiq, "Stone Rollin'" (Columbia)The Bewitched Hands, "Birds & Drums" (Look Mum No Hands)Fleet Foxes, "Helplessness Blues" (Sub Pop)Das Racist, "Relax" (Greedhead)Lydia Loveless, "Indestructible Machine" (Bloodshot)Miguel Zenon: "Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook" (Marsalis Music)Julian Lage Group: "Gladwell" (Emarcy)Jason Adasiewicz's Sun Rooms: "Spacer" (Delmark Records)Jean-Michel Pilc: "Essential" (Motema)Joe Lovano: "Bird Songs" (Blue Note Records)Aaron Goldberg and Guillermo Klein (Sunnyside Records)Jason Stein Quartet: "The Story This Time" (Delmark Records)Matthew Shipp: "Art of the Improviser" (Thirsty Ear)Jane Bunnett & Hilario Duran: "Cuban Rhapsody" (Alma Records)Tom McDermott, Evan Christopher: "Almost Native: Music from New Orleans & Beyond" (Threadhead Records)Shostakovich: String Quartets Nos. 5-8; Miaskovsky: Quartet No. 13. Pacifica Quartet (Cedille)Adams: "Son of Chamber Symphony," String Quartet. International Contemporary Ensemble, John Adams, conductor; St. Lawrence String Quartet (Nonesuch)"Verismo arias." Jonas Kaufmann (Decca)Pierre-Laurent Aimard: "The Liszt Project" (DG)Schumann: Piano works. Andras Schiff, piano (ECM New Series)Puccini: "La Boheme." Soloists Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Thomas Schippers, conductor (Sony Classical)."Capricho Latino." Rachel Barton Pine, violin (Cedille)Poul Ruders: Piano Concerto No. 2, other works"Rose of Sharon: 100 Years of American Music, 1770-1870."Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko, conductor (Naxos)

This Ohio singer-songwriter blurs the boundaries between punk and country with this astonishingly mature and hard-hitting second album. Her outsider attitude feels earned, thanks to potent songs and a plainspoken delivery that conveys vulnerability, defiance and truth.

Lydia Loveless, "Indestructible Machine" (Bloodshot)

This Ohio singer-songwriter blurs the boundaries between punk and country with this astonishingly mature and hard-hitting second album. Her outsider attitude feels earned, thanks to potent songs and a plainspoken delivery that conveys vulnerability, defiance and truth.

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Best music recordings of 2011

Lydia Loveless, "Indestructible Machine" (Bloodshot)