Best Album of 2011 – Brothers

Music is my magic carpet – full on flying across the sky in a sea of stars and mental bliss. When it makes me move my body, I am lost without hope of recovery until the song ends. This is how I became a dj at a local public radio station with my dad for the last ten years: love of the music. I cannot deny the invention of iTunes changed my life forever. For a while I was all noble and strong thinking that albums were still the only way to go, after all, some of the best songs are hidden deep within the cd and not just as a secret song at the end of the disc. Eventually, as albums became more expensive and those secret songs both more rare and less desirable, I found myself transitioning to single-downloading options. Until the Black Keys came out with Brothers.

On May 18, 2011, one of the more favored groups of my father and I, The Black Keys, came out with Brothers. After a few months there was an explosion of awareness and I could turn to several different radio stations and catch “Tighten Up” or “Howlin’ for You”. There it was: the carpet would soar out, sweeping me off my well balanced feet. The next thing I knew I was standing in my living room, eyes closed, swinging my hips in pure abandon and absolutely rocking out. It is the instruments, the vocals, and the beat – the magic carpet of bliss. And it came from Brothers more than any album I have heard all year before or since.

If you know anything about The Black Keys, you know they are not new to the music stream. They have not sold out to get more air time; they have remained true to their style. Two guys – literally, that is IT. Two groovy dudes finding that pulse in the music scene that is often forgotten behind the teeny-bopper-porn-star-look-alikes and various versions of Justin Timberlake. When Brothers came out, I felt like my thirst was finally met with something palatable and quenching. Rock in its barest and most fantastic, no apologies version. Two guys, one on drums, one on the guitar. Both rocking my world and generously sharing what rock is all about: that sound that makes you have to sing along, have to dance, and most enjoyably, have to turn it up.


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