​Here at Gimme Noise, we kinda have a thing for live music. Practically every night of the week we deploy one of our staff members to a show, whether it's a local band playing a CD-release show at the Turf Club or a national act headlining an arena. So we had a lot of gigs to choose from by the end of this year, and a tough time narrowing down our top picks. More »

​With all of the music that we consistently have at our fingertips, it's a given that in every year albums and bands that deserve to get heard and receive wider recognition frequently get buried under whatever is new or the next big thing. It's a sad cycle, and one that I'm as guilty of as anybody. But with the close of every year, I go back and give a listen to records that I've criminally overlooked throughout the past 12 months, and am always surprised and encouraged by the wonders that I find. Here is a list of five fantastic bands and musicians who I think we all should listen to more in the future. And if you are listening to them already, then turn it up and clue your neighbors in on some underappreciated musical gems.



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​It seems that with each passing year, the swelling amount of hype and buzz that surrounds certain bands and musicians eclipses and eventually drowns out any of the music that they produce. That is certainly not the band's fault (in most cases), but a lot of music fans get turned off by seeing and hearing certain artists everywhere they turn. But at the same time, a LOT of people buy into the endless hype and promotion of these bands, making the artists themselves very famous and wealthy in the process, which only feeds into the backlash. 

So while I'm sure that for every person who agrees with some of my selections of the most overrated bands and musicians of this year, there will be three people that love those very same artists passionately. But who knows, by this time next year, they might be sick of them too. I know I am.

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Photo by Stacy Schwartz

The Joy Formidable at SXSW 2011

2011 was a damn good year for music. When compiling this list of what are, in my opinion, the best songs released this past year, I had to continually keep myself on task, resisting the temptation to listen to the full album by each of these talented artists. Their collective work is just that good.

And while any year-end list is clearly up for debate, I believe that if all music lovers give another listen to the vast array of stellar releases that came out in '11, everyone can agree that this year had plenty of stirring, striking music that will continue to move us all for years to come.

So take a listen with me as I present to you my favorite songs of 2011.

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As we were narrowing down the volumes of albums released this year for our Best Minnesota Albums of 2011 list, I couldn't help but be a little astounded at just how many high-quality releases were issued this year. And these are albums from across the board, too -- hip-hop had an especially strong showing this year, but so did rock 'n' roll and its many offshoots, from folk-pop to punk to more experimental, electro-heavy rock, showing just how diverse our scene was over the past 12 months.
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​"I don't know art, but I know what I like." "There's no accounting for taste." "Opinions are like assholes." There's validity to each one of these statements, but that doesn't mean that anyone's going to agree with any feelings anyone else expresses about anything on the Internet. And while hip-hop's reign as pop's lingua franca is fading, people remain mad for rap, even if nobody can really agree on what rap is, or what's best about, or what's worst. Gimme Noise could be a rap neophyte or an obsessive, stone-purist XXL freelancer or Rick Rubin or Mark Ronson; in each case, the list below would be different, and in each case, somebody would find a reason to pile on and dissect and infer vociferously and just hate. All of that will likely happen here, too, but maybe that's healthy - the fact that, you know, the very act of quasi-arbitratry year-end list-making is enough to raise hackles. It means that people care. That they're listening and downloading and processing and rendering myriad personal judgments. Is modern rock, at this point, capable of inspiring such comment-box fervor? Are people really invested enough in guitar thunder in 2011? Hopefully we'll find out soon.

In the meantime, well, here are the 10 rap songs we couldn't get enough of this year. (Sadly, not including this, which I just found on YouTube and almost makes up for that one bullshit Dipset reunion single. KILLA CAM!)

Heaven help us all.
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​Think 2010 was full of ridiculous, over-the-top moments in pop music? Just wait until you see what 2011 has in store. As part of our year-in-review blitz, we took a look in our crystal ball to make some projections for the year ahead...



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​With 2010 coming to a close, we thought it might be a good time to look back and see which Gimme Noise stories garnered the most clicks this year. Numbers don't lie -- from the tragic to the funny to the just plain weird, here are the top 10 posts that drove traffic to our blog in 2010, with links back to each original blog post.

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​From beginning to end, 2010 has kept us busy running from venue to venue in pursuit of some phenomenal live music. Gimme Noise's team of writers and photographers fanned out across the Twin Cities to catch as many shows as we could, and each of us ended up with our own diverse and distinctive list of favorites.

Behold: The best concerts we caught around town in 2010, from Jonsi to Willie to Mark Mallman's 78-hour song.

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​As 2010 winds to a close, many of us here at Gimme Noise have been hard at work drafting up as many lists as humanly possible. Rather than create on unified list of the national albums that we loved this year, we thought it more appropriate to post each of our individual picks for the best albums of 2010 -- feel free to post your own favorites in the comments.



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