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Noah: I never got around to that one but Neko's involvement is enough to make me curious.

I'll skip my #8 album (Death Cab for Cutie's Codes & Keys) to say something about my #7 album - El Camino by The Black Keys. Not only does it have one of the catchiest songs of the year (opener Lonely Boy), but it successfully meshes their spare, direct style with the more out there production of Danger Mouse, an experiment that really didn't work well for me on 2008's Attack & Release. Speaking of bands that put out albums in successive years, The Black Keys just did so extremely successfully with 2010's Brothers and now El Camino. It's a great album.

Steve: I liked El Camino but didn't love it. Perhaps with more time I will come around on it. As it is I have it as a Really Good record, ranked 31 on my list. I felt there were more standout songs on Brothers, my #4 album from 2010.

Noah: I can't skip over my #6 album of 2011, Bon Iver's self-titled sophomore effort. I know you were, to put it mildly, less enthusiastic about it, but it's an album that has really grown on me. I was skeptical (if not outright hostile) about it at first but it was the very definition of a grower. It's a testament to the strength of my top five albums that this album isn't higher on my list. It's an album that works in a variety of settings and I'd put it up there with For Emma, Forever Ago and posit that they've had as strong an opening two albums as any band since Arcade Fire. Yes, I went there. And I HATED Bon Iver the first time I heard them.

But aside from Beth/Rest, which I think colors a lot of people's overall opinions of the album (and was a mistake to include), it's a classic top to (almost) bottom.

Steve: Here's my problem with Bon Iver the album (#80 on my list). I hated the production choices, particularly the treatment to Justin Vernon's vocals, the use of vocoder/autotune, and the cheesy, cheesy synth that he inexplicably decided to celebrate just when all right-minded people had finally started to get over the '80s.

Sure, that's true of "Beth/Rest", but it's true of many of the other songs on the album as well. The first strains of "Perth", the first song on the album, turn me right off.

Noah: It's a good thing this is a chat, because if we were discussing this in person, my beard would probably grow in length, gain sentience and beat you to death for that.

What did you have next?

Steve: We are going to have to agree to disagree on Bon Iver for the best interest of the blog, and I'm okay with that. For the record I haven't written them off as a band, and I'm hoping they do something interesting next and soon. At #4 I have the next album I want to discuss - Civilian by the Baltimore duo Wye Oak. I had a general affinity for Wye Oak's sound prior to this record but did not find their individual songs particularly compelling. The songwriting on Civilian is a great leap forward. Musically, the duo has never sounded better. Both Jenn Wasner's guitar work and Andy Stack's drumming/keys play nicely together. The vocals are haunting and distinctive, and seem to be saying something important. "We Were Wealth" is a good example of all of this.

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