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Noah: Great to hear! What was your favorite album this year?

Steve: The best record of 2011 in my view is by Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces. I go a little hot and cold on The Fiery Furnaces - I admire their creativity and frenetic genre hopping, but at times they can stray a bit too far out of the box for my tastes. Eleanor Friedberger's solo album - Last Summer - takes a deep breath and backs off the more rock/uptempo pace we've come to expect from the duo.

The result is an excellent example of a singer-songwriter album, one that pays homage to the '70s - the high point for that genre - and an album that surprises and satisfies at every turn. Ten songs, each one its own entity, each one excellent. My album of the year is Last Summer by Eleanor Friedberger. Though I featured "My Mistakes" as a song of the day - one of my top songs of the year, I'd like to feature "I Won't Fall Apart on You Tonight" in this spot.

Noah: That's an album I've never heard a second of. Clearly I'll have to catch up on that one as well.

Steve: Let me also say - now that we're done, I'm excited to read some of the other lists out there. I have kept myself from peeking at Pitchfork, NPR, The AV Club, and listening to Sound Opinions' takes on the best music of the year so as to keep my process as clean as possible. Now that I get to dig into those it's going to be like Christmas all over again.

Noah: Pitchfork's Album of the Year is going to piss you off. So that's my Christmas all over again, I guess.

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