The Consensus Top 10 Albums of 2011

So here's how I spent my evening. I took the year-end albums lists compiled by ten publications I arbitrarily chose to be representative of some kind of spectrum in music criticism, assigned points to just their top 10 spots (10 points for #1, 9 for #2 and so on), and added it up to find the "official" critics' picks for 2011. The top 10 list had a few minor surprises, but I thought this was a lot of fun, so enjoy the results:

1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver (44 points)
2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (43 points)
3. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life (35 points)
4. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost (22 points)
5. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (20 points)
6-7. Destroyer - Kaputt/The Weeknd - House of Balloons (18 points)
8. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (16 points)
9-10. tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l/Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica (15 points)

A few bullet-pointed thoughts:

• Three albums absolutely dominated this year as evidenced by the huge drop-off between Fucked Up and Girls.
• Oneohtrix Point Never! Whoa!
• Otherwise, this is pretty expected. The top three on here are by far the three best albums of the ten, and it's a little relieving that, say, Adele and Watch the Throne didn't sneak on.

The publications I sourced: SPIN and Rolling Stone for old-guard print media, Pitchfork and A.V. Club for middle-guard new media, Tiny Mixtapes and Stereogum for RADICAL NEW MEDIA, The Quietus and NME for jolly ol' England, IDS WEEKEND for college media, and Paste because people who hang out in Starbucks all the time and own cardigans from Hollister need music critics, too.