Under the Radar Best of 2011 Issue Featuring Three Covers: Bon Iver, M83, and The Horrors | Under the Radar Magazine Under the Radar | Music Blog for the Indie Music Magazine
Monday, March 18th, 2024  

Issue #39

Issue #39 - Best of 2011

Jan 12, 2012

Under the Radar‘s Best of 2011 Issue is out now. The issue features three unique covers, each featuring an artist behind one of our Top 5 albums of the year: M83, The Horrors, and Bon Iver. The issue also takes a look back at other artists who have made a splash in 2011, including Beirut, Anna Calvi, EMA, Florence and the Machine, Gang Gang Dance, Neon Indian, PJ Harvey, R.E.M., SBTRKT, Slow Club, St. Vincent, Summer Camp, tUnE-yArDs, and Yuck.

Each of the three covers was photographed by a different photographer in a different city in a different country. The Bon Iver cover was photographed in London by Pal Hansen, whereas the M83 cover was shot in New York by Tommy Kearns and The Horrors cover image was captured in Stockholm by Per Kristiansen.

“If anything, to be honest with you, I’d love it if Bon Iver sunk into obscurity. It would be so much easier.” – Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon

“We played the Leeds festival, and the power went out, and the crowed started singing the chorus to ‘Still Life.’ That was unbelievable.” – The Horrors’ Faris Badwan

“When I was a kid crying while listening to an album…I want people to feel the same way while listening to my music.” – M83’s Anthony Gonzalez

Our Year End Issue includes the time-honored tradition of lists where we salute the Top 80 best albums of 2011, Top 50 songs of 2011, and Top 50 favorite television shows of 2011.

We also turned to artists got get their take on the last 12 months via our 2011 Artist Survey section, in which we sent out the same set of 2011-related questions to some of our favorite artists and also asked for their Top 10 albums of the year lists. Want to know what musicians wear to bed? The biggest lie they’ve told? What’s the biggest hindrance to their creativity? Their thoughts on Occupy Wall Street and the stages that collapsed in 2011? Whether their mom or dad has better taste in music? What song they wish was playing when they were born and want played at their funeral? Artists who responded include: !!!, Acid House Kings, The Antlers, Art Brut, Beirut, Blonde Redhead, Camera Obscura, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., The Dears, Rose Elinor Dougall, The Drums, The Duke Spirit, Elbow, EMA, The Horrors, I Break Horses, Islands, Little Dragon, My Brightest Diamond, Nada Surf, Marissa Nadler, of Montreal, Okkervil River, Peter Bjorn and John, The Rapture, The Rosebuds, SBTRKT, S.C.U.M, and Vivian Girls.

“Two ex-girlfriends were playing in a Bob Seger cover band and I cried during ‘Still the Same.’” - !!!‘s Nic Offer

“I’m 40. I don’t get crushes. People get crushes on me.” – The Dears’ Murray Lightburn

“When my son was being born last year, I played ‘The Beautiful Ones’ by Prince so that while I was pushing, I could sing, ‘baby, baby, baby I want you!!!!!!!!!’” – My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden

Our Year End Issue also features interviews with artists who made in impact in 2011 and who also landed on Under the Radar‘s Top 80 albums of 2011, including: Beirut, Anna Calvi, EMA, Florence and the Machine, Gang Gang Dance, Neon Indian, PJ Harvey, SBTRKT, Slow Club, St. Vincent, Summer Camp, tUnE-yArDs, and Yuck. R.E.M.‘s Mike Mills discusses the band’s decision to break-up in 2011.

“I ended up going back to the First World War. And I got stuck really, because I was so interested in reading about the history of it that before I knew it I had written an album.” – PJ Harvey

“The only music I’ve ever written has been twisted in some way.” – Merrill Garbus, tUnE-yArDs

Over 100 CDs, DVDs, books, films, TV shows, and comic books are reviewed in the issue, including reviews of releases by: The Antlers, The Bees, Big Deal, The Big Pink, The Big Sleep, Black Bananas, The Black Keys, Boris, Kate Bush, Canyons, Cardinal, Chairlift, Childish Gambino, Cloud Nothings, Coldplay, The Cure, Karen Dalton, The Darcys, Death Cab for Cutie, The Decemberists, Dr. Dog, Brian Eno, Mark Fell, Field Music, Craig Finn, First Aid Kit, Florence and the Machine, Laura Gibson, Gonjasufi, Gorillaz, Grimes, Guided By Voices, Kieran Hebden/Mats Gustafsson/Steve Reid, Hospitality, Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny, Idle Warship, Imperial Teen, Jonsi, Kolsch, Korallreven, Cate Le Bon, Leila, Lightning Love, Loka, David Lynch, Mint Julep, The Monkees, Mwahaha, Nada Surf, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, pacificUV, Phantogram, Phenomenal Handclap Band, A Place to Bury Strangers, Pontiak, Porcelain Raft, Pusha T, Races, Fionn Regan, Gruff Rhys, R.E.M., Seeker Lover Keeper, Ty Segall, Shearwater, Smashing Pumpkins, Sunn O))) Meets Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle, Trentemøller, Jason Urick, Evan Voytas, Tom Waits, WIM, Grace Woodroofe, Zomes, and more.

Digital Magazine Exclusive Bonus Features:

The not-to-be-missed digital version of the issue (available for Mac, PC, iPad, and Android) includes the same articles that appear in the printed version—plus 100 extra pages of editorial content not found in the print edition. Included are extra photos of Beirut, Bon Iver, The Horrors, M83, Slow Club, Summer Camp, and tUnE-yArDs. The digital version features exclusive bonus interviews with Big Black Delta, Future Islands, Hooray for Earth, Lanterns on the Lake, Metronomy, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Real Estate, The War on Drugs, Wild Flag, and Zola Jesus.

The digital issue also features a section where artists look back on the career and impact of R.E.M., featuring reminiscences from PJ Harvey, as well as members of The Drums, Interpol, Okkervil River, Pavement, and Veronica Falls.

The digital version includes additional artist surveys from: The Bees, Body Language, Canyons, Com Truise, Comet Gain, Esben and the Witch, Fitz and the Tantrums, Forest Fire, Gayngs, Iceage, Korallreven, Lanterns on the Lake, Loney Dear, Lost in the Trees, Mirah, Kathryn Calder of The New Pornographers, Plants and Animals, Zach Rogue of Release the Sunbird and Rogue Wave, Rewards, Small Black, The Twilight Sad, Wavves, Weekend, When Saints Go Machine, and Xiu Xiu.

We also have bonus survey answers from: !!!, Art Brut, Camera Obscura, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., The Dears, The Drums, The Horrors, Marissa Nadler, Okkervil River, and Vivian Girls.

Selected quotes from the digital issue:

“There’s so much shit that you don’t know, that I don’t know. People were convinced the Earth was flat. Convinced!” – Big Black Delta’s Jonathan Bates

“With In Evening Air, all those songs are about the same girl—the anger and hurt after breaking up with somebody.” – Future Islands’ Samuel T. Herring

“One time we hired a boathouse by the river and had visuals and different things going on and made it quite a special experience coming to see us live.” – Lanterns on the Lake’s Hazel Wilde

“When I was making music and fucking around with singing and living in the countryside, I never imagined that one day I would be the singer in a band.” – Metronomy’s Joseph Mount

“I think deep down every band wants to have a really big deli plate in their dressing room.” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s Kip Berman

“Mary [Timony] has this wonderfully mysterious, ethereal quality to her, and I think part of that mysteriousness comes with its own form of clumsiness.” – Wild Flag’s Carrie Brownstein

“I get upset when I hear a record I really like and I realize the things that I like about it weren’t done by the person whose face is on the record.” - Zola Jesus’ Nika Roza Danilova

Under the Radar is distributed across the USA and Canada on newsstands, in independent record and book stores, and at such chains as Barnes & Noble, Hastings, and Books-A-Million. Click here for an interactive map of U.S. stores that carry Under the Radar, just enter your ZIP code to find a store near you. And click here for an interactive map of Canadian stores that carry Under the Radar.

Subscribe to the print version here.

Subscribe to the digital version here.

Buy the print version of this issue here.

Buy the digital version of this issue here.

Interviews
Hooray For Earth
Slow Club

 

Reviews
Atheist Xmas EP
Attack on Memory
Be the Void
CYRK
Clear Heart Full Eyes
Feel the Sound
Future This
Hospitality
La Grande
Let’s Go Eat the Factory
MU.ZZ.LE
Nature Experiments
Onwards to the Wall EP
Something
Strange Weekend
The Lion’s Roar
The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy
U&I
Visions
Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose