Nick’s Favourite Music of 2011
BON IVER - HOLOCENE
If you’ve got some time to spare, check out the Talk page for this album’s Wikipedia article, featuring an ongoing debate about the title (and little else). Sources: serious business.
Anyway, Bon Iver, Bon Iver (by Bon Iver) is far and away my favourite album of the year. It built upon everything that made For Emma brilliant, fulfills my ‘classic album criteria’ by perfectly encapsulating a certain mood and theme (as well as being a collection of damn good tunes, this here ‘Holocene’ being the best of them).
This is perfect “staring-out-of-the-train-window” music, which I needed a lot of during my years at university. In fact, the album was released right at the tail end of my final year in Hereford. I hadn’t considered this until now, but I can’t help but feel that timing has ingrained the sound of this album in my memories of that time.
For everyone else, I imagine ‘Holocene’ does for wintery countryside what ‘Midnight City’ does for neon skylines, inadvertently causing you to imagine yourself in a different time, and a different place. That’s what great music can do.
Winner of this year’s ‘Best Album Ever’ award
[Last year’s winner]
