Stop This Catastrophe!

I know this is very late and I had every intention of posting it IN December but then it was New Year’s Eve and I had to write a top album list and blah blah blah, you get the picture. Anyway, can you believe it’s been an entire year since I started this list thing? (The first book that ever made this list was Breakfast at Tiffany’s) In reality, I only bought one book last month and received one for Christmas so this list was going to be incredibly short until I realised - I both bought and had bought for me a number of books that did not make this list in their respective months because I actually forgot I hadn’t listed them earlier. So here is my list:

• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I was planning to wait to buy this until I’d read The Great Gatsby but it was still at the bookstore when I visited the second time weeks later and I convinced myself it was fate and I had to buy it)
• Berlitz French phrase book and dictionary (my lovely sister gave this to me for Christmas and it came complete with pick-up lines that made me giggle a little)
• English/French-French/English Dictionary (it’s a 1967 Barnes & Noble copy which I picked up for $1 from a secondhand store that hadn’t quite opened for business yet)
• Sewing Basics by Sandra Bardwell (I picked this one up at the Craft and Quilt Fair (sidenote: did I mention that I went to this? No? Well in that case, it was awesome) and I sort of still owe my sister for it since she paid for it for me)
• Knitting Vintage by Claire Montgomerie (So I can’t actually knit but I’ve really wanted to learn for some time and this book has such beautiful patterns (like cloche hats and twinsets and Dior “New Look” style dresses and leg warmers and many other beautiful things) that I sort of had to buy it considering it was on clearance in a closing down Angus and Robertson sale)

I’ll be the first to admit that I am great at procrastinating. As can be expected, I did not begin writing this list until about two days ago and it was at that moment that I realised that I’ve sort of fallen off bandwagon (I don’t even know if that’s the right word but it was the first thing that popped into my head) when it comes to music, even the stuff by bands/artists I really like. I had no idea when most albums were being released, who had released new music and so on. Needless to say, it proved rather difficult to actually work up the enthusiasm it required to listen (and re-listen) and mentally critique a decent number of albums so that my list wouldn’t appear so sparse. So here is my list that, for the first time in existence, is listed in order of preference!

Top Ten Albums of 2011: 

1. Soul Punk - Patrick Stump
2. Ceremonials - Florence + The Machine
3. Simple Math - Manchester Orchestra
4. Codes and Keys - Death Cab For Cutie
5. Taking Back Sunday - Taking Back Sunday
6. Suburbia I’ve Given You All and Now I’m Nothing - The Wonder Years
7. This Modern Glitch - The Wombats
8. You and I - The Pierces
9. People and Things - Jack’s Mannequin
10. Vices and Virtues - Panic! At The Disco

Honourable Mentions (albums I liked but not enough to make my list, EPs and otherwise):

• In Some Way, Shape or Form - Four Year Strong
• Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under - Amanda Palmer
• Dirty Work - All Time Low
• 21 - Adele
• Everything You Ever Wanted: The B-sides - The Friday Night Boys
• Glee: The Music Presents The Warblers - Dalton Academy Warblers/Glee Cast (It’s kind of embarrassing to have this in my list but this album was really damn catchy and I genuinely enjoyed it)
• Things Are Really Weird Right Now - You, Me and Everyone We Know
• Truant Wave EP - Patrick Stump
• You’ll Be Mine EP - The Pierces

*I would like to point out that somehow I did not get around to listening to albums by the following artists (or I just forgot they released an album and it was too late to listen to all of them): Blink 182 (I don’t know how that happened, I even downloaded the leak), Madina Lake, Mayday Parade, Bright Eyes, Every Avenue, Sum 41, Yellowcard (again, I’m lazy but I did listen to the acoustic version and it was heavenly), Eisley, The Kills, The Maine (I sort of lost interest in their music), Cobra Starship (I was too scared it was going to suck so I decided to save myself the disappointment by not listening to it all) and You Me At Six (the guest vocalists kind of put me off so I didn’t listen to it for the same reason as Cobra).