Not done with a "2011 Favorite Albums" list but in the meantime, here's a short batch of songs that I really liked this year.  I think you'll have fun if you click on these links to each song's "official video" and let your heart go to a place of tenderness and joy and melancholic miracles.

 

(Each of them looks great in "full screen" mode, too.)

 

1. Avalanche City - "Love Love Love" 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWzzbuJJYQc

 

 

2. Henning Ohlenbusch - "The Year My Voice Broke"

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEYyfTEW12o

 

(The beautiful video is by Dennis Crommett -- of Winterpills)

 

 

3. Kate Miller-Heidke - "Are You Ready?"

 

http://vimeo.com/26694099

 

 

PLUS -- here's some bonus stuff from Kate - whom some of you may have seen when she toured with Ben Folds last year:

 

A.  "Facebook Song" -- with the F-bomb punchline 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeTPNjPiyJM&feature=related

 

--- the "interview" intro only lasts about 15 seconds and we get to meet her Ben-resembling (hus)band.

 

B . "Politics in Space" (outside some stores at the 2010 SXSW) 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qljhoH57o

 

Well worth enduring the 30-second ad that precedes the song -- and what a cute hat, right??  And, yes, Kate's also a real-life opera singer.

 

> "The sixties were 50 years ago, you know.

>  "Get over it."

 

 

Art Carey