U2 is tops again in concert and music-sales revenue

The Irish band tops Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga for concert and music-sales revenues.

Demonstrating that there's no substitute for the live concert experience, U2 has once again taken the crown in Calendar's annual Ultimate Top 10, a ranking that combines concert revenue with sales of recorded music.

U2 amassed $160.8 million for 2011, well ahead of runner-up Taylor Swift, whose combined earnings came to $126.8 million. Lady Gaga was the only other act to top $100 million, posting $109.4 million to place third. Country music road warrior Kenny Chesney landed in fourth place with $98.5 million. The year's blockbuster album and singles sales champ, Adele, pulled in at fifth place with $92.8 million, a figure that certainly would have been higher if vocal cord problems hadn't forced her to cancel big chunks of her 2011 tour itinerary.

Figures are drawn from Pollstar's recently published tallies of North American box office revenues and Nielsen SoundScan's tracking of retail music sales in the U.S. The Ultimate Top 10 uses figures from North America because they are tracked more reliably than in many other parts of the world. But most of these musicians pulled in even more than these totals with ever-expanding ancillary income sources such as tour merchandise, product endorsements, video game sales, ring tones and clothing and jewelry lines.

The most memorable music moments of 2011

As a way to cap the end of another year in pop music, what follows is a highly opinionated rundown of a few of 2011's most memorable, notable and/or unfortunate musical moments.

Best (and worst) bridge in a pop song: Art that's defiantly simple can be confusing: Is a Campbell's soup can just a soup can when it's depicted on canvas? Is LMFAO's ubiquitously torturous smash "Sexy and I Know It" -- currently No. 1 on the Hot 100, intentionally or unintentionally dumb? Does it matter? What does it say about pop radio right now that one of the most eloquent vocal bridges of the year is: "Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah/Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle, yeah."

Most glaring "jumped the shark" moment: Lady Gaga's "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving." During the 90-minute ABC special, directed by Gaga herself, the pop star swapped recipes with chef Art Smith, joined third-graders for arts and crafts time and played piano at the head of a dinner table to guests who did their best to look natural while eating their staged holiday meal. She seemed to draw inspiration from Liza, Babs, Elton and Bing, but ended up being, to adapt her own description of herself during the special, "just as annoying as New York City."

Most exciting debut: Spotify lands in the U.S. and makes Pandora seem as quaint as a dial-up modem. All hail the cloud, which floats above us with 15 million songs available anywhere anytime. While Rhapsody, Rdio, Google Music and Mog all offer similar models, this year it was the European company’s entry into the American market that made the most impact. Its ease of use and cross-platform sharing ability are changing the nature of what it means to be a tastemaker.

Most disappointed expression at an award show: Dr. Dre at the Grammy Awards in February after Barbra Streisand announced that Canadian rock band Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs" had won an upset victory for album of the year. A YouTube clip captures Dre, who was gunning for longtime collaborator Eminem in the category, with a profoundly baffled and sad look, as though Streisand had just announced Sarah Palin had won as a write-in. Arcade Fire had a different look on their faces, a combination of joy and wonder.

Most played-out expression at an awards show: Taylor Swift's surprised look at every awards ceremony she attended -- and dominated -- in 2011. When she won the Teen Choice Award, she looked as though she’d just been awarded the title of the Queen of Heaven for All Eternity. Congrats, but it's just a trophy.

Year-end Top 10 list: Margaret Wappler

 

 

Throughout the holiday season, Pop & Hiss will present various top 10 lists from its contributors. What follows are the favorite albums of the year from staffer Margaret Wappler.

1. Tuneyards “Who Kill” (4AD Records)

Merrill Garbus’ second album as Tuneyards brims with noisy, exploratory life, a junkyard creation welded from funk, reggae and Caribbean soul that's easily one of the most inventive albums of the year. Screwing it all together is her voice, which can veer from a coo to a lusty growl. A restless and ecstatic adventure, “Who Kill” is an exciting flag bearer in a year when many artists melded genres together so seamlessly they birthed a whole new beast.

2. Bill Callahan “Apocalypse” (Drag City)

At a time when few musicians are engaging with what it means to be an American, longtime craftsman Bill Callahan releases an album that explores and embodies the country’s iconoclast pioneer spirit, warts and all. “Apocalypse” is thinking cowboy music, perfect for a year when the far left and right were galvanized in their specific vision of the American dream.

3. Destroyer “Kaputt” (Merge)

Several indie folksters, including Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, have been dipping their paintbrushes in soft rock’s watercolors but nobody does it with the rapscallion panache of Destroyer’s Dan Bejar. Working with pastel but skronky saxophone and soundscapes seemingly ripped from a New Age meditation tape, there are few lyricists working today who can occupy a phrase like this brainy, slyly hilarious Canadian.

4. Feist “Metals” (Cherrytree / Interscope)

This album might be a Degas painting come to life. Fluid, delicate and concerned with the darkest reservoirs of beauty, Leslie Feist’s follow-up to her 2007 breakthrough “The Reminder” wisely puts her mellifluous voice at the center, but the fine-grained arrangements are nothing to wave off. Recorded in Big Sur on the Central California coast, “Metals” is the shadowy part of something gorgeous, the inky shading on the nape of a ballerina’s neck.

5. Fleet Foxes “Helplessness Blues” (Sub Pop)

When these Washington beardies wax romantic about disappearing off the grid to tend to their fantasy apple orchard, it can be enough to make you fire up all 30 of your media-saturation devices at once in juvenile rebellion. But Fleet Foxes’ pristine folk works as a pine-scented salve for a culture constantly pinging us with bits and bytes of information. If the band ever challenges its idealism with a more rough and messy reality, that’s when things will really get interesting.

6. Shabazz Palaces “Black Up” (Sub Pop)

Helmed by former Digable Planets leader Ishmael Butler, this debut by the Seattle-based experimental hip-hop collective takes many mind-scrambling turns, its textures both fresh and grimy, a wayward venture into the future that somehow manages to sound like a throwback. “Black Up” is one of the more avant-garde outings in a year that’s been defined by several brave hip-hop and R&B retoolings from the likes of Drake and the Weeknd.

7. Laura Marling “A Creature I Don't Know” (Ribbon Music / Domino)

Only in her early twenties, England’s Laura Marling is a wise raconteur who moves between several seemingly contradictory modes –- personal yet private, elliptical yet bracing. On Marling's third solo album, her focus and conviction is more breathtaking than ever, resulting in a mature batch of songs that often reflect on the various roles women find themselves in, either by the dictum of culture, themselves or some inextricable combination.

8. Paul Simon “So Beautiful or So What” (Hear Music)

A big-hearted album from a legendary musician who’s grateful for every second he’s lived, even the botched, demeaning or downright miserable ones. There are moments when it gets a little sappy –- can you hear the word angel without sarcastically wondering if you’re being touched by one? –- but there’s such a wealth of considered beauty, referencing and reflecting on all corners of the globe, that it’s easy to forgive an old fellow one of his endearing vices.

9. Eleanor Friedberger “Last Summer” (Merge)

Breaking away from the Fiery Furnaces, her ambitious project with her brother Matthew, Friedberger reveals on her solo debut that she has a serious soft spot for the kind of relaxed song that could float on the air in a murky Manhattan dive, stirring memories and their inevitable tinges of romance and regret. Off-kilter and wistful, “Last Summer” is a smidge like Carole King if she’d spent her youth messing around with hipster gadflies in Williamsburg circa 2000s.

10. Real Estate “Days” (Domino)

The title of this album is almost obstinately simple, a blow-off even. “Days." Not nights because those are a little more exciting. Nope, just boring old days -- and there those days go, flying off into the sky of your life, with little event or fanfare. But as 2011 winds down, the New Jersey band Real Estate sounds more suitable for the waning hours than ever. The unmistakable sound of pining for lost time is embedded in the whorls of Real Estate’s jangly indie-pop, faded by the suburban sun.

RELATED:

Year-end top 10 list: Todd Martens

Year-end top 10 list: August Brown

Best of 2011 in pop music: Randall Roberts

--Margaret Wappler

Photo: Tuneyards by Anna M. Campbell / Beggars Group USA

Year-end top 10 list: Reissues

It's hard enough keeping up with the present these days without also having to worry about the past. But the world of archival recordings is just as vibrant as the one bearing new music. Amid the volumes of fresh sounds raining down on us at any given moment, there are a plethora of reissues, remasters, remixes, mash-ups and curated collections finding new life in the digital age. Below, in alphabetical order, are 10 essential 2011 reissues.

Beach Boys, "Smile" box set (Capitol): Sometimes, the rumors of genius turn out to be wrong, and other times spot-on. In the case of "Smile," the long-lost Beach Boys album that never saw release — or even full completion -- when it was recorded in 1967, it's the latter. An important document of Los Angeles music, the album, with brilliant lyrics by Van Dyke Parks and impossibly deep music and harmonies from Brian Wilson, is even better than the legend suggested.

John Fahey, "Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You: The Fonotone Years, 1958-1965" (Dust-to-Digital): Best known to the layperson for his perennial holiday favorite, "Christmas Guitar," John Fahey continues to be an inspiration to generations of musicians. The late solo guitarist and iconoclast transformed guitar through his precision and modal experiments, and this five-disc collection offers an important look at some of his earliest work.

L'Orchestre Kanaga de Mopti, "S/T," (Kindred Spirits): Feeling depressed? Try popping on one of the tightest, most swinging West African big band records of the 1970s, from the Malian machine that was L'Orchestre Kanaga de Mopti. Long considered one of the great recordings of an incredibly fruitful moment in Mali, L'Orchestre Kanaga de Mopti's 1976 recording features six long tracks that groove with graceful rhythms and hit hard with a tight brass section.

Year-end Top 10 list: August Brown

Throughout the week and holiday season, Pop & Hiss will be presenting various top 10 lists from its contributors. What follows are the favorite albums of the year from staffer August Brown.

No. 1. Drake, "Take Care" (Cash Money). It’s easy to smirk at Drake’s persona of a cosmopolitan playboy tasting Caligulan delights yet still feeling implacably empty.  But his character – equal parts rap swag and Woody Allen neurotic– resonated with millions of young fans in a culture  hypnotized by the optimism-porn of social media, while hope for a meaningful career and stable social connections remain a bad joke. Oh, and it might be the most gorgeously-produced pop album in years.

No. 2. A$AP Rocky, "LiveLoveA$AP" (self-release). Odd Future proved that weirdo Internet rap can be a self-sustaining business model. Now this crew of New Yorkers is testing if it can thrive in the existing label infrastructure. Its leader, A$AP Rocky, signed a much-ballyhooed multimillion-dollar major-label deal but this free mixtape cemented his reputation. His reserved, steely delivery owes equal debts to Houston’s syrup daze and Dipset’s uptown intensity, and the gauzy beats from Clams Casino were some of the year’s most imaginative, evocative hip-hop productions.

No. 3. The Weeknd, various mixtapes (self-release). The Toronto R&B alias of Abel Tesfaye imagines Drake freed from his obligations to “sell records” or “appeal to people with a shred of optimism about human relationships.” Across three free albums,  Tesfaye stares into a Bret Easton Ellis abyss of coked-up group sex with anonymous models that admittedly treads an uncomfortable threshold of consent. But even if everyone involved comes out feeling miserable (listener included), it’s undeniably potent stuff, with mercurial productions to match its decadent, unfeeling mood.   

Year-end Top 10 list: Randy Lewis

Throughout the week and holiday season, Pop & Hiss will be presenting various top 10 lists from its contributors. What follows are the favorite albums of the year from staffer Randy Lewis.

No. 1. Emmylou Harris “Hard Bargain” (Nonesuch). This exquisite collection from the woman who has been the conscience of progressive country music for more than three decades ranks with the best work she's done. Intelligent, empathetic and unflaggingly insightful about the depths to which humanity can sink as well as the pinnacles to which it can rise.

No. 2. Anna Calvi “Anna Calvi” (Domino). A powerfully impressive, richly atmospheric debut from an English singer-songwriter-guitarist who wraps striking sketches of romantic obsession in evocative soundscapes in the tradition of Ennio Morricone and Angelo Badalamenti and delivers then with the visceral power of Dick Dale and PJ Harvey.

No. 3. Shelby Lynne “Revelation” (Everso). The rabble-rousing alt-country singer and songwriter tackles head on the legacy of tragedy life handed her. She neither flinches from painful truths, nor gives in to despair.

No. 4. Joe Henry “Reverie” (Anti-). Henry's deceptively casual approach to music making creates an ambience of musical freedom, which he uses to great advantage in his obliquely impressionistic songs.

No. 5. DeVotchKa “100 Lovers” (Anti-). The Colorado collective's catholic musical reach is inspiring.

Best of 2011 in local hip-hop and R&B: Gerrick D. Kennedy

Throughout the week and holiday season, Pop & Hiss will be presenting various top 10 lists from its contributors. What follows are the favorite albums of the year from staffer Gerrick D. Kennedy.

While I was moved this year by the visceral heartbreak that is Adele’s “21,” impressed by the boasty indulgence of Kanye and Jay’s “… in Paris” and charmed by Beyonce’s wonderfully frenetic “Countdown,” I became even more intrigued by a crop of L.A.-based artists and their genre-pushing, urban grooves.

1. Stacy Barthe, “Sincerely Yours” (Surf Club): A well-tapped songwriter (Rihanna, Katy Perry, Kelly Rowland, Brandy), Barthe has a debut EP that echoes the Sade school of poetic R&B. Despite melodies exploring darker snapshots of love and loss, her hooks remained catchy thanks to the Caribbean rhythms she employs. A bonus: Frank Ocean drops in for a scorching duet.

2. Frank Ocean, “nostalgia, Ultra” (self-release): Whether using Coldplay or the Eagles as springboards, or crafting one of Beyonce’s most interesting ballads, Ocean has asserted himself as a reinvigorating force in R&B. Proof is in the rawness of “nostalgia, Ultra,” with its avant-R&B hooks and textured narratives.

3. TiRon & Ayomari, “A Sucker for Pumps” (The Cafeteria Line): Behind beautifully produced atmospheric beats and lush strings TiRon & Ayomari present the male-female dynamic without spending the whole album in the bedroom or degrading the ladies. Though they favor intellectual hums over punchy bars, the result is a disc that manages to empower women and expose a gentleman’s sensitivity.

Year-end top 10 list: Todd Martens

Throughout the week and holiday season, Pop & Hiss will be presenting various top 10 lists from its contributors. What follows are the favorite albums of the year from staffer Todd Martens. 

On May 10, the No. 1 act on this list officially released its new album. Not a day has gone by since when I didn't listen to at least one song from that CD.That made picking a favorite release in 2011 a rather easy task, but what follows are 14 other albums I still can't wait to hear again. There will be no extended essay or grand cultural commentary here, just some artists I hope some may believe are worth exploring.

No. 1. Le Butcherettes, "Sin Sin Sin" (Sargent House): Everything about this album screams now. Based in Los Angeles and formed in Mexico, this band delivers current-events hard rock that defies genre borders, and it's led with fearless bravado by Teri "Gender Bender" Suarez. Whether it's dead authors, poverty or social injustice, Le Butcherettes vamp, rant and howl, a reminder that only rock 'n' roll can have this much fun tackling big ideas. 

No. 2. Van Hunt, "What Were You Hoping For?" (Godless Hotspot/Thirty Tigers): To get inside the mind of Van Hunt is to embark on a musically strange trip. Melodies come with odd twists and turns, almost as if Hunt, a major-label survivor, is taking massive hooks and tossing them into a room full of carnival mirrors. Call it psychedelic soul or modern blues, these are recession-time tales of caution with  gloriously short attention spans. 

No. 3. F-ed Up, “David Comes to Life” (Matador Records): The growled lyrics make a forceful entrance, but once you adjust to the aggression, you'll find this to be one of the more textured hard rock albums in recent memory. Guitars layer melody upon melody, and these 18-tracks loosely stitch together a rock opera about lost love and triumph over tragedy. Don't be scared away by the word "opera." This most definitely is not ready for Broadway.

No. 4. The Roots, "Undun" (Island Def Jam): In a comfortably swift running time of less than 40 minutes, the Roots unravel a mix of gospel, jazz and hip-hop, melding late-career atmospheric ambitions with brevity. Every moment counts on these snapshots of hard living, which are graced with a remorseful undercurrent.

2011 year in review: Best in pop music



The best music of 2011 — or, more accurately, my favorite music of the year – is a genre-blind mix of the eloquent and the aggressive. The below 10 full-length albums, organized in order or preference, are further evidence of a music world in glorious flux.

PJ Harvey, “Let England Shake” (Vagrant/Island/Def Jam): PJ Harvey’s “Let England Shake" is a meditation on war and greed that’s sing-along catchy, but thick with barbed-wire and bomb shells. It’s also the 42-year-old British artist’s most urgent and inventive record. One of the great political albums of the decade.

Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer, “Re: ECM” (ECM Records): Minimalist electronic producers Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer were given the keys to the avant jazz ECM Records archives in Berlin and asked to create something new from its various parts. The result combines bits and pieces of the recordings of Arvo Part, Bernie Maupin, Christian Wallumrod and others into one sublime, unclassifiable whole.

Frank Ocean, “Nostalgia, Ultra” (tumblr download): Smooth soul singer Frank Ocean released “Nostalgia, Ultra” via his Tumblr site in early 2011, and within six months he became a go-to vocal hook man. "Nostalgia, Ultra” is an honest and engaging r&b album that sits alongside his latter-day influences like Drake and Kanye West, and one-ups them with more wit and better narratives.

Critic's Notebook: A midyear look at some of the best music of 2011 (so far)

It doesn’t make sense in 2011 to try and count the number of CDs released because doing so is only one measure of the volume. Toss in mixtapes, thumb drives, vinyl, Bandcamp pages, Twitter links to Mediasphere downloads, streams, rips, .zips and 12-inches, and the bounty is so rich that the notion of an annual year-end round-up seems a woefully inadequate tool.

As a way of attempting to appreciate where we’ve been this year at midpoint, what follows is a personal list of essential recordings released so far in 2011, one that no doubt contains a glaring oversight or two and is limited mostly to officially sanctioned, record label affiliated recordings.

Jessica Lea Mayfield, “Tell Me”

The British-born Adele may be getting all the attention for her merging of soul, rock, r&b and country, but another young singer, Jessica Lea Mayfield, has released an equally assured Muscle Shoals-inspired soul album.

Mayfield , who grew up onstage as part of a traveling family bluegrass group, fell in with with Black Keys singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach when both were living in Akron, Ohio, and the two began collaborating. Auerbach produced “Tell Me,” Mayfield’s major label debut for Nonesuch, with a wood-paneled warmth that suggests Dusty Springfield’s “Dusty in Memphis” with a little bit of Nashville twang mixed in. Mayfield’s ability to capture private vignettes and draw them with unguarded honesty makes “Tell Me” essential listening. It’s rough and honest, strong but also delicate and vulnerable

King Creosote and Jon Hopkins, “Diamond Mine”

Here is a quiet 32-minute, seven-song cycle composed by Scottish songwriter Kenny Anderson – stage name King Creosote -- and arranged by British electronic composer Jon Hopkins. Creosote has been releasing music in Scotland, 40-odd albums worth, to little American interest for more than a decade, and has a voice that deserves a wider audience, even if this isn’t happy-go-lucky music.

On the gorgeous “Your Own Spell,” Creosote sings in a delicate tenor as Hopkins’ slow, heavy arrangement moves like a storm cloud through the words: “Arriving late to church, your dress is soaked, don’t you look miserable,” less Morrissey than pastoral Paul McCartney. Hopkins, best known for his work with Brian Eno on last year’s “Small Craft on a Milk Sea,” treats Anderson’s graceful voice with affection and admiration, and the result is an impressionistic song cycle about months at sea, silver sideburns, and dry white roses.