The No Depression Community’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2011

1. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest
2. The Decemberists – The King Is dead
3. Wilco – The Whole Love
4. Lucinda Williams – Blessed
5. Steve Cropper – Dedicated
6. Tom Waits – Bad as Me
7. Dave Alvin – Eleven Eleven
8. Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers – Starlight Hotel
9. Jason Isbell – Here We Rest
10. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
11. Hayes Carll – KMAG YOYO
12. Eilen Jewell – Queen of the Minor Key
13. Drive By Truckers – Go-Go Boots
14. The Deep Dark Woods – The Place I Left Behind
15. Jayhawks – Mockingbird Time
16. Tedeschi Trucks Band – Revelator
17. Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
18. Gregg Allman – Low Country Blues
19. Buddy Miller – Majestic Silver Strings
20. Paul Simon – So Beautiful or So What
21. Sarah Jarosz – Follow Me Down
22. Nick Lowe – The Old Magic
23. Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down
24. Blackie & The Rodeo Kings – Kings & Queens
25. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
26. Amos Lee – Mission Bell
27. Abigail Washburn – City of Refuge
28. Middle Brother – Self-Titled
29. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
30. Dawes – Nothing is Wrong
31. Tom Russell – Mesabi
32. John Hiatt – Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns
33. Emmylou Harris – Hard Bargain
34. Fountain of Wayne – Sky Full of Holes
35. Chris Thile & Michael Daves – Sleep With One Eye Open
36. Glen Campbell – Ghost on a Canvas
37. Jonathan Wilson – Gentle Spirit
38. Lydia Loveless – Indestructable Machine
39. Tommy Keene – Behind the Parade
40. Merle Haggard – Working in Tennessee
41. Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know
42. Greg Brown – Freak Flag
43. John Doe – Keeper
44. Kasey Chambers – Little Bird
45. Alison Krauss & Union Station – Paper Airplane
46. Slaid Cleaves – Sorrow & Smoke
47. Tinariwen – Tassili
48. Jeffrey Focault – The Horse Latitudes
49. The Black Keys – El Camino
50. The Head and the Heart – Self-titled

Meanwhile, there was very little consensus among our featured bloggers. Gillian Welch still took the top spot, shocking nobody. But most of the other nominees found their way onto less than three lists. Clearly, our featured bloggers have very individual tastes, proving you can’t come to ND and expect cookie-cutter opinions. 

Now that our content is mostly crowd-sourced, it’s not fair for us to call the below a “Critics Poll,” but these are the choices put forth by some of our most frequent featured bloggers. These folks all contribute frequently to No Depression – many of them several times a week – and their blogs are consistently thoughtful, well-considered, and well-written. So, in the interest of extending the fun just a little more, we called on them to submit lists for a list of our Featured Bloggers Favorites. Gillian Turnbull, Easy Ed, Kyla Fairchild, Kim Ruehl, Chris Mateer, Dustin Ogdin, Skot Nelson, Michael Bialas, Hearth Music, Mando Lines, Hal Bogerd, and Paul Cantin participated in this poll, and the albums on which more than two of them agreed can be found below. 

These albums were tallied in the same manner of the above community poll, weighted the same, etc. So, without further ado, we also present you with:

NO DEPRESSION FEATURED BLOGGERS 10 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2011

1. Gillian Welch – The Harrow and the Harvest
2. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
3. Jason Isbell – Here We Rest
4. Hayes Carll – KMAG YOYO 
5. Chris Thile & Michael Daves – Sleep With One Eye Open
6. Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers – Starlight Hotel
7. Alela Diane – Alela Diane & Wild Divine
8. Steve Earle – I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive
9. Todd Snider – The Storyteller 
10. Abigail Washburn – City of Refuge