Stop the presses! You’re sick of year-end lists, right? Especially since the year is over, right? WRONG! Here’s my top 25 albums of 2011, with silly write-ups for each one. Drink it in, listen to music, let it be, etc.

25. Braids, “Native Speaker”

Ugh, like, fuck me for putting this album at the “bottom” of my list. Between this and last year’s Blue Hawaii EP, Raphaelle Standell-Preston has established herself as one of indie rock’s most unique vocalists, male or female. Will she kill it again in 2012? Stay tuned.

24. Fucked Up, “David Comes To Life”

This one wins this year’s “The Suburbs” award for being very good, but also, too long. Calm down, Fucked Up! You have more albums to make, save some songs for those albums!

23. Washed Out, “Within and Without”

Oooooh, so pretty! Just a pretty album, pretty like a painting of a flower. Look at that album cover! Very pretty. Listen to the first 15 seconds of “Amor Fati!” Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

22. Terius Nash, “1977″

The Great Artist Making Music Today throws out an Internet album full of devastating emotion. His slightest work, and yeah, Casha, but damn, “Wedding Crasher” still makes water creep onto my bottom eyelids. Terius, you goddamned genius.

21. Big K.R.I.T., “Return of 4eva”

This probably is good enough to make my top 20, but I’m pretty mad at Krit for not releasing an album yet. Come on, man. You could have put out an album that was just “Dreamin’” and eight “Country Shit” remixes and I’d love it.

20. Danny Brown, “XXX”

Brown is an incredible rapper. “XXX” is a very good album, but is also wildly inconsistent… which makes sense, because Brown himself is reckless and angry and doesn’t give a fuck about consistency. If he could ever harness his energy into a cohesive 12-song statement… look out!

19. Jamie Woon, “Mirrorwriting”

If you squint, you’ll see the album that another funky white boy Jamie — Jamie Lidell — should have made last year. Woon is incredibly smart with the way he arranges vocal harmonies that I kind of hope he makes an a cappella someday. Or hosts “The Sing-Off.” Either/or situation.

18. Fabolous, “The S.O.U.L. Tape”

Loso continues The Comeback That No One Saw Coming Or Specifically Requested! Not really sure why this was so overlooked critically, but his takes on beats old (Game’s “Like Father, Like Son”) and new (Wiz Khalifa’s “Phone Numbers”) are top-notch. You Can’t Deny It! Get It? “Can’t Deny It”?

17. James Blake, “James Blake”

This album came out in 2007, right? No? Well, it’s the 17th best album of 2011, then. Some slam dunks, especially on the underrated second half of the album, but some air balls too (“I Never Learnt To Share” is a must-skip for me). I wish there was more stuff like “CMYK” on here, though.

16. G-Side, “The ONE… Cohesive”

Remember when Eddie Murphy was nominated for an Oscar for “Dreamgirls,” and everyone thought he was gonna win, but then he released “Norbit” two weeks before the Oscars and lost out to Alan Arkin because people saw the “Norbit” commercials and were like, “Oh shit, he can’t win an Oscar”? That’s sort of what happened for me with “The ONE… Cohesive,” which was in my top 10 for a while but then G-Side released ANOTHER album this year, “Island,” which wasn’t very good, and made me go, “Hm, is G-Side that good?” Well, yes. G-Side is still destroying shit, and “Y U Mad” is breathtaking. But rules are rules, so this is at No. 16.

15. Real Estate, “Days”

Real Estate? Huh? Okay, calm down. “Days” does a lot of things right — “It’s Real” is basically the “Still D.R.E.” of indie-rock singles, just a front-to-back, undeniable winner — and taps into that calm, collected atmosphere the Sea and Cake has been making look effortless for a decade.

14. Shabazz Palaces, “Black Up”

Here’s the thing about “Black Up”: it’s an insanely smart and forward-thinking piece of work. Cokemachineglow had it No. 1 for the year, and I totally understand and respect that. I think it lost some points for me because it’s a teensy bit too impenetrable, from the song titles to the bizarre track order. I mean, you should listen to “Black Up,” absolutely, but it’s maybe not as much of a touchstone in underground rap as it wants to be? It’s no “Cold Vein” or anything? Okay, you get the point.

13. AraabMUZIK, “Electronic Dream”

Okay, HERE we go. When AraabMUZIK is on point, his music covers so much territory — it’s propulsive rave music that’s dreamlike but instantly affecting. I love how “Electronic Dream” is structured, with the more accessible songs up front and the spacier fodder nestled in the middle. Can’t wait for this dude to put out more stuff.

12. Destroyer, “Kaputt”

Oh, Dan Bejar. Dan Bejar! You sound so sleepy, but so great, especially when the saxophone is involved prominently on your songs. This album still sounds so loving and warm-cup-of-chamomile-tea-like 8 years after it was released, in January. I recently bought this album for my dad for Christmas, and he really likes it, except for the two-and-a-half-minute intro on “Suicide Demo For Kara Walker.” “Why did that part need to be so long?” he asked me, legitimately annoyed. I agree with my dad, so, this comes in at No. 12, and not higher.

11. Balam Acab, “Wander/Wonder”

While Burial is busy being a genius and putting out fantastic EPs (his “Halo” release would have been #26 on this list), Balam Acab, the moniker of Pennsylvania kid Alec Koone, has issued a debut that is vaguely akin to Burial’s aesthetic. “Wander/Wonder” paints in lighter shades than “Untrue,” but Koone’s use of loops and vocal manipulation is just as hypnotic as The Great Dubstep Master’s. Blast this shit when you’re wearing fuzzy slippers and staring at a lava lamp.

10. The Throne, “Watch the Throne”

Time is going to be kind to this one. When we all look back on music in 2011 (at the same time, of course), we’re not going to think about fucking Youth Lagoon; we’ll hear that “Otis” scream and think about fish filets and debate what the worst song is, ‘Welcome To the Jungle’ or ‘H*A*M,’ and remember that time we typed ‘#thatshitcray’ into our Twitter accounts. The sonic equivalent of being sprayed with champagne.

9. The Antlers, “Burst Apart”

Oh boy, indie rock yawning and crumpling into a pile of shimmering guitars. Didn’t we cover this with Real Estate, or whatever? Check yourself, please, because “Burst Apart” is an absolutely killer collection of songs. Sometimes a not-too-exciting band just huffs and puffs and transfers all of its songwriting energy into a single album, probably never to do so again (see: The Microphones’ ‘The Glow, Pt. 2′), and damn me if that isn’t what the Antlers did on “Burst Apart.” Well-played, gentlemen.

8. Rich Aucoin, “We’re All Dying To Live”

Have you heard of Rich Aucoin? No? Well, he’s a singer-songwriter from Canada who sounds like a combination of the two Wolf Parade singers and just put an album that plays like a Sufjan album if Sufjan hadn’t lost his fucking mind with his last album. Yeah, I hated “The Age of Adz,” and “We’re All Dying To Live” acts like an antidote to that overreaching mess. These are experimental pop songs connected by strange, intriguing little interludes, and Aucoin sounds self-assured in his ability to lead a 23-song, three-ring circus of a full-length.

7. Adele, “21″

Yeah, Adele is great, blah blah blah. I have nothing to add to everyone’s (correct) praise of this album, except this: isn’t it nice when the biggest album of the year in the U.S. is also one of the best albums of the year? Like, you know what was last year’s biggest album? Eminem’s “Recovery.” That album’s dumb! So, thanks Adele. You made good music AND put beautiful songs like “Someone Like You” on Top 40 radio!

6. Clams Casino, “Instrumentals”

Can I just say that I don’t understand the whole A$AP Rocky thing? The “thing” being “every hip-hop fan really enjoying ‘Live.Love.A$AP’? Dude sounds like Lil B without the jokes to me — which is fine, but, ya know, not for some people! Anyway, Clams Casino’s production is the best thing about “Live.Love.A$AP,” because Clams Casino is making next-level beats right now, as demonstrated on “Instrumentals.” Like, every SINGLE composition on here knocks, and no song feels underdeveloped or anything else except wholly unique. This kid is currently pushing hip-hop in fascinating directions.

5. Kate Bush, “50 Words For Snow”

“Oh man,” you say, “you’re just giving a Top 5 ranking to any album that includes a song about having sex with a snowman!” That… is correct. But “50 Words For Snow” offers so much more, including a duet with Elton John about a time-traveling couple, a 7-minute single that’s as weird as it is terrifying, and a song called “50 Words For Snow” that lists… 50 words for snow. It all sounds batshit, but Kate Bush — the O.G. chanteuse — contains her wintry themes and bestows us with a wildly original, compulsively listenable lovelorn paean. “I turn off the light, switch on a starry night,” she sings on the Snowman Sex Song, “Misty.” Switch on that starry night all damn day, Ms. Bush.

4. Drake, “Take Care”

“Take Care” is not as good as “Thank Me Later,” mainly because of the songs “HYFR” and “Make Me Proud” and the fact that it absolutely should end on “Look What You’ve Done.” But Drizzy’s sophomore season makes good on the promise of his surprisingly fantastic debut and pushes his wacky sweater fetishes in warm, fuzzy new directions — whether it’s wool (“Marvins Room”), argyle (“Lord Knows”), or the sad, black turtleneck (“Doing It Wrong”). Drake remains as compelling as any personality in hip-hop, but the two big winners of “Take Care” are undoubtedly Just Blaze, for making the Beat of the Year with “Lord Knows,” and Kendrick Lamar, whose “Buried Alive” interlude is damn near better than anything on “Section.80.”

3. Bon Iver, “Bon Iver, Bon Iver”

J-Veezy steps out of the cold, lonely cabin; rubs his eyes; looks around at the majesty of the natural world (the forest, I guess, or whatever); gasps, and smiles, delighted; summons some of the woodland creatures to play the extra instruments that were untouched on “For Emma”; writes some more gorgeous-sounding, nonsensical lyrics; and plops down on a tree stump with an acoustic guitar and lets out that lovely, lovely falsetto, while a squirrel mans the bass and a skunk gets the sax ready for “Beth/Rest.” “At once I knew I was not magnificent,” he sings, before getting a text from Kanye West and considering revising that last line, because he’s now the P-I-M-P of Eau Claire.

2. The Weeknd, “House of Balloons”

Of COURSE “High For This” was used in a promo for “Entourage”; just as a bro-tastic, fundamentally slimy and shamefully addictive form of media is vanquished from our world, Abel Tesfaye is there to high-five Vinnie Chase and Turtle and those other goobers before taking their crown. Like the first two seasons of “Entourage,” however, “House of Balloons” is brilliant beneath the objectionable morality floating on its fluorescent surface, like a dead body in an underground pool. Forget Tesfaye’s (pitch-perfect) voice or the (exhilarating) lyrics for a second; this production sounds unreal for a self-released tape, from the bleary-eyed free-fall of “What You Need” to the disruptive energy of “House of Balloons – Glass Table Girls.” The Weeknd probably will never release anything as amazing as this, because no one saw something of high quality coming; the shock of hearing this thing for the first time is part of its everlasting charm.

1. Frank Ocean, “Nostalgia, Ultra”

2011 was a poor year for music. It happens. It happened in 2008, when my favorite album was “Dear Science” by TV on the Radio. That record really hasn’t held up well, and I rarely listen to it. The same might happen with “Nostalgia, Ultra,” my favorite release of 2011, but I doubt I’ll stop paying attention to Frank Ocean anytime soon. Dude’s a star, plain and simple, “sweet Baby Jesus”es aside. His songwriting is ambitious, thought-provoking and generally impeccable. His voice is a godsend, the effortless silk that lined D’Angelo’s voice on “Brown Sugar.” And his songs are… borrowed, mostly. But is that a problem when he’s taking another artist’s template and arguably IMPROVING on it? Is any part of MGMT’s “Electric Feel” as great as the line “I’ve been meaning to fuck you in the garden” on Ocean’s “Nature Feels”? Is his “Strawberry Swing” not universal and moving since Chris Martin’s earnest warble comes in at the end? The thing is, for as much as Ocean may rely on other artists’ visions in passages of “Nostalgia, Ultra,” this album is entirely his own, a heart-on-sleeve autobiography that his record label somehow didn’t want to release. There are no collaborators on “Nostalgia, Ultra,” because there don’t need to be. Frank Ocean is a singular voice that has yet to be hampered by bullshit, and “Nostalgia, Ultra” is his funny, sad, sexy, real self exposed to the world. Enjoy it as long as it lasts.

Honorable Mentions (in no order):

Wise Blood, “These Wings”

DJ Quik, “The Book of David”

Foxes In Fiction, “Alberto”

Burial, “Halo EP”

Youth Lagoon, “The Year of Hibernation”

Kendrick Lamar, “Section.80″

Killer Mike, “Pl3dge”

Miracle Fortress, “Was I The Wave?”

Gillian Welch, “The Harrow & The Harvest”

Thundercat, “The Golden Age of Apocalypse”

“And the Grammy goes to… ‘The Sssssssssuburbs!’ Arcade Fire!”

I’m sitting in an apartment in the Upper West Side, covering the Grammys for the first time as a reporter. I’m furiously writing notes, or a news story, or notes that will later be turned into a news story, when Barbra Streisand lets the words slither out of her mouth. The room is packed with journalists – most of whom have loved Arcade Fire for years, and all of who think the odds-on favorite to win the 2011 Grammy for Album of the Year, Lady Antebellum, is about as exciting as a particularly humdrum root canal – and when Streisand (God, it’s so awesome that it was Streisand) gets to the “r” in “Suburbs,” the room explodes.

We can’t believe our eyes. We’ve all lived through Steely Dan beating “Kid A,” and that Ray Charles tribute album beating “The College Dropout,” but an upset in OUR favor? Never saw it coming. And the award goes to Arcade Fire, those Canadian lads who made “Funeral” only a few years ago and made everyone who knew that it existed feel so much cooler than everyone who had never heard of them! Remember when Win Butler was on the cover of Spin with Bruce Springsteen? Shit, man, the Boss never won an Album of the Year Grammy!

My coworkers are high-fiving and texting their in-the-know friends as the 18 members of Arcade Fire breathlessly hurry through an acceptance speech. I watch as they stomp over to the performance section of the stage (how were all of the instruments still set up, ready to be played?) and launch into a triumphant version of “The Suburbs’” wall-shaking money shot, “Ready To Start.” And in that 90-second pocket of time before the credits to the Grammys telecast started rolling, Arcade Fire becomes U2.

Breathe. It’ll be okay.

In retrospect, Arcade Fire’s Grammy win was shocking only to those who have adored their lost-boys-and-girls ditties ever since the curtain pulled up on “Neighborhood 1” and transported the listener into a lonely Montreal blizzard. Arcade Fire is, obviously, no longer that band. Yes, they’re on Merge Records; no, they’ve never had a crossover radio single, in the way that contemporary stadium-playing rock moppets like Kings of Leon and the Killers have had; and yes, their music is still good. But to the common Grammy voter who doesn’t know the difference between “Neon Bible” and Neon Indian, Arcade Fire exist in the same rock universe as U2 – and not just because they both play massive venues and headline festivals.

True, Arcade Fire’s burgeoning popularity and ambitious stage show have helped them gain the kind of mainstream cognizance that it takes to win an Album of the Year Grammy. But over the span of three albums, the band’s music has also morphed into something that appeals to a greater common denominator while still managing to explore interesting new themes and mature on its own terms.

“Funeral” is infinitely better than the solid but overlong “Suburbs,” but if Arcade Fire had released its albums in reverse order – “The Suburbs” coming first and “Funeral” being their most recent full-length – it’s highly unlikely that Arcade Fire would own an Album of the Year Grammy right now. And that’s because “Funeral’s” epic scope is presented in a more idiosyncratic way, with messier vocals, more brittle production and transitional songs sung in French-Canadian. Songs like “Neighborhood 1” and “Wake Up” have predictably become rapturous highlights at Arcade Fire arena shows, but where their song structures are winding and inconsistent, “Ready To Start,” “Rococo” and “Sprawl II” sport verse-chorus movements and less instrumental pile-ups that prohibit sing-alongs. “Funeral” and “The Suburbs” both feature songs destined to be played to mammoth audiences, but only “The Suburbs” was created at a time when Arcade Fire knew that playing to mammoth audiences was a possibility.

Which brings us to U2, a band that now records albums under the assumption that they will only be heard in places where professional sports teams play. After years of U2 making songs like “Vertigo” and “Elevation,” and months of the group performing songs under a giant mechanical claw for some reason, it’s easy to forget how an album like 1987’s “The Joshua Tree” – basically the band’s “Suburbs” — expertly toed the line between massive commercial success and deserved critical acclaim. Like Arcade Fire, U2 had spent its previous albums molding its sound into something that can be played at the Super Bowl halftime show (did they have Super Bowl halftime shows back in 1987, the year I was born? Did Lionel Richie perform with Ratt? I kid!) Like “Funeral” and the now-underrated “Neon Bible,” “Boy,” “War” and especially “The Unforgettable Fire” hinted at the force that U2 could become before they sculpted their far-reaching themes into a pristine full-length. (Also important: Bono’s hair seems to be precisely the same length in the “Where The Streets Have No Name” video as Win Butler’s hair is now.)

The channels of each band’s ascent correlated to the cultures in which they were born – U2 was able to make singles like “With or Without You” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” rock radio staples at a time when rock radio was still crucial, and Arcade Fire raised eyebrows every time Pitchfork scored something they released. But the outcomes remained identical: thousands of fans screaming along to vaguely political songs that they could graft onto their own experiences. I’ve attended three Arcade Fire concerts and zero U2 concerts, but if I ever did attend a U2 show (and I want to), I’d go into it expecting an experience fairly akin to what the Arcade Fire are offering on tour these days. And isn’t that telling?

At the center of the groups’ monolithic appeal is a pair of pale, awkward, endlessly charismatic frontmen. It’s become easy to underestimate the impact of an identifiable frontman in sustaining stardom and creating a brand in rock – it’s the reason why Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Florence + the Machine will keep chugging along, and Foster The People will likely be forgotten by this time next year. Arcade Fire has twice as many members as U2, but for the casual fan, Win Butler has served as a gangly, more-than-game figurehead, whether he’s towering over Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” or racing through his dedicated crowd while belting “We Used To Wait” at concerts. Regine may actually be the gatekeeper to more fascinating songwriting choices, but for better or worse, she is The Edge, an essential cog to the sound of a band led by the man on the magazine covers.

From Arcade Fire’s early music videos compared to their recent performances, it’s clear that Butler is always the face up front. His stagecraft – the way he slightly wobbles on every syllable he sings, and flips his greasy-looking hair away from his face just before he hits a high note – is impeccable. His voice – that husky yet quivering shimmer that constantly sounds like it’s about to collapse – has always been more recognizable than his budding indie rock brethren. Butler’s not as messianic, culturally unaware or seemingly douchey as Bono is now – but neither was Bono when U2 was first making waves. Butler still has plenty of time to stop being so unassuming and see the world through light-purple designer sunglasses. Who knows? Maybe in 20 years, “South Park” will air an episode where Win Butler is discovered to be a six-foot-four turd.

Arcade Fire scored a No. 1 album and earned some more critical love in 2010 — but so did Sara Bareilles. I’ll remember 2011 as the year the band took the next step and became That Giant Band, somewhere between performing alongside giant glowing orbs at Coachella, the headline “Justin Bieber, Arcade Fire Win Webby Awards,” and Streisand holding the “S” in “Suburbs” a little too long. So where does Arcade Fire’s catalogue go from here? Probably toward a bad experiment (a la “Rattle and Hum”), a mojo-saving reinvention (“Achtung Baby”), years of soaring ticket sales and waning musical ideas, and a heavy-handed comeback album that nudges a new generation into acceptance (“All That You Can’t Leave Behind.”) If that’s depressing, remember that U2’s career line is not exactly the worst one to follow; even if they never make another “Funeral,” at least we’ll be able to sing along to “Wake Up” in football stadiums for years to come.

Previously: The Brilliance of Diddy-Dirty Money

Today (Dec. 12), we start with one of the biggest surprises of the year that doubles as a celebration of my favorite single of 2011. Please leave comments, or don’t, if you don’t want to. I don’t care.

(I care.)

I want to take a time machine back to 2007 so I can have the following conversation with my past self:

“Hey, 2007 Jason!”

“What? Who are you? How’d you get in?”

“I’m the 2011 version of you. Can’t you see? I look exactly like you, only without that ridiculous beard!”

“Oh. Hey?”

“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to let you know something shocking. I see you’re making your ‘Albums of the Year’ list, like you spend most of your time doing. ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’ is number one, and ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’ is number two, right?”

“Yeah. For now, but it might change.”

“No, it won’t. So yeah, you’re pretty into the indie rock thing.”

“Well… sure!”

“Cool. What if I were to tell you that, in 2011, Radiohead, Bon Iver, TV on the Radio, the Mountain Goats, Destroyer, Bjork, and Wilco will all put out new albums?”

“Oh wow!”

“Oh, and Bon Iver will become a huge star.”

“Stop it! Really? Well, that’s amazing. What’s the shocking part?”

“In 2011, you won’t listen to any of those albums as much as the latest album by… P. DIDDY!”

That’s where the conversation would have ended, because 2007 Jason would have bludgeoned himself to death with a nearby shovel, killing present day me in the process and intertwining us in a fucked-up time warp murder-suicide. All of because of Sean “Puffy” Combs.

Hate is a strong word, and no, I do not hate Diddy – I mean, dude made “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” But I have always hated his rapping. It’s hard to put into words how poor of a rapper Diddy is, and has always been. His wordplay has forever been clumsy, his flow only having a single speed regardless of the backing beat, his perspective never wavering from “disaffected mogul,” his metaphors either hard to swallow or impossible to forgive (“I’m the definition of/Half man, half drugs” is one of the worst opening lines to a verse ever, right?). You ever notice how, even though Diddy is supremely recognizable as an artist and brand, no rapper ever wants him to lend a guest verse on one of their tracks? Like, Roscoe Dash’s phone is ringing more than Diddy’s these days. When Diddy dies in 2043 of a heart attack during a huge orgy sponsored by Sean John and Frito Lay, people will say, “He was a great entrepreneur” and “He discovered Biggie” and “Remember when he delivered the best MTV Video Music Awards performance ever?” They will not say, “Holy shit, could Diddy rap.”

Diddy is The Anchor on any posse cut, bringing down potentially winning tracks with his dunderheaded pacing and lack of personality (see: “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” Nelly’s hit single from the “Bad Boys II” soundtrack that absolutely implodes when arriving on his verse). The funny thing is, the dude DOES have personality: in its heyday, “Making the Band” was a blast, and was anyone surprised when he stole every scene in “Get Him to the Greek”? For some reason, that charisma just disappears in the booth, likely because he’s just not as talented at writing rhymes as he is living an outlandish life. At least Will Smith realized he had nothing to say early enough into his rap career that he bailed for the big screen; for Sean, his transition to acting seems to have arrived too late, and probably will never stick for good.

2001’s “The Saga Continues…” was forgettable save for a few fun singles. 2006’s “Press Play” was bad, and didn’t have any singles. Then comes news that he’s recording a dance album with a Danity Kane castoff and some other chick named Kalenna Harper as the ridiculous-sounding collective Diddy-Dirty Money. “’Last Train to Paris’ is a love story and the most vulnerable album I’ve ever been involved in,” Diddy hilariously told MTV in October 2009. The first single, “Angels,” had come out a month earlier, and featured an appearance by the Notorious B.I.G., because of course it did. Delays followed, for a year. The album finally staggered out of purgatory and was dumped on shelves in mid-December 2010. Pop fans, too busy salivating over upcoming releases by Britney Spears and Lady Gaga, didn’t care about it. Mainstream rap fans, bestowed the majesty of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” and the sugary sweetness of “Pink Friday” less than a month earlier, dutifully ignored it. And if anyone actually heard this mess, they would have recognized it as breathlessly, unabashedly brilliant.

It’s hard to discuss “Last Train To Paris” as a cohesive album – which is ironic, because Diddy presents this as a concept album about Diddy traveling from England to Paris to find love, or something. “Paris” essentially operates like a Rihanna or Beyonce album, a collection of eight potential singles chained together by a few songs that weren’t quite strong enough to be singles. But “Last Train To Paris” is shocking in the sky-high quality of the songs that do connect, so wholly successful in its refraction of musical genres that it’s difficult to remember Diddy’s decade-long failures as a solo artist before its existence. That’s right: “Last Train To Paris” is so good, you’ll forget how much Diddy sucks.

On “Last Train to Paris,” Diddy is a dollar-tossing specter, watching over each scrumptious morsel of pop music and shimmying to the beat to show the listener how to do the same. And, oh God, the music: “Last Train to Paris” is aching at every seam, sullen at its core and icy in its precision, synthesizers bulging across drum machines and female voices twisting around the listener’s heart. It’s a vacation destination where money is limitless and therefore meaningless, where Sean Combs hires women to cry for him because he’s too dead inside to do so himself.

Part of the reason why Diddy doesn’t suck on “Paris” is tied to his vague absence on its most important parts. Diddy isn’t really rapping THAT much on “Paris,” and it is, of course, a wonderful thing. Take the incredible “Hello Good Morning,” for example: the song includes sinewy percolation courtesy of Nate “Danja” Hills, tossed-off freshness from T.I. and a tenacious little hook from Dirty Money. The combination makes Diddy expendable on his own track.

He turns up a few times before the 3-minute mark to proclaim “Let’s work” or “Bad Boy, bitch!,” like an easygoing fitness instructor or an unmemorable hypeman, and when he allots 30 seconds at the end of the track for himself to rap in Auto-tune (“Little did he know how that n—a Diddy flow/How that n—a Diddy go, so hard like a crowbar, still getting dough”), well… at least it’s only 30 seconds long. Then, it’s back to the chorus, and Diddy’s minor interruption is forgotten. So it goes for a large chunk of the album: “I Hate That You Love Me” seduces the listener with some jazz piano and heartbroken verses being callously whispered before the title phrase shakes the chorus loose; “Your Love” is simply a fantastically over-the-top Trey Songz track that expresses insatiable longing through explicit sexuality. If Diddy’s minor presence is an obstruction on these tracks, it’s an easy one to overlook – he’s an encroachment penalty in a 38-0 blowout, and the pop purist is too busy celebrating in the parking lot to notice the ref’s call.

Surprisingly, the results are entertaining and at times thoroughly rewarding when Diddy takes a larger share of the spotlight, most notably on the closing track “Coming Home,” the album’s most successful single which climbed to No. 11 on the Hot 100 in the spring and spent a few inauspicious months floating around pop radio.

Written by Skylar Grey, the song’s mantra – “I’m coming home, I’m coming home/Tell the world I’m coming home/Let the rain, wash away/All the pain of yesterday” – is first introduced in a gorgeously bare half-minute of vocals and piano before Alex Da Kid’s wonky beat arrives and tries to overtake the basketball arena closest to you. The hook is simple and sublime, but Diddy’s three (!) verses somehow outshine it – seriously. “What if my son stares with a face like my own, and says he wants to be like me when he’s grown?/Shit… but I ain’t finished growin’,” Diddy raps in the opening verse, his voice cracking on the word “Shit” as if his son’s statement is unexpected and moving in all the wrong ways. Diddy’s lines are not technically proficient — “son stares with a face like my own” is one of a handful of clunky phrasings on the song – but stabs of the emotion buried beneath Mr. Combs’ oft-impenetrable style are present within these verses. Sure, Diddy is rich and famous, but it’s easy to relate to the uneasy feeling of having someone look up to you and mirror themselves after you when you aren’t sure who you are, or if you’re worthy of such idolatry. “Coming Home” is ostensibly a song about accepting yourself and your roots. In the same way that Drake can morosely sit at a table surrounded by golden figurines to pose for an album cover, Diddy can reference Biggie’s death, his failed celeb romances and one-note public persona (“It’s easy to be Puff, but it harder to be Sean!” he wails) in a successful effort to show that he, too, is human, and must accept his own shortcomings.

Like contemporary pop masterpieces “FutureSex/Lovesounds” and “Robyn,” “Last Train To Paris” is afforded its share of skippable tracks (“Looking For Love,” “Last Night Part 2”) because its highs are so blazingly high, and, most crucially, it includes one magnificent track that approaches Timberlake’s “My Love” and Robyn’s “Be Mine.” “Ass on the Floor,” the fourth track on “Last Train to Paris” released as a single to a chorus of crickets in April, is simply stunning in its complete understanding of the potential resonance of pop music.

It’s a song that can be taken as a shallow club track, with producer Swizz Beatz berating the listener with his cry, “When you’re in the club, get your ass on the floor!” It’s not a club track, though; it’s a deeply personal house track that happens to set in the club, with Richards and Harper stumbling through a sea of bodies as the neon haze and the sight of the one person they didn’t want to see on the dance floor seeps into their corneas. The militant percussion smacks the listener in the face, but the synthesizers are restrained and airy, creating a contrast between what the narrator sees around them and what they feel. In this way, the song is immediately triumphant: the beat knocks like nobody’s business, but when it drops off in an unexpected crescendo, the true nature of the track emerges.

“You’re the love of my life/But you hurt my heart twice,” they sing, as if shell-shocked, before adding spitefully, “Now I’m drunker than a motherfucker/Tryin’ to find my way back to your heart, you motherfucker.” Their venom just pops out of the speakers – like, goddamn this guy for showing up to the same club as me, when I’m out here pouring liquor down my throat so that I can forget about how the pain he’s caused. As the song progresses, that feeling of anger becomes more raw: in the pre-chorus bridge, the girls sing in harmony, “Baby, you know just what to do/I know you know the truth,” as a united plea to destroy the existing distance, and in the chorus, Richard and Harper can only gasp out the words “I give my soul to you” in unison, as fragments of other slurred phrases (“So high,” “I love you”) surround them. All the while, Swizzy is hollering “When you’re in the club, get your ass on the floor!”, grounding the emotional experience in the crushing, claustrophobic setting of the club.

After the second chorus, Diddy arrives with a caustic verse that taps into with the intensity created by Dirty Money on the track. Sure, his opening line, “That love’s gon’ get you, motherfucker/Smoke weed, listening to Sade!”, is at once bizarre and hilarious, but his choppy delivery makes sense next to the intoxicated declarations of Dirty Money. “Thought I told you I loved you/Maybe we should’ve waited,” he says as strings swell beneath his gravelly voice. Immediately after his verse, the backing track morphs into an epic, previously unheard jumble of jazz-tinged keys, denoting a sense of confusion as Swizz yells “Come on!” and Dirty Money croon, “Oh, where you’re in the club, baby/All you think about is you, baby.” By the end of the song, they are too far gone to say anything but childish pleas for comfort: “Baby, I want you, to need me, I need you, to want me, I want you, to love me, forever.” The crowded night has bled into morning, and as the beat drifts into the ether and Swizz’s voice echoes into nothingness, those feelings of vulnerability and loneliness remain, probably until the next time you listen to the track and the kinetic club scene is recreated.

“Ass on the Floor” is my favorite single of 2011, and that is a difficult cross to bear. Whenever I mention that Diddy released a single called “Ass on the Floor” this year, and, oh by the way, NO OTHER SONG was better than that single, people look at me like I’m A) kidding or B) in the process of giving up all hope in music as an art form, and spending my days listening to Soulja Boy mixtapes. “Ass on the Floor” will never be a capital-I Important song, because no one will ever take it seriously, because no one takes Diddy seriously, and why should they? If someone ran up to you tomorrow and said, “Dude, you gotta listen to this new Nickelback song called ‘Scrotum Town,’ it’s the best song of the year,” you’d be skeptical too, right?

But that’s what I love about pop music – it’s constantly redefining itself, and artists are always proving themselves unexpectedly capable of conjuring 4 minutes of unadulterated majesty. If Timberlake can move from “Bye Bye Bye” into genius territory and Britney Spears can drop “Toxic” after years of middling pop music, why can’t Sean MF Combs put out an unbelievable song called “Ass on the Floor”? I don’t think “Last Train to Paris” has re-contextualized Diddy’s place in the pop canon for most people, and most people (maybe even the man himself) would describe its endless delays and meager sales as disappointing. But there is gold here, people – buried, deep down, in songs with preposterous titles like “Ass on the Floor” and “Hello Good Morning.” Follow me in giving it a try.

In short, I’m a writer for Billboard.com, and a New Jersey guy who moved to New York in mid-2010. The world is vast and goofy, and I’m trying to figure shit out. Until then, I’ll write about pop culture!

The name of this blog is a reference to the Clipse mixtape series “We Got It 4 Cheap.” Listen to the best song on “We Got It 4 Cheap Vol. 2″ here.

You can find my daily news reporting here, and you can find a collection of my personal clips here. This blog is a forum for some of my non-professional writing, because hey why not I LURVE writing! I’ll be posting long-form essays, some fiction, maybe some cool videos that I like and would post to a Tumblr if I even had a Tumblr.

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