There had been abuse in my family, but it was mostly musical in nature. I don't want any of this lovers lament crap I want something peppy, something up temple. I want something snappy. listening to new music 365 days a year we hear it all the good the, the bad, and the ugly.

Now we winnow down that massive list to the best of the best.

I'm Jim De Oragadas from W.B.E.Z. and Columbia College.

And I'm Greg Kott from the Chicago Tribune.

It's time to reveal our top albums of 2011.

That's coming up on Sound Opinions.

You're listening to Sound Opinions and time now to count down the best albums of 2011. Greg, we live for this show.

Absolutely, Jim, we make no excuses about it either. This is an extremely biased

set of lists that we're going to be putting out here today, our favorite albums of 2011.

We don't make any pretense about the idea that we've listened to all the tens of millions of

albums that have been released, but these are the ones we listen to the most that gave us the most pleasure this year.

Greg, as usual with these kinds of shows, we toss a coin in the air to determine which of us get to go first.

I think in honor of doing the best albums of the year, we should put on the coin the very worst album of the year, possibly one of the worst albums of all time.

Lou Reed and Metallica's Lulu. We both hate it. I don't know when I've heard a record that bad. So let's put Lou Reed on one side Greg and I'll claim Uncle Lou you have Metallica on the other side the coin is in the air

Hey, it's Uncle Lou. I get to go first. We have a little bit of overlap on our list, so I'm

actually going to start with number seven out of my top ten. An album called Birds

and Drums by a group from Reims, France called Bewitched Hands.

Greg, you and I had a wonderful experience midway through the year when we were at a radio conference

in Wilmington, Delaware,

and they were playing us tracks.

And we were supposed to do that silly thing,

where you sit there and explain,

...