| Featured Albums: |
 | Art Brut
Brilliant! Tragic!
Cooking Vinyl “Play what you know!” Eddie Argos shouts during “Clever Clever Jazz,” the song that not only opens Brilliant! Tragic!, but sets up its meta context as well. Art Brut may still be extremely self-aware, but the band spends plenty of time trying new things on this album, and they picked a crucial time to do it. Despite the very real charms of It’s a Bit Complicated and Art Brut vs. Satan, it often felt like the band was trying to recapture the brilliance of Bang Bang Rock & Roll with diminishing returns.
| Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Lady Gaga
Born This Way
Interscope Not long into the ceaseless promotional parade for Born This Way, Lady Gaga’s second full-length record and easily the most anticipated record of the 2010s, a certain sense of inevitability crept into play. It was inevitable that Born This Way would be an escalation of The Fame, it was inevitable that Gaga would go where others feared to tread, it was inevitable that it would be bigger than any other record thrown down in 2011, both in its scale and success. This drumbeat, pulsating as insistently as Eurodisco, is so persistent that there is an inevitable feeling of anticlimax upon hearing Born This Way for the first time and realizing that Lady Gaga has channeled her grand ambitions into her message, and not her music.
| Pop, Dance-Pop, Urban |
 | Thurston Moore
Demolished Thoughts
Matador Though it’s somewhat surprising Thurston Moore and Beck didn’t work together prior to Demolished Thoughts, their collaboration lives up to its promise, delivering an album of psychedelic chamber folk that is the perfect meeting of both artists’ mellow sides.
| American Underground, Indie Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Experimental Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Brad Paisley
This Is Country Music
Arista Consciously backpedaling from the all-encompassing embrace of American Saturday Night, Brad Paisley narrows his definition of what constitutes modern country on his seventh collection of new songs, This Is Country Music.
| Contemporary Country, Neo-Traditionalist Country |
 | Aerosmith
Tough Love: Best of the Ballads
Geffen | Album Rock, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock, Arena Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Pop-Metal |
 | Against Me!
Total Clarity
Fat Wreck Chords | Alternative/Indie Rock, Punk Revival, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Joseph Arthur
The Graduation Ceremony
Lonely Astronaut | Adult Alternative Pop/Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Ash Black Bufflo
Andasol
Knitting Factory | Indie Electronic, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Instrumental Rock |
 | Frankie Ballard
Frankie Ballard
Warner Bros. | Contemporary Country, Country-Pop |
 | David Bazan
Strange Negotiations
Barsuk | Indie Rock, Alternative Singer/Songwriter, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Giovanni Bellucci
Liszt: Paraphrases d'Opéras de Bellini et Verdi
Lontano | 19th Century Piano Music |
 | Boris
Attention Please
Sargent House | Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Boris
Heavy Rocks
Sargent House | Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Brooklyn Rider
Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass
Orange Mountain Music | Contemporary Chamber Music |
 | Kate Bush
Director's Cut
| Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Carter's Chord
Wild Together
Show Dog Nashville | |
 | Rosanne Cash
The Essential Rosanne Cash
Sony Legacy | |
 | Darwin Deez
Darwin Deez
| Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | EAR PWR
EAR PWR
Carpark | Indie Rock, Lo-Fi, Indie Electronic, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Julia Fischer
Poème
Decca | Modern Music for Violin and Orchestra |
 | Foster the People
Torches
Sony | Indie Electronic, Indie Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Friendly Fires
Pala
XL | Indie Electronic, Indie Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Glee
Glee: The Music, Vol. 6
Sony | Soundtracks, TV Soundtracks, Cast Recordings, TV Music |
 | Human Eye
They Came from the Sky
| Neo-Psychedelia, Punk Revival, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Jadakiss
I Love You (A Dedication To My Fans): The Mixtape
Def Jam | |
 | Jonas Kaufmann
Verismo Arias
Decca | 19th Century Vocal Music |
 | King Creosote/Jon Hopkins
Diamond Mine
Domino | Indie Folk, Alternative/Indie Rock |
 | Stephen Marley
Revelation Part 1: The Root of Life
Republic | Contemporary Reggae |
 | Jimbo Mathus/The Tri-State Coaltion
Confederate Buddha
Memphis Int'l | |
 | The Men
Leave Home
| Post-Hardcore, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Noise-Rock |
 | Neal Morse
Testimony Two
Metal Blade | Prog-Rock, CCM, Contemporary Christian |
 | Motopony
Motopony
| Indie Electronic, Indie Pop, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock |
 | Motorpsycho
Roadwork, Vol. 4: Intrepid Skronk
Rune Grammaphon NW | Hard Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Heavy Metal, Alternative Pop/Rock |
