I’m Stan Payne. I’m 36 years old and live in Middlebury, VT. I do photography for a living. I grew up with punk, hardcore, grunge and metal music. This year have been a good year for old school punk, hardcore, grunge and metal because of new releases and reissues. I have an incredible music collection and I am still expanding my vinyl record collection as well as CD’s. Thanks to Pure Pop. I personally think that vinyls sound a whole lot better than CD’s and MP3’s. Vinyls are still recorded in audiophile. CD’s today are getting “too loud” due to the “loudness” war and MP3’s usually sound “lossy” and horrible. Vinyls are slowly making a comeback.

Hey, the calendar year begins and ends in the Wintertime. Sue me if I went a bit overboard with the seasonal approach. I’m a “right music for the present situation” type of guy. I like to dj in the car on trips (who doesn’t?) and pass music to my parents I think/hope they’ll enjoy. I still make mix CDs for driving around. I ended up running the sound for my sister’s wedding this Fall and snuck a Kurt Vile song into the playlist. Subtle. And when my fiancee completed the entire marathon, it was with the playlist I made for her shuffle. Inspirational.

That said, this year marked an odd migration to Florida by most of my family. Visiting there, as a native Vermonter, tends to highlight how synced I feel with regular seasonal change – change with a 90 degree swing, not the trifling matter of 90 and sunny versus 70 and sunny (possible exception: hurricanes – oh wait…) So for my first ever YearEnder List I went concept-heavy. There were other songs and albums I would rate as more innovative, challenging and provocative. I make no claims of originality with these choices – especially for my demographic. Nor do I have the time/will to mine for the hidden gems not yet trumpeted by the cool-hunters. Quite simply: these were the ones I’ve timestamped 2011.

A list of other, more off beat obsessions are available here
& image dig here:
http://oblongorigami.tumblr.com/
FOOD & FREEDOM!

Honorable mentions for 2011 include:

Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital
John Maus – We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
Future Islands – On the Water
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
My Morning Jacket – Circuital
Miracle Fortress – Was I the Wave?
Wye Oak – Civilian

I am a history and secondary education major at St. Michael’s College and I love to get my music fix at Pure Pop. Thank you all for your magnificent service and for pumping out such great works to the public this year.

Hi, I’m Josh, and I’m easily the most boring person to post a year-ender on this blog. I live up in St. Albans in a house with my wife, two kids, and a super old, super fat pekingese that looks like a chicken nugget. I work in a cube all day, which obviously sucks, but one of the perks is that I don’t have to talk to anyone and can keep my headphones on all day. So I listen to a lot of music. Oh, and I worked at Pure Pop a few years back. I decided to do a top five electronic albums list for the year, since that’s what I listen to 95% of the time. I’m going to post another five to round out a top ten on Will Ryan’s and my new blog, http://neighborhoodkill.tumblr.com/. Check it out in a few days and it should be on there. Thanks for reading!

My Top 5 non-electronic albums

1. War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
2. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
3. Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong
4. Snowman – Absence
5. Cults – Cults

I work as the media editor for One Thirty BPM (http://onethirtybpm.com) where I write album reviews and host a weekly podcast. I just started a music blog called NeighborhoodKill (http://neighborhoodkill.tumblr.com) with my buddy, and Pure Pop alum, Josh LaClair. We mostly write about records we love out of the techno, bass, house, and hip-hop music scenes. You can also find me at http://psychpunk.net and http://twitter.com/psychpunk where I have opinions about things.

I suppose I’m the resident metalhead at Pure Pop. I work the Sunday afternoon/evening shift. I also do a metal show up at WRUV-FM Burlington called Native Metal. I try to help spread the word about all of the good metal that exists out there to as many people as possible. I keep an open mind, though, and you’ll often find me playing anything but metal in the store.

This year’s been pretty awesome musically. It started off great with a whole slew of albums that have stuck in my playlists throughout the year, but the Summer absolutely SUCKED (seriously, there was nothing good this year). It’s picked up in the last few months, though. Here’s a few honorable mentions:

Bjork – Biophilia
M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Subrosa – No Help for the Mighty Ones
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Belong
Earth – Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I
Destroyer – Kaputt
Abysmal Dawn – Levelling the Plane of Existence
Xerath – II
Ocoai – The Electric Hand
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Mirror Traffic

This was a great year in terms of new music. Some other albums I really liked this year were Smother- Wild Beasts, The Big Roar-The Joy Formidable, Dreams Come True-CANT, Gloss Drop-Battles, Dye it Blond-Smith Westerns, Circuital-My Morning Jacket, Belong-The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Nine Types of Light-TV on the Radio.

As for me, I am a life-long Vermonter and currently a student at St. Michael’s College, studying music and journalism (maybe philosophy too). I just wanted to extend a big thank you to Pure Pop for being the best damn record store I could ask for. You guys make buying music the experience it should be.

I’m a workin’ girl at le Pop, and a student at UVM studying how to read (I’m coming along nicely, might I add). I’m also the music director at WRUV-FM and there’s so much snazzy music this year that my head nearly exploded…

Therefore, honorable mentions include:

Bjork/ Biophilia
Black Keys/ El Camino
My Morning Jacket/ Circuital
M83/ Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

my name is greg davis.
i am a musician/composer from burlington VT.
i love music.
http://www.autumnrecords.net