Music: The Top 50 Albums of 2011 #50 - #46

Now that my conscience is clear (if I hadn't managed to get a mention in for that Hooray For Earth track, I would probably have bludgeoned myself to death in my sleep) it's time to crack on with the list proper.

And so, gents and ladies, I present you with part one of my Top 50 Albums of 2011: #50 - #46

#50. Bright Eyes – The People’s Key

If this is to be the last Bright Eyes album (as Conor never seems to tire of telling us it will be) then it makes for a fitting eulogy. A little more discipline and a more clearly defined through-line might have made for a better album, but there were few like it in 2011 to quietly burrow their way into your head and stay there.

#49. Woods - Sun and Shade

It's starting to get a bit silly, this: 'Oh, is that another great release from Woods? It must be April again.' After At Echo Lake's breakthrough success, Sun and Shade is more of the same, interspersed with lengthy psychedelic freak-out passages. All of which is much of a muchness, really: this is just another great Woods record.

#48. Washed Out - Within and Without

Like all the best EP's, 2009's Life of Leisure established a signature sound beautifully but didn't do a great deal with it. With his debut proper Ernest Greene stepped up to the plate admirably, delivering the quintessential chillwave album and possibly liberating the genre from ridicule for good.

#47. Cat’s Eyes – Cat’s Eyes

Confirmation, if any were needed, that Faris Badwan lives and breathes this shit. The decision to pair up with soprano/composer/mulit-instrumentalist Rachel Zeffira was inspired, as was making their live debut in the Vatican, but what stands out most about Cat's Eyes is the impeccable, lush production.

#46. Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow

Aerial was, by all accounts, a misfire. *Oooh* too soon? This, however, is much more like it. Though a world away from the pop bombast of Hounds of Love - it opens with what basically amounts to half an hour of piano and voice improvisation - 50 Words for Snow is gripping and beautiful in a way that few other artists are capable of.