“Tapping back into symbolic power and the mystical meaning of these things is, I think, a really important practice… on a personal level, it’s just looking at the inner meaning of things more.” – Taraka Larson

“Sometimes when you’re feeling actually darked out you, maybe want to do the opposite; you don’t want to indulge too much in the darkness… it’s just the ebb and flow.” – Aaron Chapman

“Synthesizers were finally fully integrated into ['80s] pop culture, music and movies. It was a unique period of musical experimentation in a very broad context.” – Sean Haley of Com Truise

“A lot of the inspiration for the record came from us being on tour and us growing up the last couple of years on the road – [which is] pretty much in the most unconventional way possible.” – Ned Russin

“Our overall album art concept is simple ~ each individual album has different art that’s unique and only YOU have it. So if we’ve given out thousands of these things, then that means we’ve made over 1000 different art pieces, and those different people are the owners of that.” - Sam Chown

This in-depth feature highlights how well-executed album artwork can go beyond genre lines to expand into territories of philosophical, thematic, and conceptual significance. Perhaps now more than ever, album cover artwork plays a vital role in music.

A staff-compiled list of some of our favorite songs from the year 2011, in no particular order or with allegiance to any particular style.

A staff-compiled list of some of our favorite songs from the year 2011, in no particular order or with allegiance to any particular style.

A spectrum of musical madness that represents our tastes from large to small, mainstream to obscure, spaced out to reasonable. There’s no way in bloody hell you’ll love every release on this list unless you have a million personalities living in your puny body, but chances are great that you’ll discover some excellence you never knew you loved.

“Selling art doesn’t bother me. Making insipid, vacuous art bothers me. The cult of personality bothers me especially because I feel as though I have very little to offer. I’m a bad self-promoter, and I’m constantly reminded of how bad a trait that is for an artist to have.” – Jeremy Greenspan

“It’s outside and somewhere; we don’t know where is, and in my lyrics, I work with these kind of places — places that don’t exist.” - Soley

“Charting the development of themes in linear time… is, in fact, a very idiosyncratic and Western way of looking at music. But if you take a longer, wider look at the history of humans making music, you find strong traditions all over the world of music that unfolds around a central point and illuminates the contours of a single eternal moment.” – Emily Pothast

“For me, it has always been easier to discuss the heavy subjects in song… it gives me an opportunity to immerse myself in it when I don’t otherwise normally do that.” – Jordan Dreyer

“A lot of my songwriting comes from a desire to open myself up to nature and the universe, experiences with love, my subconscious, childhood memories, imagination and various cocktails of each.” – Christopher Lynch

“I was so out of my mind from exhaustion that I experienced a slight hallucination. Everything slowed down and I began to notice how the vibrations of the lawnmower disrupted the tiny Kentucky blue grass ecosystem. The plants and creatures were all moving in a chaotic motion, bouncing with the rytthm of the lawnmower engine. Ladybugs were flipped onto their backs as they attempted to get proper footing. Grasshoppers were catapulted backwards. Loose clippings of grass and dandelions were spewed into the air. And it all was the result of waves and vibrations.” - Christopher Arcella

“I want to confront existence itself; I want to shout into the infinite void.”