If the 2010 Latin Grammys are any indicator, last year was a big year for Spanish language music. This year? Maybe, not so much.

Puerto Rican duo Calle 13 dominated the award ceremony with their fourth release, Entren Los Que Quieren, while Shakira's Sale El Sol earned the Colombian hip-shaker Person of the Year and Best Female Pop Album honors. Both albums released late last year, and infected radio airwaves and nightclubs alike in 2011.

Although this year may not have been strikingly remarkable in terms of commercial releases, it still yielded some pretty awesome jams.

Charles Bradley

The idea of The Beatles, The Pixies, Tom Waits, and Elton John sharing a stage is a pretty awesome one -- though a little chronologically challenged.

You can still pretend, though, tomorrow night at Crescent Ballroom as Dry River Yacht Club, Born Loser and the Hangers On, Colorstore, and Painted Faces will take on songs from each, respectively, as part of Cover the Crescent.

As our year-end coverage winds down, we thought these ten examples of great 2011 cover songs would be of service to the bands and fans attending Cover the Crescent.

St. Vincent

Maybe I'm too indecisive for my own good, but year-end lists are always a challenge. Most Up on the Sun writers posted their lists over a week ago, and I'm just now getting around to finishing mine.

My top five was easy to pick, but narrowing 40-or-so albums down to a top 10 was difficult. A lot of artists I like released new material this year; I enjoyed the new Wilco and Blink-182 albums, but didn't think they were top 10 worthy.

There were plenty of great records I left out, too. So here's a quick set of honorable mentions: Cults, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Danger Mouse And Daniele Luppi's Rome, Feist, and Givers.

Melissa Fossum

M83 wasn't #1, but I like this picture a lot.

I covered most of these shows for Up on the Sun, using words, photos, videos, or some combination of the three. I spent a few too many nights working through the sunrise, but you know what? I'd do it all again, even if it was at the expense of my first DSLR camera.

I'd like to say Buckcherry broke it, but in reality, I took way more pictures than my poor Canon Rebel could handle. At least now I have a fancy schmancy 7D with video capabilities.

My final concert tally would have been a bit higher if I wasn't in a nasty car accident in early October. I'm bummed I missed out on artists like St. Vincent and CSS, but hey, there's always next year.

Honorable mentions go out to X, Andrew Jackson Jihad, Ben Folds, Cake/Calexico, and Rush. Check out my top 10 concerts of 2011 after the jump.

Andrew Jackson Jihad

Okay. I'm done. Spent. No more lists.

The reissues list was hard. The show list was hard. The songs and national albums lists were hard.

But this one? This one was the toughest. Phoenix often gets bashed for not being "a music town." We're not Austin or Chicago or New York. Who cares? Anyone who's actually looking for good music in Phoenix can find it.

They'll find more than they can condense into a Top 15 list, even. Here are the 15 Arizona releases -- singles, EPs, LPs -- that moved me most in 2011. I can't wait to hear more in 2012.

Peaking Lights

This year I found myself most impacted by extremes, music that was either dark and cathartic or redemptive and positive. I decided to fold my best local picks in with the rest, since they got just as much play as the big-timers on my car stereo and living room receiver.

Ty Segall

Is it just me, or was 2011 weird? Like, really weird?

Lou Reed and Metallica made an album together. It was weird. Odd Future brought to the surface nagging questions about homophobia, race, and pop music ethics. That was weird, too. Lots of people hated on or loved Lana Del Ray and Kreashawn, but stranger still was the way the two vastly different sounding artists became symbols for some larger, weird trend. (Let's turn to the experts on that one -- Poptimist and the Village Voice).

So it was weird, and that's great. Thinking out loud about music has never been so easy -- type the name of any album you're curious about and you'll find thousands of thoughts for your perusal. You can listen to most stuff on Spotify for free, and not have to feel bad about ripping off the artists too much (they are still getting ripped off, but you don't have to feel as bad knowing that a fraction of a penny is doing something for someone).

The constant dearth of music presented makes lists like these feel impossible -- there are no doubt amazing, mind-blowing albums that I haven't heard (and potentially won't ever hear), but that's really part of the fun, isn't it? It's why we dig through these year-end lists, it's why we make them. Because weird is good, and weird is everywhere.

Enjoy.

Michael Kiwanuka

I'm already regretting this one. I left so much off this list it hurts, deserving songs from the likes of Atlas Sound, Bon Iver, Bill Callaghan, Wild Flag, Grouper, The Fruit Bats...but that's what the year-end lists are designed to do: make you feel awful about yourself as a critic and music listener.

Just kidding. Have fun with it -- here are my 15 Favorite National (and International) Songs of 2011. Stay tuned for my 15 Favorite National Albums, and on Friday, my 15 Favorite Local Albums.

Bon Iver

If there are two things that I love it's music and lists, which is why I love this time of year. Sure, it's the holidays and that's great, but checking out all of the best of lists from other publications and music journalists is way more fun. It's a lot like fantasy football in a way, but for music nerds. (We should get our own The League-style show. Your move, FX.) You have your draft picks with your favorite albums and you check to see how many other best of lists they show up on. It's sort of a validation of your musical tastes.

This year it was a bit of a challenge coming up with my top ten favorite albums. While there was some really great music that was released this year it was tough to narrow it down to just ten albums. But, I made some tough decisions, and here we are. Game on.

White Denim

So this is the end of 2011, huh? Well, considering around this time next year we're all going to die in some sort of apocalyptic clusterfuck, 2011 was a rather disappointing year for music (even if this was the year we learned Ke$ha has a thing for 'ole Bob Dylan? Who woulda thunk it?) With some exceptions...

MY exceptions. (Just kidding. I'm sure there's some fantastic music I missed this year; feel free to include them in the comments section).