The 2011 Pitchfork Music Festival took place this past weekend at Union Park in Chicago. Passes for the event sold out in one day. The lineup included Animal Collective, Curren$y, Das Racist, Guided by Voices, DJ Shadow, Fleet Foxes, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, Deerhunter, Odd Future Wolfgang Kill Them All, TV on the Radio, Superchunk and many more. If you couldn’t make it to the show, no worries, we got you. Check out pics from the event and take a listen to our 2011 Pitchfork playlist after the jump.

It’s that time of year again, when we look back on the year and recount our favorite memories. Our favorite movies, our favorite TV shows, and even our favorite music, and this year, we had a lot of great albums. But don’t worry, I won’t be going on and on about how great the new Kanye album is, nor will try and debate with you Pinkerton loving elitists how great the new Weezer albums were because it’d be like talking to a brick wall. What I will do, however, is tell you about the 30 best albums from this year you need to hear.

As long as people continue to make music, other people will make year end lists chronicling it. Artist of the year? Song of the year? Album of the year? Depending on how much you care about these things, there are literally dozens of different places for you to find out who and what, in very esteemed professionals’ opinions, have taken these top honors (S… Click to read more