Maybe it just seems this way because we were ridiculously spoiled the past couple of years, but 2011 wasn’t a great year for music. A lot of the highly anticipated albums disappointed, not a lot of amazing new artists emerged, and large swaths of the indiesphere disappeared in a haze of nostalgic stupor. That said, my view on things is that if you think good music isn’t being made any more, then you’re not looking very hard, and there were plenty of fantastic songs released this year. In that spirit, I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time picking and writing up a list of my favorite songs of 2011. Over the next few days we’ll be posting the full list in five installments. For now, here’s numbers 50 through 41 (Spotify playlist).

50. If I Had a Gun… – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Listen to this song by Beady Eye, Liam Gallagher’s post-Oasis band. Never before have I heard a song and been able to pinpoint its inspiration so precisely. Not that it wasn’t obvious already, but Liam wants to be John Lennon so badly that he’s copying the Beatle’s entire discography, mediocre honky-tonk piano and all. It’s not a good song, but Liam almost makes it work by sheer force of will. By contrast, this song off his brother Noel’s first solo album since Oasis’ demise is self-assured, understated and a much better piece of songwriting. If nothing else, “If I Had a Gun…” confirms what many observers have thought for a long time: Noel was always the key musician in Oasis, and he’ll be just fine on his own.

49. You Are a Tourist – Death Cab for Cutie

I’ve never been a huge Death Cab fan, so naturally I didn’t embrace their latest album Codes and Keys, which is by all accounts an inessential contribution to their discography. Songs like “Underneath the Sycamore” are so predictably DCFC-esque I literally thought they’d already been released on Plans six years ago. “You Are a Tourist”, though, bursts with vitality thanks to a twitchy lead guitar line, an appropriate amount of vocal loop experimentation, and a refreshingly mature set of lyrics about alienation and disappointment. In the run-up to Codes and Keys, a lot of commentators talked up Ben Gibbard’s more self-assured songwriting following his marriage to Zooey Deschanel. The marriage is over, but at least this song remains.

48. Raid – Pusha T (feat. Pharrell & 50 Cent)

In which Pusha T raps over the only good beat on his Fear of God mixtape (seriously, there’s a track based around a “Bohemian Rhapsody” sample and a Soulja Boy freestyle on here). Pharrell brings a brilliant jazzy piano line to “Raid”, and Pusha T takes the opportunity to lay down a couple of solid verses on drug culture. Pharrell tries to act hard like Pusha on the hook, which comes across as more cute than menacing, and 50 Cent delivers a good performance which makes me realize that I hadn’t heard anything from 50 Cent in forever (aside from news relating to his silly feud with Rick Ross).

47. She – Tyler, the Creator (feat. Frank Ocean)

Spoiler alert: This is the first of four appearances Frank Ocean will make on this list. I’ll hold off on praising him too much for now, but let me say that he deserves a lot of credit for bringing some much-needed light to not just this song, but to the album it appears on. Goblin, Tyler the Creator’s first commercial release, is a real slog to get through. It’s nearly 80 minutes long, most of the beats have the same hazy, lethargic sound, and through most of the playtime Tyler alternates between self-hatred and juvenile aggression. On “She”, Ocean’s verse about a hook-up interrupted by ninjas is silly and clever, and his hook helps give the track a rich R&B vibe that separates it from the rest of the album’s skeletal rap. Tyler’s no slouch here, either. Much of Goblin strives for a level of uncomfortable soul-bearing akin to a hip-hop Pinkerton, but only on the two tracks with three-letter names does that make for a pleasant listening experience (“Her” covers very similar ground later on the album, but suffers a bit for Ocean’s absence). A couple of unfortunate C-words and throwaway lines about necrophilia keep me from fully embracing this song, but they serve as an important reminder that in a lot of ways Tyler’s still just a messed-up teenager, albeit one capable of creating great music.

46. Glass Tambourine – Wild Flag

As much as I love music that blurs genre boundaries and creates entirely new sonic experiences, there’s a lot of joy to be had listening to genre music executed very well. That pretty much describes the whole of Wild Flag’s self-titled debut, but the psychedelic rocker “Glass Tambourine” is particularly good, hitting all of the same notes that bands like Jefferson Airplane did in the late 60’s. A hard-hitting guitar riff here, some cult-like backing vocals there, and a hazy keyboard interlude that immediately rams into a brick wall of screeching guitars. Throughout, singer Mary Timony plays the same role that Grace Slick did forty years ago, that of a teacher leading her listeners through a brave new world. Rather than LSD, Wild Flag’s world is built upon a deep and abiding love for rock and roll.

44. Rox in the Box/Burying Davy – The Decemberists (tie)

By pure happenstance these songs ended up next to each other when I compiled this list, so I figured it would be redundant to give them separate items. That actually works out perfectly, because although these two songs are quite different in sound and content, my thoughts on them are pretty similar. Over the past few years the Decemberists have begun to stray from the baroque indie rock they made their names playing and have dabbled in different genres. On 2008’s The Hazards of Love they incorporated influences of metal and prog rock, and on their latest album The King Is Dead they barreled headfirst into country and folk. Apart from a few unfortunate missteps (*ahem*), The King Is Dead is a pleasant but forgettable album. Only on “Rox in the Box” were the Decemberists really able to incorporate country into their sound in a way that doesn’t totally consume it. In my opinion, they were able to adapt their sound to metal on The Hazards of Love much more effectively, mostly because the Decemberists have always favored drama and grand gestures, and metal is nothing if not dramatic. “Burying Davy”, off the odds and ends EP Long Live the King, is a song firmly in the Hazards style. Chris Funk gets a chance to really let loose, building an unsettling landscape of distorted, screaming guitars appropriate for the funeral depicted in the song.

43. How Can U Luv Me – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

As cultural critics have argued to great buzz in the blogosphere, indie music in 2011 has seen a widespread and annoying trend towards overt, lazy nostalgia. It’s hard for me to get terribly annoyed by this trend, though. I don’t care how many mediocre bands like Tennis pop out of the woodworks, as long as we get a few songs like “How Can U Luv Me”. This song borrows all the best bits of disco—catchy falsetto melodies, hyperactive basslines, and ridiculously danceable beats—and cuts out everything else. Does it have staying power? Will anyone remember Unknown Mortal Orchestra in five years? Who cares? Shut up and dance.

42. Holing Out – Yuck

On an album full of good-to-really-good 90’s-style alt rock, “Holing Out” stands out by cranking it up to eleven. The folks in Yuck have an ear for catchy melodies, but it’s the lead guitar line that makes this track, a furious assault of wah pedal and alt-strumming that gets both the heart and the fist pumping. The second verse brings respite, only for the lead to come back with an even-more-intense riff. Listening to this song takes a lot out of you, but it’s worth every moment.

41. Make Some Noise – The Beastie Boys

The Beastie Boys may be pushing 40 at this point, but after hearing this song I could see video of them committing acts of vandalism with the kids from Odd Future and not even blink. Part of that’s due to the great beat and incredibly funky keyboard riff underlying the track, but it helps that MCA can still unleash lines like this: “Pass me the scalpel, I’ll make an incision/I’ll cut off the part of your brain that does the bitching/Put it in formaldehyde and put it in the shelf/And you can show it to your friends and say “that’s my old self”. Hodgy Beats wishes he could write a diss that great.