Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

Kind of funny that the Cohen album is called "Old Ideas"

Bit late to the jazz picks discussion, but the Mojo top 5 sucks. Jazzwise isn't much better. That's the sort of boring, noodly stuff that gives people the idea that jazz is only something you listen to when you put up your clubbing shoes. Surely I can't be the only person to find most of what ECM puts out to be terribly polite and unexciting? Although in the Jazzwise list I do like the Django Bates album - ingenious, but not too clever, with some delightfully skewed rhythms and strong tunes. Robert Glasper seems to be hailed as some kind of hip-hop bad ass, but his stuff just sounds like the most polite end of 90s nu-soul, with a few post-bop flourishes. Roller Trio got the Mercury Nod, but it's has that problem with a lot of the UK rock/electronic influenced jazz - it's a bit muso and seems reluctant to kick up into top gear. It's not that everything has to be Thing style skronk 'n roll, but the best jazz-rock crossover stuff is that which taps into the ecstatic spirit of the music, rather than simply borrow some formal tropes.
Cherry Thing isn't the best jazz album of the year, but when it works it's fantastic and I'm glad to see it cropping up on a few lists. As Ward Fowler said, it's not easy to pull of vocals and free jazz, but they nail it. Some of the best bits are the quieter tracks - the Suicide and MF Doom covers - but it's great to hear Neneh wailing while Gustafsson and co tear it up. I've still to hear the Thing & Barry Guy LP (ltd edition) but the live clips online are fantastic. Barry Guy's duo album with Liudus Makunis (sp?) is fantastic too - dude is one of the most inventive and powerful bassists around.
Burning Ambulance list is pretty great (Charles Gayle LP fantastic) but no Brotzmann beyond Full Blast? He's had an incredible year and the Yatagarasu album is one of the best things he's ever done (the solo & Trio Roma double with Massimo Pupillo and Paal Nilsson-Love is incredible too. I appreciate that a lot of these come out on tiny labels and often get overlooked. I expect that one will probably get into the Wire's top 50 though. William Parker's Essence of Ellington and the David S Ware/Planetary Unknown live LP would be in there too. The latter was my number one, and not just for sentimental reasons - truly exhilarating, spiritual music.

Clarification: by 'in there too' I mean my personal favourites, not the Wire list. Oh for an edit function...

Emily, that Thing/Otomo Yoshihide album is absolutely fantastic. Came out late last year on Smalltown Superjazz along with a (also great) Jim O'Rourke/Thing jam - both were recorded at the same venue in Tokyo. Yoshihide on guitar rather than turntable - and he absolutely shreds it. Might give it a spin later on, now you mention it.

Other good Thing related things this year... Paal Nilssen-Love has been one of this year's MVPs. In addition to the aforementioned Brotz platter, he's on the butt-kickin' new Lean Left (w Ken Vandermark & the Ex guitarists), the terrific Bobby Bradford set on No Business and no doubt a whole bunch of other stuff I've missed. Mats and Paal also did a very enjoyable record with Ethopian krar player Mesele Asmamaw. Oh, and latest Fire! album with Oren Ambarchi is a monster, with some primordial shrieks and baritone growls from Gustafsson and amazing guitar from OA which sounds like the Large Hadron Collider.

Bonerism is my deliberate typo to see who is C&P. A bit like a phantom street on a map.

Phantom boners of ILM

Afropop Worldwide hints at their list:

Fri. 11/30 10p: Join us for a festive Afropop Worldwide ritual, as Georges Collinet sits down with Banning Eyre to mull over the best new releases of 2012.

We'll hear from K'Naan, Staff Benda Bilili, Sierra Leone's Refugee Allstars, Mokoomba, Ondatropica, Alex Cuba, The Very Best, Janka Nabay.... As usual, Georges and Banning will run out of time long before they run out of tunes

would not vote P&J in a heartbeat if urged by the great old discarded staffers or asked to back some viable alternative but otherwise i just gotta. if everyone stopped voting in P&J the 'protest' wouldn't get any widespread recognition and the only real result would be Pitchfork taking an even bigger piece of the year end narrative pie.

― trinidad jokes (some dude), Thursday, November 29, 2012 6:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this

Also, is there a legacy act that put out an album this year (including Neil Young's two!) that Uncut didn't put on their list?

When UK funky came about I said somewhere that a huge part of why I liked it was its very specific disinterest in sound design frippery!

i don't know if this is true for the early days of uk funky, given how much it drew on house music with impeccable sound design!

as for P&J, i guess i'm kinda with some dude except the idea of the essays being written by the current staff gives me the heebie-jeebies

xp
No John Cale and that was the best of the old timers.

When UK funky came about I said somewhere that a huge part of why I liked it was its very specific disinterest in sound design frippery!

i don't know if this is true for the early days of uk funky, given how much it drew on house music with impeccable sound design!

― #YOLO ONO (lex pretend), Friday, November 30, 2012 9:58 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm its classy high-end sound design was part of the appeal!

and it was specifically a contrast to the grime that preceded it!

There was a bit of both, the Perempay & Dee/Crazy Cousins end was pretty glossy but "high end sound design" is probably overstating it a bit. A lot of it was pretty rudimentary in its production values though although maybe not to grime levels.

otm its classy high-end sound design was part of the appeal!

sure but on the super clean & sculpted tip, opposite end of the spectrum from anything dubby/blurry/post-burial etc, right?

For what its worth, Dylan and Womack both have a fair shot of making my Top 10.

friday, 16:15, can i be bothered

nah it's all yours finney

This year's best old-timers: Cohen, Cale, Womack, Cooder, Byrne and Dr John.

the thing that gets me about the old-timer lists is that they don't even acknowledge young fresh'n'new artists in the same genres! like i'd love to see the mirel wagner album get some EOY love but i haven't seen it crop up anywhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciBpDFjzl6I

xpost I will cheerfully shout for ZZ Top in the best old-timers category. But they are not respected and deep old timers, so no one gives a shit.

xp You're missing the point - Uncut don't want young fresh'n'new. They want legends who are (a) still alive and (b) not disgracing themselves.

Death to Young Fogeys

nb dorian i think you'll REALLY like that mirel wagner song/album

No Scott Walker in the Uncut list, do they hate his record or is this more of a timing thing?

Timing I reckon.

xp I'll certainly check out Mirel Wagner Lex. Thanks for the link.

Imho none of Byrne's melodies on the new one rival Talking Heads in their prime.

I just ordered THIS: http://shop-hellsheadbangers.com/item.asp?PID=26326 thanks to Scott posting a video on Youtube. It better be good!

Vincent steals the show on Love This Giant. Byrne's lyrics have had a tendency to come off a little trite and facile in recent years, and that puts me off a bit. I think it's a good album - solid 3.5 stars - and it helps I got given it on my birthday, so I made a point of acquainting myself with it properly. Some of the horn work is exceptional.

I started a Mirel Wagner thread early in the year when I heard No Death, but it kind of petered out quickly. She'll certainly be on my ilm ballot.

"Some of the horn work is exceptional."

You are Allan Jones and I claim my five pounds.

lex i adore that mirel wagner album, but for some reason i thought it came out last year?

It came out last year in Scandinavia/Europe, but this year in US/UK iirc.

Yeah the Mirel Wagner is great. Goth as hell though and weirdly brittle sounding so I don't feel the urge to listen to it very often, but when I'm in the mood it's amazing.

That Uncut top ten is quite the old man list, 80% if you count Grizzly Bear and Jack White as honorary geezers.

Ha! Thought the exact same thing re: Jack White when I read the list. That said, it's another one that might make my top 10. I, too, had a pretty geezer friendly year, it seems.

oh the smallpeople recordhas Black Ice on it, that was one of my favs of last year....rest of album seems pretty understated, nothing partic jumping out but nice enough

i'm not entirely comfortable with the idea that all these ancient dudes, as much as i like them, are making more important music than people of my generation. maybe this year is just a fluke in that regard but it looks a bit like laziness on the part of the writers to shoe-in so many classic names. i want year-end lists to point me towards cool new artists i missed, not remind me that bob dylan is awesome for the 900th time

wow mirel wagner! neverheardofher!

is the whole album that good?

everything on the album sounds like that, in the best way (and it's a pretty short album too)

Yeah, it's a pretty uniform album soundwise, but some songs are better than others.

Why, every year, do people bother complaining that a magazine unashamedly aimed at middle aged white men picks albums of the year aimed at middle aged white men? It's like saying Good Housekeeping's best Christmas presents guide doesn't have enough bukkake DVDs.

the lists from the narrow specialist mags are easily one of the most interesting things about these threads too

xp lex' complaint was that they magazine unashamedly aimed at middle ages white men missed out on an album by a new artist middle aged white men would love because they are preoccupied with releases by old artists though

Also, Uncut used to cover a slightly more adventurous range of music. Martha Redbone is a new name for me. It sounds decent, certainly on par with the other folky singer-songwriter geezer type of albums being overrated. However, and this may not be fair, but it would sound more appropriate to me softly playing in the background of a cafe, yuppie coctail party or corporate event than on my stereo.

That Go-Kart Mozart album is quite an ordeal at 17 songs. It's just jarring for me to hear Lawrence's voice over the quirky, too-precious electro-pop after being a fan of Felt for so long. The Norman list got me excited about Gnod, BEAK>, Death And Vanilla and Cold Pumas, but none really stood out to me.

When I get home I'm gonna check out The Helio Sequence - Negotiations. Comparisons to Eno, Talk Talk, Roedelius and Manuel Göttsching have me interested.

xpost Was more directed at ciderpress than Lex.

My guess would also be that declining print sales and the continued recession forces titles like Uncut to retreat even further into the safety of the core demographic. There aren't any new sales to be found, so it's more about keeping old readers.

That said, if Uncut's list was the result of an unmanaged vote, with no editorial postproduction, then it's spectacularly elderly. I know plenty of their writers personally like much more outlying stuff than that list suggests.

Declaration of interest: I was involved in the Guardian's list. There was a suggestion this year that it be managed, but thankfully we decided on an unmanaged vote in the end.

If The Helio Sequence still sound like they used to, you're going to be disappointed. xp

jarring for me to hear Lawrence's voice over the quirky, too-precious electro-pop

Where have you been for the last... 15 years? That's what he's been doing for ages. I like the new album, not sure yet if it'll make my top 25, but it's pretty charming in that Lawrence-y way.

Don't want to put you pn the spot here, but in what direction would a managed Guardian list be likely to go? How do you think it would have been different?

I did hear one other Go-Kart Mozart album and couldn't get into it either. I didn't say I was surprised. Maybe I hoped he'd changed his sound again. It just sounds wrong.