Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

haha someone else gets the Cruel Summer gasface

No Lame Impala in there afaics

I like the idea of Band of Heroes. Are they some Tea Party answer to Band of Horses?

nice to see Grime on a 2012 list, didn't know if that stuff was still being made

No XX or ZZ on that list either

30. 1991 - Azealia Banks

this is a four-track EP, one song of which was her big 2011 hit. how in the world is this being classed alongside albums.

Still super curious about that Dr John album

The next installment of the Fact list is up and starts here if anyone cares:
http://www.factmag.com/2012/12/03/the-50-best-albums-of-2012/22/

eh if an EP has more than 3 songs i think it's fair game for album lists

lol i think there are maybe 3 albums in the entire fact list so far i rate, and a great deal that i hate

also finding out that the price i pay for getting excited about so many of my favs making it into the guardian's 40-11 is being underwhelmed by the top 10

i siiiiiigh

The Wire list has landed:

1. Laurel Halo - Quarantine
2. Sun Araw & M Geddes Gengras meet the Congos - Icon Give Thank
3. Actress - RIP
4. Jakob Ullmann - Fremde Zeit - Addendum
5. Jason Lescalleet - Songs About Nothing
6. CC Hennix & The Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage - Live at the Grimm Museum 1
7. Bob Dylan - Tempest
8. Julia Holter - Ekstasis
9. Carter Tutti Void - Transverse
10. Ricardo Villalobos - Dependent and Happy
11. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
12. Josephine Foster - Blood Rushing
13. Fushitsusha - Mabushii Itazura Na Inori
14. Haino/O'Rourke/Ambarchi - Imikuzushi
15. Death Grips - The Money Store
16. Emptyset - Medium
17. Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland - Black is Beautiful
18. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems
19. V/A - Wandelweiser und so Weiter
20. Morton Feldman - Crippled Symmetry: At June in Buffalo
21. Richard Skelton - Verse of Birds
22. The Bohman Brothers - Back on the Streets
23. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
24. Michael Pisaro and Toshiya Tsunoda - Crosshatches
25. Bass Clef - Reeling Skullways
26. Aaron Dilloway - Modern Jester
27. Killer Mike - RAP Music
28. Shackleton - The Drawbar Organ/Music for the Quiet Hour
29. Rhodri Davies - Wound Response
30. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes
31. Wadada Leo Smith - Ten Freedom Summers
32. Thomas Koner - Novaya Zemlya
33. Annea Lockwood - In our Name
34. Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II
35. Lee Gamble - Diversions 1994-1996
36. Heatsick - Deviation
37. Duane Pitre - Feel Free
38. Raime - Quarter Turns over a Living Line
39. Swans - The Seer
40. Mark Ernestus Presents Jeri-Jeri with Mbene Diatta Seck - Mbeuguel Dafa Nekh
41. Cooly G - Playin' Me
42. Traxman - Da Mind of Traxman
43. DJ Rashad - Teklife Vol. 1: Welcome to the Chi
44. Charles Gayle Trio - Streets
45. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
46. Pye Corner Audio - Sleep Games
47. Peter Cusack - Sounds from Dangerous Places
48. Pelt - Effigy
49. DVA - Pretty Ugly
50. Brotzmann/Satoh/Moriyama - Yatagarasu

eh if an EP has more than 3 songs i think it's fair game for album lists

16 minutes long? barely over 10 minutes of new (to this year) material? i think 6 is the minimum of (normal length) tracks i'd want before classing it alongside an album.

Hahaha that Passion Pit album is terrible

11. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

wow, review copies way in advance for the whole staff?

18. Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

hurrah

i don't think it really matters if a record's lead single came out the year before either! that happens all the time!

the music being by Azealia Banks is a much bigger issue

Is Rolling Stone the only publication to have rated the Nas album so far? I'm aware I probably like it more than most people here but I thought it would placed in more publications even as a token pick.

it's in the fact list

it's alright, wouldn't be in my list but it's a lot better than a lot of stuff that is ending up in these lists

It seems both Heatsick and Helm released albums this year I knew nothing about the existence of. Bah.

The Heatsick one is an EP, I think. It's pretty good!

Re: The Wire

Surprised at the high Dylan placing. Surprised by the low Swans placing.

Guess it's not a surprise, but happy to see

14. Haino/O'Rourke/Ambarchi - Imikuzushi

getting a mention, it's killer-diller.

And does anybody know anything about this? Totally passed me by -

40. Mark Ernestus Presents Jeri-Jeri with Mbene Diatta Seck - Mbeuguel Dafa Nekh

Thanks for posting the Wire list! Top ten for Bob Dylan is the biggest surprise on there for me, but then I haven't heard it or read any reviews of it so there you go.

The Heatsick record is good fun! Have tried the Helm one a few times but it's never really stuck with me.

40. Mark Ernestus Presents Jeri-Jeri with Mbene Diatta Seck - Mbeuguel Dafa Nekh

It's just a 12" with a remix on the B-side. A-side is a pretty good Senegalese Mbalax track with relatively light production tricks.

Here we go:

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

The Wire also has a big reissues list - top 5 is Laurie Spiegel/Can/Pauline Oliveros/Don Cherry/AR Kane - and the usual genre lists, but I'll let someone else type those out...

That reminds me, it's been a bit disappointing to see no mention of the Shangaan Shake album so far. xp

Wait a second, according to my calculations, Josephine Foster and Six Organs of Admittance have both made it to exactly one list?
I have some questions regarding critical abandonment.

one list each, not the same list
Wire and some dad mag iirc?

Nice to find out Annea Lockwood released something this year, but I'm going to back to it later. Definitely not morning listening (nor would I expect it to be).

FACT's top twenty reissues (there's actually forty but i got tired)

20: LAURIE SPIEGEL - THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE (UNSEEN WORLDS)
19: PYROLATOR - AUSLAND (BUREAU B)
18: PARRIS MITCHELL - ‘ALL NIGHT LONG’ (WICKED BASS)
17: DAVID LYNCH & ALAN R. SPLET - ERASERHEAD (SACRED BONES)
16: DREXCIYA - JOURNEY OF THE DEEP SEA DWELLER II / JOURNEY OF THE DEEP SEA DWELLER III (CLONE CLASSIC CUTS)
15: VARIOUS ARTISTS - STRANGE PASSION: EXPLORATIONS IN IRISH POST-PUNK DIY AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1980-1983 (CACHE CACHE / FINDERS KEEPERS)
14: STERAC - SECRET LIFE OF MACHINES: REMASTERED AND REMIXED (100% PURE)
13: ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER - RIFTS (SOFTWARE)
12: THE BURRELL BROTHERS - THE NU GROOVE YEARS: 1988-1992 (RUSH HOUR)
11: CODEINE - WHEN I SEE THE SUN (NUMERO GROUP)
10: RAEKWON - ONLY BUILT 4 CUBAN LINX: THE PURPLE TAPE (GET ON DOWN)
09: BOB CHANCE - IT’S BROKEN (TRUNK)
08: KW GRIFF FEAT. PORKCHOP - ‘BRING IN THE KATZ’ (NIGHT SLUGS)
07: PAPERCLIP PEOPLE / PSYCHE/BFC - THE SECRET TAPES OF DR EICH / ELEMENTS (PLANET E)
06: CLEANERS FROM VENUS - BOX SET VOL. 1 (CAPTURED TRACKS)
05: LEGO FEET - LEGO FEET (SKAM)
04: SLEEP - DOPESMOKER (SOUTHERN LORD)
03: RUFF SQWAD - WHITE LABEL CLASSICS (NO HATS NO HOODS)
02: FRANCIS BEBEY - AFRICAN ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1975-1982 (BORN BAD)
01: MONOTON - MONOTONPRODUKT07 (DESIRE)

15: VARIOUS ARTISTS - STRANGE PASSION: EXPLORATIONS IN IRISH POST-PUNK DIY AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC 1980-1983 (CACHE CACHE / FINDERS KEEPERS)

think my friend's dad features on this. unfortunately not my dad though, he was more into free jazz back then.

I'm listening to it as we speak. Which band?

I'm not sure either of those artists are exactly mainstays on EOY lists, though, are they? Guess I could imagine SOoA on The Wire. But I'd be surprised to see either show up on RS or Spin or P4k in any given year.

Sorry, that was an xpost to La Lechera.

Nas album is really good, definitely suffered in these lists from coming out the same year as the biggest NEW ILLMATIC hype in ages

think it's SM Corporation, xpost

on there twice so they must be good

431 listeners of Last.fm!

on not of

xp Thanks for answering my question. Makes sense, also Rangda. I'm glad Wire still has Josephine Foster's back though because she has never disappointed me from one album to the next. She always totally slays whatever she's singing.

Nas album is really good, definitely suffered in these lists from coming out the same year as the biggest NEW ILLMATIC hype in ages

― RIP Gramp C (some dude), Wednesday, December 5, 2012 9:45 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

no i'm pretty sure people just don't care that much about nas anymore

that too. but it's still better than some of the albums people overrated more in years when they needed Nas more for their genre narratives.

don't think the NPR lists have been posted yet have they? they're just in alphabetical order:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/2012/12/05/166230912/npr-musics-50-favorite-albums-of-2012
http://www.npr.org/blogs/bestmusic2012/166027824/100-favorite-songs

the nas album got quite a lot of hype when it came out so i'm pretty sure that "people" do "care" about nas

For those like me who don't feel like clicking, here's the NPR album list:

Ab-Soul, Control System
Alabama Shakes, Boys And Girls
Alisa Weilerstein, Cello Concertos (Elgar & Carter)
Alt-J, An Awesome Wave
Andy Stott, Luxury Problems
Astro, Astro
Berlin Philharmonic, St. Matthew Passion
Meek Mill, Dreamchasers 2
Bobby Womack, The Bravest Man In The Universe
Bomba Estereo, Elegancia Tropical
Brooklyn Rider, Seven Steps
Cafe Tacvba, El Objeto Antes Llmado Disco
Carla Morrison, Dejenme Llorar
Cat Power, Sun
Cody ChesnuTT, Landing On A Hundred
Dan Deacon, America
Death Grips, No Love Deep Web
Debo Band, Debo Band
Dirty Projectors, Swing Lo Magellan
Dwight Yoakam, 3 Pears
Exitmusic, Passage
Fiona Apple, The Idler Wheel
Flying Lotus, Until The Quiet Comes
Frank Ocean, channel Orange
fun., Some Nights
Homeboy Sandman, First Of A Living Breed
Iris DeMent, Sing The Delta
Janka Nabay, En Yay Sah
Japandroids, Celebration Rock
Karriem Riggins, Alone Together
Kendrick Lamar, good kid, M.A.A.D. city
Killer Mike, R.A.P. Music
Leila Josefowicz, Violin Concerto (Salonen)
Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas
Matt Ulery, By A Little Light
Miguel, Kaleidoscope Dream
Neneh Cherry and The Thing, The Cherry Thing
Now, Now, Threads
Pallbearer, Sorrow And Extinction
Patrick Watson, Adventures In Your Own Backyard
Pink, The Truth About Love
Regina Spektor, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats
San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, Harmonielehre/Short Ride in a Fast Machine (Adams)
Sharon Van Etten, Tramp
Swans, The Seer
The 2 Bears, Be Strong
The Very Best, MTMTMK
Ty Segall, Twins
Vijay Iyer Trio, Accelerando
Wadada Leo Smith, Ten Freedom Summers

From the video I've seen Dylan's voice is so so shot, makeing such a noise that it totally fits w/a high placing in the Wire poll.

4. Jakob Ullmann - Fremde Zeit - Addendum

This is amazingly high - I love A Catalogue of Sounds, but austere classical doesn't usually make the top 10. Haven't heard this set though.

From the video I've seen Dylan's voice is so so shot, makeing such a noise that it totally fits w/a high placing in the Wire poll.

LOL

the Pink album's dope, good to see that recognized somewhere

kudos for dreamchasers 2 and the cherry thing!

Meek mixtape is good but i'm definitely rating the album over it.

Oh boy...

Magnet - Best Of 2012: Electronic
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/category/best-of-2012/

MAGNET’s Justin Hampton picks the best electronic releases of the year.

1 Death Grips The Money Store (Epic)
2 Hundred Waters Hundred Waters (Owsla)
3 deadmau5 <Album Title Goes Here> (Ultra)
4 Rusko Songs (Mad Decent)
5 The Gaslamp Killer Breakthrough (Brainfeeder)
6 Calvin Harris 18 Months (Fly Eye/Columbia)
7 NOISIA Split The Atom (mau5trap)
8 Die Antwoord Ten$ion (Zef)
9 Mala Mala In Cuba (Brownswood)
10 Death Grips No Love Deep Web (self-released)