Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

Still think Dylan sounds a bit like Louis Armstrong on bits of the new album.

Not sure if anyone's actually linked to the BBC list so here it is, complete with out-of-the-blue Dexy's choice at #3:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/2012/12/bbc_music_top_25_albums_of_2012.html

Also that's... quite a list of voters. Feels a bit weird to see past and present ILXers in there with Tim Westwood and Skream.

Also Britishes, was that Emili Sande album massive from the get-go or did she get an enormous post-Olympics bounce?

that dexys album is not very good.

Emili Sande strikes me as the ultimate Jools Holland fodder

the empirical evidence of my 10-year-old niece loving emeli sande since long before the olympics suggests that she's always been a bit massive.

she's currently flogging mobile phones in some lame cinema advert, also (sande that is, not merdeyeux's niece)

Hmmm... The Kendrick album is very good, but judging from a lot of these lists you'd think it was the only hip hop album released in 2012.

2012 is the first year of the century that neither Jay-Z nor Kanye has released an album, so a new token rap pick was urgently needed.

Emeli Sandé's debut single was one of 2011's biggest even if a complete red herring for the boring-ass (but no more so than Adele) album

Any hip-hop lists that don't acknowledge Angel Haze are not to be trusted tbh. Kendrick's good though, could be worse

Xp the good music album though?

I honestly don't feel like Cruel Summer qwas significantly worse than Watch The Throne and prob better than My Beautiful Stupid Fantasy. I jam Mercy and Clique in a satisfyingly mindless way

The Angel Haze album is let down by too many slow and emo tracks, it starts to drag madly by the end. Wish there was a bit more balance.

Still dunno why Americans pronounce it "click" though

Angel Haze's emo deep thoughts are precisely what make her ~important~

yeah but Cruel Summer wasn't a Kanye solo album in even the way Watch The Throne was

"Clique" got old fast, kind of a secretly crappy song.

Angel Haze's emo deep thoughts are precisely what make her ~important~

Well she could do with framing those thoughts better, the album starts to feel mad repetitive in the final third.

BTW has anyone done an edit of Jungle Fever with the first third removed?

Btw have you heardthe song Angel Haze did with Rudimental?

I keep meaning to listen to it but haven't actually got round to it? Is it any good?

Yes!

Angel Haze's emo deep thoughts are precisely what make her ~important~

― #YOLO ONO (lex pretend), Friday, December 7, 2012 2:57 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so many tracks you can vibe out to at 2am with your laptop ;)

"Clique" got old fast, kind of a secretly crappy song.

― some dude, Friday, December 7, 2012 2:59 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, total opposite of "Mercy", which I immediately rolled my eyes at but turned out to be a secretly really good song

so many tracks you can vibe out to at 2am with your laptop ;)

― rap乒 4-tay (The Reverend), Friday, 7 December 2012 11:59 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ooooooohhhhhh.... zing!

no, because Angel Haze talks about real shit in discomfiting detail, rather than drawing on a vague, cichéd and ultimately meaningless ~melancholy~

I mean, something like her "Cleaning Out My Closet" is the kind of thing that the 2am laptop crew and their comfort blankets of reverb literally do not know how to deal with

haven't music journalists always stayed up past their bedtimes slaving over a hot laptop/computer monitor/typewriter though? what's changed? (serious q)

probably harvest my best crops in the 2am zone tbh

got my laptop connected to a monitor though, no flies on me

I dug the first Angel Haze mixtape that Lex raved about in 2010 maybe? But haven't liked this year's stuff bar one or two tracks.

Glad to see First Aid Kit make a couple of lists.

probably harvest my best crops in the 2am zone tbh

night time is a nice time for listening to music, never up till 2am though unless i'm out of the house.

i generally eat a banana for breakfast, if you wanted any more banal routine facts.

have to say i'm also getting increasingly frustrated with this pervasive hazy indistinct shoegazery sound that's become so ubiquitous across the music spectrum in recent times. i love heaven or las vegas and loveless as much as anyone, but i also like SOLID sounds damnit. so often these reverby washy effects sound like they've just been thrown on in post-production to cover up sub-par musicianship. kevin shields spent a hell of a long time perfecting his sound, toying with feedback and guitar effects to achieve it. somehow i feel that shoving everything through a distortion module on your laptop is missing the point.

i'm struggling to think of many examples of things that came out this year that weren't swathed in some excessive amounts of reverb, flange, delay, chorus etc... something cleanly-produced, clipped even, like (just for example) an early Talking Heads number. i don't mean back to basics - i'm not a production luddite at all; but applying these fx in such a haphazard way until they "sound cool" is such a tiring and trying way to produce music.

Lex, it's funny hearing you talk about "important" music because perceived "importance" is precisely why Frank Ocean and Kendrick are getting all the attention that strikes you as annoyingly disproportionate and I wouldn't be surprised if Angel's first official album benefits critically in exactly the same way next year.

Bleep albums of the year
Legowelt - The Paranormal Soul
Robert Hood - Motor: Nighttime World 3
Daphni - JIAOLONG
Nathan Fake - Steam Days
Lukid - Lonely At The Top
Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes
Grizzly Bear - Shields
Tame Impala - Lonerism
Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist
Actress - R.I.P.

Bleep reissues of the year
Various Artists - Personal Space
Various Artists - Filtered
Various Artists - The Minimal Wave Tapes: Volume Two
Various Artists - TREVOR JACKSON presents METAL DANCE
Ike Yard - S/T
Various Artists - Only 4 U: The Sound Of Cajmere & Cajual Records 1992-2012
Can - The Lost Tapes
Nite Jewel - Good Evening
Cults Percussion Ensemble - Cults Percussion Ensemble

Holy crap, "Ocear Roar" is MASSIVE

FACT Magazine - Albums 2012

1. KENDRICK LAMAR - GOOD KID, M.A.A.D. CITY
2. LEE GAMBLE - DIVERSIONS 1994-1996 / DUTCH TVASHAR PLUMES
3. COOLY G - PLAYIN’ ME
4. HORRID RED - CELESTIAL JOY
5. SPACEGHOSTPURRP - GOD OF BLACK
6. HOW TO DRESS WELL - TOTAL LOSS
7. JAM CITY - CLASSICAL CURVES
8. TERRENCE DIXON - FROM THE FAR FUTURE PT.2
9. SWANS - THE SEER
10. WOLFGANG VOIGT - RÜCKVERZAUBERUNG 6
11. Actress - R.I.P.
12. Jeremih - Late Nights with Jeremih
13. Madteo - Noi No
14. Julia Holter - Ekstasis
15. Sand Circles - Motor City
16. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
17. I:Cube - "M" Megamix
18. Wiley - It's All Fun & Games
19. Lana Del Rey - Born to Die
20. Silent Servant - Negative Fascination
21. Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland - Black is Beautiful
22. Future - Pluto
23. Heroin in Tahiti - Death Surf
24. The Internet - Purple Naked Ladies
25. Main Attrakionz - Bossalinis & Fooliyones
26. Grimes - Visions
27. Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
28. Ariel Pink & R. Stevie Moore - Ku Klux Glam
29. Ricardo Villalobos - Dependent and Happy
30. Supreme Cuts - Whispers in the Dark
31. Nas - Life is Good
32. D'eon - Music for Keyboards vol.1
33. Altered Natives - Tenement Yard vol.3
34. Lorenzo Senni - Quantum Jelly
35. Young Smoke - Space Zone
36. Gunplay - Bogota Rich: The Prequel
37. Le1f - Dark York
38. Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream
39. Black Breath - Sentenced to Life
40. Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
41. Cocaine 80s - Express 0G EP
42. Schoolboy Q - Habits and Contradictions
43. Carter Tutti Void - Transverse
44. Triad God - NXB
45. Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe - Timon Irnok Manta
46. Purity Ring - Shrine
47. The XX - Coexist
48. Haleek Maul - Oxyconteen
49. Helm - Impossible Symmetry
50. Bigg Jus - Machines That Make Civilization Fun

i feel like i need to clarify that i had NO INPUT WHATSOEVER into that fucking dreadful list

5. SPACEGHOSTPURRP - GOD OF BLACK
6. HOW TO DRESS WELL - TOTAL LOSS
11. Actress - R.I.P.
12. Jeremih - Late Nights with Jeremih
14. Julia Holter - Ekstasis
16. Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
21. Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland - Black is Beautiful
22. Future - Pluto
24. The Internet - Purple Naked Ladies
25. Main Attrakionz - Bossalinis & Fooliyones
26. Grimes - Visions
28. Ariel Pink & R. Stevie Moore - Ku Klux Glam
46. Purity Ring - Shrine

^^these albums in particular need to go fuck themselves

still at least no laurel halo eh

Yeah, that was a little surprising really

At this point, I don't think I will ever understand the fascination with Lana Del Rey

LDR is getting mid-table positions everywhere, if anything that's a falling-off from the early-year hype (and a reflection that the album is only half good even by its own standards)

"Half good" is super charitable

if I hadn't opened this thread I might never have learned that Ariel Pink made a record called "Ku Klux Glam" in 2012 so while that's on A.P. I'm still kinda cheesed at this thread

xp peace out Lana Del Ray I look forward to answering questions about you at my local trivia night in 2017

I agree Born to Die's only half-good but it's getting deserved props for being a big-selling (in Europe anyway) pop record that offers an alternative to an increasingly homogenous and self-parodying norm. She has at least done it her way.

The Lee Gamble album is such FACT-bait it's hilarious. It's good but melancholy hypnagogic renderings of old drum'n'bass rave cassettes is just too perfect a concept for FACT.

well, obviously you had to be the sort of person who was into "video games" in the first place

as someone who did, i thought the album was a failure in that it showed up the rickety shtickiness of the entire project but even so there are 5-6 keepers that i tend to listen to when i'm ill or hungover.

xps

I might never have learned that Ariel Pink made a record called "Ku Klux Glam"

Ha aero, wait till you see the cover of it o_O

linking cos NSFW:

http://pitchfork-cdn.s3.amazonaws.com/content/pink%20moore.jpg

the people who treat LDR as someone sort of joke or punchline are reaching just as hard as the people pretending she's some sort of lynchian genius (are there even any of the latter left?)

Ariel Pink is a joke, right? I mean no one actually likes him?

Simon Reynolds album of the year iirc

As an entertainer, being different is meaningless without also being entertaining. Obviously what is entertaining varies between people but it still hits my incredulity threshold that "theatre kid with no vocal control braying over a harp and timpani" met that need for so many people.