Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

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.

There's something a bit sad about Bleep.com plumping for Grizzly Bear and Tame Impala as well.

xp On a really basic level I think Video Games is about the chord changes. The same guy co-wrote Bat for Lashes' Laura. He's good with the chords.

Actually, if "Video Games" was done in a higher key with a singer more sensitive to nuance and dynamic shading, I might enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sexPTYJ4fbo

kinda starting to think the bbc's list might somehow end up being the least irritating of all

it has a nondeclarative randomness i suppose

Haha nope DL, there is just something about the way this song is put together that fundamentally irks me.

I think the phrasing is awkward, particularly how the verse melody is built almost entirely on successive leaps between vocal registers that make most singers sound labored and disjointed; compare this to "Laura" where the interval leaps are mostly within the same register and movement between them is done with stepwise motion. This isn't to say that there aren't contexts where a lurching, queasy melody isn't desirable, but I'm not convinced that "Video Games" sells it well enough.

i've said this elsewhere but everything to do with writing/production on the ldr album was totally fucking lazy and halfassed

like regardless of whether i thought she was a joke or not, most of the ppl who worked on that record clearly did

eg?

i think the production is too much, actually - very little is as sparse as "video games", too often the songs are sort of slathered in unnecessary strings and get corny vaguely hip-hop beats and samples tacked on to them.

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend), Wednesday, February 1, 2012 10:52 AM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

...

well then.

first thing: everyone on the production side of this should be ashamed of themselves--it's a terrible sounding record. portishead by way of a st vincent depaul thrift store with no polish, no cohesion, no ideas. it seriously sounds like it was put together by a bunch of old guys who have no idea what is cool and what might actually sound good. after it was over i immediately put on the precedent for what this record should have sounded like: mono - "life in mono" c. 1997 which at least had some *style* not a bunch of dorky mashed together beats and strings.

second thing: ldr herself. i think we all agree that she's talented but she is either not comfortable with singing, or not comfortable with singing this music, or she just doesn't have much of a natural ear. i heard so much odd phrasing and timing, when she would slip into and out of different voices it was just awkward. she's best doing the deep droll-y voice but they also try to make her sing high and breathy and then like a big pop singer and then doing some weird pseudo-rap thing that i don't even understand. like the production, this all could have been fixed with time and effort but no one seemed to really care.

last thing: there were times where i could close my eyes and try really hard and see the trashy/kitschy fun of some of this (and that's an aesthetic i strongly dislike to be fair) but the album just vacillates too much between that and moments of legitimately embarrassing material and moments that are just so joyless and po-faced that i can't imagine how someone would enjoy this as a pop record. oddly my fav track is "this is what makes us girls" which is kind of awful but is at least *about something* and seems to wink a bit unlike most of the other songs which seem to be the lyrical embodiment of that video where ldr doesn't do anything except embrace the guy with tats.

― call all destroyer, Wednesday, February 1, 2012 11:57 AM (10 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this sun araw thing is pretty cool.

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.

were you thinking of beach house throughout this post?

haha CAD I think I said this on the original thread but thanks again for reminding me of Mono

no prob :)

were you thinking of beach house throughout this post?

― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Friday, 7 December 2012 14:39 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'd assumed he was just trying to create something more banal than your breakfast 'nana

haha

hey ship, not sure whether you're a dude who thought dashboard confessional was an elaborate joke or not, but the new further seems forever record seems in your emo/modern rock wheelhouse? it might end up in my list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35DonBT4vQ

some pensive scarf-wearing in the video

Rolling Stone's Top 50 Albums of 2012

50 Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
49 Amadou And Mariam - Folila
48 The Smashing Pumpkins - Oceania
47 Todd Snider - Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables
46 Muse - The 2nd Law
45 Rick Ross - Rich Forever
44 Garbage - Not Your Kind of People
43 fun. - Some Nights
42 Allo Darlin' - Europe
41 The Avett Brothers - The Carpenter
40 Escort - Escort
39 Passion Pit - Gossamer
38 Titus Andronicus - Local Business
37 Justin Townes Earle - Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now
36 Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man in the Universe
35 Grizzly Bear - Shields
34 Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls
33 Grimes - Visions
32 Hospitality - Hospitality
31 Taylor Swift - Red
30 Azealia Banks - 1991
29 Dave Matthews Band - Away From the World
28 Beach House - Bloom
27 Gary Clark Jr. - Blak and Blu
26 Django Django - Django Django
25 Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos
24 G.O.O.D. Music - Cruel Summer
23 Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits
22 Bonnie Raitt - Slipstream
21 Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
20 Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
19 Band Of Horses - Mirage Rock
18 Nas - Life is Good
17 John Mayer - Born and Raised
16 Cat Power - Sun
15 Dr. John - Locked Down
14 Best Coast - The Only Place
13 Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
12 Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth
11 Mumford & Sons - Babel
10 Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill
09 Japandroids - Celebration Rock
08 Green Day - !Uno!
07 Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros - Here
06 Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
05 Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
04 Bob Dylan - Tempest
03 Jack White - Blunderbuss
02 Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
01 Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball

Funny that it took RS to remind me there was a new Amadou & Mariam album. However as compelled I am to check out way too many albums I hadn't heard yet than is probably good for me, I don't think I'm motivated to subject myself to the John Mayer, DMB and Donald Fagen.

Finally heard Solange's True EP and was slightly disappointed. It's pretty good, but too samey mid-tempo groove. The Orchid Heretic EP, however, f-yeah! Having a tough time with Laurel Halo's voice so far but haven't finished it. What do you all think the Wire staff liked about it so much?

I for one tune out the moment I see Mumford on any of these lists.

Drowned in Sound
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4145840-drowned-in-sounds-favourite-albums-of-2012--5-1

=1) Blondes - Blondes
=1) Chromatics - Kill for Love
=1) Liars - WIXIW
=1) Swans - The Seer
=1) Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
6) Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel Is Wiser ...
7) Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
8) School of Seven Bells - Ghostory
9) Aesop - Rock Skelethon
10) Julia Holter - Ekstasis
11) Frank - Ocean Channel Orange
12) Chairlift - Something
13) Twilight - Sad No One Will Ever Know
14) Polica - Give You the Ghost
15) Perfume Genius - Put Your Back In 2 It
16) Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d City
17) Jessie Ware - Devotion
18) Killer Mike RAP - Music
19) LHF - Keepers Of the Light
20) FOE - Bad Dream Hotline
21) Twin Shadow - Confess
22) Motion Sickness of Time Travel - Motion Sickness of Time Travel
23) Django - Django Django Django
24) Cat - Power Sun
25) Deftones - Koi No Yokan
26) Yppah - Eighty One
27) Errors - Have Some Faith in Magic
28) John Talabot - Fin
29) Melody’s Echo Chamber - Melody’s Echo Chamber
30) Cloud Nothings - Attack On Memory
31) Efterklang - Pirimada
32) Actress - R.I.P.
33) Metric - Synthetica
34) The Lost Rivers - Sin & Lostness
35) Crystal Castles - iii
36) Field Music - Plumb
37) Grimes - Visions
38) LV - Sebenza
39) Blood Red Shoes - In Time To Voices
40) Lana Del Rey - Born to Die
41) Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
42) Japandroids - Celebration Rock
43) The Maccabees - Given to the Wild
44) Grizzly - Bear Shields
45) Muse - The 2nd Law
46) Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
47) Yeasayer - Fragrant World
48) Echo Lake - Wild Peace
49) How to Dress Well - Total Loss
50) Bloc Party - Four
51) Shearwater - Animal Joy
52) And You Will Know Us By The Trail of The Dead Lost Songs
53) Earth - Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II
54) Sigur Ros - Valtari
55) Death - Grips The Money Store
56) Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself
57) Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man
58) Tindersticks - The Something Rain
59) Eight and a Half - Eight and a Half
60) Leonard Cohen - Old
61) The Cribs - In the Belly of the Brazen Bull
62) Future of the Left - The Plot Against Common Sense
63) Purity Ring - Shrines
64) The xx - Coexist
65) First Aid Kit - The Lions’s Roar
66) The Shins - Port of Morrow
67) Orbital - Wonky
68) Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill
69) Tame Impala - Lonerism
70) Stumbleine - Spiderwebbed
71) Exitmusic - Passage
72) Diiv - Oshin
73) El-P _ Cancer 4 Cure
74) Richard Hawley - Standing at the Sky's Edge
75) Lower Dens - Nootropics
76) Halls - Ark
77) Dirty Three - Toward the Low Sun
78) Magnetic Fields - Love at the Bottom of the Sea
79) Nils Frahm - Screws
80) The Walkmen - Heaven
81) BATS - The Sleep of Reason
82) Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes
83) Ghosting Season - The Very Last of the Saints
84) dEUS - Following Sea Guide
85) Dan Deacon - America
86) Darren Hayman and the Long Parliament - The Violence
87) why? - Sod the Seed
88) Lee Ronaldo - Between The Times and the Tide
89) Passion Pit - - Gossamer
90) Beach House Bloom
91) I Like Trains - The Shallows
92) Anais Mitchell - Young Man in America
93) Spiritualized - Sweet Heart, Sweet Light
94) Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball
95) Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
96) John Cale - Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood
97) CFCF - Exercises
98) Hot Chip - In Our Heads
99) Hey - Sholay ((o))
100) Cursive - I Am Gemini

Appropriate that that sad Cursive album finally made a list, in the saddest way possible

Did anyone bother to check out the dEUS album?

Oh god, I have only just got the terrible Diiv - Oshin pun

it's funny, The Ugly Organ was close to being the best album of 2002 or 2003 or whenever it was released. it's a shame they've hung around and turned into such a useless band

I still think they have some creative life in them—Mama I'm Swollen was great—but by nature what they do is hit-or-miss, and Gemini was one nasty miss

Good for DiS for ranking why's "sod in the seed" ep and not the album proper.

Wire Modern Composition A-Z

William Berger/Iain Burnside - Insomnia
John Bishoff - Audio Combine
Philip Blackburn - Ghostly Palms
John Cage - Etudes Australes
John Cage - Sonatas & Interludes
Edison Denisov - Au Plus Haut Des Cieux
Barbara Monk Feldman - The Northern Shore
Michael Finnisy - Second & Third Quartets
Hans Werner Henze - In Lieblicher Blaue
Annea Lockwood - In Our Name
Anthony Pateras - Collected Works 2002-2012
Katharina Rosenberger - Texturen
Skogen - Ist Gefallen In Den Schnee
Frances White - In The Library Of Dreams
Joanna Wozny - As In A Mirror, Darkly

― Albert Crampus (NickB), Thursday, 6 December 2012 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Appreciated Nick - checking out an interview with Rosenberger

Finnissy and a rec of Etude Australes (arguably the last great piece of his) are obvious highlights.

That Ariel Pink record's cover would make more sense (and be 10,000x more awesome) if it was called Ku Klux Clam.

points off for not being "Klam"

The KKK took my baby's vajayjay...