Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

It’s been a momentous year for Frank Ocean: a heart-stopping TV debut on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon that couldn’t help but go viral; dropping off of a tour with Coldplay; being covered by Afghan Whigs; the revelation of an other-than-straight sexuality.

i mean i know this is the AV club but come on

I guess that would matter if Frank Ocean is an Afghan Whigs fan.

the one rap album better than kendrick: p.o.s.

7. Kellie Pickler, “100 Proof”

On her third album, this “American Idol” survivor finally uses that big voice to sing big songs about no-good men, absentee parents, the ghost of Tammy Wynette and her own backbone, which suddenly sounds as if it were made of aerospace-grade titanium.

aaagh i must remember to go back to this - i remember playing it once and really enjoying it but it totally got lost in the shuffle of a hectic life

props for putting popcaan in his top 10 as well

"bandz a make her dance" too

it's interesting to see acts that were top 10 in every EOY list with their last album (or last few albums) drop off this year -- Animal Collective the most obvious example but it also looks like Grizzly Bear, The xx, Beach House, Dirty Projecters etc. taking a hit.

xp his #1 completely & utterly nukes any props earned subsequently

Hahaha wow that is bad.

i didn't even know any Americans ever heard that guy's music anymore. CR is a good dude but i disagree with him as often as i agree with him, kind of respect when he comes out of left field with something like that.

xp his #1 completely & utterly nukes any props earned subsequently

his #1 in tracks too

xxxpost yeah, and those aren't (necessarily) worse albums. the beach house one is quite significantly better than the other stuff they've done. still not fussed about it though.

Yeah the Beach House was the first of theirs that I found myself paying any attention to - I suppose b/c even if lots of stuff around does sound rather like Heaven or Las Vegas this is the first thing I've heard from modern types that really really really sounds like it.

80s retro-nostalgia vs 90s retro-nostalgia FITE

My problem with the 90s nostalgia stuff (Beach House etc) is that it's always the same 3-4 bands (Cocteaus, Slowdive) who seem to be being referenced by so many new bands. It also seems a lot less inspired than the 80s retro craze of last decade. Rather than, as before, saying "we're inspired by new wave (or) electro (or) synth-pop, but we try and put a modern take on that sound", it feels more like bands like Beach House et al just want to sound like one or two specific acts. My entire problem with BH is that they just make me want to hear Heaven Or Las Vegas to the point I can't get through more than a song or two without this happening.

Oh I agree with you, it has zero individual qualities, but OTOH I can listen to hear it and want to listen to Heaven or Las Vegas w/o necessarily having to put that on straightaway (maybe because I had a binge rediscovery of HOLV about a year ago).

Got zero time for bands wanting to revive Slowdive unless it's the first track on Pygmalion.

matos:

http://thediscography.tumblr.com/post/37698639441/my-top-tens

My problem with the 90s nostalgia stuff (Beach House etc) is that it's always the same 3-4 bands (Cocteaus, Slowdive) who seem to be being referenced by so many new bands. It also seems a lot less inspired than the 80s retro craze of last decade. Rather than, as before, saying "we're inspired by new wave (or) electro (or) synth-pop, but we try and put a modern take on that sound", it feels more like bands like Beach House et al just want to sound like one or two specific acts. My entire problem with BH is that they just make me want to hear Heaven Or Las Vegas to the point I can't get through more than a song or two without this happening.

― besides Sunny Real Estate (dog latin), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 4:16 AM Bookmark

Eh, that only works if you take a rather restricted view of what qualifies as "90s nostalgia stuff"

Yeah well obv.

which doesn't change anything you say about Beach House, I might add xp

Basically dog latin is comparing dance scenes misreviving sounds they never got a chance to dance to with indie bands recreating specific albums they've always owned anyway, even if maybe a few years too late.

A better point of comparison for electroclash would be people reviving early 90s dance signifiers. And a better point of comparison for Beach House would be early 00s post-punk.

Though as usual with decade to decade comparisons there are none that match up perfectly.

I like Bloom but would not have made the HoLV comparison - don't hear any significant similarity between the two LPs/acts or even eras personally. Likewise I don't think BH are trying to channel any specific act or time period at all in any meaninful way. Don't see why trying to make an LP like HoLV would be a problem anyway tho!

Sure, sure. And also the fact I lived through, and was conscious of, the music scene in the nineties probably makes the whole concept of a revival less palatable to me than the eighties revival.

I'm a much bigger fan of the Chairlift album (which is very reminiscent of music I actually heard in the eighties without sounding like anyone specific - maybe the Pretenders? maybe the Mac? not really) than Beach House who seem to be drawing from a tiny pool of very specific cultural touchstones. Same goes with Yuck and pretty much any outre 90s revivalists - you can tell exactly which bands they've decided they want to sound like. I never got that impression from LCD Soundsystem or Fischerspooner or the Rapture - they were referencing '80s sound and fashion, but it somehow felt 'new' in its way and didn't just go for the Fall or Yazoo jugular. You didn't get people trying really hard to sing like Alison Moyet, whereas BH girl really really seems to want to be Elizabeth Fraser.

xpost

obv nashwan disagrees :-)

Victoria Legrand sounds nothing like Liz Fraser.

she does a bit though

Her voice is so deep that some people mistook her for a man when they first came out, the lyrics are very clear and she has a continental European accent. In what way does that sound like Liz Fraser?

okay, she doesn't sound exactly like her - i am playing that side up. i still maintain that so far the obligatory onslaught of nineties-styled bands feels tokenistic and pretty much a pointless rigmarole that somehow inevitably demands people follow through with. I guess people who'd lived through postpunk and electro felt very similar in the early 2000s. I just don't think this movement (if indeed it is a movement) has hit its stride. It's going through the motions in a kind of "Well, I guess we'd better start sounding like music from 1993 by now" kind of way, and dolefully and dutifully does exactly that.

Even if they were faithfully copying the Cocteau Twins then calling it "90s revivalism" is stretching the term ridiculously given the vast majority of Cocteaus records that anyone actually cares about came out in the 80s.

It took me about 0.05 seconds to think of three prominent acts who are referencing the 90s without faithfully aping the sound. There are dozens of them out there.

if her voice reminds me of anyone it's actually Jonathan Donahue and even then the overlap is well under 10%

Her voice is so deep that some people mistook her for a man when they first came out

It's true - she still reminds me of either the bloke from Cast or the bloke from the Delays.

All the greats basically.

Matt DC - BH sound like Heaven or Las Vegas more than any other Cocteaus album. How many bands out at the moment seem to fall somewhere between this album and something by Slowdive? It's become such a default production aesthetic in the last few years that I'd be desensitised to it, if, that is, I wasn't so utterly bored and averse to it.

but this is assuming you hear bands sounding like Slowdive in the same way you hear singers sounding like Liz Fraser right?

at Pitchfork while Beach House was playing I told a friend, "She's one album away from abandoning the synths, picking up a tambourine, and twirling like Stevie Nicks."

Sorry dl, but your argument's nonsense. Beach House have such a distinctive aesthetic - it's not like they're part of some big "90s revival", whatever that might sound like. If you think they're just neo-shoegazers then I would suggest you're not listening very closely.

anyway I like the album better than its predecessors and its gauze reminds me of 4AD acts but I don't hear Fraser in her mannerisms; for one thing, she believes in enunciating.

the only thing i've heard this year that reminded me of Cocteaus = around half of the Sleigh Bells LP (its biggest virtue by some measure). i'd quite happily hear a few others, if actually out there.

i'm not wrong about everything all the time, you know? just quite often.

Anyway, the Quietus have their list up now but their site is running slow.

There definitely is some Cocteaus in Beach House's sound, but for me it's mostly in the guitar sounds and the unhurried flow of the music

Good list! Is that NV on the cover of the Hirsute Pursuit record?

That was with reference to this btw:

http://thequietus.com/articles/10924-the-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2012

vatican shadow in the top 10 :)

my reaction to seeing laurel halo place isn't even annoyance, it's like...i have to restrain myself from pointing and laughing. if you like that dreadful joke of an album then irl lol at you

It doesn't reflect my own tastes much but I love the Quietus for its consistent voice - here is a realm where Swans, late Scott Walker and former members of Throbbing Gristle will never go underappreciated.

i love the quietus list. although i'll never understand their love for VCMG. Totally agree with Swans and Scott Walker in the top two. HAven't heard the TG albums.

my reaction to seeing laurel halo place isn't even annoyance, it's like...i have to restrain myself from pointing and laughing. if you like that dreadful joke of an album then irl lol at you

mature attitude.

it's so grown-up to constantly follow someone around a messageboard nitpicking over their posts!

love this quote from the Quietus list:

If someone introduces you to something new and it's not going to hurt you, go along with it and see how far you can go - Cedric Myton

it's so grown-up to constantly follow someone around a messageboard nitpicking over their posts!

you make it sound like finding a ludicrously rude and arrogant post takes some work or time.

Good list! Is that NV on the cover of the Hirsute Pursuit record?

― Albert Crampus (NickB), Tuesday, December 11, 2012 1:31 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Damn son!