Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

would be more effective if Owens photo were on the other side so Miguel can be all "tell me that the pussy is over there."

they're good at shit/not shit juxtapositions but that may be the most dramatic to date

"the fader: we know some cool black people, and the worst white people"

lol

I got a light skinned friend looks like Michael Jackson, etc

Didn't even realize that pickler had an album out this year!

hey i have an article in that issue of the fader, pick it up

plus so obv that miggy is really more into hugs and stuntin with the drug talk

nah i think the drugs talk is serious - it's not in a stuntin way at all, it's about how doing drugs w/someone can be really intimate and nice. drugs as homely and sorta romantic rather than cool or glamorous. that feels like a novel angle in a great way.

i love "pussy is mine" because it's so vulnerable and is miggy being insecure in a genre that prizes surefooted machismo

otoh this has become a massive cliché this year - i'm not even sure whether it was ever true but this narrative has been ongoing for bloody ages now and it's totally cringe to see indie audiences fetishising awkwardness and insecurity as somehow more "real", and acting like r&b had hitherto been a completely one-dimensional genre, as if it wasn't RIVEN with uncertainty and complexity before our current crop of sad reverby dudes came along.

i mean, that is the appeal of "pussy is mine" specifically, yeah, but it's more about how unguarded it is - from the sentiments expressed to also the vulgarity of the language that miguel avoids elsewhere to the way he tries to play it off as a joke at the end (i don't mind that it's obv staged).

Pitchfork - Top 100 tracks
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9015-the-top-100-tracks-of-2012/

Just posting the top 50:

1. Grimes - Oblivion
2. Frank Ocean - Pyramids
3. Usher - Climax
4. Kendrick Lamar - Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe
5. Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
6. Bat for Lashes - Laura
7. Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
8. Beach House - Myth
9. Fiona Apple - Werewolf
10. Jai Paul - Jasmine
11. Frank Ocean - Thinkin About You
12. Miguel - Adorn
13. Chromatics - Kill For Love
14. M.I.A. - Bad Girls
15. Andy Stott - Numb
16. Solange - Losing You
17. Chairlift - I Belong In Your Arms
18. Nicki Minaj - Beez in the Trap [ft. 2 Chainz]
19. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Only In My Dreams
20. Kendrick Lamar - Swimming Pools (Drank)
21. Jessie Ware - Wildest Moments
22. Death Grips - I've Seen Footage
23. Dirty Projectors - Dance For You
24. Chief Keef - I Don't Like [ft. Lil Reese]
25. Grimes - Genesis
26. TNGHT - Higher Ground
27. Grizzly Bear - Yet Again
28. Cat Power - Nothin But Time
29. Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
30. Kanye West - Mercy [ft. Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz]
31. Frank Ocean - Bad Religion
32. Sky Ferreira - Everything Is Embarrassing
33. Danny Brown - Grown Up
34. Cloud Nothings - Stay Useless
35. Fiona Apple - Every Single Night
36. Todd Terje - Inspector Norse
37. Killer Mike - Reagan
38. Hot Chip - ''Flutes''
39. Schoolboy Q - Hands On The Wheel [ft. A$AP Rocky]
40. The Men - Open Your Heart
41. El-P - The Full Retard
42. Gunplay - Jump Out
43. Dum Dum Girls - Lord Knows
44. AlunaGeorge - You Know You Like It
45. Spiritualized - Hey Jane
46. Ty Segall Band - I Bought My Eyes
47. Grizzly Bear - Sleeping Ute
48. Burial/Four Tet - Nova
49. Future - Turn On The Lights
50. Icona Pop - I Love It

4. Kendrick Lamar - Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe
9. Fiona Apple - Werewolf
15. Andy Stott - Numb
18. Nicki Minaj - Beez in the Trap [ft. 2 Chainz]

^^completely bizarre choices off albums i love

Resident Advisor - Top 50 tracks of 2012
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1705

5 of the RA top 10 tally with my own favourite dance trax this year

Yeah I concur with the Fiona on the list, only direct overlap (on the last 50) was w death grips

Did people really rate "Bad Girls" that much?

I didn't expect much of what i've bought this year to place in the RA poll but didn't expect it to be quite so divergent

"Those strings. It was impossible to escape those strings in 2012."

This is the line that makes sense of the Andres record for me. I used to be part of the clubbing world and now I'm not so I can't get a handle on why that record is #1 from hearing it at my computer but I can when I imagine it as a feature of so many nights out. I love how the dance press's EOTY lists address a specific subculture where this is ubiquitous as Call Me Maybe is for everyone else.

Yeah, but danceworld is so fragmented that it was completely possible to go clubbing fairly frequently throughout the year and not hear it if you weren't going to house nights.

Yeah but RA is predominantly centred around a certain type of European house and techno night, although it's covered more post-dubstep in recent years, there's still a sense that it's addressing a particular defined community.

I mean I'm sure I'd have heard the Andres record if I'd been proper clubbing more than twice this year. It could well have been as ubiquitous as a Mouth To Mouth or a Rej for all I know.

4. Kendrick Lamar - Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe

^^completely bizarre choices off albums i love

Really? This seems like the most portable, single-y track from the Kendrick album. Not a bizarre choice in a consensus vote, imo.

was gonna say itt that i was happy at so few tracks lists this year having "Swimming Pools" on it, as a hit single from an acclaimed album it's really kind of shit.

i just really fucking hate "bitch don't kill my vibe"

always loved "swimming pools", though not necessarily as a single

one would think tracks lists are the ideal places to recognise "cartoon & cereal"

two months ago I skipped it, now I play it all the time.

I've seen Backseat Freestyle popping up in a few lists but it's not really an album with proper singles on it. So yeah Cartoon & Cereal or even The Recipe would be fine but I get the feeling people just want to throw out a vaguely pointless shout to the album.

lex honestly you've stated your case about "vibe" and i think now you can just let that song be mentioned without making a big deal about it every. fucking. time.

i'm not going to be lectured about posting habits by anyone who pulled the shit you did in the shanell thread

Tim F's write-up for 'Turn On The Lights' on th pfk countdown is great! This bit in particular
"His lyrics simultaneously raised and lowered the bar for spur of the moment profundity as his hook-laden yet tone-deaf emphysemic mutterings nestled into the cracks between rap and R&B, while Auto-Tune choruses left him sounding like gloriously damaged goods." kinda nails a big part of why I love Future so much.

ha i barely posted in the shanell thread, and only obnoxiously half the time, and then left it alone compared to the several people openly trolling it

xpost yeah i loved that write up

noz on keef is fire also

Asking here cuz somebody should know: will there even be a Best Muscle Writing 2012 ?

here it is, ray:

https://www.christianwritersguild.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/writing-muscle-slider1.jpg

comparing "I Don't Like" to "The Message" was a little over the top, i thought

reassuring that PF can still be relied on to say 'Call Me Maybe was nice, yes, but Grizzly Bear definitely wrote a better song this year'

i just really fucking hate "bitch don't kill my vibe"

--lex pretend

Go on.

i'm with lex here, might be my least favorite track on the record

My only point upthread was that, even if you're not fond of it, would you concede that it's probably the most obvious track on the album to be a consensus favorite?

I'd say "The Art of Peer Pressure" or "Poetic Justice."

no! none of those! all of those are deep cuts and sound like them. either "swimming pools" or "the recipe" as the singles, "cartoon & cereal" as a much-hyped (with good reason) stand-alone non-album cut, or possibly "money trees" as a track that seems to encapsulate a lot of the album's themes

would you concede that it's probably the most obvious track on the album to be a consensus favorite

I do actually like it, but I don't see how this is true at all really, other than it appears early on in the album.

For a tracks poll, the Pitchfork list looks awfully like a singles list, to be expected I guess near the top but I think the entire top 30 are singles or lead off downloads from the record.

Oh good! No consensus then

comparing "I Don't Like" to "The Message" was a little over the top, i thought

― some dude, Tuesday, 18 December 2012 13:20 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

maybe, but after a year of endless surrounding grumbling and murmuring and whatnot about the track it was effective just this once to bang a fist on the table with a historical juxtaposition and clear the fug for a sec. besides it wasnt "this is as good as" or "the 2012 version of", he used the comparison (and well i thought)

did anyone mention the jacob korn record yet? have come back to it a few times over the course of the year. #faintpraise.

meant that for the dance thread actually, but it's here forever now. i'll let history judge me.

I spoke to Tony Blair and he said he preferred the Petar Dundov album.

the ruth saxelby bit for alunageorge is quite good just for placing them in about the right critical spot ("1980s UK electro pop duos, from Yazoo to Eurythmics") where it's been so easy to tip too far either side of the dance/r&b question. felt like a sensible clarification for me anyway.

"this isn't the time for soundbytes. but today i truly feel the hand of house on my shoulder." xpost sorry carry on

I've heard of Jacob Korn without ever having bothered to look into him but having realised he had a hand in Philipp Dolphia I'm going to check him out immediately.

the ruth saxelby bit for alunageorge is quite good just for placing them in about the right critical spot ("1980s UK electro pop duos, from Yazoo to Eurythmics") where it's been so easy to tip too far either side of the dance/r&b question. felt like a sensible clarification for me anyway.

the "hook so pop it hurts" is a bit "uhhhh really?" though

liked katherine st asaph on angel haze a lot

in general the p4k lists crystallises this sense across most EOY lists i've seen that it's even more about ring-fencing and aesthetic branding than ever this year. on a related note, i was really happy to see rich juzwiak pick keyshia cole for this:

http://www.thefader.com/2012/12/17/20-musicians-tastemakers-and-other-weirdos-pick-their-favorite-music-of-2012/

If I had to listen to only one song from 2012 for the rest of my life, it would be the second single from Keyshia Cole’s Woman to Woman album, “Trust and Believe.” No commercial track I’ve heard this year understands where R&B is and was quite as well. Seething with sound, its snapped beats reverberate into hisses, its snare fills throw tantrums while Cole sings furiously, balancing heartbreak and righteous indignation. This should be the ballad that defines the 31-year-old’s career.

Four tracks in, “Trust and Believe” is Woman’s showstopper. It’s almost bizarre, then, how consistently entertaining the album goes on to be. Its backbone is old-school hip-hop soul, the kind of minimal, breakbeat-based R&B that Mary J. Blige (without whom Keyshia would not be possible) used to sing over. Cole’s endless supply of hooks keep midtempo from sounding mundane, but it is the album’s eventual sense of adventure that makes its 15 tracks fly by. Darkchild’s “Stubborn,” (which Cole pronounces “stub-bron,” lest you think she’s become entirely refined by Album No. 5) bridges the gap from trap to house more convincingly than even “Mercy.” “Hey Sexy” is to Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” what Miguel’s “Adorn” is to Gregory Abbott’s “Shake You Down” (Cole previously sampled “Fruit” in “Let It Go,” here she just invokes its spirit in a more sophisticated tribute). She samples “Theme from Shaft,” duets with Ashanti on the title track (not a remake of the Shirley Brown Stax classic) and enters the canon of great R&B first lines on the airily modern “Forever”: I’m not easily impressed, but you got me fucked up.

The story of R&B’s phenomenal year centers on the heady, atmospheric turn it has taken and the men who have popularized it. Woman to Woman acknowledges the sound of Frank Ocean, The Weeknd and Miguel, but it offers a much wider palate—there’s a sense of grounded soul tradition here guided by Cole’s still-feral pipes. Woman to Woman is the alternative to the alternative, a commercial R&B record delivered with so little hype, it was easy to miss. It’s destined to be an underrated gem, just like they used to make.

Fuckin Rich will send me scurrying back to the Cole.