Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

Festive Fifty 2012 - (previously John Peel's Festive Fifty) as voted for by listeners of Dandelion Radio:

1 Savages - Husband
2 The Chasms - Death's Pony
3 Allo Darlin' - Capricornia
4 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - We Drift Like Worried Fire
5 The Lovely Eggs - Allergie
6 The Membranes - If You Enter The Arena, You Got To Be Prepared To Deal With The Lions
7 Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Mladic
8 Tender Trap - MBV
9 Vert:x - Full Fathom Five
10 Allo Darlin' - Tallula
11 Django Django - Defaut
12 Pussy Riot - Putin Has Pissed Himself
13 The Lovely Eggs - Food
14 The Wedding Present - End Credits
15 The Chasms - Der Eingriff Schulze
16 Red Cosmos - I Am The Local DJ
17 Shrag - Devastating Bones
18 Atoms For Peace - Default
19 Hammock - Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life
20 Alisia Casper - Unfire
21 Big Joan - Beautiful Idea
22 Blue Giant Zeta Puppies - The Wild Ride of Ichabod Crane
23 Christ - Zeroth Law
24 Flies On You - Shipmanesque
25 Human Don't Be Angry - Monologue: River
26 The Dead Kennedys - California Uber Alles (12-inch Plastic Toys remix)
27 Lord Numb - Zombie
28 Veronica Falls - My Heart Beats
29 3rd International - Chug This
30 Deep Time - Clouds
31 Future of the Left - Robocop 4 (**** Off Robocop)
32 Grimes - Oblivion
33 Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built
34 Lulubelle III - Frankie
35 M.J.Hibbett & The Validators - A Little Bit
36 Public Image Ltd - Lollipop Opera
37 Tame Impala - Elephant
38 The Horn The Hunt - Gold
39 The Magnetic Fields - Andrew In Drag
40 Yva Las Vegass - Crack Whore
41 The Phantom Light - The Greater Picture
42 Alt-J - Fitzpleasure
43 Cate Le Bon - Puts Me To Work
44 Goat - Goathead
45 Martha - 1978, Smiling Politely
46 Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Walk Like A Giant
47 Standard Fare - Older Women
48 Forkeyes - Fell Off The Penalty Spotty Spot
49 Thee Oh Sees - Lupine Dominus
50 Guided By Voices - Class Clown Spots A UFO

the membranes? crikey

Xgau: Neil Young 's Americana.

Slicing Up Eyeballs Readers Poll

10. VCMG, Ssss
09. Public Image Ltd., This is PiL
08. Killing Joke, MMXII
07. Dinosaur Jr, I Bet On Sky
06. Ultravox, Brilliant
05. The Fixx, Beautiful Friction
04. Pet Shop Boys, Elysium
03. Swans, The Seer
02. Dead Can Dance, Anastasis
01. Bob Mould, Silver Age

Hmm, I wonder what age the readers of Slicing Up Eyeballs are.

Cumulatively?

Slicing Up Eyeballs needs to hear the Lee Ranaldo solo record which is really excellent.

Ha, I wanna see their top 50. It's weird enough listening to The Fixx in 2013, but I learned there were also new albums by Men Without Hats and Saga! Anyone remember "On The Loose"?

Those Ultravox and Killing Joke albums are both pretty good.

The KJ made a decent showing in overall polls. I listened to Ultravox once yesterday, need to hear again. I didn't like the PiL or Dead Can Dance much.

Levene/Wobble album was slept on

The Men Without Hats album is one decent song played over and over and over and over again

Is that song Safety Dance?

no

Top 10 today in Metal Poll 2012 - The Countdown

Anyone remember "On The Loose"?

Of course! Part of that whole Canadian wave that was huge on rock radio in the early '80s (at least in western NY, where I was a young teen). Loverboy, Triumph, Saga, Red Rider, Aldo Nova -- and Rush towering over all of them.

My ILX albums ballot--which, beyond the quality control of Pazz and Nash Scene Top Tens, now incl Tempest (like most of the music, less of the words, though he does still know how to strike a effective pose, and main thing is: he's really into pre-emptive strikes vs. Time and Ol' Lady-with-a-rolling-pin Muse' also a flesh 'n' blood ol' lady, sounds like). Death Grips, Rufus Wainwright, The xx all offer albums that are only about half good, but their goodies can satisfy in ways that notning else quite did in '12, which is the main criterion for Top Tens as well, so why not in a Top However Many This Is:
Best Coast - The Only Place
Bob Dylan - Tempest
Cat Power - Sun
Corin Tucker Band - Kill My Blues
Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes
Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
Death Grips - The Money Store
Death Grips - No Love Deep Web
Dwight Yoakam - 3 Pears
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
Giant Giant Sand - Tucson
Justin Townes Earle - Nothing's Going To Change The Way You Feel About Me Now
Kelly Hogan - I Like to Keep Myself in Pain
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Americana
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Psychedelic Pill
Neneh Cherry & The Thing - The Cherry Thing
The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth
The xx - Coexist
Rufus Wainwright - Out Of The Game
Santigold - Master Of My Make Believe

cool to see someone else w/ the Yoakam and Wainwright on their list!

Not that others don't have soft spots, but nothing that makes them any of them less than keepers

clemenza: I love your top 10, only one I didn't quite get is number 2. It seems to me like you're praising the music and saying you don't really care about the lyrics. Why not list the Jamie XX and Gil Scott Heron version instead?

Mimaroglu Music Sales / Keith Fullerton Whitman's (pre?)list of music concrete, modular synth, drone, noise, academic experimentalism and all points between and beyond can be found here - http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/best.php?year=2012 - in their words "far from "definitive" ; here's a simple, running tally of the titles that have been "rating" thusfar in 2012"

(So far, I've found a handful of things that seem, from the excerpts on the site, to be rather outstanding)

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2012/

Pazz & Jop thread, aka when is the official deadline for this thing?

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/from-eric-church-to-jamey-johnson-2012-found-country-music-in-a-holding-pattern-and-searching-for-role-models/Content?oid=3230383

Just came across this one:
http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2012-part-4-49-1/

I actually found more interesting choices in the 99-50 page, especially a bunch of punk I haven't heard by Bite Back, Argy Bargy, White Lung and New War.

http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2012-part-three-99-50/

Don't forget Louder Than War numbers 200 - 101:

http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2012-part-one-200-150/

http://louderthanwar.com/albums-of-the-year-2012-part-two-149-100/

Massive celebrations round Damon Albarn's house for reaching that coveted 197 spot.

Moka: thanks. I love the music on "Take Care," also the lyrics. They just happened to remind me, because of Rihanna's ordeals, of Faking It and that age-old debate about what makes something authentic. When she sings that line about being hurt, it may or may not resonate more because of biography, depending upon how important that is to you--and I was trying to contrast that with Drake, who may or may not be at the opposite end of the spectrum, depending etc. Maybe I garbled the point. I also missed (pointed out on the P&J thread) that that line goes back to an old Bobby Bland song. (I actually have the song on a greatest hits, but was never a big fan.) Ultimately, though, I do always place music ahead of lyrics.

Jon Pareles's Top 10 w his comments, nice reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/arts/music/jon-pareless-top-10-albums-of-2012.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Farts%2Fmusic%2Findex.jsonp

Nate Chinen's Top 10---Truesdale's Newly Discovered Works of Gil Evans mostly sounded really good at Newport---not that this is all jazz:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/arts/music/nate-chinens-top-10-albums-of-2012.html?_r=1&

Not jazz but oo-wee mama, oo-oo-wee:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/arts/music/jon-caramanicas-top-10-albums-of-2012.html

clem: "Take Care" didn't make my ballot because I included it last year but otherwise I agree: one of her (and his) few convincing performances.

Sorry for spamming but any interested parties have ~8 hours to submit a ballot in that prince among critics' polls: the ILM end-of-year poll!

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Dean-s-List-2012/ba-p/9707

And of course his address to the troops, from an "outlier" now (welcome)
http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/May-the-Consensus-Have-Consequences/ba-p/9709

lol @ him referring to "Dre's evolved jeep-beats" on the Kendrick album

Pink's The Truth About Love was on 10 Pazz & Jop ballots, which seems to have been driven primarily by Christgau's enthusiasm. her (far better) previous album Funhouse only got 1 vote in 2008 (wasn't me, which i regret -- at the time it was #14 on my list).

i'd like to see a lot more of Ka's Grief Pedigree on these lists

― alpine static, Wednesday, December 5, 2012 8:02 PM (8 months ago)

^^ was correct