Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

Looking at all these lists as someone who listened to a lot less music than usual this year -- and therefore has no opinion about a lot of stuff on them -- the whole process of tastemaking gets more objectively interesting. Just the way consensus builds or doesn't build around Album X vs. Album Y. E.g., the discussion above about why one Animal Collective or TVOTR album is Album of the Year, and another not-necessarily-lesser album a few years later barely merits a mention. We all know these things happen, that there are patterns of enthusiasm and so forth, and while we all tend to exempt our own tastes from those kinds of forces -- because we just listen to the music! -- of course so do all of those other people we're accusing of some kind of herd behavior.

Anyway, it's just interesting to look at the EOY lists without having much sense of personal investment. Trying to puzzle out the backstory in the data points.

Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith & Louis Moholo-Moholo Ancestors (TUM)

Get the impression Leo Smith is doing a shedload these days (not that he wasn't but its noticeable but I notice and I'm not really watching it that closely). Really mad I missed him at Bishopsgate last month.

The one that intrigues me is John Butcher and Eddie Prevost - no idea what those two really quite different players would sound like together. Always had an idea that Eddie would only ever work within AMM.

lol@ the idea jazz is some old man pipe and slippers thrash. Student thinking.

PASTE Top EPs of 2012: http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2012/12/the-10-best-eps-of-2012.html

there's an implied "I LIKE TO EAT" at the beginning of their name, right

Paste continues to be dreadful, maybe even moreso as an online-only entity.

Damn, D-40 stumbled across SPIN's clever strategy of "not just copying what pitchfork and stereogum likes and put our name on it" dude is cracking the indie rock DaVinci code over here

#IndieGuilt

hahaha i love at least one of those 1975 songs

definitely feel like joe goddard's come into his own over the past year production-wise - "gabriel", yes, also his remixes of delilah's "love you so" and especially jessie ware's "night light", which is just a flawless and astonishing thing

LOL I think I posted the Nneka remix a while back and you refused to listen on principle!

the 1975 are the shit... tho the slow down was much better name

xp heh yeah raised an eyebrow at that fanution myself

xp on which principle?! i have no opinion on nneka and if i've listened to every dreary hot chip album i doubt i'd have refused to listen to a remix

oh no no no you are wrong about the 1975 noooooo stop being wrooooooong

hmm i really thought you'd dig the 1975

that reads like a parody of a lex post

I don't really hear it with the 1975.

basically I never want to hear any 21st century musical act or project named after a year from the 20th century

hmm i really thought you'd dig the 1975

didn't predict myself that lex would love a more emo arctic monkeys

anyway "sex" is a killer song, rest of that ep is kind of mushy and indistinct tho

"sex" & "the city" are instant classics

careful use of quotations...and tenses ... blah bad joke

This is the point in list making that I hate, where suddenly impossible choices have to made. Deciding to leave Ariel Pink out of my top ten was hard enough, now I'm figuring out whether lightning bolt, Oneida, Dial, or Meek Mill gets the shaft on my albums list

not Meek

It's like "which finger should I sever?"

Yeah I know

I almost chucked him but couldn't

you sever the pinkie on the hand with 6 fingers.

Lightning bolt released stuff this year? I haven't got round to listening to earthly delights yet. I loved the two before thAt. Has their sound changed much since then?

FACT put Gunplay's Bogota Rich on their albums list so well done them

yeah i prefer 601 but that's still a good look

FACT list is the best so far imo

sorry, LB

consolation prize is that "I Found A Ring In My Ear" gets a spot on the tracks list because it RULES

OOR (Dutch magazine):

1. ALT- J - AN AWESOME WAVE (INFECTIOUS/PIAS)
2. JACK WHITE - BLUNDERBLUSS (XL/BEGGARS)
3. FRANK OCEAN - CHANNEL ORANGE (DEF JAM/UNIVERSAL)
4. CLOUD NOTHINGS - ATTACK ON MEMORY (WICHITA/PIAS)
5. THE XX - COEXIST (XL/BEGGARS)
6. TAME IMPALA - LONERISM (MODULAR/NEWS)
7. DJANGO DJANGO - DJANGO DJANGO (BECAUSE/WARNER)
8. GRIZZLY BEAR - SHIELDS (WARP/V2)
9. ALABAMA SHAKES - BOYS & GIRLS (ROUGH TRADE/KONKURRENT)
10. KENDRICK LAMAR - GOOD KID, M.A.A.D. CITY (INTERSCOPE/UNIVERSAL)
11. METZ - METZ (SUB POP/KONKURRENT)
12. MOSS - ORNAMENTS (EXCELSIOR/V2)
13. CHROMATICS - KILL FOR LOVE (NEWS)
14. JAKE BUGG - JAKE BUGG (MERCURY/ UNIVERSAL)
15. FIRST AID KIT - THE LION’S ROAR (WICHITA/PIAS)
16. BEACH HOUSE - BLOOM (BELLA UNION/V2)
17. DR JOHN - LOCKED DOWN (NONESUCH/WARNER)
18. BLAUDZUN - HEAVY FLOWERS (V2)
19. TY SEGALL - TWINS (DRAG CITY/MUNICH/V2)
20. ALLAH-LAS - ALLAH-LAS (INNOVATIVE LEISURE/V2)
21. MICHAEL KIWANUKA - HOME AGAIN (POLYDOR/UNIVERSAL)
22. CASE MAYFIELD - THE MANY COLORED BEAST (PIAS)
23. THE VACCINES - COME OF AGE (COLUMBIA/SONY)
24. SWANS - THE SEER (YOUNG GOD/KONKURRENT)
25. MARK LANEGAN BAND - BLUES FUNERAL (4AD/BEGGARS)

Fuck me that's the absolute worst.

2012 list from hell. Apart from Swans. And Kendrick I guess.

Are there any songs on Tame Impala as good as 'Elephant' or should I resign myself to only voting for that int he singles poll?

ok so Rolling Stone's album of the year is Springsteen's.

we take care of our own

Rolling Stone know their demographic and goddamit they're going to pander to them.

the idea of a bunch of dutch knobs in a room debating alt-j vs. frank ocean is fucking hilarious to me

An Aweshome Wave vs Shannel Ocean

*Oranshe

We spent a bunch

Rolling Stone know their demographic and goddamit they're going to pander to them.
--Deafening silence (DL)

How would this read if it was Kendrick

I mean if you read these threads, every mag is either "pandering" or "trying to be ______" or "trying to hard" with their number one choice. I think Springsteen is a fine choice for an RS list

hang on the song "springsteen" or the artist springsteen? the former is awesome, had no idea the latter was still active or alive or whatever

Springsteen actually died in 1992, this is a Tupac style remix album.

People like the Gaslight Anthem and former members of REM and Michael Franti providing backing tracks for his vocals.

Did RS release its full list?

TS: dadrock pandering vs contempt for the actual tastes/opinions of yr readers

the Eric Church song is def way better than anything Springsteen did this year, but i would never expect Rolling Stone to acknowledge that

RS top 4 is Bruce, Frank, Jack and Bob

Then there's Fiona Apple, Kendrick, Edward Sharpe, Green Day, Japandroids, Neil Young