Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

i feel like i'd be bombing the thread if i c&p'd the whole 100 but it's here and there are also links to the genre lists within: http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2012/12/my-top-100-singles-of-2012.html

oh word... good list w/ the exception of your blasphemous embracing of driicky graham

lol i was starting to get disappointed about not taking any shit for ranking driicky over chief keef

Revolver Magazine Albums of 2012

1 Deftones - Koi No Yokan
2 Meshuggah- Koloss
3 Soundgarden - King Animal
4 Baroness - Yellow & Green
5 Gojira - L'Enfant Sauvage
6 Pig Destroyer - Book Burner
7 High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis
8 Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind
9 Lamb Of God - Resolution
10 Stone Sour - House of Gold & Bones Part 1

Rock Sound Albums 2012

50. "Maybe Today, Maybe Tomorrow" - We Are The Ocean
49. "The Golden Age" - Your Demise
48. "Daybreaker" - Architects
47. "Astraea" - Rolo Tomassi
46. "Lost Songs" - ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
45. "Sonic Boom Six" - Sonic Boom Six
44. "Tycoon" - No Trigger
43. "Gnosis" - Monuments
42. "Weapons" - Lostprophets
41. "Funeral Beach" - Blood Command
40. "COLOURMEINKINDNESS" - Basement
39. "The Front Bottoms" - The Front Bottoms
38. "The 2nd Law" - Muse
37. "Long Live The Struggle" - The King Blues
36. "Uno!" - Green Day
35. "Don't Panic" - All Time Low
34. "Port Of Morrow" - The Shins
33. "Collide With The Sky" - Pierce The Veil
32. "Whitechapel" - Whitechapel
31. "Slave To The Grave" - Emmure
30. "Priorities" - Don Broco
29. "The Parallax II: Future Sequence" - Between The Buried And Me
28. "The Union Of Crowns" - Bury Tomorrow
27. "Sentenced To Life" - Black Breath
26. "No Gods" - Sharks
25. "Dead Set On Living" - Cancer Bats
24. "Honor Found In Decay" - Neurosis
23. "Celebration Rock" - Japandroids
22. "L'Enfant Sauvage" - Gojira
21. "The Plot Against Common Sense" - Future Of The Left
20. "Changing Tune" - Lower Than Atlantic
19. "Ex Lives" - Every Time I Die
18. "Harmonicraft" - Torche
17. "Everything You Ever Loved" - Make Do And Mend
16. "Floral Green" - Title Fight
15. "A Flash Flood Of Colour" - Enter Shikari
14. "Bones" - Young Guns
13. "Atlas" - Parkway Drive
12. "This Is The Six" - While She Sleeps
11. "Yellow & Green" - Baroness
10. "Handwritten" - Gaslight Anthem
09. "Gallows" - Gallows
08. "Exister" - Hot Water Music
07. "Dead Silence" - Billy Talent
06. "At Heart" - Miss May I
05. "Koi No Yokan" - Deftones
04. "Failed States" - Propagandhi
03. "Get What You Give" - The Ghost Inside
02. "All We Love We Leave Behind" - Converge
01. "On The Impossible Past" - The Menzingers

LA Times list hasn't been posted yet, has it

http://graphics.latimes.com/storyboard-times-music-staff-best-2012-list/ (also individual writer ballots in link)

1. Frank Ocean, “Channel Orange” (Def Jam) (62)
2. Kendrick Lamar, “good kid, m.A.A.d. city” (Aftermath/Interscope) (43)
3. Fiona Apple, “The Idler Wheel….” (Epic) (17)
4. Dr. John, “Locked Down” (Nonesuch) (17)
5. Japandroids, “Celebration Rock” (Polyvinyl) (16)
6. Miguel, "Kaleidoscope Dream” (RCA) (15)
7. Cat Power, “Sun” (Matador) (14)
8. Andy Stott, “Luxury Problems” (Modern Love) (14)
9. Swans, “The Seer” (Young God) (13)
10. Alabama Shakes, “Boys & Girls” (ATO) (12)

I rather like driicky graham / don't hate me.

hate you, tim

it's totally one of the best radio rap productions of the year, and the rapping doesn't get in the way of it (possibly even helps, considering every time i've heard someone else rap on the beat it hasn't sounded as good) xpost

yeah, pretty much agree. still can't get over his name tho.

the song basically disappearing before he could even get to like Ca$h Out's level has probably fed some of my enthusiasm for it

If anyone cares about my albums list (with dumb blurbs!), here it is: http://on.fb.me/10yKMnt

http://my2ndheartbeat.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/icare.jpg

thx some dude, xo

There's always some dude that cares, Johnny. Just remember that.

No one gives a shit about mine so I didn't bother.

lol can i post it for you

Sure! Not enough Pinkish Black love on this thread.

my albums list, sans blurbs (although i'd like to write some for at least the top 10):

http://grannykart.com/2012/11/05/jodys-top-30-of-2012/

http://lightbulbhead.tumblr.com/post/38479597599/2012-favorites (xp)

i keep forgetting about that new neneh cherry album.

That Moon Duo record was one of my last cuts, but I dropped it once I realized “Sleepwalkers” sounds like Zooropa-era U2 taking lots of acid and trying to play Adam Ant’s “Vive Le Rock” from memory without having heard it since 1985.

you say that like it's a bad thing.

Not at all! But I docked them slightly because when I saw Adam Ant this fall his current version of "Vive Le Rock" sort of sounded the same way.

In other words, those last few cuts were some arbitrary bullshit.

Ok that Moon Duo description makes me wish you wrote blurbs

Am deeply saddened the Black Bananas album fell of your list, get bent

i'm saddened too. i like that record. i'm so close to restoring it to the list.

black bananas is back.

So okay, maybe they're looking to shift to Decibel territory to extreme music, which works with bands like Swans.

no this stuff has been within their remit since literally their first issue

Yay! xp

my albums list:

http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/for-the-last-time/

i kind of want to have an extended discussion of cloud nothings vs. the men but i'm probably the only one

xpost

Does this mean you had a change of heart on the Mountain Goats record?

I don't think I outright disliked it -- it merely wasn't the keeper that last year's was.

Singles: http://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/best-songs-2012/

i would participate in a cloud nothings vs. the men discussion

open your heart was a nice punch to the gut the first several times i heard it, but it really faded for me. a few great songs on there, but overall it's a little bit tuneless in parts, and there's something about the production that leaves me cold. didn't end up cracking my top 50 or so.

attack on memory, on the other hand, has gotten good press since its release, and done well on these lists, but i still feel that it's underrated. just a terrific rock record that sounds as good (or better) every time i revisit it and scratches my Nirvana-fan itch (as did that Metz album). it's a top 15 of the year album, i say.

that's 4xp, obvs

http://www.tropicalbass.com/2012/12/top-of-the-trops-best-of-tropical-bass-2012/

ANDRÉS:
Top Albums/EPs:
MKC – Caribbean Swagga
Sonodo Desconocido – Trópico Quasar
Maga Bo – Quilombo de Futuro
Cumba Mela – Remix Ep 1

Sonikgroove ft. Prince Osito – Better dan dem Remix EP
Kumbia Queers – Pecados Tropicales
So Shifty ft. Madera Limpia – Rumba EP
Sonido Guay Neñe – Copla Colectiva Digital
Suelta la voz – Copia Doble Systema
Chico Trujillo – Gran Pecador
Palenke Soultribe – Makako EP
Tropikore – Guarapo EP
Frikstailers – Guacha EP
Subatomic Soundsystem ft. Anthony B – Dem Cant stop we from Talkin EP

xp having listened to both in the past two days (first time in a while for cloud nothings but i've been listening to open yr heart regularly since it came out) i find that the men scratch my 90s rock itch most effectively (metz do too to a lesser extent). i like the cloud nothings record, it's good, but there is such an audible joy in the performances on open yr heart and it's really wide open and un-self conscious about making a great record of guitar rock. attack on memory seems a little sullen and studied by comparison.

saw'em both at Pitchfork but The Men won me when they turned "Candy" into a Meat Puppets cowpunk jam.

xpost i swear, i would write the exact opposite of this:

but there is such an audible joy in the performances on open yr heart and it's really wide open and un-self conscious about making a great record of guitar rock. attack on memory seems a little sullen and studied by comparison.

to me, it's Cloud Nothings that sounds joyous, or at least authentically cathartic. more feeling, whatever that means. more un-self conscious. more free. and open yr heart sounds like a very clinical, calculated "we are a good guitar band with our best (read: most accessible) batch of songs and we'd better make a great guitar record" effort, but in overthinking it, they sucked much of the life out of it.

different strokes, eh

indeed--i don't think there's anything on open your heart that's particularly accessible outside of turn it around, the title track, and candy. i do think the record is conscious in nodding at a variety of genres but nothing about the performances themselves comes off that way.

Angry Metal Guy weighs in with his Top 10(ish) of 2012.

#Ish: Vindicator // United We Fall
#10: Wildernessking // The Writing of Gods in the Sand
#9: Borknagar // Urd
#8: Be’lakor // Of Breath and Bone
#7: Ofermod // Thaumiel
#6: Dodecahedron // Dodecahedron
#5: Anathema // Weather Systems
#4: The 11th Hour // Lacrima Mortis
#3: Diablo Swing Orchestra // Pandora’s Piñata
#2: Sophicide // Perdition of the Sublime
#1: Sabaton // Carolus Rex

Honorable Mentions:

Sigh // In Somniphobia
Arjen Anthony Lucassen // Lost in the New Real
Vintersorg // Orkan
Blood Mortized // Keys to a Black Heart
King of Asgard // …To North
Hail Spirit Noir // Pneuma
Sylosis // Monolith

http://www.datpiff.com/top2012

DatPiff.com's top 50 mixtapes of the year. not ordered by popularity, although download stats are shown so it's a good indicator of what was big.

my lists: http://alexmacpherson.tumblr.com/post/38945575458/end-of-year-list-dump-2012

aw lex adopted my "bonus bile" addendum

I did like the Pinkish Black. All the enthusiasm had me revisiting it and it moved up to my top 40 and #6 in heavy rock. My copy was tagged as "grave wave," which many won't like but it's kind of a catchy tag. I could see them getting a lot more attention this year.

xp is it yours? i didn't know! that was a last-min addition thanks to alfred trolling me on twitter, "bonus bile" just popped into my head

Alright! Glad you dug the Pinkish Black. The just finished recording the next album and with Century Media on board it should get them more attention. They also plan to tour the hell out of it and have really rounded into a solid live act.

xpost to fastnbulbous

yeah it was the phrase i came up with for the "worst" lists at the bottom of my genre lists this year xp

haha i only read those y'day, after i'd put mine up, and managed not to clock the same phrase at all

i have been very hungover and vacant this week admittedly