Music: Best Albums of the Year Series: 2012

[Saturated Fats]

1965: The Beatles - Rubber Soul
1966: The Beatles - Revolver
1967: The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1969: The Beatles - Abbey Road
1970: Black Sabbath - Paranoid
1971: Led Zeppelin - IV
1973: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon
1975: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
1976: Eagles - Hotel California
1977: Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
1979: Pink Floyd - The Wall
1980: AC/DC - Back in Black
1982: Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
1984: Metallica - Ride the Lightning
1985: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair
1988: Metallica - ...And Justice for All
1989: Pixies - Doolittle
1991: Nirvana - Nevermind
1992: Alice in Chains - Dirt
1996: (TIE) Soundgarden - Down on the Upside // Rage Against the Machine - Evil Empire
1998: (TIE) Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill // System of a Down - System of a Down
1999: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication
2000: Radiohead - Kid A
2001: The Strokes - Is This It
2002: Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
2004: (TIE) Madvillain - Madvillainy // The Killers - Hot Fuss // Green Day - American Idiot
2005: Coldplay - X & Y
2007: Radiohead - In Rainbows
2010: The National - High Violet
2011: No definitive winner
2014: Behemoth - The Satanist

1987: Guns 'n Roses - Appetite for Destruction (19 votes)

2nd Place: U2 - The Joshua Tree (16 votes)
3rd Place: Def Leppard - Hysteria (12 votes - ???)
4th Place: R.E.M. - Document (10 votes)
5th Place: Michael Jackson - Bad (9 votes)

It was a fun fight, but the album most of us predicted to win, did win. I have no problem with Appetite for Destruction - it's a solid, accessible hard-rock record with some strong musicianship and super-fun tunes. I just think that The Joshua Tree is a masterpiece that, along with most of U2's catalogue, gets trampled on nowadays because of their repeated stupidity.

2012 is a really fun year. It's a pivot point in popular and critically-lauded music towards hip-hop, which became the dominant genre for the subsequent years of the decade. And there are some monster hip-hop records on the year - but a lot of good stuff elsewhere, too.

10/17: 1995
10/19: 1981
10/21: 2006

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[Ceremony]

Other -

The 2nd Law - Muse
No One Can Ever Know - The Twilight Sad
Acts - RNDM
Hello Hum - Wintersleep

 

[Mescaleroman]

Hiatus Kaiyote - Tawk Tomahawk
the Hives - Lex Hives

 

[Teemu]

alt-J - An Awesome Wave
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
The xx - Coexist

 

[Cas]

I voted for Clockwork Angels by default - it was good but I probably wouldn't consider it within my top ten for 2012.

What would I pick for a top ten from 2012, right now?

Ahab - The Giant
Attic - The Invocation
Candlemass - Psalms for the Dead
Demoncy - Enthroned is the Night
Hellbringer - Dominion of Darkness
Hooded Menace - Effigies of Evil
Hour of 13 - 333
Panopticon - Kentucky
Pseudogod - Deathwomb Catechesis
Serpentine Path - Serpentine Path
White Lung - Sorry

That's actually eleven. Oh well.

For me, this is a race between Deathwomb Catechesis and The Invocation. Extremely heavy blackened death metal versus Mercyful Fate worship.

Kentucky is good, but I'm not sure it did anything that Collapse hadn't already done beyond dial up the bluegrass and union anthems. It's more accessible and thus better known as a result, but I think both Collapse and Roads to the North are better.

I'm going to go with Pseudogod - Deathwomb Catechesis.

 

[Saturated Fats]

A fun year, like I said, with a lot of deeply enjoyable works that have become regular spins for me. Not sure anything stands out significantly above the rest, and nothing cracks my top-50 of all time, but there is still quality here. Two works stand above all else for me: Attack on Memory, and the stellar hip-hop work History Will Absolve Me by Billy Woods.

1. Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
2. Billy Woods - History Will Absolve Me

3. The Taxpayers - "God, Forgive These Bastards": Songs from the Forgotten Life of Henry Turner
4. Anna von Hausswolff - Ceremony
5. Cattle Decapitation - Monolith of Inhumanity
6. alt-J - An Awesome Wave
7. Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind

8. Panopticon - Kentucky
9. Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
10. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, M.A.A.D. city

 

[Oxbow Lakes]

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
White Lung - Sorry
Marconi Union - Weightless (Ambient Transmission Vol. 2)
Pää Kii - Pää Kii
Deftones - Koi no yokan
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Death Grips - The Money Store
Melanin 9 - Magna Carta

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Again lots of stuff here and sorry for the long post... Tough upper end to rank. I gave the first spot to Igorrr (in part because Gosfield and Many Arms already had their own first spot), but really that top-4 is super close, and after that you have 5 other gems.

1. Igorrr – Hallelujah
T2. Annie Gosfield – Almost Truths And Open Deceptions
T2. Yowie – Damning With Faint Praise
4. Many Arms – Many Arms
-
5. Can – The Lost Tapes
6. Uchihashi Kazuhisa And Yoshida Tatsuya – Barisshee
7. Guillaume Perret & The Electric Epic – Guillaume Perret & The Electric Epic
8. Zeena Parkins – Double Dupe Down
9. Normal Love – Survival Tricks
-
10. Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra – Bum Bum
11. Matt Elliott – The Broken Man
12. The Chariot – One Wing
13. Saez – Messina (IMO far from his previous release, but this is a triple album, just a mastodon)
14. Merkabah – A Lament for the Lamb
15. Jozef van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch – The Mystery of Heaven / Jozef van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch – Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity

HMs:
Daniel Johnston – Space Ducks
Aaron Dilloway – Modern Jester
Swans – The Seer
Old Man Gloom – No
Allah-Las – Allah Las (this really sounds like it's coming from another time, smooth easily listening, almost too cool)
Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral (Lanegan's “Christmas album”, Dark Mark Does Christmas 2012, also has a few very good songs, Burn the Flames is just amazing)
Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind
Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
You Slut! – Medium Bastard
Gustaf Hildebrand – Heliopause
Anna Clyne – Blue Moth
Stolen Babies – Naught
Code Orange Kids – Love Is Love/Return to Dust
Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe
Natural Snow Buildings – Beyond the Veil / TwinSisterMoon – Bogyrealm Vessels / Isengrid – Night of Raining Fire
Cex – Presumed Dead / Cex – Masokismi / Cex – Cobweb & Colossus
Tame Impala – Lonerism (thanks to a suggestion from my Beatles sound-alike thread)
Diablo Swing Orchestra – Pandora's Piñata
Erik Friedlander – American Power
Fushitsusha – Mabushii Itazura na Inori
Benjamin Biolay – Vengeance
of Montreal – Paralytic Stalks
The Mars Volta – Noctourniquet
Invalids – Eunoia
Beyond Sensory Experience – Modern Day Diabolists

Don't mind.... (added these because there was quite a few female singers that had overall pretty good albums this year - nothing I'd listen to normally, but stuff I don't mind hearing)
Regina Spektor – What We Saw From the Cheap Seats
Norah Jones – ...Little Broken Hearts
Anaïs Mitchell – Young Man in America
Rickie Lee Jones – The Devil You Know
Taken by Trees – Other Worlds (the cover creates interference with the cover for the Allah-Las album - this is here just too smooth for me, still not bad at all)

Curiosities:
Iggy Pop – Après (this could be in my top-10, it's not good, but it's so much fun and out of left field...)
John Zorn – Rimbaud (uneven album, but that last piece with Mathieu Amalric reading Rimbaud should be top-3 here) / (the other Zorn album I've heard from 2012, Nosferatu, is also very uneven with a few pretty amazing moments, but not something I go back to)
Mike Patton & Ictus Ensemble – Laborintus II (very good stuff, just doesn't really click with me)
Demented Are Go! – Welcome Back to Insanity Hall (lots of fun)
Roomful of Teeth – Roomful of Teeth
Scott Walker – Bish Bosch
Jazzkamikaze – The Return of JazzKamikaze
Pillowfight – Pillowfight (not my style, but I almost like it, there's just something with Dan the Automator)
Timba Harris – neXus: Cascadia (worth a shot, 3 or 4 amazing tracks)
Sleep – Dopesmoker
Arca – Stretch 2
Andre Williams & The Sadies – Night & Day
Brian Eno – Lux
Susumu Yokota – Dreamer
Motorpsycho and Ståle Storløkken – The Death Defying Unicorn – A Fanciful And Fairly Far-Out Musical Fable (too uneven for me to put it in my Hms, but still a fun ride with very good moments)
Pepe Deluxé – Queen of the Wave
Anoice – The Black Rain
Gemstones – Elephant In the Room (I don't know much about rap, but I love some of Gemstones' songs,... but hate his christian bullshit, I just didn't know where to rank this, but there's stuff in here that's in my regular rotation)

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Koi No Yokan for me.

Love the soundscapes and the record overall. A very underappreciated Deftones album

 

[plank]

I only have 14 albums from this year, the fewest from the 10's for me. This is what I've got and how I rank 'em.

1. Arrow - Heartless Bastards
2. Maraqopa - Damien Jurado
3. New Multitudes - Farrar, Johnson, Parker and Yames
4. Boys & Girls - Alabama Shakes
5. The Lion's Roar - First Aid Kit
6. Autumn Bird Songs - Jason Molina
7. Big Moon Ritual - Chris Robinson Brotherhood
8. Blunderbuss - Jack White
9. Psychedelic Pill - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
10. Tempest - Bob Dylan
11. Over and Around the Clove - Trummors
12. Stars and Satellites - Trampled by Turtles
13. Cabin Fever - Corb Lund
14. For the Good Times - The Little Willies

 

[MoreOrr]

Other: Edit: No, it's 2013. Error!

Lunatic - Kongos

Unless December 28, 2012 would be better for the 2013 list. Oh wait, it appears that the album wasn't released in the US until October, 2013. Yes, I'll try to change or delete my vote and wait to the 2013 list, but then there'll be other competition.

Edit: I guess I can't just delete the vote, so count one less other, if that's important.

 

[Saturated Fats]

T2. Annie Gosfield – Almost Truths And Open Deceptions

11. Matt Elliott – The Broken Man
12. The Chariot – One Wing

Old Man Gloom – No

So I listened to some excerpts from each of these four, and I really appreciated One Wing and No. I like Matt Elliot, and enjoy Drinking Songs a lot, but this one felt veeeeeery Cohen, almost to the point of emulation. I couldn't get into the Annie Gosfield, although I only listened to the first three songs (well, parts of the third). Just too much going on for me.

Thanks, as always.

 

[Ouroboros]

Couldn't believe how much cool stuff came out this year when I started browsing through my lists. Just a great year for lovers of degenerate sounds. Also a big year for women on my list which is kind of interesting...

Eleanor Hovda - The Eleanor Hovda Collection [Modern Classical/Drone]
Timeghoul - 1992-1994 Discography [Compilation] [Death Metal]
Teitanblood - Woven Black Arteries [Death Metal]
Adversarial/Antediluvian - Initiated In Impiety As Mysteries [Split] [Death Metal]
Antediluvian - λόγος [Death Metal]
Urfaust - Ritual Music For The True Clochard [Compilation] [Black Metal]
Grischa Lichtenberger - And IV (Inertia) [Glitch/Electronic/'IDM']
Áine O'Dwyer - Music For Church Cleaners [Drone/Ambient/Liturgical]
Abhorrence - Completely Vulgar [Compilation] [Death Metal]
Aluk Todolo - Occult Rock [Black Metal/Krautrock]
Demdike Stare - Elemental [Compilation] [Ambient/Drone/Dub Techno]
Kaevum - Natur [Black Metal]
Jakob Ullmann - Fremde Zeit Addendum [Pellegrini Quartet, etc.] [Modern Classical/Reductionism]
Mgła - With Hearts Toward None [Black Metal]
Morton Feldman - Music For Piano And String, Vol. 2 [Smith Quartet/Joh Tilbury] [Modern Classical]
Friedrich Cerha - Konzert Für Schlagzeug Und Orchester; Impulse Für Orchester [Modern Classical]
Voices From The Lake - Voices From The Lake [Ambient/Electronic/Minimal Techno]
Sofia Gubaidulina - Complete String Quartets [Stamic Quartet ] [Modern Classical]
Deiphago - Satan Alpha Omega [Death Metal/War Metal]
Pseudogod - Deathwomb Catechesis [Death Metal/Black Metal]
Eliane Radigue - Feedback Works 1969-1970 [Drone/Noise]
Ehnahre - Old Earth [Free Improv/Death Metal/Sludge]
Pauline Oliveros - Reverberations: Tape And Electronic Music 1961-1970 [Compilation [Noise/Drone]
Svartidauði - Flesh Cathedral [Black Metal]

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

So I listened to some excerpts from each of these four, and I really appreciated One Wing and No. I like Matt Elliot, and enjoy Drinking Songs a lot, but this one felt veeeeeery Cohen, almost to the point of emulation. I couldn't get into the Annie Gosfield, although I only listened to the first three songs (well, parts of the third). Just too much going on for me.

Thanks, as always.

Really glad you liked The Chariot and Old Man Gloom!! I understand where your comment on the Elliot album comes from, but I really can't say I agree (I love Cohen - except for his atrocious use of backvocals - but he hasn't done anything that "ballsy" in... ever?). I prefer this album to Drinking Songs by a mile, at times, it sounds a little to me like some of the better Shawn Phillips stuff, but yeah, with a more Cohenian voice. Gosfield I just love, but I get that it's not everybody's cup of tea. Anyway, just the fact that you gave these a chance is great.

 

[belair]

GKMC is one of the strongest albums of the past 20 years. I think it should take the cake here. Koi No Yokan was one of the stronger Deftones albums, but I think it falls behind a few here. I'm surprised that Channel Orange didn't get any love here. It was an outstanding debut from Frank Ocean.

 

[Saturated Fats]

GKMC is one of the strongest albums of the past 20 years. I think it should take the cake here. Koi No Yokan was one of the stronger Deftones albums, but I think it falls behind a few here. I'm surprised that Channel Orange didn't get any love here. It was an outstanding debut from Frank Ocean.

Well I'm more of a TPaB guy, I certainly agree that GKMC deserves the love. The vote is, frankly, emblematic of this board's preference for hard rock over hip hop. GKMC is only the 3rd hip-hop (and arguable non-rock) album to win or tie-for-win in a given poll.