Album of the Year 2012 revisited

[The39thStep]

I enjoy these threads as I have often gone through periods oblivious of new releases or simply have not got round to listening to them or didn't appreciate the genre at the time. For example my number 1 for this year I had never heard of in 2012 and I didn't listen to a good third of the ones that made it into my top 15 until this thread was started.

 

[stavros]

For some reason nothing in the 2012 lists I'm looking at grabs me as exceptional, of those that I know anyway. As such I'm abstaining from this poll (I know, I know; people died for my right to vote).

 

[ska invita]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Am just trying to understand why so many of my generation switch off at a certain age. Not that you are totally switched off.

Every comment or discussion online (outside the urban) seems to be folks hating on everything outside their formative years. If anything, getting older has opened (what's left of) my mind and have still an appetite for the new and old.

Times change but music often feels both cyclical and innovative, still. It was DJs like Peel whose enthusiasm for new stuff along with the old that kept my interest in music. Am still a few years behind but there's a lot of good stuff out there, even if some of us oldies are a bit cynical or jaded

i also wrote this post which i managed to get some thoughts down as to why 21st century music pales to 20the century, from a materialist point of view

Old fogey opinions on modern popular music amnesty

I read this after listening to six different versions of the folk standard Hares on the Mountain. This version by Radie Peat & Daragh Lynch is much the same as the Shirley Collins and Davy Graham version here. If you wrote them down there wouldn't be much difference. Except all the little...

www.urban75.net

 

[krtek a houby]

i also wrote this post which i managed to get some thoughts down as to why 21st century music pales to 20the century, from a materialist point of view

Old fogey opinions on modern popular music amnesty

I read this after listening to six different versions of the folk standard Hares on the Mountain. This version by Radie Peat & Daragh Lynch is much the same as the Shirley Collins and Davy Graham version here. If you wrote them down there wouldn't be much difference. Except all the little...

www.urban75.net

Yeah, can see where you coming from. But am still discovering "new" sounds all the time. Admittedly they might be decades old, or indigenous peoples music that few will bother with.

The last two bands that went to see are relatively "new" (21st century) but would adhere to the cyclical, music raiding it's past.

Would go crazy (crazier) if not able to experience new music, film, books etc. Even if some are rooted in the past.

 

[nogojones]

Normally for these threads I trawl through all my music and list them in a spreadsheet, then forget about the spreedsheet until you send me a reminder. Then I quickly cobble together a list at the last minute. I've had a few things on and I've not even opened a spreadsheet, so it might be a fail from me this time.

 

[Knotted]

OK we'll do this tomorrow evening. I've only received 6 lists plus my own so any last minute submissions are fine.

 

[krtek a houby]

OK we'll do this tomorrow evening. I've only received 6 lists plus my own so any last minute submissions are fine.

Sorry, can't submit this time round. Always a difficult year in many ways.

 

[Knotted]

A song while you wait

 

[braindancer]

Sorry Knotted - I'm out of time / energy to compile a list this time around. Look forward to seeing the results though!

 

[Knotted]

Well I've gone through your lists and there's only two albums that have been listed more than once and 95 singleton entries! Not much to list here unfortunately.

If I give the various stragglers another week will anybody get a list for me? Need some tie breakers!

 

[Knotted]

Any takers? Or shall I give a quick break down of a poll failure?

 

[Knotted]

OK lets do this. I'm starting at joint 3rd position because there's only two albums with multiple votes. There's a low level of enthusiasm for this revisit but the real problem is nobody agrees with anybody else. Which is probably a good thing in its own way.

 

[Knotted]

3= Swans - The Seer

Well this was my no. 1. Keeping the faith alive. Looking back it's one of the very few albums of that time that plays like an album, a narrative of darkness and rising hope and a world of sound that you can get lost in. I still love it.

 

[Knotted]

3= Frankie Rose - Interstellar

I guess this is more of that dreampop that I keep hearing about. It has a very interesting flat sound to it that's very pretty nevertheless. Love that cover.

 

[Knotted]

3= Death and Vanilla - Death and Vanilla

And I guess this is more dreampop, this one more ambient. I don't want to be disparaging, it's just a genre that I've never given paid much attention to to my own detriment. Both this and the previous have a lot of interesting things happening. And another great cover.

 

[Knotted]

3= Automatic Tasty - Speech and Silence

Aka Johnny Dillon. Instrumental electro futuristic landscapes. You can still hear the edm roots but this is more about telling a story through the evolving music. Capable of serious bounce in place.

 

[Knotted]

3= Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah Don't Bend Ascend

flypanam says - An awesome return I was very excited.

Tbf the comment I made about The Seer could apply to this equally well. Going hard as ever on repetition and atmosphere and build ups.

 

[Knotted]

3= Carminho - Alma

A fado album with some big mpb luminaries on it. Carminho is as great and as passionate a singer as you could possibly dream of and I feel guilty not voting for this album. But I've been spoilt by Fado Em Mim.

 

[Knotted]

2 - Claro Intelecto - Reform Club

aka Mark Stewart. Cool minimal techno. There's poignant space between those beats.

 

[Knotted]

Sorry everyone if you're feeling disappointed. What about albums X, Y and Z??!!! You're all in the same delightfully individualistic boat. Or rather completely separate boats in completely different oceans. Personally I can't understand why you didn't vote some hip hop albums in, I think it's a really great time for it.

 

[Knotted]

1 - Death Grips - The Money Store

Industrial hip hop seems like a good label. I think this is really inventive and constantly surprising. It may, however, do your head in. Still only had just two votes.

 

[Knotted]

Personally I went with

Swans - The Seer
Roomful of Teeth - Roomful of Teeth
Homayoun Shajarian - Ey Jane Jan Bi Man Maro
Death Grips - The Money Store
Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Damir Imamović - Sevdah Takht
五条人 [Wu Tiao Ren] - 一些风景 (Some Other Scenery)
Max Richter - Four Seasons
Actress - RIP
Agali Ag Amoumine - Takamba
Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos - FRKWYS - Vol. 9
Phatworld - Ultimate Danger
Julia Holter - Ekstasis
Lil Ugly Mane - Mista Thug Isolation

 

[stavros]

I've not heard any of the polled albums, and the only one of your list I know is the Actress one.

 

[The39thStep]

Mine

1. Death and Vanilla- Death and Vanilla
2. Dreadzone -Second Light
3. Chromatics - Kill for Love
4. Symetry-Themes for an Imaginary Film
5. Pye Audio - Sleep Games
6. Melody's Echo Chamber-Melody's Echo Chamber
7. The Invisible -Rispah
8. Dexy's - One Day
9. John Talabot- Fim
10. Travis and Fripp- Discretion.
11. Orelha Negra - Orelha Negra
12. Tindersticks-The Something Rain
13. Land Observations - Roman Roads
14. Dr John- Lockdown
15. Alpha- Eleventh Trip

 

[hitmouse]

My objectively correct list is:

Death Grips - The Money Store
Lana Del Rey - Born To Die/Born To Die: The Paradise Edition
Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth
Allo Darlin - Europe
Beach House - Bloom
Xiu Xiu - Always
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Kreayshawn - Something ‘Bout Kreay
Magnetic Fields - Love at the Bottom of the Sea
Farrah Abraham - My Teenage Dream Ended
Tragedy - Darker Days Ahead
Pop 1280 - The Horror
Azealia Banks - Fantasea
The School - Reading Too Much Into Things Like Everything
Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold
Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
Ramshackle Glory - Who Are Your Friends Going to Be?
Protomartyr - No Passion All Technique
Martyrdod - Paranoia
elvis depressedly - mickey’s dead
teen suicide - i will be my own hell because there is a devil inside my body
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Woog Riots - Post-Bomb Chronicles
Best Coast - The Only Place
Ceremony - Zoo
Unsane - Wreck
Vitamin X - About To Crack

If I'd realised that The Money Store was going to be the only album to get more than one vote I probably would've switched things up a bit so Lana could've enjoyed that joint #3 spot. Although it does make me wonder - in a list where almost nothing got more than one vote, what would've happened in the fairly unlikely event that someone else also put the same Dutch hardcore album right at the bottom of their list? Other than Knotted probably disqualifying it for being too short.

 

[Knotted]

Claro Intelecto got two votes as well fwiw. Two low votes for an album wouldn't have cracked the top 3 unfortunately. Claro Intelecto only just scraped it.

 

[The39thStep]

Personally I went with

Swans - The Seer
Roomful of Teeth - Roomful of Teeth
Homayoun Shajarian - Ey Jane Jan Bi Man Maro
Death Grips - The Money Store
Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Damir Imamović - Sevdah Takht
五条人 [Wu Tiao Ren] - 一些风景 (Some Other Scenery)
Max Richter - Four Seasons
Actress - RIP
Agali Ag Amoumine - Takamba
Sun Araw, M. Geddes Gengras, The Congos - FRKWYS - Vol. 9
Phatworld - Ultimate Danger
Julia Holter - Ekstasis
Lil Ugly Mane - Mista Thug Isolation

I'll have to give that Max Richter album a listen

 

[Knotted]

I'll have to give that Max Richter album a listen

Summer 3 makes it.



The original bangs of course. But there's perhaps even more drama here.

 

[Spandex]

Thanks for doing this Knotted , even if it didn't work out. I enjoyed listening to some albums from a decade ago, which is the sort of distance from release where they've had time to fade from memory but not fall into becoming vintage old timey music yet.

Here's what I went with:

Frankie Rose - Interstellar
Legowelt - Paranormal Soul
School of Seven Bells - Ghostory
Mungolian Jetset - Mungodelics
Claro Intelecto - Reform Club
Matthew Dear - Beams
Linea Aspera - Linea Aspera
Cooly G - Playin' Me
Lone - Galaxy Garden
Miami Nights 1984 - Turbulence
Blondes - Blondes
VCMG - VCMG
The Primitives - Echoes & Rhymes
Melody’s Echo Chamber - Melody’s Echo Chamber
Orbital - Wonky

 

[Spandex]

Death and Vanilla- Death and Vanilla

I'd never heard of them til they released a new one this year, which is great and I've been playing loads. I'll have to check this out.