2012 Albums of the Year

Censored by Laurie · January 3, 2013

My yearly music post...can't wait to read all your lists and/or generational gap jokes.

12 Albums for 2012

12. Four - Bloc Party

11. Banks - Paul Banks

10. My Heart is an Animal - Of Monsters and Men

9. Love this Giant - David Byrne and St. Vincent

8. End of That - Plants and Animals

7. Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon - Murder by Death

6. The Lumineers - The Lumineers

5. Old World Romance - Sea Wolf

4. Negotiations - The Helio Sequence

3. Animal Joy - Shearwater

2. Shields - Grizzly Bear

1. The Clearing - Bowerbirds

Mean Green 93-98 · January 3, 2013

I know who David Byrne is . . .

Censored by Laurie · January 3, 2013

I know who David Byrne is . . .

And he's still way cooler than all of us...

Coffee and TV · January 3, 2013

I bought so much old stuff this past year I couldn't really compile a good top 10 list.

I love the new Tame Impala album, Lonerism. Love love love. I'd put money down the new Toro y Moi will be incredible in a few weeks too.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 3, 2013

And he's still way cooler than all of us...

He never did lack personality or uniqueness.

MDH · January 3, 2013

12. Four - Bloc Party

Maybe if only 12 albums came out last year (I may hate this album more than Benford)

Not doing a list but Tame Impala's Lonerism is pure sex. Beach House - Bloom and Crystal Castles - III were good. XX's sophmore album is pretty good. That Divine Fits album is solid.

Censored by Laurie · January 3, 2013

Maybe if only 12 albums came out last year (I may hate this album more than Benford)

Not doing a list but Tame Impala's Lonerism is pure sex. Beach House - Bloom and Crystal Castles - III were good. XX's sophmore album is pretty good. That Divine Fits album is solid.

I think if I'm being 100% true there were a few albums I preferred this year...new Yeasayer...maybe new Shins...but for me Bloc Party's debut "Silent Alarm" is top 5 all-time, but after "Intimacy" and Kele's abortion of a solo effort I was aching to laud "Four" if for no other reason then how it at times hearkens back to earlier Bloc Party.

Unfamiliar with Tame Impala, but I'll give them a listen. Didn't get all the glowing praise and accolades for "Bloom"...decent album to take a bath to, I suppose. Thought XX's follow-up was disappointing.

North Texas Shep · January 4, 2013

The album Apocryphon, by The Sword is pretty freaking amazing!

Green Mean · January 4, 2013

I don't really have a list of any order but some of the ones I really dug this year were:

Various Cruelties - Various Cruelties

Night Visions - Imagine Dragons

Babel - Mumford & Sons - probably slight below their first one but very solid

Walk the Moon - Walk the Moon

Suego Faults - Wolf Gang

Spark Seeker - Matisyahu

Capital Cities - Capital Cities EP

Young the Giant - Young the Giant (Could be 2011 I think but their full album I think released in 2012)

Gossamer - Passion Pit - I happen to be a fan of theirs but they're definitely an acquired taste for many.

Push and Shove - No Doubt (Yes I know it's a little SG but I was really surprised at how good it was considering I liked them when they arrived in the mid 90's)

I'm sure there are more but only the ones that come to mind.

Christopher Walker · January 4, 2013

My favorites this year in no particular order:

Dan Deacon - America

Grizzly Bear - Shields

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

Jack White - Blunderbuss

Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes

Sarah Jaffe - The Body Wins

Passion Pit - Gossamer

David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Grimes - Visions

MDH · January 4, 2013

My favorites this year in no particular order:

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

Sarah Jaffe - The Body Wins

big yes

oldguystudent · January 4, 2013

This Tamed Impala -- not my first choice for active listening, but nice background music to do tax returns

Of Monsters and Men -- has been on my regular rotation all year and is really, really good

Lumineers -- I may or may not have feigned mutual interest in this to facilitate a certain engagement with a female of the opposite sex

Beach House -- see Tamed Impala above. Nice background music when contributing to the aluminum industry on a Friday evening

David Byrne and St. Vincent -- Yes! Yes! Oh God, yes!

As one of the five people in the universe who has a paid subscription to Spotify (so I can use it on my phone at work), I thank you all for these lists as I am always in search of something new. I'll give just about all of this stuff a try although my main interests lie in reggae and skapunk because I'm a total granola eating unwashed SoCaler.

Edit: As I work my way down CBL's list, I say he has good taste in music. The generation gap joke isn't the music, but rather that much of this stuff I would really like if I were 20 years old. Things like getting experimentally intoxicated in the name of young, unrequited love are many, many, many years in my past, so I just don't relate with the "poetry" as well as someone younger might.

Edited January 4, 2013 by oldguystudent