Suzinne
Bronx
Ariel Pink and Haunted Graffiti "Mature Themes"
The Early Birds of Babylon
Ariel Pink & Haunted Grafitti
that the Stones played during Hurricane Sandy Benefit
revamp of Soundcheck
Saw PiL @ Hammerstein Ballroom loved it when John Lydon ripped into venue's over aggressive security.
more and more garbage, starting with Rolling Stones "Grrr"
too many to count
Valentin
NJ
Jessie Ware
"I feel like I got away with it!"
Psycho by Tommy Lee
Austra
Karandila Gypsy Brass Orchestra on the street of Berlin
David Byrne & St Vincent in The Beacon Theatre
Alabama Shakes
Brass music, gypsy punk
Gangnam Style
Kevin
Westchester
Sigur Ros "Valtari"
Beautiful album and absolutely gutwrenching at times. A purely visceral listening experience that I haven't had in quite some time. Several tracks would qualify for the "Songs That Give You Chills" segment from last year.
"Myth" by Beach House
Has a wonderful ethereal quality to it that made it my "Summer Song 2012"
RNDM
Another side-project for Joseph Arthur, but almost everything he does is solid.
"Gangnam Style" by Psy
Who saw that phenomenon coming?....
Great Lake Swimmers "New Wild Everywhere"
Coming off a strong previous release ("Lost Channels") and known for recording in unique locations, they finally move to a traditional studio and lose their unique charm.
Andrew Bird at Riverside Church (12/10/12). Beautiful use of the cathedral space with amazing atmospherics.
Countless viral videos of "Call Me Maybe." My personal favorite is Cookie Monster's "Share Maybe."
"Some Nights" by Fun.
Really grating song by a band that thinks it's clever to use a period at the end of their (one word) name.
iuri kothe
brazil
Akalé Wubé – Mata
https://soundcloud.com/jeroen-van-veen/dark-night-for-multitrack
-
-
-
Part's Tabula Rasa Performance in Amsterdam: http://www.muziekgebouw.nl/agenda/Concerten/1966/Radio_Kamer_Filharmonie/Tabula_Rasa_Tallinn_30_9_77/
-
-
Ben
Kew Gardens, Queens
Cat Power - Sun
I've been waiting for anything from Chan Marshall as good as You Are Free. I didn't have the highest expectations going into it but it hooked me with Cherokee and I was sold by the time Ruins ended.
MIA - Bad Girls
No explanation. Wait, did you see the video? I want to be MIA when I grow up.
Sinkane. I've had it stuck in my head for weeks.
David Byrne and St. Vincent. I really wanted to like it but couldn't get into it.
... Nothing comes to mind. I almost had one but t was really last year.
andrew kemp
detroit
Fionna Apple: The Idler Wheel
Irresponsible Tune by Dirty Projectors
Meshell N'degeocello's band she's touring the Nina Simone tribute with.
Fionna Apple's daring vocal and rhythmic explorations. I'm so pleased that she is back and better than ever.
Still Kid Rock
Tune Yards
Soundcheck has amazing guests
Kidd Rock must have made a song, right?
Amin Delshad
Tehran, Iran!
good kid M.A.A.D city
loved the beats, the story and some enchanting phrases
Pyramids
I'm listening to it right now! lol, but it's a catchy song and sorta highlight to this amazing album, besides I like long songs
Death Grips
their raw power and shocking album covers
besides they offered the most unheard sound to me
Channel Orange
I've had noticed some R&B artists in past year and I thought maybe I can find an album that topped my expectations, but when I saw 9.5 Pitchfork rating for this album prior to listening to it, it blew my mind
Indie
towards the end of the year I had this sensation that I was no more interested in indie bands, and when Shields came out, I could only see that they have done a wonderful job of it, but surprisingly I don't love it the way I expected to
da! I live in Iran, I didn't go to any consert
really it was a year of variety, but possibilities of hip-hop engaged me. the fact that some of bestselling albums of year were also my favorites, and more obscure acts like Killer Mike and Death Grips put out really amazing albums.
I don't like tagging music as 'worst', but I really couldn't make any connection with Valtari!
Max Headroom
CT
Unity Band, by Pat Metheny Quartet.
For the first time in more than 30 years, Metheny features a tenor saxophone in the front line. The last, in fact the only, previous Metheny-led record to feature a horn player was the iconic and influential ECM recording 80/81, which brought the guitarist together with two saxophone titans, Dewey Redman and Michael Brecker.
New Year of the above album.
Unity Band, Pat Metheny, Town Hall
Michelle
Brooklyn
Gaslight Anthem, Handwritten. This bad just gets better and better -- the hooks, the lyrics, the depth, the fun. I had high hopes and wasn't disappointed.
Fun. We Are Young. It's so infectious!!
Not really a surprise, but I'm still amazed by Dylan's output. Tempest has some very good music.
Springsteen -- but I'm from Jersey.
Isa Abney
Brooklyn
Cold Specks, A Peaceful Expulsion
Santigold, Master Of My Make-Believe
Both albums are brilliant, they satisfy the soul. They made me feel understood.
Alicia Keys, When It's All Over
Makes you realize the saints in your life.
Macklemore's "The Heist"
Great lyrics, positive message, makes me believe there's something left in hip-hop rather than solely flashy cars and girls
Matisyahu's "Spark Seeker"
Always positive, his music feeds the soul. All songs nowadays are about love/bad romances, his music is about one thing: you. The being, in all forms and fashions.
Frank Ocean--Too over hyped. I hated how he used his sexuality as a PR stunt to gain more sales for his album
n/a
n/a
Frank Ocean--Channel Orange. Too overblown, distracts from the other talents in the business. What if all that money/press spent on him was spent on artists with real messages, i.e. Santigold, Macklemore, Matisyahu, Cold Specks, Norah Jones, etc.
Jacob Nieman
New Brunswick, NJ
Dave Matthews Band: Away From The World
DMB comes back to form with this album. After the celebration of Leroy which was Big Whiskey, and with the return of Steve Lillywhite as producer the band really clicks. A great album from a great band.
Lera Lynn. First heard her on A Prairie home companion here smokey and sultry voice with strong lyrics and good songwriting was a great intro to country music for me.
The way fun. blew up. I had listened to and really enjoyed their first album, Aim and Ignite and when I heard they were releasing a second was excited. When We are Young started playing everywhere I was amazed at the rate it spread.
fun.'s second album, some nights just did not match the first. The first didn't have a bad song on it, the second was lacking one great song. We are Young and Some Nights were good but lacking.
fun. In Boston in April. I was blown away. After Some Nights, I was not expecting much but Nate can work a crowd and their rendition of barlight blew the house away. Amazing concert and so unexpectedly awesome.
The emergence of more folk centered music. Something I find to be great.
Some Nights. As I've said before it just had too many misses. fun. has great potential but left me wanting far more
Kristin Kaz
Jamesburg, NJ
Orange Channel by Frank Ocean because I had never heard anything like it before. It's probably considered 'overrated' at this point, but it was an enjoyable, honest, and well-crafted album through and through.
"Bad Religion" by Frank Ocean, for the same reasons.
Alabama Shakes
Frank Ocean, again, since I don't tend to find myself obsessed with albums of the more r&b variety as I did for this one.
That "Girl on Fire" was crafted, and that I'm now hearing it everywhere.
I'm not really sure beyond just seeing certain songs take off out of nowhere ("Call Me Maybe," "Somebody I Used to Know" or "Gangnam Style" for example) and start permeating every aspect of all of our lives. There was an endless stream of parody videos for each of those songs.
"Some Nights" by fun. but that could honestly be because I've heard it endlessly.
N. R. M.
Earth
Synthetica by Metric.
One of the few albums that works the whole way through.
Youth Without Youth by Metric.
Great beat and you can sing along to it.
N/A
Synthetica by Metric. Didn't expect to hear an album this good.
The current flaccid state of the music industry.
N/A
It is getting worse.
Sorry, but I tried to forget them.
karmabuena
Alabama
Tame Impala Lonerism... chill
"Hold On" by Alabama Shakes... because I'm from Alabama and there's some unwritten rule that I have to appreciate and promote the very few cool things to emerge from Alabama (and it's a great song)
Icky Blossoms... I wasn't a fan of Sirius XMU's continual repetition of "Babes," but when I saw them live, Icky Blossoms rocked it. They were much better live.
Matthew E. White... Not my thing usually, but his humble spirit and his sound made him one of my faves of the year.
Girls broke up... You either loved them or hated them, and I loved them. I'm a sucker for sloppy, dysfunctional music, I guess. See below.
Diiv in New York... Very fun time on the dock.
Jack White at the Ryman in Nashville was also pretty epic for very different reasons.
Pine Hill Haints was the best "small venue" concert.
I questioned if some pieces were actually music. Was I just not getting it? Am I too old to see its worth? Then I just went with my gut and labeled it garbage.
Ian T. McFarland
Los Angeles, CA
I don't even know how to answer that.
At 24-years-old, I found myself in a job that I hated, living with my parents, and not really seeing any end to the misery either was bringing me. It was just after I heard 'Wasted Days' by Cloud Nothings that I was able to convince myself that I could change these things. Making "I thought I would be more than this" my temporary mantra, the song gave me the perfect source and outlet for the frustration I had been feeling, and convinced me I could get out of it.
Jessie Ware just popped out of nowhere and had me on lock and chain for weeks. 'Devotion' is wickedly smooth, with an updated take on R&B that doesn't have to play dark like the way other great white hopes of the genre have to. The album is sexy, dancey, and impossible to stop listening to.
To be fair, I'd never given Nada Surf much attention before 2012, but 'The Stars Are Indifferent to Astronomy' showed me how stupid that mistake was. It's hard to imagine any songs that could so skillfully put me in a good mood. These songs are like the greatest uppers I can listen to.
Dan Deacon's last album, 2009's 'Bromst,' was a collection of music so audaciously original that it's still hard to believe anyone created it that isn't from the distant future. He finally followed it up with this year's 'America,' a strong album that just couldn't make a dent in the shadow of its older brother. That's fine, I just wish I'd realized that I shouldn't have expected anything else as good as 'Bromst.'
I saw M83 in an under-sized venue - only about a thousand fans could get in, which was not nearly enough, even for a small town in Kansas. But every hipster that was able to lay witness treated the moment as something special, and words cannot relate how quickly the floor fell out from underneath our feet when a saxophonist popped out for his solo at the end of 'Midnight City'.
Nerds have taken over most of Pop Culture, but this year they finally cracked Pop Music. Could anyone have predicted a couple of guys in ironic afros and eyewear dominating Top 40 radio the way LMFAO did with 'Party Rock Anthem' or 'Sexy and I Know It'? Could anyone have seen a foreign musician's stab at dubby and dancy flash music becoming the most watched video on YouTube, and going on to be a huge force on the radio as we saw PSY accomplish? Sex and Swagger don't mean as much as they used to, in fact, the opposite may be more important.
It's not a terrible song, but I really hate 'Call Me Maybe.' Yes, it has a very catchy hook, but other than its stringy synth line in the chorus, there's nothing remarkable about the song, either from a critical or pop perspective. Jepson's voice is just the right kind of sugary, but I'm not convinced I want to give her a second chance.
neato
sf ca
bryan ferry orchestra-the jazz age
last minute december release...genius in concept & execution..and great restraint from ferry for not singing on it..who'd have thought combining glam roxy music and 20's era jazz would could be so perfect...ferry!
nada surf-jules and jim
from the stars are indifferent to astronomy
clever lyrics, powerful guitar driven pop from an old pro -matt caws
lightships-electric cables
teenage fanclub alumni makes entire album of his quirky voiced dreamy pop tunes
ferry-jazz age
death of jazz great john tchicai...played with everyone from coltrane to lennon...a true great...rip
mermen--bay areas great treasure of a surf band still continuing after 20 years...guitarist jim thomas better than ever..a musical soul
eclecticism has become the norm
there is no worst, only different perceptions..
surround yourself with music that you like and there is no worst
Jeremy Shatan
NYC
The Walkmen - Heaven
I've been along for the ride with Hamilton Leithauser & Co. since the first album and it has been a joy to hear them grow. Each album has either expanded on their sound or explored further reaches within in it. Even in the context of their progression, Heaven is a bold and startling leap forward. Perhaps touring with Fleet Foxes (and working with their producer, Phil Ek) gave Leithauser the confidence to wipe away the reverb and just sing out. His crystal clear tenor perfectly embodies songs, that for all their individuality, touch the elemental core of why we sing in the first place. There's something elemental about Heaven that looks back to bedrock artists like Buddy Holly - and even further back, to the earliest troubadours. The Walkmen connect with the lifeblood of music and directly to my heart.
I'm Writing A Novel - Father John Misty (Fear Fun). Just on brilliant song on an album full of them. The lyrics are phantasmagoric and hilarious, tossing off zingers, but somehow engagingly human as well. See FJM live for the full experience. Remember, his reality is realer than yours.
Breton. After a series of EP's starting in 2010, these London based art-rockers released their debut album, Other People's Problems, in 2012. Calling on FatCat Records label mate Hauschka to provide string arrangements (which they then chopped & screwed), they brought a new level of ambition to their first album-length statement. The lyrics may ask more questions than they answer but mesh perfectly with the collaged layers of electronics and live instruments. They also released the excellent Blanket Rule EP in 2012 and toured Europe and the U.S. They're well on their way & deservedly so. (Full disclosure: I'm thanked in the liner notes, mainly for being the first person to talk about them in the U.S.)
Probably Fear Fun, the Father John Misty album. Having followed J.Tillman's solo career with more admiration than love since about 2008, I was knocked sideways by his new persona. It just seemed to unleash something in him - the more extroverted songs, the hip-swinging, pissed-off stage presence, the versatile voice. Don't get me wrong, there are treasure's to be mined (No Occasion, for example) in the work of J.Tillman, but Father John is a whole new thang.
While I'm not the biggest Neil Young fan, I have connected deeply with his work. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Ragged Glory, Harvest Moon and On The Beach are all records I hold near and dear. Hearing all the talk about Psychedelic Pill, I got excited. After all the tossed off records about cars, war and guitars, I thought this might be one for me. Then I heard the thing. It's like demos for Powderfinger or Cortez the Killer, over and over again. He reaches for profundity and misses - over and over again. The lyrics are so ham-handed, you could make a sandwich. And, let's face it, once you get past the glory of his tone, he's not much of an improviser. What made it more of a turkey for me was the hipster genuflecting. Enough already - go play with your train set, Neil.
I got to see Father John Misty twice - and both times he proved himself Performer Of The Year. He takes on this wonderful persona, a pissed off but soulful guy who really wants to have fun, but it always ends up going south somehow. The songs are wonderful and his voice just keeps getting better. Catch him when he comes back in January - I'm tempted to see him again!
Synth based stuff is more and more prevalent - Twigs (great), Grimes (not so great) and others came with a very electronic sound. The Divine Fits featured some hypnotic synth sounds that sounded straight out of Conny Plank's Berlin Studio, ca. 1974.
I really hate Adele, so I was sick of the Skyfall theme song before I even heard it. What's with the Sky FOAL when it CrumBOWL"?
There were probably worse songs (One Direction, Psy, Taylor Swift, etc.) but I particularly enjoy complaining about that one.
Michael
Tiffin OH
Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself
Only because I've had more time to listen to it, but Dan Deacon and Tame Impala are right there too.
Sweet Valley - Chaos Speed
Video games and Pulp Fiction? Why yes, I'll take three.
Reptar
A friend told me about them after CMJ 2010, but this year they released their first LP (but if we are going by Grammy rules then I think Tame Impala would be appropriate).
Beach House - Teen Dream 2: Seed of Devotion
nuf said.
Dan Deacon at the Bluestone in Columbus, OH
I saw the bus, the trippy green skull, and I got to give the man a hug at the end. The Epcot Center ain't got shit on that ensemble.
I think it's safe to say shoegaze exists.
Chris Molanphy
Brooklyn, NY
Miguel, 'Kaleidoscope Dream': As good as the Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar albums are, this really is the most fully realized R&B album-qua-album of 2012, a year where black music's lower profile on pop radio gave mainstream R&B artists, perversely, greater freedom. This disc contains an R&B/HH chart No. 1 hit on it, yet it's as adventurous as anything I heard all year. Catchy, confident, creative.
I mean, did anything bring more joy to more people in 2012 than "Call Me Maybe"? It's going to top a lot of critics' polls this year, and it deserves it. Great pop is harder to pull off than folks realize, and "CMM" is just flawless, both as a composition (has multiple musical tropes, unlike some thinner pop songs these days) and as a recording (fluttery, then propulsive when it needs to be).
Runner-up: Usher's "Climax."
By default it's probably Kendrick Lamar, for bringing back a wooly form of classic hip-hop in a way that somehow seems new (i.e., could sit comfortably next to vintage Nas or the Wu, but doesn't feel obligated to them). My other would be Tanlines--we're now deep enough into the post-Gaga return of dance music that it's infiltrating more obviously indie forms of music, too. "All of Me" is the year's most underrated pop song.
Top 40 radio's swing back toward, if not rock, certainly a post-four-on-the-floor form of centrist pop: fun., Gotye, Ed Sheeran. I don't want the radio to move entirely in that direction, but the variety is welcome after the '09-'11 tyranny (often pleasurable) of Gaga and her acolytes. In terms of sonic breadth, pop radio came the closest to sounding like its 1984 peak than it has in a long time.
I think I'm alone on this one, but the Passion Pit album was just okay when it should have been great. It's a classic sophomore album problem -- weaker songs that don't advance what the band is about -- and I can't really fault Michael Angelakos for it. Following up the slab of indie-pop gems he crafted for 2009's 'Manners' ("To Kingdom Come," "Little Secrets," "Sleepyhead") was a near-impossible task.
M83 (artist behind my favorite album of 2011): So much better, and "live-r," than you'd guess. Anthony Gonzalez & co. have a show that's ready for arenas now; all they need is the US fanbase (and maybe a radio hit) to graduate them to that level.
bit.ly/NriPqp -- The way a combination of technology (iTunes, Portable People Meters) and pop trends have conspired to marginalize black/urban music in all its forms. By the end of the year, Billboard cried uncle and overhauled its R&B chart to include digital music data, arguably hastening the downfall of black radio's influence and the black retail economy. Possibly inevitable but still a shame.
Am I too soon after the Grammy nominations announcements to dump on this? It's gotta be improbable Dance Recording nominee Al Walser, with the truly appalling record "I Can't Live Without You." I think we're allowed to beat up on this guy a bit, given the way he shamelessly gamed the system to get his piece-o'-crap song into the Grammy race. I know his career is just getting off the ground -- let's ground it now.
Caryn
Brooklyn
Tie between
Panopticon: Kentucky
Black metal, with banjo and folk flutes!
AND Kaki King's GLOW
Guitar wizardry, now with more ETHEL.
David Byrne & St. Vincent: Who
Tilts. The song "Super Ultra Mega" makes for long-term happiness.
Friends' band Anicon. Would you believe more black metal goodness? Their new live drummer is one of my favorite ever.
High On Fire's new record, De Vermis Mysteriis just didn't stand up to repeated listening. All except opening drums on "Fertile Green."
Fanfare Ciocarlia @ Schimmel Center. Hands down.
Pop music is even more about 360 marketing one's brand. Life lesson learned.
Toss-up between Gangam Style and Call Me Maybe.
