The Best Music of 2012

2012 has been awesome for music. We’ve seen the rise of three great new R&B artists, a virtuosic new rapper’s stunning concept album, and at least a dozen bands that are supposed to revitalize indie rock as we know it. Nearly all of my favorite punk bands released new albums this year, and somehow not one of them disappointed. It’s also been a great year for pop: “Call Me Maybe” got stuck in just about everyone’s heads (but it wasn’t so bad), Taylor Swift released a legitimately great record, and those aforementioned R&B and rap darlings are having some popular success to go with their adoring critics.

But 2012 is ending. And that means that it’s time for everyone’s favorite music critic pastime: lists. Below, I’ve listed my 10 favorite albums of the year and 10 of my favorite songs of the year. Neither list is supposed to be a ranking–I can’t claim that superiority–as this list is inherently indebted to my own tastes. Thankfully, my own tastes have expanded this year, and I think that these two lists are a pretty good way to dive into some new music if you’ve spent the entire year listening to The Who or something.

But don’t just listen to me. Feel free to write some of your favorite albums or songs in the comment section. Or to tell me how wrong I am,  whatever floats your boat.

ALBUMS:

Frank Ocean – channel ORANGE

Promotional photo provided by Def Jam

It doesn’t take long to realize that Frank Ocean is a special talent. I realized it during the chorus of “Thinkin’ Bout You,” when Ocean starts to sing in a high, impossibly clear falsetto. That’s one of just many standout moments on the beautiful, disarming channel ORANGE. It’s an album that’s both immediately accessible and incredibly dense. Ocean is backed by an idiosyncratic group of instruments, with the one singular quality being Ocean’s incredible voice and storytelling. There’s much I could write about this album, but I don’t think I can add anymore to the conversation at this point. Just listen to it.

Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d. city

I spent much of my good kid, m.A.A.d. city review praising it as a concept album. And it’s a very good one. But it’s so much more than that. At its core, good kid is an album that takes everything good about rap–the storytelling, the humor, the musical virtuosity, the beats and more–and gets it exactly, brilliantly, right. If not for the looming spectre of channel ORANGE, this would have been the best album of the year, and it wouldn’t have been particularly close. good kid, m.A.Ad. city is a stunningly realized statement by an incredibly talented musician. Kendrick has thrust himself into the popular conscious, and he’s here to stay.

Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory

To put it bluntly, Attack on Memory came out of nowhere. On previous releases, Dylan Baldi’s bedroom rock project sounded like just that–a bedroom rock project. He wrote simple, hook-laden rock music, and he was pretty good at it. He’d written one, maybe two songs over four minutes. So to say I was surprised when I listened to Attack on Memory–an album that opens with a gloomy, piano-led dirge and follows that with a nine-minute punk rock assault–would be an understatement.

Apparently, Baldi discovered The Wipers while writing this album. He took that influence, grabbed a real backing band, and went to record with Steve Albini. The result is the best rock album of the year, an album that revels in emotional desperation, has a fantastic Hüsker Dü esque instrumental, and retains just enough of Baldi’s previous popcraft to remind you that this is indeed a Cloud Nothings album. Baldi went from singing anthems about forgetfulness to screaming about his failures, and he did it all without breaking a sweat.

The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past

On the Impossible Past is the best work by a band that doesn’t have a single bad release. The songs are far more expansive and diverse, which is good, seeing as how Chamberlain Waits did verse-chorus-verse three-chord punk about as perfectly as it can be done. It leans more heavily on rock and ’90s alternative touchstones than their past stuff, but I think that the style suits their lyrical focus on memories, former happiness and the “past” seeming “impossible” better.

Code Orange Kids – Love is Love // Return to Dust

Promotional photo provided by Deathwish, Inc.

Hardcore is a young genre, one absolutely chock full of bands started by kids that disappear as quickly as they form. Code Orange Kids is one of these bands–all four of their members aren’t old enough to drink. You wouldn’t know it based on Love is Love. This album sounds like the work of hardcore veterans. It’s simultaneously vicious and beautiful. COK takes sounds from everywhere–screamo, hardcore, shoegaze–throw them into a pot, and burn the life out of them. This is the band that reminds me why I listen to hardcore in the first place.

Dum Dum Girls – End of Daze

I’m now wholly convinced that Dum Dum Girls are a band that work best in small bursts. To wit: I loved their 2011 EP He Gets Me High, but I’ve only listened to its follow up–the LP Only in Dreams–three or four times. Here we are in 2012, and I’ve fallen in love with yet another Dum Dum EP. Dum Dum Girls has never really been a particularly innovative band, indebted to ’60s girl groups and shoegaze as they are, but they’ve always been a very good one. For whatever reason, their sound doesn’t hold up on a full length album, but on a short EP they thrive. Five songs of garage rock, drowsy ballads and hazy pop. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Japandroids – Celebration Rock

My friend constantly says that Japandroids reminds him of Latterman, and I think he’s kinda right. Both bands play simple, positive music, but where Latterman play airy, happy songs about politics and feminism, Japandroids play driving, happy songs about drinking, sadness, and love. Celebration Rock is a pretty apt title, obviously, as the band spends most of the album reveling in everything that makes rock great (two songs start with faded amp feedback!). They don’t do a whole lot of new on this record, but they do everything great.

Metz – Metz 

Metz makes loud music. Their music is a whole lot more than that–it’s pounding, angular, intense, melodic–but the most immediate aspect is the volume. Their self-titled debut is a work of precision. Every riff, drum intro, bass line and scream is perfectly positioned to pound the listener in the head, pick them back up, and start the process all over again. There’s a lot to be said about this album, or about the revitalization of indie rock in general, but that doesn’t really matter. At its core, Metz isn’t a great album because it harkens back to the good old days or because it represents some greater paradigm shift. It’s a great album because if you throw it on anywhere–your terrible laptop speakers, your car, your iPod–and turn it up as loud as humanly possible, it starts to sound like the best music in the world.

Spiritualized – Sweet Heart Sweet Light

Promotional photo provided by Double Six Records

Spiritualized is a hard band to define. Jason Pierce essentially works in his own genre, one that’s dominated by orchestras, drones, lasers and drug abuse. Sweet Heart Sweet Light sees the band come back down to Earth a bit, so to speak. Pierce is a little bit less self-loathing, a bit more rocking, and altogether more accessible here. Gone are moments like the 11 minute cacophony of “Cop Shoot Cop,” replaced by shorter, simpler, more normal rock songs that are no less rewarding. Well, the lead single is nine minutes long and goes through at least two time signature changes, but I suppose we can’t have everything.

Roomrunner – Super Vague

Roomrunner is constantly compared to grunge. I don’t get it. The band–a project of Denny Bowen who was dummer for Baltimore greats Double Dagger–sure has a lot of influences. Punk, post punk, lo-fi, whatever. But I don’t hear grunge. What I do hear is a band doing loud, thundering rock better than nearly any other band out there. It’s hooky, it’s noisy, it’s brilliant. I can’t wait to see what they do on a full length album.

Honorable Mentions: Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel…, Taylor Swift – Red, Mixtapes – Even on the Worst Nights, Masked Intruder – Masked Intruder, Classics of Love – Classics of Love, Death Grips – The Money Store and NO LOVE DEEP WEB

SONGS:

I recognize the inherent ridiculousness of the following list. There have been a ton of good songs this year, and trying to create a list of 10 that somehow represents the best is a bit foolish. That being said, I think that the list below is a list of really, really good songs. Some are obvious, some may not be. They’re all on a playlist right here.

Usher – “Climax”

Kendrick Lamar – “Swimming Pools (Drank)”

Frank Ocean – “Pyramids”

Cloud Nothings – “Wasted Days”

Japandroids – “The House that Heaven Built”

Metz – “Headache”

Converge – “Vicious Muse”

The Menzingers – “Gates”

Joyce Manor – “Violent Inside”

Death Grips – “I’ve Seen Footage”

 

 

About Burk Smyth

Burk Smyth is a music writer for The Quad. He is from Baltimore, Md. and enjoys punk, indie, black metal, baseball, Magic: The Gathering, Everton Football Club and being terrible at Dota 2. Follow him at @burksmyth, where he tweets about Trent Reznor, Leighton Baines and dotes, mostly.

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