When I look at others’ best albums of 2012 lists, I realize I have hardly listened to new music this year! Where do all these albums come from?? I can barely find ten of them I really liked. May be it is because my standards are high, I mean, sometimes I listen to a song or two but the rest of the album is just meh… so obviously it’s not gonna be on my best albums of 2012 list! Or should it be? Is one excellent song enough to consider an album a best of? I only want to include albums that I listen in their entirety without even skipping a song, and albums I am still listening to after months of release. Some blogs do a list of 50 or even a 100 best albums of 2012, but it’s not gonna happen for me, here are a few albums I loved this year, in no particular order:
The Shins – ‘Port of Morrow’: I know, probably not on many best of 2012 lists? Don’t know and don’t care, the Shins (should I say James Mercer at this point?) have always managed to be charming and inventive, discreet and then really present in our lives, my life. This new one is stuffed with power choruses, poppy hooks and poetic imagery. The sound has sometimes grown into a larger arena-type-of-thing one, but the intimacy never leaves the scene. Favorite tracks: the anthemic ‘Simple Song’ and ‘It’s Only Life’.
Sharon Van Etten – ‘Tramp’: An album that transpires beauty and human fragility, it’s all about heartbreaks, loneliness, longings and survival through life’s disappointments, but done in a sublime and serene manner, with Sharon’s fierce vocals often turned angelic. Favorite tracks: ‘Leonard’ and its aching orgasmic chorus and the ascending abandon of ‘Ask’.
Fiona Apple – ‘The Idler Wheel…’: It was her summer, a return, an album, a tour, even a drug arrest! You almost can see her stage physical contortions when listening to this album, it’s emotional to the bone marrow, it’s all intense drama and very weird at times, all brutal percussive feelings and always deep down honest through cryptic and inventive lyrics, she is ‘a neon zebra shaking rain off her stripes’, she admits ‘How can I ask anyone to love me/When all I do is beg to be left alone’, and at the end she wants to feel everything, even pain. There is nothing similar to this album and these songs out there. Favorite tracks: ‘Every Single Night’ and its chorus triumphant over crushing pain and ‘Werewolf’.
Cat Power – ‘Sun’: It was a rebirth working as oa liberating battle over life’s never ending problems and heartbreaks, but if Chan Marshall wants to marry the sky she doesn’t observe her own navel. Rather, she reflects on the whole world in ‘Ruins’ and with more synth, more chilly electronica and drum-machine rhythms than usual for her, she affirms her freedom in the Bowie-esque ‘Nothing but Time’, ‘They want to live/Their way of living, their way of living’, a three-level epic piece with Iggy Pop giving a protective and warm look to Chan who is herself watching the kid she was. Favorite Tracks: ‘Cherokee’ and ‘Nothing but Time’
Ceremony – ‘Zoo’: I can’t believe I am still listening to this one, because when I saw Ceremony 2 years ago opening for No Age and an impromptu Black Flag reunion, I would have never thought I would! They were still playing pure hardcore at the time, and ‘Zoo’ is different in all its aggressiveness and savagery. The sound is ferocious but the hooks sound as enormous as the guitars, and the music is simply liberating in its darkness, monotonous vocal delivery, and tribal drumming. It’s still punk expressed with an enormous sound with even some surf-pop in the chaos. Favorite tracks: ‘Hysteria’ and ‘Adult’.
Metz – ‘Metz’: I could have easily missed them, as I have probably missed many others, but a show at the Echo converted me right away. Their ferocious and loud gritty-fuzzy wall of sound is a must-hear live, but the whole album does good justice to the chaotic punk paranoia which was going on through their entire set. They are at the edge of post-hardcore-noise-grunge-garage-rock, and even if certain tracks (‘Rats’, ‘Knife in the Water’, Wet Blanket’) leave you with a sort of Nirvana after-taste, Metz has a unique sound, gathering a powerful anxiety, reinventing another abrasive way to upset our neighbors and damage your eardrums.
Albums that I liked too: Michael Kiwanuk, ‘Home Again’, Ty Segall, ‘Twins’, Beach House, ‘Bloom’ (only for ‘Myth’), DIIV, ‘Oshin’, Tame Impala, ‘Lonerism’ (only for ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ and ‘Elephant’).
Albums that I should have listened to more closely: Regina Spektor, ‘What We Saw from the Cheap Seats’, …And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead, ‘Lost Songs’, Django Django, 'Django Django', and Titus Andronicus, ‘Local Business’.