It's time! It's time! It's finally time! I am very excited to share with everyone my top 50 albums of 2012! Before I get down to business I wanted to say that this was an awesome year for music. So many good releases; there were albums I couldn't rank as highly as I wanted due to the sheer number of great albums. There were also albums I greatly enjoyed that I couldn't fit into this list or in my honorable mentions. I had a blast making this list. It was a lot of work, basically November 1st until right now were devoted to this task. Alot of listening to new records, records I skipped, re-listening to albums, and lots of writing. Plenty of surprises for me, hopefully you find one or two. Needless to say, I recommend every one of these albums to anybody. I know there were people that questioned whether there were even 50 albums worth talking about -- believe me, finding 50 was the easiest part.
I will be posting this in 5 posts to hopefully manage the walls of text.
Tokyo Jihad's Top 50 album end of year list!
50 Stars –
The North
“Yes I do, yes I do”
A surprise pick for me. An 80’s throwback sparkly pop act is not my usual fair. This was an album I kept returning to; Stars can make a pop song. On this album they cover as much ground as I’ve ever heard a pop act successfully try. They cover dance songs, slow croons, power pop, moody Chromatics-esque ballads, and my personal favorite: “Do You Want to Die Together?” which is 50’s doo-wop meets The Flaming Lips. Gotta love it!
49 Hospitality –
Hospitality
“You traded all your time for money and the blues”
This was on and off my list constantly during my revisions process, but I kept coming back to this jangly indie pop album. Belle and Sebastian fans will not be lost on this album. Amber Papini’s sweet songs about post-college youth are infectious and are sure to charm. While this record isn’t anything that is a revelation, it is a record where once you start on “Eighth Avenue” you just have to hear the next song, and the next song. Not every song has to be a punchy, cheeky, college radio hit (though most are,) the slow building “Julie” is delicious and the listless “Argonauts” is a personal favorite.
48 Angel Olsen –
Half Way Home
“Half way sane, and half way home, in your arms”
You are going to listen to this album for Angel Olsen’s distinct voice. Her vocal style is a throwback to the early country singers where their singing reflexes into a slight yodel. Her songs are equally thrown back. Songs of heart ache, loving criminals, etc. The songs are pretty simple, acoustic guitar, occasionally a bass and drums – but as I said, Olsen is the undeniable star. On songs like “Acrobat” and “Safe in the Womb” where her voice reaches as low as it can before sharply careening up into a screech are exhilarating.
47 Big Boi –
Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
“If you don’t know me by now…”
Is Big Boi’s latest the SMiLE to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s Sgt. Pepper? Big Boi doesn’t play quite as fast and loose with hip-hop conventions, but rises far above normal tropes. There’s the posse track, songs about his lady, his mom, his city, etc but told with Big Boi’s rhymes and flow and, above all, production. This time around, Big Boi turned to the indie scene for inspiration in a big way. He collaborates with Little Dragon, Wavves, and Phantogram. The Phantogram songs in particular standout with the sweet dichotomy of Boi’s spit and Sarah Barthel’s harmony not heard since Eminem teamed with Dido. Vicious Lies shows Big Boi is still one of hip-hop’s star MCs and producers with an album that pulls less than obvious influences and remains unmistakably hip-hop.
46 Port St. Willow –
Holiday
“We´re the same mistake”
The album opens with a Godspeed! “Arco AM/PM”-like musique concrete piece before Nick Principe’s ethereal voice pierces the fog. From there, the song, and the album, expands ever so slowly to reveal triumphant and soulful moments in music. Principe gives each song room to breathe with very understated guitars and synths, as constant, thundering drums make the songs march to an inevitable close. The whole album is reflected in the cover art. Even if you are on the island alone, trying to take in as much as you can and holding on to the moment, nothing stands still.
45 Holy Other –
Held
Electronic soul and digital breath
Last year popularized the RnB and soul revival, and many 2012 acts sought to explore the soundscape. There were even a number that did so in an ambient, electronic way. None as well Holy Other. What Holy Other brings to the table is a sensuality that other DJs seem to misplace in breathy vocal samples. Every song on this evokes imagery like a shadowy bedroom or a cab ride through the lit city for a hook up. The production is very clean, the tracks aren’t too busy, and the bass is thick and inescapable.
44 Jessie Ware –
Devotion
“Promises, will they unfold?”
As other performers revive the masculine form of RnB, Jessie Ware resuscitates the late 80’s-90’s sultry, female counterpoint. Sade, Jodey Watley, Pebbles were all artists that were in my mom’s cassette rotation back in the day, and I can easily hear their influences on Ware’s music. It is very welcoming to hear this kind of music again. What I find to be most novel though is how Ware contemporizes the sound. Where The Weeknd may put the music’s narrator through a drug haze, or Frank Ocean may run the genre through the filter of adolescence, Ware keeps the core message very traditional – but radicalizes the instrumentation. The opening sounds of the record smacks of Actress’ R.I.P. The track “No to Love” sounds like it has taken more than a few cues from Flying Lotus. Nostalgia is a big part of today’s mindset, and while there are definitely some gems held over, the biggest impression of Devotion is how fresh it sounds.
43 Spiritualized –
Sweet Heart Sweet Light
“Be my Aeroplane. Fly me to heaven and never again.”
I'll be honest, before this year I had never heard a Spriritualized album. I was caught off guard at how inviting, bouncy, and anthemic their music is. I've said it before: Oasis with indie cred. Jason Pierce has this strung out, drugged out vocal style that pairs intriguingly with the melodramatic and large arrangements. The gem of Sweet Heart, Sweet Light is the ambitious album opener, "Hey Jane." It starts out like your boiler plate pop-rock song, charged guitars, quick to focus on the hook. By the two minute mark, the song sounds like it builds to its climax. Instead the song deconstructs and rebuilds into the space gospel second half of the song. Even if "fun" isn't a word to describe this album at all, I find it to be a very fun listen, a huge rock gospel to life and death.
42 Krallice –
Years Past Matter
Incinerate
Bold, ambitious, self-assured: These are qualities I love to see in music. All of which are demonstrated in Krallice’s latest LP. You have to be sure of yourself to bust out 10-minute long black metal bests. The songs of Years Past Matter are much like the album art: lava from the earth’s core that flows, takes upon different formations, black, and ever seething. There is much to absorb, and it can be taxing to parse at times from its unyielding nature. However, for all of its intensity, I find it to be a very breath taking and polished listen where you might expect it to be unforgiving.
41 BADBADNOTGOOD –
BBNG2
“Thanks to our friends, family, loved ones and anyone who fucks with us”
The only album that champions “No one above the age of 21 was involved in the making of this record,” BBNG2 is a showcase of musicianship. BADBADNOTGOOD is an improvisational jazz trio that blends hip hop and beat music into a sharp, powerful, sometimes dark and heavy, listen. On this album not only do they cover (and riff on) hip hop acts like Odd Future, but they even do a pretty wild cover of My Bloody Valentine’s “You Made Me Realize.” Their version of “CMYK” has to make James Blake blush. Their originals too hold some stellar drums (“Vices”) and bass (“CHSTR”.) For those that like to move and feel something hefty (if not heavy) BBNG2 is the way to go.