starting with pt. 1 of 2 of 21-50, alphabetical

Anaïs Mitchell - Young Man In America

Doing away with the sprawling (and often brilliant) work that was "Hadestown", Mitchell's album from this year is hers and hers alone. No obvious guests, no big production, mostly plucked strings and piano and her Joanna Newsom/Nanci Griffith/Elf like voice. She continues to be one of the most underrated songwriters and performers around our country, but people are really starting to take notice and with pop music (and country music) starting to go the way of actually caring about female singer/songwriters again, Anaïs is likely poised to blow up. Get in while the gettin's good, because this is good folk music, folks.


Andrew Combs - Worried Man

Coming out of nowhere for me (despite touring with favorites of mine including Jason Isbell), Andrew Combs is like the classic Nashville songwriter story. Leaves Texas to make it in the music city, has skills beyond belief, puts out an album of "nashville" music, that everyone forgets about, gets back to work, cranks out some good tunes, gets signed to write for other people, puts out a career making album. Yeah, that album is "Worried Man", one that rocks with Chicago-like blues, more down-key Texas country, some European folk influence and all other things we loved about the 70s. He has a voice that can't be matched by many and his songwriting chops are already there. Yeah, this would be more important if I found it sooner.


Andy Stott - Luxury Problems

Taking the crown of most interesting dude in electronic music over the last couple years, Andy Stott's "actual" full length after two "eps" last year really turned some heads. Whereas last years releases were these really fractured, dusty, dust-mill party tracks, "Luxury Problems" tunes it down a little, almost giving us glimpses of more traditional dance music (or at the very least, audible vocals). It's still twisted, it's still an album that messes with your head on good headphones and it's still brilliant.


Batida - Batida

Soundway Recordings might win label of the year, with their really impressive slate of compilations and now new world music. But my favorite by far this year was the Angolan/Porteguese blend of "Batida". A perfect mix of African rhythms and modern electronics, there is no album I listened to more this year to make it feel like a party. No matter where you are, when you hear these tracks, it's time to dance. Play it loud, play it proud and move your ass - non-stop fun with music that sounds familiar but never is.


Beach House - Bloom

At this point, there's really no doubt to me that Beach House is one of the best bands of the past decade, continually improving album after album and creating these sonic experiences that few bands can even get close to. "Bloom" is a very similar album to "Teen Dream" - and while initially I thought it wasn't even close to as good, it has grown on me a lot, and continues to improve with every listen. Victoria Legrand's voice is still distant, almost indifferent, but the way in which it blends with those synths and tambourines and huge guitar washes, of all their albums, this is the one that could most easily score a Sofia Coppola film. It's pretty, and while maybe not legendary in the way that "Teen Dream" was - it's still one of the better "indie" albums of the year.


Cadence Weapon - Hope In Dirt City

I still haven't figured out really how Cadence Weapon hasn't become more popular among actual hip hop folks over the years, because while he definitely doesn't sound like traditional rap (often using dance beats and referencing 90s pop culture like you wouldn't believe), the dude is actually an amazing rapper. He's been a creative producer since his debut, but "Hope In Dirt City" might take the cake as far as ambition goes. It has some of his hardest, Wu-Tang-esque beats, but also tracks like the single "Conditioning" that come off like how TV on the Radio would be if still good and rapped. I'll always be biased towards Rollie, but dude should be even bigger than how big he is. No one is doing it like he is, and while hip hop continues to get weirder and weirder, he should be towards the forefront.


Carolina Chocolate Drops - Leaving Eden

I've been waiting for the Drops to release an album this good for years. Their debut album, 2006's "Dona Got a Ramblin Mind" is one of my favorite string-band releases of the year and made me always consider them one of my favorite bands in the genre, and one that I always sought out if playing live (their live show is excellent), however their next 3-4 albums after that one, have left something to be desired, feeling a bit complacent, and not enough like the goddamn party the band can have. That changes with "Leaving Eden" which makes you slap your leg and stomp your feet and snap your fingers and air-banjo and all that good stuff that good string music makes you do. It's the best release in their discography and perfectly produced, rough and loud.


Corb Lund - Cabin Fever

Seeing Corb Lund live in Portland, Or at the beginning of December was a near life-changing experience. I had discovered this album a mere week or so prior and loved it to death, and even though the dude had been putting out albums for years, he had never really crossed my path - so when I actually saw him, and how this badass, Canadian country music aesthetic played out, yeah - everything clicked. Some songs are dark, some songs are really funny ("Bibles on the Dash", "Cows Around"), but there is this aura of reality to Corb's songs that much of country music lacks. He doesn't sound like those "alt/underground" country artists like Hank3 or Uncle Tupelo, his sound is definitely something that mainstream fans can appreciate (and in fact the album can feel over-produced at points), but he still just sounds like a guy who makes country music, because he has respect for the craft and knows he can do it better than most. Oh, and if you listen to the Deluxe album, it comes with two versions, the original, more heavily produced and a second disc, which has a more "acoustic" feel, both are real good.


Curren$y - Stoned Immaculate

You didn't think I could have a year-end list without a Curren$y mention did you? Yeah, I was ready to begin writing Curren$y off, dude has gotten to the point where he is almost flooding the market with his mixtapes and albums, but the thing is - most are good. He's better when he sticks to "blunted" beats and just sounds like he's in the zone, but I respect his recent willingness to try new things too ("Priest Andretti"), but while not quite the classics that the "Pilot Talk" albums are, "The Stoned Immaculate" has the widest variety of producers and guest spots of any album. It's Curren$y finally ascending to rap stardom, not floating just outside. "Jet Life" with Wiz and KRIT was a big single, as it should have been. The album opens with what essentially is a Wale song (Wale's verse OPENS the album, I can't think of many rap albums where they let the guest start an album), and it's all sparkling synths and harps. Dude is just the best, so smooth.


Doug Moreland - The Flying Armadillos

When he's not playing fiddle in his own traditional country music band, Doug Moreland is a world-class chainsaw sculpture dude, so you know he's the real deal. All cowboy hat and sideburns, "The Flying Armadillos" is just pure classic country - more fun than depressing, no vintage production sound, but not big studio sound. Fantastic weekend album and walking around album, the record just makes me happy. I mean track two is a song called "Cowboy Breakfast" and is preposterous in how corny it is, but that is exactly why it works - it's just a blast. Not a big name by any mean (this record isn't even in the AMG database yet), but it has stuck with me this year more than most records, and it always sounds good.


Dwight Yoakam - 3 Pears

It's been awhile since the last Dwight Yoakam album, and to be fair, I've never really cared too terribly much about any of his records. I like his first 4, the same way that lots of people do, but you know - he's a bit older now and I figured well, can't really expect perfection anymore. But...no. "3 Pears" is easily one of the best country/americana albums of the year, and had I listened to it earlier or more often, would find itself in my top 20 quite easily. None of the songs really sound like any other, yet all are unmistakably Dwight. Rough, rocking, and yet still finding time for ballads. Dude is one of the legends in the music, and this record proves that.


El-P - Cancer 4 Cure

I remember hearing “Funcrusher Plus” for the first time back in like 1999, in middle school and being blown away by the sound – so abrasive and alien for rap music. It was like my pre-emo way to emote, and Cannibal Ox provided that for me and everything else El-P did as well. I didn’t so much care for “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead”, which I still consider to be a very good album, that I just didn’t care for that much, but “Cancer 4 Cure” is like…whoa. El Producto is rhyming as good as he’s ever rhymed and changing his style as much as ever. It’s still hard, it’s still uncomfortable and paranoid. It’s still angry. It’s still awesome. We can try and try, but there is really only ONE El-P, only one producer to create that sci-fi dystopia the way he does. Gangster music for the year 2099.


Flatbush Zombies - D.R.U.G.S.

I try to explain Flatbush Zombies to people with some variation of “Yeah, imagine The Pharcyde but instead of smoking lots of weed, they smoke pcp, drink OG Four Loko and have a tendency to stab people.” Though they appeared on the A$AP Mob mixtape, Flatbush’s own zombies put out one of my favorite fucked up mixtapes this year, mixing old school hip hop flavor with some of the harder New York stuff going on right now. Different voices, different flows, sample-heavy production, it sounds like party music until you are like “did he just say that..?” One of my very favorite car ride records of the autumn, the guys probably won’t ever blow up, but they’re going to put out some cult records for sure.


Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

My single most anticipated album of the year was a bit of a letdown initially, but since the cold weather has come in the past month or so, it’s really started to well…warm up for me. The thing that made “Cosmogramma” my album of the year when it came out was that it was such a huge mindfuck. The glitchiness and bass of that album really go to me, it was unlike anything I’d heard at the time, rooted in hip hop, but totally fragmented and it really revolutionized a lot of the techno and electronic music we hear today (I’ll go ahead and say that there is no “trap” movement without some FlyLo influence. But with “Until the Quiet Comes” dials it down a ton. It’s still blunted-out, drug music, but it’s doesn’t have that paranoid rave-up that his previous releases has. It’s the quieter moments, more influenced by his Coltrane upbringing, his friendship with Thom Yorke and others. It doesn’t have the immediate impact of “Cosmogramma” or “Los Angeles”, but it’s more applicable to life. And it still sounds excellent.


Four Tet - Pink

Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet is my favorite producer in electronic music. I’ve been saying it since 2004, when I first heard “Rounds”, and I haven’t backed away from that statement since. While some people began to shun him when he left the jazzy, airiness of his earlier releases for a more club oriented approach, I loved it instantly. Blending minimal techno with actual dubstep and house music, “Pink” also adds some really piercing kraut-influenced synths, which all leads to a Four Tet album more epic than all his previous great work. A blast to listen to loud in the car (or where I just played it at the rock gym), it still woks best as headphone music. Can’t wait to see what he churns out next.

ps how do you resize images here?

[cimg=size]picture[/cimg]

love that andrew combs. I checked out that doug moreland about a month ago and liked it, just not nearly as much as a bunch of other stuff I found around the same time.

Batida is a Brazilian drink made with cachaca and fruit juice. Haven't heard that album but I like the drinks.

Looking forward to the rest of your list.

do i do like 200x300 or something?

you just put it one side (eg [cimg=200] and it scales the other. The Andrew Combs is 300. The Four Tet is 250. Either works.

Cool. Looking forward to the rest.

I kind of got bored with Curren$y after Weekend at Burnie's, but I should probably give that album a listen. I recently went back to both Pilot Talk albums, and I still like them both a lot.

yo so i posted the rest here: http://inawhiteroom.wordpress.com/2013/ ... -unranked/

i can paste everything ehre if you want.

I liked the Yoakam, though not quite as much as you.

Glad to see I'm not the only one here that likes the Fullbright and Spirit Family Reunion albums.

good write up for el-p.

fast forward to the top 20. for more coherence and pictures, view the blog.

20. McDougall – A Few Towns More
Footstomps, Banjo, Harmonica, a world-weary voice, the sound of a dude who has lived on the street, made his living the hard way, whether or not he has. That’s what Scott McDougall brings to the table with his biggest release to date. The country-street poet. He’s based in Portland, but sounds like you could find him on the railroad tracks in Mississippi, dirt-filled lungs, sand in his teeth. This album came out of nowhere and completely floored me this November, becoming essential listening in the last month or so. I’d never heard of this guy before, laughed at his story (dude just plays, man), but the songs slayed me. Both “Travels of Frederick Tolls” tracks on here are among the best songs and stories I’ve heard all year, moving from simple guitar and voice to these huge, epic, sprawling country-rock tracks. It’s a badass album, one I’m glad I found – equally good at getting me all fist pumping and angry as it is at getting me quietly introspective. Even in a year with a lot of standout country and folk releases, this one stands apart as something special.

19. The Trishas – High, Wide & Handsome
The first 5 tracks on The Trishas’ sophomore album rival any 5 songs on any album released in 2012. Honestly, I think it’s one of the stronger first halves of a record in recent memory – and from there – it goes a little bit downhill, only to pick up in a huge way towards the end. But man, those 5 tracks. “High, Wide & Handsome” has been in my head for months, “Liars and Fools” might be the biggest song that mainstream country didn’t quite pick up, that it should have this year, and yeah – it’s good. To describe the group, they’re a little bit Pistol Annies, with a lean towards a more traditional (though still pop-oriented) country sound, but their voices and influences definitely lean on the folkier side. It’s easy to draw comparisons to the “Sirens” songs that Emmylou, Gillian and Alison recorded for “O Brother Where Art Thou?”. There’s instances that draw to mind the Be Good Tanyas as well, but I still mostly get a Pistol Annies vibes, just less radio friendly, more hippie friendly. Not a perfect album, but a good album with about a half dozen perfect songs that really carry it.

18. Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
“This album was created entirely by Jamie and Mike”. That’s how Killer Mike opens up “JoJo’s Chillin” on “R.A.P. Music”. But even in the 4 tracks that precede that declaration, you’ve long made the realization that this album is the work of a complete, unique vision of two people just exuding creativity, combining their two original rap visions into one coherent piece. Yeah, this is Killer Mike’s best release, far and away. Where some of his “I Pledge Allegiance…” mixtapes were revolutionary, they suffered from a lack of editing and acted as a platform to Killer Mike continually proving to us he’s the smartest, hardest rapper there is. But on “R.A.P. Music”, he’s still political, he is still angry, he still is about exposing lies of the industry, the government, of you and yours. But with those dystopian beats that El-P is able to provide, what the two have created is an album that summates “radical” hip hop in 12 masterful tracks. Looking backwards towards Public Enemy, The Geto Boys and Company Flow, but making it relevant for 2012. It’s a love letter to hip hop, and a spiteful letter to the world it finds itself in. It’s an arresting listen, but easily one of the most accomplished rap releases in recent memory. Let’s hope these two work together again soon.

17. Carly Rae Jepsen – Kiss
“Call Me Maybe” was the perfect pop song of 2012. Kids were singing it, hipsters were singing it, grandparents were singing it, people were trying to recreate the “original” music video with J Biebs and Selena Gomez and Ashley Tisdale dancing around their absurd mansions. It’s an impossibly difficult song to get out of your head, and for many of us – we want it to stay there, forever. Yeah, I’ve heard that song like 3,000 songs, and I still it enjoy it. But when Carly Rae’s album came out, there was no way that I was prepared to listen to just how good it would be. There are very few GOOD pop albums, pure, radio-friendly, pop albums. Kylie Minogue has quite a few, Robyn has put out some, Justin Timberlake of course, even Taylor Swift, but these are all acts that have a little bit of intelligence behind them, a little bit of the suave, sexy or grown-up. “This Kiss” is just hyper-active pop, the type that isn’t really even made anymore except for David Guetta productions. But Carly Rae doesn’t need these huge build ups, her choruses are good enough as it is. It’s not a perfect album, it’s simple in a way, but it’s one of the most fun things to put on and just lose yourself too. It sounds like being a 13-year old girl, all immaculate production and juvenile lyrics. You listen to a track like “Beautiful” with Justin Bieber and it reminds me of listening to fucking Mariah Carey in like 5th grade and thinking that “Always Be My Baby” was the song that proved that my very first girlfriend and I were going to be together forever. It’s fantastic, it has no snark, no cynicism. But every song is just HUGE. It’s a huge album, full of huge songs, and it’s something I couldn’t deny the joy of, no matter how hard I tried. Love you, Carly Rae.

16. Shackleton – Music For The Quiet Hour
The sound of paranoia and coming down. Of driving around your city with your headlights out. Of walking through the woods with an extra-large knife in your belt. Shackleton reached new heights with “Music For The Quiet Hour” – an hour-long album that is just that, sounds to take you to another place. Distract you from life, focus on the world around you. It sounds organic and natural, like the sounds of your skull screaming at you after a night of drinking, yet environmentally – it sounds about as alien as one can get. If there was ever a case for a modern techno producer to be scoring huge sci-fi blockbusters, this should be the blueprint. If Kubrick was still kicking, I think these two would hit it off. The depth of the bass on “Part One” sets you up for the time-traveling scenario in “Part Two”, or the alien abduction, all light synths and extreme light noise. A repeated drum pattern that sounds like that Iphone game that Brian Eno developed years ago. “Part Three” brings back the organic, UK-dubstep-leaning reggae sounds and ominous witch doctor vocals. Of all the tracks, it’s the most similar to Massive Attack, and drug-fueled as hell. All five sections blend together to for a complete whole, weave their wave into your skull and make you forget you are listening to music at all. This record does it for me like no other techno record this year could, a wholly original sound.

15. Chuck Mead & His Grassy Knoll Boys – Back At The Quonset Hut
If you just take a quick glance at the list of guests on this album, you know there is going to be this great traditional sound. Old Crow Medicine Show (the most fun band in the world), Bobby Bare (the de facto legend who never really got his due), Jamey Johnson (the best dude in the mainstream right now) and Elizabeth Cook (maybe my very favorite female country singer/personality). And then you look at the collection of songs, all covers, and you can tell it’s going to be a treat. Covers of Ray Price, Gene Vincent, Johnny Paycheck, Carl Perkins, and Charlie Rich among others…yeah, this is country and rockabilly and the 50s and 60s and retro and makes you want to drive an old Cadillac and put on some boots and a Nudie suit. And it fucking rocks too. Chuck Mead was good with BR5-49, but what he’s done with his first two solo albums and the sound that he is reviving to an even bigger degree nowadays, it’s just too much fun. This became the single record I had to listen to this autumn/winter before hiking and climbing mountains, it just put me in a carefree mood, told me everything was going to awesome, and gave me some of the catchiest songs ever written to be lodged into my skull for days.

14. Mount Eerie – Clear Moon / Ocean Roar
I try to get really heavily into Phil Elverum / The Microphones / Mount Eerie every couple of years, and it never really works. For a minute there, when the summer turns to autumn and I find myself caught in humidity at night, nothing sounds better. If I’m in a place where there is snow and ice, very little sounds better. But he just puts out too much music, too much different sounding music to really make it possible for me to keep up, even though I’ve seen him live a couple of times, have a lot of his albums under his different monikers and enjoy it most of the time. It can be an exhausting and suffocating experience, but there is always this feeling of beauty behind the minimalism or the thrashing guitars or the synths or whatever he is employing on THIS particular album. The two albums from this year though, may have pushed me over the edge from casual fan to finally make it possible to be one of those Elverum-disciples. The two albums themselves fit together wonderfully, though sound worlds apart on the surface. “Clear Moon” is a more gentler sound for Phil, mostly strummed acoustic guitar, synth washes and light drumming. It is the sound of a dude wandering through the Pacific Northwest, lost, alienated, trying to find his place in the world, but ultimately finding comfort sites that become more and more familiar. “Ocean Roar” turns up the distortion, alternating between longer, meandering metallic, but still essentially folky songs with huge feedback washes and ear killers. It’s all done with this gentle touch though, nothing sounds visceral in the way that Black Metal does. It has a similar sound, but it makes sense. “Ocean Roar” sounds like sitting on the beach in the middle of the night, even though you forgot your jacket. “Clear Moon” sounds like being led TO that beach with the moon as your only light. They’re masterful albums and work best when played back to back.

13. Lindi Ortega – Cigarettes & Truckstops
Lindi Ortega is often described as having the voice of Dolly Parton, delivered with the ache of Emmylou Harris, all masking the pain of lyrics akin to Johnny Cash. Yeah, it’s pretty accurate, but really, I’m in love with her and that’s all the description I need. Beautiful, Canadian and a guest on the tv show “Nashville”, Lindi stole my heart late in 2011 (after I made my top albums list). But “Cigarettes and Truckstops” is undoubtedly the sound of someone about to blow up. It has a classic country sound without being too retro, could easily be the album/artist who is able to bridge the gap of the Nashville underground and mainstream and her album works so well, because while it’s delivered with a sound that is unmistakably country, it doesn’t always have to sound like country. “Lead Me On” has country vocals and a thumping bass, but doesn’t make you really think of a honky tonk. It’s a little bit later era country, late 70s, early 80s, a foot in pop and vocal music. Not every song here is a winner, but there is something about when Lindi connects that really just does it for me. My fondness of her and the sound she is going for (a more believable, less annoying, badass country gal) works right now, and I honestly expect her to get some mainstream play in the near future, she’s just about there.

12. Mati Zundel – Amazonico Gravitante
Mati Zundel makes an updated, more American Hip Hop influenced version of cumbia music, from Argentina. Almost all the songs here on this album have that distinct cumbia beat to them, perfect for dancing and shuffling around the house and the dancefloor. And early in the year, when I was really setting my mind to exploring lots of different current Latin American artists, it seemed like there was a huge resurgence in cumbia-influenced music, but no one that I heard has it down quite like Mati. Using modern synths and bass, blending other latin and non-latin genres into his Argentinian sound, it has this exotic-comfortable sound. It’s almost like the first time we all heard M.I.A., but while she was kind of in your face, this just sounds natural. One of my most played albums of the Spring and Summer, and one fo the albums I most embarrassingly attempt to sing along to, despite having a horrible grasp of Spanish. “Amazonico Gravitante” was an early candidate for album of the year, back when everything that ruled my world was coming from various Spanish speaking countries. It’s still one of the best albums of the year, with one of the most unique sounds, and terribly enjoyable, but I’ve almost played it out. That all being said, it still gets my ass to dance.

11. Frank Ocean – channel ORANGE
It’s hard to even attempt to write about channel ORANGE. Just a couple of weeks ago, one of my friends and co-workers from the summer texted me to tell me she had just finished writing a 8-page essay about the album for one of her classes. It’s the undisputed #1 critically acclaimed album of 2012, it signifies a change in the R&B landscape and what it can be, and it’s arresting in how confessional some of the songs can be. It’s also a lot of fun in places, has amazing production and songwriting, and flows as an ALBUM, first and foremost. I obsessed over it like many others when it first came out over the summer, and it deserves obsessing over, but it feel like I have to set things aside to listen to it. It’s not that it’s so deep, I have to totally understand everything that is going on, but there is a certain amount of attention you have to give the words and the songs that you can toss aside with people like The-Dream, or R. Kelly or even Jeremih. All these dudes like sex, all these dudes can write songs about pain, but with Frank, you’re like “oh fuck, yeah…sorry about that, man.” If you paid attention to music at all this year, you’ve probably heard this album and can likely appreciate what’s happening. I certainly do, but the reason it isn’t #1 is because it’s not always an ENJOYABLE listen. I love it to death, but it’s not something I can play over and over. Regardless, it sums up 2012 better than anything else released.

10. Jessie Ware – Devotion
I don’t think anyone really expected this album to actually be as good as it is, and to have the crossover appeal that it has. Jessie Ware showed flashes of brilliance and something-more-than-pop over the last couple of years with a few singles, and appearances with SBTRKT and Joker, but on “Devotion” she straight up comes out the gate a more urban Sade, a more radio friendly and pleasurable Annie Lennox, a more sophisticated “insert r&b diva here”. With help by up and coming super producers like Julio Bashmore and David Okumu, there is this sense of contemporary Britain, with a constant eye to the past. It can be club music, but it’s really drinking wine at night music. Not every song is a perfect 10 or even an example of absolutely brilliant pop music, but there is enough strength here and enough cohesion as an album, that it works better that way, something that few pop albums can say. And man, this summer when NBC played “Wildest Moments” during a women’s gymnastics montage, like, everything was just right in the world. It may be my most perfect synchronous musical moment of the year, all triumph and grandeur. You have to have a foot in liking some of Britains 1980s sophisti-pop or modern r&b to really dig this, but you should give it a chance anyway. It signals a new direction in the already booming and constantly evolving alternative r&b scene. She deserves the accolades, we deserve this album. And apparently some collaboration with Beyonce is in the works. Yeah, that’s going to be really good.

9. Bahamas – Barchords
This was love at first listen. And it makes sense, really. “Barchords”, Bahamas sophomore album reminds me of a simpler time in my life. Discovering singer/songwriter after singer/songwriter. Writing songs with catchy hooks and clever lyrics that I could sing along to. Music to put on when nothing else sounded good. Yeah, it’s a little Jack Johnson-y at times, but in a way – that’s why I like it so much. I think the first two songs “Lost in the Light” and “Caught me Thinkin” are two of the very best songs of the year, bring to mind the great summer I had, the rebirth as a “new person” and pursuing some things I’ve wanted to do for years. Jangly guitars, whispered, almost lazy vocals, the occasional huge chorus, the album is just a huge, good time and is done in a way that isn’t so simple that it’s as if we’re listening to Donavan Frankenreiter, but it isn’t far off. A lot of the record works because of the general feel, and it’s a good, good feeling. I know a lot of people who thought this record was just schlep, simplistic stuff – but I can’t help to enjoy it. One of my single most listened to records of the year, and the one that maybe brought more smiles to my face and those around me, than any other.

8. Japandroids – Celebration Rock
Play it loud as hell, grab a beer – not some fancy microbrew. Clear out all expensive furniture or things currently close to you and just proceed to pump your fist and scream. Yeah, I like anthemic rock and “Celebration Rock” by Japandroids is one hell of a celebration. Stadium rock for the bearded, hoodie-wearing, Springsteen obsessed youth. It’s almost as good as Titus Andronicus’ “The Monitor” (probably my favorite rock album of the last many years), without all the super-literate lyrics. It’s bar music, party with your friends music, and it just fuckin rocks. I didn’t really care about the first Japandroids album, and though this is all pretty similar to their first one, I think they go bigger here, the choruses are bigger, the guitar is louder, the drums hit more fiercely, and something about the songs just works. They hit all the notes I want them to hit, even have choruses that just consist of “oh yeah, all right!” I can’t make out all the words and it doesn’t matter, because I’m too busy thrashing my head around and stomping my feet or playing drums to even notice. I can make sounds that approximate the lyrics, and it doesn’t matter because in my mind, I’m drunk and instead of drowning in my sorrows like usual, I’m living the dream.

7. Barna Howard – Barna Howard
A dude and his guitar. That’s all this record is. It sounds like a 1970′s British Folk record, without all the British-isms, and with the warmth of modern recording – meaning it sounds like it was recorded in some small building or bedroom. You can hear the echoes, almost feel Barna’s feet slowly keeping time, his fingers brushing the frets, it’s an intimate album to be sure, a simple record, and one of the most compelling straight up singer/songwriter/folk records I’ve heard in years. I don’t know much about this guy, where he came from or how I came upon this record back in like March, but it’s stuck with me maybe more than any other record of 2012, always in constant play – perfect for rainy days, perfect for night time, it somehow even works in the car, if you have people to distract you from falling asleep. “I’ll Let You Pick A Window”, “Promise, I Won’t Laugh” and “Turns Around The Bottle” are three of my very favorite songs of the year, with “Promise..” being the single song this year that made me want to reinvest in an acoustic guitar and finally start learning to play after many failed half-assed attempts. Sometimes simplicity wins out, and Barna masters that here on his first record. Really beautiful stuff.

6. Turnpike Troubadours – Goodbye Normal Street
Of all the albums in the top 20, “Goodbye Normal Street” is the one I’ve spent the least amount of time with, but is quickly becoming the one in which I’ve listened to the most. I first heard this album Thanksgiving weekend, thought it was pretty good, played it again and said “well, my list is suddenly going to have a lot more country music on it this year.” Saw them live the first week of December with Corb Lund, blew my mind, and have made this almost a daily listen since. I have no doubt that if I would have had this record a little bit earlier in the year, it would be in the top 3 albums of the year, but for now – it sits perfect where it is, as my likely favorite “country” record of the year. I’d heard the Troubadours once before, the song “Diamonds & Gasoline” but hadn’t really explored further, but when I started seeing this album pop up on some lists about the best things this year, I checked it out. Yeah, I’m hooked. It has the perfect blend of Texas country and Oklahoma grit, with a band that is equally able to write really rocking, angry songs as they are at writing more depressing, weepy ballads. You can get banjo strings AND electric guitar and it all works well. It’s “alternative country” to be sure, but it jumps around genres and sounds enough that it can appeal to traditionalists and those that hate tradition. One of the most addicting records I’ve heard this year, and one that will definitely stick with me long into the future.

5. Punch Brothers – Who’s Feeling Young Now?
I remember back in 2008 when Nonesuch Records announced that they were releasing an album from Chris Thile’s new project; The Punch Brothers. It sounded like what was going to be the best thing ever. I was coming off my Avett Brothers obsession, ready for some reinvigorating, intelligent, whacked-out musicianship from Thile, but I was left feeling cold. It was interesting and so was their follow-up, but it took until “Who’s Feeling Young Now?” to really get the reaction I’d been waiting for, because this in an incredible album. I’d seen the band live a handful of times over the years, and they always impress and are truly some of the best, most musically interesting and capable acoustic musicians that I’m aware of, blending country and folk and bluegrass with classical and jazz and all that, a lot like Bela Fleck and the 1970s scene, but there’s a certain coolness that Thile & Co. have that other modern “new-acoustic” acts don’t really possess. And it’s not just because there is always some indie rock cover floating around (hell, he covered Pavement back with Nickel Creek), but there is just something cool going on here. It really has this jazzy feeling, but I think more than their previous two records, this one focuses a little more on the songs themselves than what they can show off with their instruments. There are songs you want to sing along to here, that will get stuck in your head, and they’re still complex arrangements. It’s a really impressive record and probably the strongest of Thile’s career, which says a lot. Beautiful, engaging, fun and boundary-pushing.

4. Old Crow Medicine Show – Carry Me Back
I was ready to write Old Crow off. 2008′s “Tennessee Pusher” was not the record I wanted from them. Slower, more country than string-band. It was like almost an attempt at capitalizing on the Drive-By Truckers ascension, but I’d seen them live a couple times and they still had that energy that made them the heroes of the string band scene. But when “Carry Me Back” came out, I kind of batted my eyes at it, put it off, didn’t care a lot. Then I played it and the opening title track. Yeah, that’s what Old Crow is all about. Fast as hell, super fun to sing along with, string band music on crank. And it continues. It’s probably their most raucous record yet, which goes in their favor, and it might have some of their strongest songwriting. Great songs that sound like traditional folk tunes (“We Don’t Grow Tobacco”) and also songs trying to rewrite the anthemic campfire favorite “Wagon Wheel” (with “Ain’t It Enough?”). It’s easily the most fun record of the year for me, was a blast to have playing constantly in the house this fall with my Virginian roommate, and is just something I can’t seem to get sick of. It’s everything I love about string band music, the whole thing just sounds like a party. I mean, try to listen to “Mississippi Saturday Night” and not wish you were there, watching this happen. Working outdoors, chopping wood, taking kids and adults on mountain hikes, doing all this stuff I’ve been doing this year, this record couldn’t have come out at a more perfect time for me.

3. Ana Tijoux – La Bala
For the majority of the year, I thought that this record was going to be my number 1 album of the year. Nothing encapsulates my obsession and love for modern Latin music more than Ana Tijoux’s “La Bala”. Nothing that I’ve heard is as perfect a blend of American musical trends with everything that makes the various styles of Latin music and politics unique. For Ana, we’re talking specifically Chilean, but the album itself acts at this huge diaspora of different Latin and Spanish-speaking cultures. But how can a HIP HOP album performed entirely in Spanish rank so highly with me? First of all – the sonics. The production on this record really cuts to what I love, it’s in your face and fits her delivery perfectly. Second – her delivery. I remember hearing Control Machete years ago and Calle 13 a few years ago and other Spanish-speaking rap acts, but no one showed me how perfectly suited the language is for rap like she has. It makes English pale in comparison. Third – what the album stands for, what it speaks to (politically), how authentic she is as a human, and what I’ve been able to translate. It is a political album, a lot of it (“Shock” specifically) about the political unrest and student movements in Chile, but there’s more – and I urge you, if you have any desire to listen to this album and want to get a fuller picture, look up recent interviews or album dissections or go see her live. She’ll talk, and you’ll fall under her spell. She’s a queen in the hip hop world, no matter the language, and this is a masterpiece of an album, whether or not I understand all or ANY of the words. Her voice is another instrument, played perfectly.

2. Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
How do you talk about the most talked about rap album of the decade? Kendrick Lamar delivered on every glimpse of promise and expectation we put on him and put out the first genuine, undisputed hip hop classic in a long time. Honestly, a classic. I’m talking like golden age classic, I’m talking universally loved. This album did that. And it sounds unlike anything that ever came before it. It’s deeply personal, to the point where it’s basically Kendrick walking us through his life at age 19, rolling through Compton, picking up a girl, peer pressure, everything. It flows like the best movie biopic you’ve seen, and it’s just insanely good. If you haven’t heard this record by now, I can’t help you. And I honestly don’t feel like I can write anything about it that hasn’t already been said many more times, with much better writing. Use google, there’s lots and lots about this. You need it. Oh and I fully endorse the Complex Magazine album walk through, it really helps illuminate where Kendrick is coming from with every track.

1. Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream
I was already obsessing over Miguel’s three “Art Dealer Chic” EPs when he released the “Kaleidoscope Dream: Water Preview”, a 3-track sampler that featured a more filled out “Adorn” (song of the year), and two tracks that were vastly different than his past work and I was unsure about. But when “Don’t Look Back” – which essentially sounds like a modern rock song with a r&b tinge, suddenly morphs into a funky, minimal, almost cold-sounding rendition of “Time of the Season” by the Zombies, yeah – I knew Miguel was in the process of making something that was really going to resound with me. And when I saw on the internet one day this fall that it leaked, I ran up a nearby mountain that night – the only place within a few miles I can get cell phone service and downloaded, downloaded, downloaded (and bought the LP). The next day, I finally got to listen to it, outside with friends, earphones in and it made me extremely anti-social. I was engrossed, it was the best album I’d heard in a long time and after that first listen, it was going to be hard for anything to top this list. Let’s be frank though, prior to 2012, I had no experience with Miguel. I didn’t really care about “All I Want Is You” and think that “Lotus Flower Bomb” is one of the more forgettable tracks on Wale’s album. I was late to the “Art Dealer Chic” party, but from the first time I heard “Adorn”…well…it’s the number one played song of all time on my itunes and has received well over double the plays on my Ipod before it died, on my phone currently, and had been my wake up alarm since July, until last week when I changed it to the title track. It’s an album mostly about sex, about the insecurities of it, about drugs, the fun of them. Misogynistic in places, unbearably sweet in others. I think it ranks up there with the very best of all r&b albums, if not at the very top. And what’s more, since the release of the album and subsequent touring, Miguel has proved to people all around as a true “artist”, not just a dude who sounds good in the studio. He’s done acoustic renditions for NPR, completely different versions of these songs live, dresses snappy as hell, and blows away everyone who has seen him live. It’s my favorite album of the year, with nothing even close.

links, photos, youtubes at the blog

5 of your top 50 (Barna Howard, Turnpike Troubadours, Andrew Combs, John Fullbright & Spirit Family Reunion) made my list and Nude Beach II would have made the tail end of my list if I'd heard it in time. I somehow thought that we might have more overlap than that this year but still it's probably at least double the overlap I had with anyone else here. A few things here I should probably check out too.

Old Crow was a late year discovery (not the band, the album, i just forgot it was out) and I really like it a lot.

I was really surprised how good it is. I have not listened to it enough but so far it is ranking way above most of his later albums with me.

Not a lot of overlap these days. I do love those Mount Eerie records, though. Also really enjoy the Shackleton and Killer Mike.

There may be a few things here that I'm interested in. Bahamas, Barna Howard, maybe a few others.

While I certainly don't like it as much as you do, I do prefer that Miguel album to the Frank Ocean one. Different beasts, for sure, but for me Miguel is more in line with new R&B stuff like The-Dream that's playful and fun while subtly pushing the genre forward while Frank Ocean is like a more mainstream The Weeknd, part of this new arty R&B thing that's mostly bored me to tears.

Yeah, Drink - I agree on that. I think in regards to our tastes, for the last many years our common ground has kinda been in the middle. The stuff you LIKE is also stuff I LIKE, the stuff you LOVE isn't often stuff I love and vice versa. But still enjoyed your list a lot.

Billy G, almost the same thing - there are a bunch of albums I know you dug from this year that just barely missed my top 50. To be honest, this was the hardest time I had putting together the list since I was like an indecisive kid in 2004. Thought it was a really good year with a lot of really great albums, I could have done a top 100 easy, but at that point, it's just me telling you I like a lot of records (and having you realize there are still like 150 other records I like a lot too that I've still not mentioned).

Regardless, thanks for lookin y'all. Maybe 2013 will be the year I actually stop voraciously devouring new shit