I’ve always considered myself a music fan, but I will say that 2012 was probably one of the best years I’ve ever seen as far as the music is concerned. I know that I am a blogger, and that it is my job to proclaim things and to be as dramatic as possible, but I am seriously not exaggerating. What a year, and frankly I wasn’t even paying attention for most of it. It wasn’t until the year end critics choice list started coming out that I really got an idea of just how much fantastic music was out there.
Probably my favorite list have to be the Pitchfork top 100, which tends to be very complete as far as the tracks of the year. I will admit to being more single oriented than album oriented, but it here both of the top 100 are equally fantastic as far as I’m concerned.
Even the homes of some of these artists are just simply fantastic. Take Frank Orange, as an example. I really had no idea at all of who this guy was even a couple of weeks ago, but now that I heard his Channel Orange album, I have to admit that I really obviously have been very negligent when it comes to finding new and great music. This album is easily one of the best records of the year, and I never even knew existed.
I feel the same way about Miguel, and is out Kaleidoscope Dream, which is absolutely freaky fantastic. It’s like a psychedelic modern Marvin Gaye album, and basically almost every song on it is unbelievable. I am not an R&B guy, to say the least, but this is one of those records that really changes your mind about an entire genre.
This was also a year in which bands that have been around for almost ever suddenly started to peak my interest. In this case, of course, I’m speaking about Grizzly Bear, whose album Shields is probably one of the best in the Alice that I’ve heard in at least a few years now. I was never really into the band, but this new album is a complete game changer as far as I’m concerned. I feel like much of 2012 was filled with albums that are absolute game changers in general.
Of course I would be remiss if I failed to mention Jessie Ware, or The Chromatics, or the tons of other records that are out there that are just absolutely stunning in nature. Naturally, it very difficult to name all of the fantastic album this year, but I have actually started going through the top 50 list of both Allmusic and NME to discover what albums are actually really good.
The NME list, by the way, is not as bad as it has been in years past. If there was a problem that I had with NME it was the fact that their lists tended to be very British centric. I like British music more than many people I know, but that doesn’t mean that their albums are always the absolute best. In fact, I feel like a lot of British music does not each particularly well because they’re seen so vibrant and so of the present. This means that often what sounded good today will be absolutely horrifying to listen doing just a few months. Certainly not the kind of music that you want on it now, anyway.
Check of some of those lists. Do yourself a favor and get back into some really fantastic music. I can finally say that it is out there and it all sounds unbelievably good.


