Rolling "favorite music of 2012 so far" thread (albums and/or tracks edition)

Year's off to a good beginning imo:

ALBUMS
John Talabot - ƒin
Chairlift - Something
Jessie Baylin - Little Spark
Frankie Rose - Interstellar
Escort - s/t (I guess this got its digital release in 2011, but physical release in 2012?)
Mirel Wagner - s/t (Scandinavian release in 2011, N. American release in 2012)
A Place to Bury Strangers - Onwards to the Wall EP
The Magnetic Fields - Love at the Bottom of the Sea

TRACKS
Teyana Taylor ft. Wale - Make Your Move
M.I.A. - Bad Girls
School of Seven Bells - Lafaye
Amadou & Mariam ft. Santigold - Dougou Badia
Linkoban - Like This
Nicki Minaj - Stupid Hoe (Since the video came out in 2012, I'm calling it a 2012 track)

TRACKS
Emeli Sandé - Next to Me

http://soundcloud.com/soulphiction-aka-jackmate/php062-soulphiction-4-u

ALBUMS/EPS:
Rick Ross - Rich Forever
Zebra Katz - Ima Read
Jim-E Stack - Come Between
Jade Alston - Single on a Saturday Night
V/A - Riva Stone Riddim

TRACKS:
SWV - Weak (DJ K Millz Remix)
I-Octane - Money Me Want
5KINANDBONE5 - Make U Understand / Reset
Konshens - Gyal A Bubble
Teyana Taylor - Make Your Move
Reverend Dollars - UKnwDmnWll
Miguel - Adorn
Jam City - The Courts
Brandy & Monica - It All Belongs To Me
DJ Q - Brandy & Coke
Lil Chuckee - Wop
Popcaan - Party Shot
DJ Manny - One Wish 2k12
Lamin Fofana - Brokedown City
Gremino - Let's Jack
Lil Durk - I Get Paid
Cassie - King of Hearts

ALBUMS:
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Blondes - s/t
Todd Terje - It's the Arps
Alcest - Les voyages de l'âme
Chairlift - Something

I'll second the Escort mention as well.

My top 10 for January.

Electric Guest - This Head I Hold
Frankie Rose - Know Me
Made in heights - skylark interbang!?
N'to - Sand Dealer
Nicolas Jaae - With Just One Glance You
Oskar Offermann - Fluffer
Santigold - Big Mouth
Soko - First Love Never Die
White Rabbits - Heavy Metal
Zee Avi - Concrete Wall (RAC Remix)

^those are tracks, not albums.

Haven't heard that many albums but here's the ones I've liked:

Ali Ag Amoumine - Takamba
Anthony Green - Beautiful Things
Chairlift - Something
First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
Matt Elliott - The Broken Man

albums:
The Explorers Club, <i>Grand Hotel</i>
Kinky, <i>Sueño de la Maquina</i>
Steve Lehman, <i>Dialect Fluorescent</i>
The Unthanks, <i>Diversions Vol. 1: The Songs of Robert Wyatt and Anthony & the Johnsons</i>
The Darcys, <i>Aja</i>
T.I., <i>Fuck Da City Up</i>
Tai Murray, <i>Ysaÿe: Six Sonatas</i>
Ana Tijoux, <i>La Bala</i>
Stew & the Negro Problem, <i>Making It</i>
Dierks Bentley, <i>Home</i>
Starving Weirdos, <i>Land Line</i>
Tim McGraw, <i>Emotional Traffic</i>
Bebe, <i>Un Pokito de Rocanrol</I>
Rodrigo y Gabriela & C.U.B.A., <i>Area 52</i>
Omar Sosa & Paolo Fresu w/ Jaques Morelenbaum, <i>Alma</i>
Abigail Williams, <i>Becoming</i>

haha my formatting sucks, sorry

use brackets [ ] [/]

I know. I forgot. More coffee is indicated.

ALBUMS
School of Seven Bells - Ghostory (better than "The Night" let on, more like "Lafaye")
Phèdre - s/t
Chantal Morte - Mental Short

TRACKS
Wild Belle - Keep You

Cloud Nothings all the way.

soap & skin 'narrow'

Albums

John Bischoff - Audio Combine
Terry Riley - Aleph

Song

Tokyo Jihen - sa_i_ta

ALBUM(S)

John K. Samson - Provincial

TRACKS

Charlie xcx - "Valentine"
Ladyhawke - "Black White & Blue"
Leonard Cohen - "Show Me The Place"
Kathleen Edwards - "Pink Champagne"
Nicki Minaj - "Stupid Hoe"

Lots of interesting records here!

escort was 2011... bit disappointing though I thought

Alcest - Les voyages de l'ame
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicentre
Christian Mistress - Possession

Albums

Chairlift - Something
Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny - "Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose"
Errors - Have Some Faith In Magic

Singles

Wonder Girls - The DJ is Mine
Lianne La Havas - Forget
DJ Raff - Digital Rain (En el Desierto)

album: Mikhail, Xenofonia (Sub Rosa)

Oh yes, Matt Elliott's is great also.

albums:

fun.: some nights
john talabot: fin
young thug: i came from nothing 2
tim berne: snakeoil
rick ross: rich forever
lil b: white flame

tracks:
todd terje: inspector norse
taylor swift feat. the civil wars: safe & sound
sleigh bells: comeback kid
chief keef: 3hunna (thanks deej)
chairlift: i belong in your arms

albums :

john talabot - fin
todd terje - it's the arps
schoolboy q - habits & contradictions
young thug - i came from nothing 2
ilyas ahmed - with endless fire

Imperial Teen - Feel The Sound
Leonard Cohen - Old Ways
Rick Ross - Rich Forever
Kellie Pickler - 100 Proof
Burial - Kindred
Lambchop - Mr M

top 10 albums so far:

Dev – The Night The Sun Came Up (Universal Republic)
Christian Mistress – Possession (Relapse)
The Devil’s Blood – The Thousandfold Epicentre (Metal Blade)
El Doom & The Born Electric – El Doom & The Born Electric (Rune Grammofon)
Bhiman – Bhiman (Boocoo Music)
Tim Berne – Snakeoil (ECM)
Elfin Saddle – Devastates (Constellation)
Bushman’s Revenge – A Little Bit Of Big Bonanza (Rune Grammofon)
Kenny Garrett – Seeds From The Underground (Mack Avenue)
Mark Stewart – The Politics Of Envy (Future Noise Music Inc.)

fave things thus far - woollen kits s/t, harry howard & the nde 'near death experience', caveman 'coco beware', porcelain raft 'strange weekend', radar eyes s/t, diagrams 'black light', tennis 'young & old'. casiokids album is not bad but it hasn't completely grown on me yet.

yet to hear the beth jeans houghton lp in full but the singles have been ace

Tim McGraw, <i>Emotional Traffic</i>

"Touchdown Jesus" is sooooo bad.

"The One That Got Away" is so good though.

it's funny, i never heard "The One That Got Away" bc it comes right after "Touchdown Jesus" and it was so bad i turned off the album at that point

Touchdown Jesus? Boo Radleys cover or coincidence title?

Touchdown Jesus is a real thing at Notre Dame University, so it's probably coincidence.

http://www.dreamstime.com/touchdown-jesus-thumb2866408.jpg

Albums I've discovered this week:

Tenniscoats - Papa's Ear
Eyvind Kang - The Narrow Garden
Dirty Three - Towards the Low Sun
Julia Holter - Ekstasis

No new albums I like yet, but a couple more tracks (will it be one of those years?):

Heartless Bastards - "Parted Ways"
Saint Etienne - "Tonight"

albums/eps, even though i haven't really discovered any i absolutely love this year:

Audio Doughnuts comp
Lotic
Escort
Schoolboy Q
Ka

traxks (love these a lot):

Miguel, "Adorn"
Dawn Richard, "Change" & "Black Lipstick"
Zebra Katz f/ Njena Reddd Foxxx, "Ima Read" (+ MikeQ & B. Ames remix)
Nicki Minaj, "Stupid Hoe" (+ Ben Aqua remix)
8ball & MJG f/ Big Krit, "We Buy Gold"
Brianna Perry, "Marilyn Monroe"

princeton 'remembrance of things to come'

Kellie Pickler - 100 Proof
Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas
Imperial Teen - Feel The Sound
Burial - Kindred
Sinead O'Connor - How Bout I Be Me...
Lambchop - Mr. M

just discovered

Usher, "Climax"

late to the party - but this is fucking awesome

Yeh, already feeling liked underrated this over at the jukebox.

oh man, seandalai, that tenniscoats album is incredible

i love how Saya's voice constantly shifts + flickers between like traditional vox affect and naturalistic body affect - like she'll be singing so sadly and then her voice will just break for a second, like it's too much of a strain to keep up the musical pretense and she has to respond with more authentic sentiment. gorgeous.

ALBUM
Tennis Bafra - Abulia Jubilee ← Sounds almost identical to Sonic Youth in ways that should be criminal, right down to the singer's Thurston Moore impression, but I'm loving it anyway.

Matthew Shipp Trio - Elastic Aspects

(Contemporary chamber jazz.)

(Because I get tired of long lists on threads of this sort that leave me with no idea--or a wrong idea--of what genres the artists in question record.)

Field Music - Plumb
35 minutes, 15 songs, a little bit of postpunk groove, a little bit of post-McCartney melody, a little bit of post-prog instrumentation, and a whole lot of really gorgeous songs and smart lyrics. My favourite record this year so far.

Zieti- Zemelawa(Grigri Discs)

(Ivory Coast/American afropop--Singer and singer/rhythm guitarist from the Ivory Coast lay down tracks and then an American guitarist, drummer and others add more on top---retro guitar and modern vocal melodies)

The Narrow Garden - Eyvind Kang
Voices From The Lake - s/t
Henge Beat - Total Control
Dreams Say, View, Create, Shadow Leads - Dustin Wong
Escort - s/t
Man With Potential - Pete Swanson
Break It Yourself - Andrew Bird
Glimmer - Jacaszek

I actually love that Zieti album! xp

http://www.mediafire.com/?y6h7z37b04dds0p

^uploaded by label no ysi

man all I am listening to this year is loud rock music it seems

new stuff* to add to my list

Aluk Todolo, Occult Rock
Fushitsusha, Hikari to Nazukeyo
Beak>, >>
Gunn-Truscinski Duo, Ocean Parkway
Moon Duo, Circles
Melody's Echo Chamber, s/t

*late pass plz, apparently I can't be on time for work and on time for ILX at the same time

Dead Sara's self-titled is def my favorite loud rock album of the year. some other favorites that haven't been mentioned in this thread yet:

Dwight Yoakam - 3 Pears
Meek Mill - Dreams And Nightmares
Ichicuts - Filthy First Year
Dinosaur Jr. - I Bet On Sky
Pink - The Truth About Love
ZZ Top - La Futura
The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
Eleni Mandell - I Can See The Future
E-40 - The Block Brochure: Welcome to the Soil 1, 2 & 3
Say Anything - Anarchy, My Dear

i mean loud rock pretty broadly. like i've got future of the left, screaming females, oh sees, jeff the brotherhood, fake limbs, and mind spiders on my list but i don't know if i out and out love any of those

my fave stuff that isn't obvious stuff that everyone else loves too:

dustin wong - dreams say, view, create, shadow leads <- maybe my fave album of the year?
serengeti - c.a.r. and kenny dennis EP
the chap - we are nobody
chris cohen - overgrown path
fake limbs - man feelings
lambchop - mr. m

I love the Chris Cohen album.

this is my singles list as of right now:

Scott Walker – Epizootics!
Dirty Projectors – Gun Has No Trigger
Adele – Set Fire To The Rain
Barbara Morgenstern – Sweet Silence
Gotye – Somebody That I Used To Know (feat. Kimbra)
Peaking Lights – Beautiful Son
Vum – Laura Palmer
Psychic Ills – Take Me With You
Santigold – Disparate Youth
David Byrne & St. Vincent – Who
The Soft Pack – Saratoga
Mirel Wagner – No Death
POP ETC – Keep It for Your Own
Mark Stewart – Stereotype (feat. Factory Floor and Keith Levene)
NZCA/LINES – Airlock
Rufus Wainwright – Jericho
Sky Ferreira – Everything Is Embarrassing
Carly Rae Jepsen – Call Me Maybe
The Fresh & Onlys – Presence of Mind
Psy – Gangnam Style (강남스타일)
Todd Terje – Inspector Norse
Cate le Bon – Fold The Cloth
Julia Holter – Goddess Eyes I
Farrah Abraham – On My Own
Rhye – The Fall
Masha Qrella – Fishing Buddies
Christina Aguilera – Your Body
Miguel – Adorn
Adult. – Shari Vari
Lana Del Rey – Bel Air

Adult. covered Shari Vari too?

yup!

My singles list is so near but with zero overlap. Fight

!

xp Very good year for loud-rock albums IMO

I love the new Roc Marciano album Reloaded. The guy is master at what he does and the album has a cool, understated Liquid Swords type quality.

I meant to say Cuban Linx not Liquid Swords!

Raime - Quarter Turns Over A Living Line. Late contender for album of the year methinks

I thought I liked the UFOmammut album, but then I went back and listened to their earlier stuff and I prefer it a lot more. Recent one sounds like an extended take on Battle by Blur.

The new Justin Townes Earle record, Nothing's Going to Change The Way You Feel About Me Now, is good.

2012 record I had heard was great but just got around to listening to it in the past few days and what I had heard was correct: new Redd Kross

(you can hear it at the Merge site if you want)

tbh I'm not sure I enjoyed much new music this year. Have been struggling putting together faves. Is this just me?

I feel the same. There's plenty of things I liked, but no real stand-outs. There's always somebody in this position every year but it's a first for me that I'm actually the guy.

2012 was a good year for my wheelhouse, i feel like i found more to love this year than in the last few.

Mostly the disappointment comes from fact that there were no real movements this year... everything felt like an extension of something we had last year. Chillwave is exhausted (or was), Crystal Castle's latest feels like B-sides to their last record, Cat Power went route of adult friendly listening experience. Key exception would be Grimes, who didn't entirely change up her sound from last albums but definitely made her most declarative record this year. Those are the scenes I follow, anyway.

the album that i think is gonna top an awful lot of lists, kendrick lamar's, felt more a 90s revisitation than anything. everything this year was too overtly comfortable, less influenced by past eras and more happy homage. i'm a bit needling w/ this opinion tho, as i've yet to make a clear sum-up of everything i've listened to this year. wish spotify had a feature for every album listened to.

I didn't have any trouble finding music I liked this year, but I wasn't looking for it as much. I feel like when it comes time to round everything up, I'm going to be at more of a disadvantage than usual. Lots of "oh, I've heard of that, but haven't actually listened to it" and the like.

Just added Zombie Zombie - Rituels d'un nouveau monde to my best of 2012 playlist

I will say that the best thing Grimes was involved with this year wasn't her own album, but the "Phone Sex" single by Blood Diamonds on 4AD.

Grimes is such ridiculous DJP bait and yet I really, really could not get into that album at all

There's always somebody in this position every year but it's a first for me that I'm actually the guy.

Yup, immediately the same after my post. Ah well, I'm sure once I get a list together I'll feel different about things.

I feel good about this year, lots of albums and tracks I'll come back to. Big-picture-wise idk, but "scenes" and "movements" have never really played a central role in how I engage with music.

same, demanding scenes to be perpetually revolutionising music just seems to be setting oneself up for disappointment. like, demanding a certain thing to happen when that's mostly not how music works. i guess that's what leads to the kind of old person mindset that none of this new stuff is as good as music used to be, it's all corporate and beige and plastic now &c &c

i listened to grimes once and was "well ok" and then i put it away for awhile, came back to it and loved it.

my favorite release is unsurprising, 'words and music by saint etienne'. also not particularly revolutionary.

same, demanding scenes to be perpetually revolutionising music just seems to be setting oneself up for disappointment. like, demanding a certain thing to happen when that's mostly not how music works. i guess that's what leads to the kind of old person mindset that none of this new stuff is as good as music used to be, it's all corporate and beige and plastic now &c &c

well no, what leads to the kind of old person mindset you're talking about is being around long enough to watch kids regurgitate variants of shit you've been listening to for 15-20 years as if it was new, amazing revolutionary music no one had ever conceived of before

need to revisit 'ghosts' by monolake. probably going to feel best about emeralds, majeure, steve hauschildt, wild nothing, swans, holy other, donald fagen, DIIV, chelsea wolfe, allo darlin, julia holter, john talabot, tindersticks, at the end of the year.

also: alcest

feel like the julia holter is the wild card on my list, like something better could bump it off. i enjoy several of the songs but don't know if i have the patience for it as a full album.

well no, what leads to the kind of old person mindset you're talking about is being around long enough to watch kids regurgitate variants of shit you've been listening to for 15-20 years as if it was new, amazing revolutionary music no one had ever conceived of before

Unless they were around in the 60s and 70s, I'd say that most people's experiences of "amazing revolutionary music" are completely personal - music that they had never conceived of before. Once you've been around for a while you have a fair idea of the various directions music can take. The last thing that completely blew my mind and changed the way I listen to music was discovering Arthur Russell in 2004 or 2005 but again that wasn't new, just something I hadn't heard before. So the "old person mindset" I'd talk about is simply having had the opportunity to listen to a lot of different music.

I feel about Holter like DJP feels about the Grimes: should be Sanpaku-bait, but most of it just rubs me the wrong way.

Grimes was real LeRoo bait and I got hooked! I already loved her "Vanessa" single last year and the new album really delivered on my expectations.

Seconding Roc Marciano - Reloaded. Stream is here: http://stereogum.com/1198722/stream-roc-marciano-reloaded/album-stream/

^ solid album

I still haven't gotten around to that but I loved his last album.

Been loving these tracks lately:

Chandeliers - Le Corsage (Feat Emma Yohanan)
Chrome Sparks - All There Is (Feat. Steffaloo)
Evan Voytas - Tomorrow Night We'll Go Anywhere
FLako - Mating Dance
Laetitia Sadier - Find Me The Pulse Of The Universe
Poliça - Wandering Star
Tame Impala - It Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
Mesita - XYXY

Sa Dingding's The Coming Ones is now available via Grooveshark:

http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/The+Coming+Ones/8064053

Listen to it!

also for me: ricardo donoso's excellent "assimilating the shadow" and voices from the lake s/t

I listened to the Chairlift twice through this evening. I've dipped in and out of it all year an enjoyed it on a track by track basis, but blimey if this isn't an outright fab collection of songs. Makes me think of how I'd have liked Eurhythmics to sound like or something.

the donoso is tite

When do we start this for 2k13?

There already is one.

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2013

Thanks!