Top Ten Albums of 2012: 10 through 6

Four veteran performers and a new band from Dundee, Scotland.

10. Bill Fay – Life is People – Yes, I know it's overtly Jesus music, but it is also really good music. There is something in there that pulls you in and makes you listen.

 

9. The View – Cheeky For a Reason – Their first album, last year's Bread and Circuses, was a wide ranging walk through their influences from The Libertines to OMD. On this album, they develop their own sound. It's British pop and it should be available here sometime next year.

  

8. Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Americana – When I was given this album, I heard it was classic American folk songs but done with the Crazy Horse electric stomp. I then ignored it for four months. Oops. Somehow, they take these songs we all know and make them fresh and new. Plus, it sounds like Neil Young & Crazy Horse when they do it. 

 

7. Joe Jackson – The Duke – This is a hard album to categorize. It's an album of Duke Ellington jazz standards but they are done with a pop/rock feel. And, it's not a jazz /rock fusion album. It is a fun and interesting take on songs you know well. It's good to have Joe Jackson around again.

6. Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man in the Universe – A great soul singer at the end of his career looking back. It's heartfelt and honest soul music made modern by Damon Albarn's production.

Introduction to This Year's Top 10

It has been an interesting year for me and the music I listen to. Overall, I think it was just an okay year for albums. The span between my runner ups and top ten was so small, I almost expanded the list to top 15.

The music I listen to reflects my life. This year I spent a lot of time somewhat reflective and quiet due to the accident in July. For most of the summer all I could do was listen to music. I couldn't concentrate enough to read and at times, TV was just too much. The music I listened to reflected that. The list is quieter than usual.

Also, I probably bought fewer albums than I have in the past. Rdio allowed me to listen to almost everything that I wanted to hear and it caused me to raise the bar for what I was willing to buy.

Here are the honorable mentions and runner ups for this year's top ten list.

Honorable Mention

The Vaccines – Come of Age – I always love good British power pop.

The Lumineers – The Lumineers – A solid album with better songs than Mumford and Sons.

Jessie Ware – Devotion – Beautiful and haunting electronica

Saint Etienne – Words and Music by Saint Etienne – Good music by highly skilled musicians. It is such a quiet album that it got lost in the shuffle this year.

Blackberry Smoke – Whipporwill Wind – I wasn't aware that we needed a replacement for Lynrd Skynrd until this came out. Somebody needs to play old fashioned southern rock.

Bob Dylan – Tempest – His voice is shot, his songs are written in a very narrow genre and he is still great.

Best Coast – The Only Place – They turned down the reverb and made an album that is much more accessible. The single, The Only Place, was great. It should have been the song that dominated the summer, not Call Me Maybe.

Caetano Veloso and David Byrne – Live at Carnegie Hall – This was recorded in 2005. It is half, quiet brazilian music, half David Byrne. It would have been ranked higher if they had turned down the applause between songs.

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Area 52 – They continue to move forward by working with a band this time around.

Runner Ups – Not in order

Alabama Shakes – Boys & Girls – From the moment you hear Brittany Howard's voice in front of their Southern tinged rock, it reminds you of Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse. She is a force.

The Avett Brothers – The Carpenter – This came really close to the top ten. They make great songs about sad things and they do it better than any of the other pop folk bands.

Gaslight Anthem – Handwritten – They polished up their production and produced a really good rock record.

Patti Smith – Banga – Yes, the spoken word thing gets a little heavy handed at times, but you knew that going in. Her songs still reach you and her band is great.

Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten

I'm laid up and listening to a lot of music. Since it is Tuesday, I checked the new releases queue on my Rdio account. The new Gaslight Anthem was there, let's see what they're up to.

I enjoyed the '59 Sound a lot. It was punk music with a heavy New Jersey/Springsteen influence. American Slang was more of the same. This was going to be the album where I listened and gave up on them as being too narrow with nowhere to go.

They have shocked me with their turn around. This is an album of surprising depth and range. They are still from New Jersey, but their influences now range from Dion through the standard east coast R&B to Bad Religion. You can sense Thin Lizzy in there and it ends with a Tom Petty cover.

Way to go guys, I can hardly wait to buy this.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I'm a Little Behind

I started my music blog to jot down notes of things that I listen to. I thought it would be a fairly simple process.

Listen to an album.
Write something while listening to the next album.
Post what I wrote.
Repeat.

There was only one problem with this, I quickly discovered that I couldn't write about new music, while listening to something else. It was too confusing. This meant I had to listen to all the music twice. With my schedule, where I would have to be sitting while listening, it became a bit much and I fell behind.

The following albums are queued up and I will try to offer up opinions on them over the next week or so:

Allo Darlin - Europe
Florence and the Machine - Unplugged
Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls
Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself
Caetono Veloso and David Byrne - Live At Carnegie Hall
School of Seven Bells - Ghostory
Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror

And if I have time, I'll try to mention the Lucero show that I saw in March.