The Best Records of 2012

Dan Khan

1) Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

2) Beach House - Bloom

3) Grizzly Bear - Shields

4) Four Tet- Pink

5) Jack White - Blunderbuss

6) The Helio Sequence - Negotiations

7) The Walkmen - Heaven

8) John Frusciante - PBX Funicular Intaglio Zone

9) David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

10) Leonard Cohen - Old Ideas

11) Rufus Wainwright - Out of the Game

12) Metric - Synthetica

13) Ty Segall - Twins

14) Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror

15) Sigur Rós - Valtari

Scout

1. School of Seven Bells - Ghostory

        - Maybe there were better albums this year, but none that burrow into my soul and sit there, forcing me to feel things I don't always want to. Their music can, at its best, pull emotions out of your lowest depths. This is their most complete album and can feel like it lasts for days and days.

2. Father John Misty - Fear Fun

     

        - Whatever name he chooses, he's still one of our best songwriters, and this is a bigger canvas for him to paint on, so his voice gets to roam, his guitars get to play dress-up, and we get to enjoy the beautiful, haunting, unforgettable show again and again and again. I've listened to this maybe a hundred times this year and I'm still not sick of it.

3. Patrick Watson - Adventures In Your Own Backyard

        - I can't even imagine how much time he spent on each of these songs. What a fucking brain on the guy! You get lost in the gorgeousness of his songs and this album is especially bountiful. 

4. Beak> - >>

5. Crocodiles - Endless Flowers

6. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

7. Grizzly Bear - Shields

8. The Ty Segall Band - Slaughter House

        - Hearing any of Ty's albums is like discovering Rock music all over/for the first time/whatever. He's a mad genius and his lab is constantly exploding. Ty made three albums this year and I just like this one best. That second song, holy shit. This album is like watching an artist 'slash his canvas' to coin a phrase. 

9. The K-Holes - Dismania

10. Bahamas - Power Chords

        - I call having loved him first. Afie must be having the time of his life right now and he absolutely should be. He's so good at this, he was born to do this, so I'm glad people noticed.

11. Disappears - Pre Language

12. David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant

13.   Chromatics - Kill For Love

14. We Avalanche - Time Travels

       - Like Elliott Smith doing Lomax. They're going to get huge, these fellows. They play music in the vein of a lot incredibly popular bands, but they put so much care into the texture and nuance of every moment, while others are content to just play the song. They have the precision of scientists which doesn't diminish from the awesome force they use to shred. 

15. Screaming Females - Ugly

        - All my heroes are getting huge. Soon I'm not gonna have anyone left to myself. Which is almost sad. 

16. Tindersticks - The Something Rain

        - Their best album as a band. Such a great way to spend a rainy night. 

17. Rocket Juice & The Moon - Rocket Juice & The Moon

18. Guillemots - Hello Land!

19. Rufus Wainwright - Out of the Game

20. Moonface - With Siinai: Heartbreaking Bravery

Fox Johnson 

(I could annotate, but I like the minimalist format chosen - Ed.)

Jack White comes in from the Musical Cold

So the other night I found myself in a dilemma. Spend the last few hours with my girlfriend Emily before she left for Las Vegas for a week, or listen to Jack White's new record Blunderbuss. Well she didn't take me with her to Sin City so I chose the album. I made the right choice.

I've been waiting on this puppy for some time. I'm as big a White Stripes fan as they come and I adore The Raconteurs but The Dead Weather was a bit of a tough sell. The songs just didn't come together the way that Jack White III's other groups songs did.

Jack also went out of his way to torture White Stripes fans by releasing a great little documentary and the first official White Stripes live records ever while he was off dicking around with The Dead Weather and all it did was make fans clamor for more of the musical duo. Jack and Meg put out a press release not long after that officially stated the band was finally kaput. Though it was all but said already, I'm sure I shed a few tears when I actually read the notice.

We got a brief glimpse at what Jack was up to when the documentary It Might Get Loud came out in 2008. A pretty rad single was actually cut from the film and released as Jack White's first official solo release, Fly Farm Blues.



The song was killer and its got Jack's style all over it. But after that all to brief sample of Jack's solo work he went silent for four years.

The first sample I got of Blunderbuss was when he played to tracks from it on SNL a few weeks back.

The first was a mellow ballad which we've seen Jack do before but not quite in this vain. Its a lovely little song with some nice harmonies. (and who could say no to an all girl band?)



His second performance sounded like a track from any Stripes record. Its hard. Its fast. And its great. A solid rocker.



So from that performance, I still really had no idea what to expect from Jack's upcoming record. The result is...well......everything I couldn've wanted from it.

Even on the first listen Blunderbuss sounds a lot like Bad as Me by Tom Waits did when I first gave that a listen last year. It felt familiar. It felt warm. It felt good. Nothing on the album is stale or rehashed. It just feels like you've known these songs all your life. Like they were recorded out of time like only the greatest artists seem to be able to do. I watched a radio interview (yes, watched) today with Jack White and the reviewer ended up saying the same thing so I know I'm not nuts.

I think the reason is that we've all been listening to Jack for so long that even though he continues to wow us with what he can do we've grown to know him like a lover. We know his ticks. We know what gets him off. And as far as I'm concerned, I've got a lot of the same feelings Jack's got.

The songs are mainly riff based which is typical for Mr. White. But he pulls away to allow some killer piano and organ driven tracks. There's some great harmonies and backing vocals. Jack explained in the radio interview that he managed to record almost every song with a different set of people just to keep the energy moving throughout the recording process. I think it was a good move.

Jack's lyrics are right where we want them too. Songs about love that leave a sinister grin on your face when you actually pay attention to the words. Songs about being young, being in school, and having the worst crush possible. Jack also manages to really keep his songs very catchy. Even the deeper cuts on the record had me snapping my fingers and bobbing my head. Being catchy is far from the sure sign of a good record but here its just another pro on a long list that's fairly devoid of cons.

In fact the more I think about it, theres nothing on this record that I'd even call a con. Sure, I'm not madly in love with every track but so rarely does that actually happen on a record. Even the bands that put out these albums don't absolutely love every song (though this is actually a problem since they should. It'd probably make the damn thing more listenable).

I'll stop harping on over here and just say that when this record comes out, I advise you to go out and buy it. I will as well and I'll be doing so at the tiniest record store I can find. Digital albums are a wonderful convenience and an eventuality these days but knowing Jack, I think that having this record to hold will be worth your while.

See what I did there? I snuck in a "support record stores" thing right at the end. Do it. It'll make you a better person.