Top 50 Albums of the Year - 10 to 1
So, after what has been a fantastic year for music, and many many many great albums, here it is. The Rip's top 10 albums of 2012. And I really feel that it showcases just what a special year it has been for music, with a selection of albums as wide-ranging in style and scope as can be expected from a year as musically fractured as this. There are stunning debuts in there, career-defining albums, examples of the 'less is more' approach and monolithic epics. These are the albums that have defined 2012 for me, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I have.
Liars are no strangers to reinvention, and after 5 albums pushing the guitar to their creative limit, the band went back to the drawing board and reconfigured their sound to utilise electronics in a big way for the first time. It is difficult to completely alter your musical style and still manage to maintain the essence of what makes the band great, but Liars have carried it off effortlessly, and have crafted an album just as full of the impending dread that so defined past Liars albums. There is something quaint about using electronics to reinvent yourself in 2012, but on this evidence, that’s not something I would feel comfortable telling the band on this menacing, brooding album.
9. Perfume Genius - Put Your Back In 2 It
Possibly my most emotional music moment of the year, and perhaps even my life, came at Latitude Festival this summer, watching Mike Hadreas perform a selection of tracks from his beautiful second album Put Your Back In 2 It. Watching the man pour his heart and soul into some of the most emotionally charged music of the year was almost too much for me, I have to admit. Whilst music of this kind can often be overwrought with lyrics at a college poetry level, this is an album of real depth, and if you are not moved by the majesty of Hood, you really must be heartless.
Listen: Perfume Genius - Hood
8. Chromatics - Kill For Love
In most other years, this album would probably be considered as the masterpiece of the year, that album that really is what you’d call an ALBUM. And these ALBUMS usually perform quite well in end of year lists, probably in the top 5. Unfortunately, this was the year that Swans took that spot (more on that later) but who can complain about two masterpieces in one year? An album of dark synth-pop, driving ambient pieces and some of the sexiest electro of the year, Kill For Love is the perfect companion piece to a long, beautiful night time drive.
Listen: Chromatics - Kill For Love
7. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Don't Bend! Allelujah! Ascend!
The most unexpected release of the year, with the album quietly being slipped onto the merch table during their North American October Tour. This alone is a great news story, for a band who have not released new material for 10 years, but luckily it is a killer album of classic Godspeed that has made it also one of the best albums of the year. You might expect that after such an absence that the might not be relevant any more, but the release merely proved just how important it is to have bands with the vitriol of Godspeed in a world that continues to be at corrupt and lost as it has always been.
Listen: Godspeed You! Black Emperor -Mladic
6. Death Grips - The Money Store
It says something for a band that the most shocking thing about them isn’t the erect penis on the cover of their second release of the year. The Money Store, the band’s first, and possibly only major label release, expands upon their debut’s punk-rap base to create a sonic Molotov cocktail of metal, extreme electronica and synth-pop. Few albums this year were as exciting or sounded as dangerous, from the lo fi murmur of Get Got to the warped dubstep of System Blower. It may be a challenging listen, but it’s a raw visceral thrill that grips you by the throat and refuses to let go.
Listen: Death Grips - Hacker
5. Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan
This year, David Longstreth, Dirty Projector’s ringleader, took the Bon Iver approach to making a record and decamped to the middle of nowhere to put together an album that deconstructs the Dirty Projectors sound to its most basic building blocks to create something that is both beautiful in its simplicity and dizzyingly inventive. Whilst the music is much more straightforward than ever before, the lyrics are as impenetrable, and the subject matters as complex as ever, but they really are not the focal point on an album that is perhaps the best pop album of the year, and if there was any justice in the world, would have had a string of number one singles.
Listen: Dirty Projectors - The Socialites
From an album of simplicity to the densest, most difficult piece of work of the year. The Seer is an album that really requires the right frame of mind, the right time and the right place, and it would do it an injustice to not be giving it your full attention. It is the culmination of years of punishment and self-torture for those in the band, and really does represent the crowning achievement of the band to date. It’s an exhausting listen, and a truly ugly album, but all great art is challenging, and few albums match this one for artistry in recent memory.
3. Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
channel ORANGE is an album that seeps into your life. For one so hyped in the build up to its release, it almost felt like a let down when you first heard it. Tracks sounded like half finished ideas, the interludes seemed unnecessary. But then you realise that the tracks aren’t half baked, and that they’re meant to fill in the gaps in your life, and soundtrack your life. And that Pyramids is one of the greatest songs of the decade. And that Frank Ocean might have the most soulful voice of our generation, and be the greatest storyteller yet to write a novel.
Listen: Frank Ocean - Bad Religion
2. Alt J - An Awesome Wave
British guitar music is in a bad way when a vaguely intelligent yet accessible band comes along and is immediately compared to Radiohead. No, Alt J are by no means the next Radiohead, and nor should they aim to be. With An Awesome Wave, the band have crafted and album that is perfect for almost any occasion, be it a summer’s night drinking, a night on your own writing an essay, or a festival field with thousands of people putting their triangle in the air. Every track on the album burst with joy, and has that one moment that just gets you right in the chest. When the bass drops in Fitzpleasure, when the chanting starts on Breezeblocks and the track comes back in on Dissolve Me. It’s an incredible debut.
Listen: Alt J - Breezeblocks
1. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, M.A.A.D. city
Where Alt J’s debut album felt like it heralded in a new artist, Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, M.A.A.D. city already feels like a classic. The rap world has produced many great albums this year, but none have felt so accomplished and complete as this. It’s not the first rap album to tell a story, but few are as immersive and fun as this. While many will misinterpret tracks like Backstreet Freestyle and Swimming Pools as frat boy party tracks, that’s almost the point isn’t it? It’s an album that tries to make you experience what Kendrick has, and few transport you as effortlessly as this album does. The only worry about this album is wondering where he goes from here.
Listen: Kendrick Lamar - Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst
