2012: The Year in Music

(Photo by Will Deitz)

10. David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant (4AD)
The expectations inherent to a collaboration between Annie Clark and David Byrne, increased by the strength of the debut single "Who", are probably to blame for the mediocre notices Love This Giant received. My reaction was initially somewhat muted, the album is more difficult than "Who" would suggest, but repeated listens have proved rewarding. Their sounds meld in a unique way, and the instrumentation proves brass bands have as much claim to New York as they do New Orleans.


9. The Walkmen - Heaven (Fat Possum)
Heaven is the latest in a three album arc from The Walkmen, beginning with 2008's You & Me, that documents a mellowing out. Gone is the insolent rage that fueled songs like "The Rat" and "Little House of Savages," the void filled by a coy contentedness. The album opens with Hamilton Leithauser crooning over a slow, simplistic guitar line and, over the course of its run-time,  rarely strays from this measured minimalist mode. A different kind of catharsis but a surprisingly satisfying one.



8. Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE (Def Jam)
At first, I wasn't convinced by the claims that Frank Ocean's debut was a masterpiece, but the more time I spend with channel ORANGE the more I become convinced it represents an apex in modern R&B. Between the straightforward opener "Thinkin' Bout You," the insatiable funk of "Sweet Life," the epic "Pyramids," and the hymnal-influenced "Bad Religion" there's seemingly no aspect of the genre incapable of falling victim to his mastery. It's a major debut that could've placed much higher on the list, crowning Ocean king to Janelle Monae's queen.


7. Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself (Mom+Pop)
With 2005's The Mysterious Production of Eggs, Andrew Bird defined his aesthetic. His follow-ups, 2007's Armchair Apocrypha and 2009's Noble Beast, continued to zero in on a sound that has become quintessentialy his. It's still present here on songs like "Eyeoneye," but Break It Yourself is interested in branching out and discovering new ways to apply Bird's personality to song, be it via the calypso-influenced "Danse Carribe" or the Grateful Dead-inspired country of "Give it Away." The result is his best outing since Eggs.


6. Jack White - Blunderbuss (Third Man)
Jack White's uncharacteristically personal Blunderbuss is his most mature album to date. It is also possibly his best. Album of the Year nomination aside, it doesn't feel like it's been given the credit it deserves. Perhaps that's because it feels so effortless. White's songs flourish in the full band setting, his unmistakable voice and guitar tones cutting through the mix when not landing softly on a cushion of sultry Rhodes. Say what you will about The Black Keys, this is the purest expression of Rock and Roll to surface this year.

5. Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan (Domino)
It took me about three months to acclimate myself to Bitte Orca, and that's again the case with Dirty Projectors' follow up Swing Lo Magellan, registering as a disappointment in comparison to 2009's masterpiece at the outset despite eventually revealing its depths. Perhaps it's because Dave Longstreth's songs, and the way he plays guitar in particular, are so beguiling original. Also of note are the heavenly three-part harmonies that serve to form chord voicings and supplant traditional instrumentation, e.g. the superb single "Gun Has No Trigger."

4. Beach House - Bloom (Sub Pop)
Four albums in, Beach House is being met with criticisms of possessing a singular sound, devoid of variation. There is some truth to this, but at the same time if you're making albums as lush and seductive as Bloom, what impetus is there to change? The hooks may not be as strong as the ones on 2010's Zebra, but the song structures are stronger. From the moment the arpeggios kick in over the drumbeat on "Myth" through Victoria Legrand's final utterance of "It's a strange paradise..." on "Irene," Bloom is pure recorded bliss.

3. of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks (Polyvinyl)
Kevin Barnes has been in something of a holding pattern since Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? 2008's Skeletal Lamping was a disorganized collection of fragments and snippets in desperate need of Adderall, and the Jon Brion produced False Priest was satisfying but slight. Paralytic Stalks builds on  the few viable seeds planted in thecontrollersphere and delievers his most wholly satisfying record in five years. It's a trip that travels through pop into the avant-garde, bottoming out with the cacophonous "Exorcismic Breeding Knife" before recovering its sanity, quite explicitly, in "Authentic Pyrrhic Remission."


2. Grizzly Bear - Shields (Warp)
Much like Beach House's Bloom in relation to Zebra, Shields may not bear the soaring orchestral hooks of Veckatimest (perhaps owing to the absence of Nico Muhly this time around) but where the latter often felt like soaring parts of songs–albeit great parts, it was my favorite album of 2009–joined together, Shields is a more cohesive effort, so consistent it's nearly impossible to select a song or two as a highlight, finding a middle ground between Veckatimest and Yellow House and rising above them both.

1. Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw, and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (Epic)
An aesthetic departure. While previous producers have favored juxtaposition; contrasting Fiona's revealing, occasionally ugly, lyrics with intricately beautiful musical accompaniments; Charlie Drayton reinforces the thematic content of the lyrics in the music itself, and the result is revelatory. Piano lines stripped down to their skeletal core get at the emotional truth in the chord progressions while the busy percussion echoes the pitter-patter of an anxious heart. The most compelling musical statement of 2012.


Note: An attempt at maintaining journalistic ethics forbade me from singling out The Building's The Swooshy Businessman as they are friends; were they not, their achingly sincere examination of the pleasures and pitfalls of nostalgia would certainly have placed on the list. It's one of the albums that defined 2012 sonically for me, and you should give it a spin at http://thebuilding.bandcamp.com/.