Best albums of 2012

[Anthony Williams]

Well kiddos, it's that time again... when the year is coming to an end, and it's time for PS to look back at their favourite albums of 2012!

Personally, I need to go away and think about this, but here's what MTV believe they were: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/169...ums-2012.jhtml

[Perry Vale]

Some awful choices from MTV there.

My favourites of the year are....

Smoke Fairies - Blood Speaks
First Aid Kit - The Lions Roar
Gregory Porter - Be Good
Dexys - One Day I'm Going To Soar

Other notable mentions go to....Cat Power, DJ Food, Tindersticks.

[Nyder]

I agree with Perry about Dexy's.

This is rather an obvious one from me, but worth the price of admission for the title track and last 3 tracks:-

The Beach Boys - That's Why God Made The Radio

and another obvious one - because it's bloody good:-

Rufus Wainwright - Out of the Game

[Dino]

The best thing I listened to this year was Speed, Glue & Shinki from 1972, and Shinki Chen's solo album.

[Rob McCow]

Hmm, I'd certainly agree with the Rufus Wainwright choice! But it's going to be another year with very little overlap in our favourite albums, I reckon. Apart from me and Si of course.

Artmagic - Become The One You Love
Great stuff from Si's old friend from Uni and Stephen Oakes' older brother.

Hot Chip - In Our Heads
At last, Hot Chip hit gold with an album that's amazing all the way through.

Keane - Strangeland
This one got a few listens mid-year, it's the Keane-iest Keane album Keane have ever done.

Lindstrøm - Smalhans
It's a bit dance-y. Cosmic Disco Rock!

Muse - 2nd Law
Oh alright, I've been listening to this a lot as well. Though I fear that my love of this album is UNSUSTAINABLE>>>>>

[SiHart]

It's Become The One You Love by Artmagic for me. Just uteetky fabulous!

Sent from my LT15i using Tapatalk 2

[Rob McCow]

Just uteetky fabulous!

Woop woop! New catchphrase ahoy!

[MacNimon]

The only new albums I've heard this year are Black Country Communion's Afterglow, and Carrie Underwood's Blown Away. Two albums about as far apart stylistically as you can get, but two crackers all the same. They're both great!

[Anthony Williams]

Marina and the Diamonds - Electra Heart

This is by far my favourite album of 2012. Heavily misunderstood by the critics, the majority of whom seemed not to actually bother listening to it properly. Which is kind of their job.

Take the time to listen to this, and it's one of the finest crafted pop records in a decade, taking a scathing look at American female stereotypes, and how they merely lead to emptiness. We look at four "archetypes" - the Primadonna, the Homewrecker, the SuBarbieA and the Teen Idle. The songs on this album take us through the life of Marina's Electra Heart character, as she goes through each of these archetypes, exploring the vacuous personalities of each with songs like Bubblegum Bitch, Power and Control and The State of Dreaming, before culminating the album with the ultimately cathartic Fear and Loathing - which demolishes the glamorous side of each of the archetypes in a moment of realisation that there's more to life.

It's an absolutely stunning album, in my opinion.

Muse - The 2nd Law

I think that a huge number of people would agree with me that Muse are one of the top British rock acts in the World today. And while I was disappointed with their last two albums, this one really caught my interest. I liked the experimentation into dubstep and d'n'b in parts of the album, and then the rest sounded exactly like the greatest moments of Queen - grandiose and overblown. Superb!

Lana Del Rey - Born to Die

Another sultry diva makes my list this year. This album is pop-trashed, but tinged with melancholy. Songs like Video Games and Blue Jeans send shivers down my spine, as her hypnotic voice bursts out of my headphones. She likes to describe herself as a "gangsta Nancy Sinatra" - and I can certainly see that in her. But, the less said about her performance on SNL, the better!

Black Country Communion - Afterglow

The third attempt from the World's greatest current supergroup (made up of Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian) is every bit as strong as their previous two albums. It's so nice to hear a band making new rock that sounds just as good as the greats - Led Zep and Deep Purple. It's a thing of wonder. I love it!

Mumford and Sons - Babel

It's a little-known fact that I went to school with two members of Mumford and Sons. They were both lovely chaps. And this is a lovely album, too. While it could never be said that this is an evolution from their debut release, it's still very strong. They successfully avoided the pitfalls of the sophomore album - while most bands who make it big with their first album tend to write an egotistical, overblown follow-up, this is more of them same. They have a formula that works, and they're keeping to it. Why not?

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I'm going to listen to some your recommendations on spotify Anthony... rather appalled to realise I've hardly bought any new albums this year. Waiting for messrs Young and Cullum to get their respective acts together and produce new albums... although in Will's case at least Echoes only came out 16 months ago... but shame on Mr Cullum it's been 36 long months since The Pursuit was released. Marrying Sophie Dahl and having a baby is not an excuse!

My main pop purchase this year was Joe McElderry's latest offering "Here's what I believe". Not bad but to honest aside from the great title track there wasn't anything that particularly blew me away, even the final track E Penso A Te seemed to feel like it was left over from 2011's "Classic" album which after some reservations, readers of my occasional music postings will know really grew on me after a few listens. Hell, I might buy his "Classic Christmas" album from last year now that it's in season again as I didn't realise it had come out till mid way through this year!

[SiHart]

As I said, rather haphazardly, Artmagic's Become The One You Love is my album of the year. I genuinely have not loved an album the way that I've loved this one for many years. It's a rather stunning achievement- a brilliant blend of catchy melodies, wonderful lyrics (many of which touch on gay subjects- very touchingly done) and with the added bonus that it all comes from an old friend of mine. If you want to see what the fuss is about you can download for whatever price you like this week, from here: http://artmagic.bandcamp.com/album/b...e-one-you-love

But I have also loved Rufus Wainwright's Out of the Game. It's probably not the poppy album we were promised it would be, but it is full of catchy songs, some of the best of his career and there's not so much of the stuff that makes parts of his back catalogue a little impenetrable at times! The songs work really well live too. A very fine effort.

Jim Noir's Jimmy's Show contains a lot of good songs, showing his rather unique view of life off once again. he's ever so talented because he does it all himself and manages to mix great melodies with rather surreal subject matter. No-one else is quite like him!

I've enjoyed Night Work by Scissor Sisters too, though it's a rather schizophrenic album, with party tracks and mellow ones all vying for space and it doesn't quite all come together. Shame as there are some fabulous songs on it.

I have much the same feeling about Muse's The Second Law too. Good album overall, with an unexpected blend of poppy songs and the overblown nonsense they're loved for. I adore the rewrite of George Michael's Faith they did- Madness! Good stuff overall!

[Si Hunt]

My favourite albums of the year:

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

Quite simply the Pop Star of the year, I spent much of the year semi-obsessed over Minaj and this album. The stunning singles, the colour hair, the videos! Although the album itself is not of the conventional kind - a sprawling record in three "sections" - one rap, one dance/pop and one slower tempo R'n'B - and therefore doesn't lend itself to coherence, a good three quarters of it is of hugely high quality. Indeed, it didn't stop coming and she proceeded to unleash singles and videos with incredible frequency.

Sadly, the campaign was so intense it burned itself out and I'm now rather tired of the whole thing. It's seemed as if not a week has gone by without a new video (still no "Marilyn Monroe" video though) and she's currently peddling some below-par new songs from a re-issue. It all just got a bit too much. Still, this was without doubt the record of the year - loud, bright and with a clutch of the very best singles this year.

Justin Bieber - Believe

He had a job, coming from being a squeaky voiced teen star, and indeed I'm fully prepared to look stupid putting this down. But it was always worth being open-minded - he had the money and the backing to use the best producers and writers, and this is why this was always going to be a good album. Odd, then, that it wasn't, and initially I was dissapointed that 2/3rds of it is insipid balladry.

However, the remaining 1/3 is home to some naggingly mature and accomplished pop - "Boyfriend", "As Long As You Love Me", "Beauty and A Beat" (with Minaj) and, weirdly, the bonus tracks like the very Michael Jackson-esque "Maria", a dark "Billie Jean"-esque ode to the woman that claimed she fathered his child.

It's worth remembering that, once, Michael Jackson was a manufactured teen star. If you can't completely re-write your preconceptions then you'll miss out on some good music. This album wasn't quite there - but there was a good chunk of decent stuff on it, and against the odds I'm still playing bits of it half a year later.

Taylor Swift - Red

Only came out a few weeks ago, but it's already one of the biggest sellers of the year and I can see why. A fine suite of country-pop songs, just modern enough but at the same time old-fashioned enough. "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" is already teeth-grindingly old hat, but the follow up "Trouble", along with other tracks like "Treacherous", "All Too Well" and "Begin Again" are perfectly produced pop gems. Only the dull Ed Sheeran one lets the side down - for Gods sake, someone stop the man and his mission to depress us all.

"Rihanna - Talk That Talk"

Rihanna albums come out each November, so I'm including the 2011 one in this years list. You can see the bits she rushes (staggeringly, one song here fades out half-finished and was released, complete, later as a free download) but she's basically on fire and has the best team of producers behind her. The title track is all clicking, urgent beats and a killer chorus, and the big hit "We Found Love", again eclipsed the previous one. It had now got to the point where they were turning into some of the biggest songs of the decade. An anthemic Calvin Harris classic with a dark druggy video, it was followed up with the poppy "You Da One" and the clubby "Where Have You Been". The rest of the album, though slightly too dirty, was of high enough quality to make this another top-quality Rihanna album. People would question if she was too prolific. Were they kidding? If you find yourself in a purple patch like this, you don't stop!

Madonna - MDNA

A rather fine Madonna album, albeit one that continued her dancey side-step rather than progressing or diversifying. Unfortunately it was the album that just did not shift singles and - unheard of - the lead single tanked due to a botch-up that saw it released on a Friday and stocking problems. I loved the second single, "Girl Gone Wild" but that failed to ignite the charts either. Other songs sounded oddly cheaply produced, but it was her finest set of tunes for many a year. She propelled herself into the highest grossing tour of 2012 off the back of it, so it was an odd year for Madonna; a fantastic album that everyone seemed to hate, but everyone went to see performed live.

Si.

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I forgot to mention earlier that I was recently introduced to Ellie Goulding. Love the new album Halcyon and the single "Anything could happen".