2012 has been a pretty good year for albums – and an eclectic one too. From the pounding electronic-soup-hop throb of El-P through to Beta Band-esque newcomers Django Django, this year‘s seen old acts returning to form and newcomers snatching at brilliance.
Looking at the 2012 ‘top albums of the year’ lists that have been published elsewhere, a handful of names keep popping up. And a few of them appear here too.
For hip-hop heads Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, the El-P produced Killer Mike album R.A.P. Music and (for those seeking slightly odder sounds) the two albums from Sacramento’s Death Grips, all seem to be featuring high up in other publications’ lists. Whilst all three of those acts feature in the Slacker Shack top twenty, the brilliant (and slightly overlooked) Quakers album impressed us just as much. As did quality albums from both Jj Doom and Captain Murphy.
Aesop Rock’s Skelethon however, pipped them all to the post for hip-hop album of the year in our books. We think it ranks as one of the best alt-rap albums of the last five or ten years, and is his best work since 2001’s Labor Days.
For those who like to dabble in a bit of psych-folk, Liverpool’s dreamy Stealing Sheep and Father John Misty’s warped psych-country-isms both make the list below. And in a year where the weird tickled hard there’s the latest album from San-Fran-noiseniks Deerhoof, which bubbled and pulsed it’s merry way into avant-pop-land without losing any of the band’s usual haphazard charm.
The robotic gurgling and electronic wibbling of The Books’ Nick Zammuto – or just plain old Zammuto – also features in our Top 20 – and we’re curious by its absence from other ‘best of the year’ lists – it’s great isn’t it?.
Cracking albums by the consistently intriguing Liars, psych-rock reconfigurers Thee Oh Sees, ‘modern day blues rock God’ Jack White and the near perfect coupling of The Orb and Lee Scratch Perry also make the list below.
(And our favourite of the three excellent Guided by Voices albums released this year? The Bears for Lunch. Maybe it’s because it’s the most recent or maybe it’s just because it’s so more-ish. It’s been hogging our ears these past two weeks).
Standing tall above them all though, is the debut album from Swedish world-voodoo-funk-rock collective Goat (see photo at the top). I won’t bore you again with the possibly fictitious back story (you can read it here if you want to), it’s just easier to say World Music is Slacker Shack’s album of 2012. It’s a mind-blowing voodoo brew of an album that just gets better and better with every listen.
Check out Slacker Shack’s Top Twenty albums of 2012 below (with accompanying audio and video highlights) and us send us your thoughts:
01 Goat – World Music
02 Aesop Rock – Skelethon
03 Jack White – Blunderbuss
04 Django Django – Django Django
05 Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
06 Jj Doom – Key To The Kuffs
07 El-P – Cancer 4 Cure
08 Stealing Sheep – Into The Diamond Sky
09 Liars – Wixiw
10 Guided By Voices – The Bears For Lunch
11 Tame Impala – Lonerism
12 The Orb featuring Lee Scratch Perry – The Orbserver In The Star House
13 Deerhoof – Breakup Song
14 Quakers – Quakers
15 Death Grips – The Money Store
16 Captain Murphy – Duality
17 Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city
18 Zammuto – Zammuto
19 Thee Oh Sees – Putrifiers II
20 Father John Misty – Fear Fun
Slacker Shack 