Popular With Me 2012: My top albums of the year

Kevin Bronson on
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There were albums I loved, albums I liked, albums I appreciated and albums I avoided in 2012. Because of my regional focus, I spent an inordinate amount of time with music from Los Angeles artists. And strangely for me, a lot of the hyped bands failed to resonate; stuck in traffic, I’d rather have played that Killers album or one of the Green Day discs than Alt-J. I’m sure it was just a phase.

For what it’s worth, my favorite 20 albums of the year:

20. The dB’s, “Falling Off the Sky” (Bar None) – On their first album in 25 years, Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Gene Holder and Will Rigby showed their skills undiminished. Jangle-pop at its very finest.

19. Violens, “True” (Slumberland) – The best of the turn-up-the-reverb dream-poppers to emerge this year.

18. Dead Sara, “Dead Sara” (Pocket Kid) – You probably heard “Weatherman” on L.A. radio. There’s lots more where that came from. See my L.A. list.

17. The Vaccines, “Come of Age” (Columbia) – It was too soon for the quartet to fully grow up, but they did, in a manner, come of age. It turns out the 2011 “saviors of rock ’n’ roll” (there’s one every year in the U.K., it seems) did not disappoint.

16. Bat For Lashes, “The Haunted Man” (Capitol) – Grandiose and spine-tingling. And there’s that album cover.

15. Milo Greene, “Milo Greene” (Chop Shop) – Folk-pop harmonizers gave me some of my most transcendent moments of 2012. See my L.A. list.

14. Japandroids, “Celebration Rock” (Polyvinyl) – A sorely needed shot of adrenaline for those who want to celebrate rock. In many ways, this album is a blue-collar version of No. 13.

13. The Henry Clay People, “Twenty-Five for the Rest of Our Lives” (TBD) – A treatise on growing and outgrowing. And far more erudite than your favorite garage-cum-punk band. See my L.A. list.

12. Aimee Mann, “Charmer” (SuperEgo) – She could read the phone book and I’d show up. Few, if anybody, are better at calling bullsh*t in such a pretty fashion. Her songs are like Trojan horses.

11. Alabama Shakes, “Boys & Girls” (ATO) – Not gonna get into the whole “authenticity” debate here, but Brittany Howard sounds real to me.

10. Letting Up Despite Great Faults, “Untogether” (New Words) – Be still my twee heart. On second thought, don’t be still. Fuzzy, hyper-romantic synth-pop perfect for devotees of the Sarah Records catalog.

9. Father John Misty, “Fear Fun” (Sub Pop) – I’ll have some of whatever Josh Tillman is having. See my L.A. list.

8. Bob Mould, “Silver Age” (Merge) – Nobody should be allowed to make a record this good in the same year his 20-year-old albums are being reissued.

7. Lord Huron, “Lonesome Dreams” (IAMSOUND) – Pack some beef jerky, saddle up and see my L.A. list.

6. Cat Power, “Sun” (Matador) – A remarkable album in a lot of ways from the enigmatic singer … meditative, hopeful, musically adventurous. “Nothing But Time”almost makes me believe it.

5. The Walkmen, “Heaven” (Ryko) – Rapturous and literate. Just a theory, but if this were the the NYC quintet’s debut album instead of their sixth, it’d be top-three in all those tastemakers’ year-end lists.

4. Redd Kross, “Researching the Blues” (Merge) – Showing the kids how it’s done. See my L.A. list.

3. Deep Sea Diver, “History Speaks” (self-released) – How this album did not get more attention (especially with chief perpetrator Jessica Dobson spending most of the year playing in the Shins) I’ll never know. A collection of exceptional depth and virtuoso guitar and piano licks, “History Speaks” is for all you folks looking for “overlooked albums of 2012” to scribble about.

2. Django Django, “Django Django” (Ribbon Music) – Sixties psych-pop married to ’80s synth-pop? Brilliant.

1. Jack White, “Blunderbuss” (Third Man) – The only problem with this album is that Jack White was competing against his own catalog. “Blunderbuss” is a musically deft and emotionally vicious album that I kept revisiting during writer’s all-nighters and worry-wart attacks of insomnia. He seems to have taken a licking because he is not the White Stripes anymore (smile if you go to his homepage where quotes from negative reviews are posted), but he gets bonus points for not running in place. This is a long-player.

Special mention: Dinosaur Jr., “I Bet on Sky.” Yann Tiersen, “Skyline.” The Hives, “Lex Hives.” Rah Rah, “The Poet’s Dead.” The Amazing, “Gentle Stream.” Tame Impala, “Lonerism.” Pinback, “Information Retrieved.” Garbage, “Not Your Kind of People.” The Fresh & Onlys, “Long Slow Dance.” The Heavy, “The Glorious Dead.” Bear in Heaven, “I Love You It’s Cool.” The Killers, “Battle Born.” Green Day, “Dos!” (the best of the trilogy). Beach House, “Boom.” Sea of Bees, “Orangefarben.”