Wow. I was giving myself grief for being so far behind with my 2011 wrap-up that I waited all the way until January 10th to start it. Well, look now and weep, oh me of January 2012. I didn't get around to starting my 2012 warp-up until damn near July! The usual excuses start in - work, kid, life, blah blah blah.
For me personally, 2012 was a pretty hectic year, but an enjoyable one. Hectic because we spent the latter part of the year house hunting and trying and re-trying to sell our old one. It all paid off in the end though, we were able to find a wonderful new house (though we didn't close on it and move in until January, so that one will have to wait for my 2013 wrap-up sometime in... oh, November of 2014). Anyway, work continued to be mostly fulfilling, if at times frustrating. Our firm interviewed for, and won, a rather significant renovation at my alma mater for which I'm the project manager. It's a feather in my cap, but also a maddening process at times. Working with higher education clients is a whole new ball game. But mostly 2012 was about watching our son grow and continue to amaze us at every turn. There's a lot of things I can say here about how wonderful being a father has been, but I'll save that for now. Suffice it to say, I didn't really realize how much love I was capable of having for a human being.
Musically, well, 2013 was much like any other year. It seemed disappointing at stretches, but seemed to be overflowing with riches at others. It all depended on how much effort I was taking to hear new things. It's hard to pinpoint any easy, overarching trends in my 2012 listening, it seemed like I spent most of the year just wolfing down new stuff. I feel like I was just barely trying to keep my head above water with all of the interesting looking new releases pouring over me (a trend that, much as I may have hoped for otherwise, doesn't seem to have slowed down in 2013 as much as I'd like). I continued to really delve into metal, making lots of side-trips into the progressive end of things. I dug even deeper into stoner metal, a sub-genre that really seems to know how to use the internet to its advantage, with tons of blogs and tumblrs plowing through the detritus and pointing out the gems. I drifted even further away from hip-hop at the start of the year, but when I made the (much. much, much) belated realization that I'd be better off troweling the mixtape circuit for good, new stuff than waiting for pop radio to deliver me something worthwhile, I found a lot to enjoy.
A lot of my favorite artists offered up new albums to adore and cherish - Baroness, Converge, Neil Young, El-P, Neurosis and Pig Destroyer come immediately to mind. A few artists I'd mostly given up on came back to surprise me in a big way, I'm mostly looking at Fiona Apple, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Spiritualized here. Most notably, though, were the bands that came out of nowhere to really part my hair. Before 2012 began I couldn't have told you a thing about Goat, Author & Punisher, Horseback, or Aluk Todolo. But by December, I'd really spent a lot of time with each of them. I love it when that happens, even after all these years.
Anyway, the next several posts will help to (finally!) clear things out from 2012. But, before all that, a quick look back:
Albums of the Year:
2003: Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
2004: Modest Mouse - Good News for People who Love Bad News
2005: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
2006: Mastodon - Blood Mountain
2007: Battles - Mirrored
2008: Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
2009: The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
2010: Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
2011: Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
Songs of the Year:
2003: "Hey Ya" - Outkast
2004: "Take Me Out" - Franz Ferdinand
2005: "Since U Been Gone" - Kelly Clarkson
2006: "When You Were Young" - The Killers
2007: "Stronger" - Kanye West
2008: "Time To Pretend" - MGMT
2009: "My Girls" - Animal Collective
2010: "Fuck You" - Cee-Lo Green
2011: "Super Bass" - Nicki Minaj
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