#bestsongsof2012

1. Spiritualized - Headin' For The Top Now

Sweet Heart Sweet Light was a return to proper form for Jason Pierce. After some recent near misses professionally and exigent health issues, this is the year he makes good on the promise he made on Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space. As solid as Sweet Light is, this is the one song that could be played along with his seminal album without a noticeable change in manner or intensity. The scathing dissonance that permeates throughout coupled with Pierce's fragile vocals and soaring strings is angelic grace in a chaotic tempest. This well-worn juxtaposition is one Pierce has played with since Spaceman 3. After over 25 years of music, there was never a reason to alter this formula for success.

Link to YouTube stream.

2. Whirr - Junebouvier (DL)

All year we have been teased by a new album from My Bloody Valentine including a necessary reissue of all of their recordings. Curiously, there also has been a steadily growing return to that shoegaze sound. After listening to a lot of contenders, the Bay Area group Whirr is now making that lovely bluster with compelling pop overtones that we have been waiting on the last 20 years. That grand hook catches you and soars while you try to decode the smudged lyrics like a faded book of prose. I think we have found the opener for next year's MBV tour.

3. Frank Ocean - Sweet Life

First off, congratulations for all of the accolades and awards. It is truly well deserved. Second, thank you for this song in particular. It brings the best of the tender soul of Stevie Wonder and the adventurous themes of here and now. It is smooth and thoughtful, graceful and climatic, visual and moving. You are obviously a brave man who assuredly takes a lot of chances Mr. Ocean, but Sweet Life is the surest bet on channelORANGE. Bless your sweet soul.

4. Disclosure - Latch

Two handsome brothers from the UK, both too young (at the time they recorded this) to get into a club in the States, have easily made the best house track of the year. The bumps and sweeps are stimulating, made indelible by the disco-tinged falsetto from Sam Smith, and the video sketches this perfectly with a montage of first kisses that are equally titillating and sweet. The maximum potential for Guy and Howard Lawrence is blatantly apparent here, and 2013 should see more of this brand of greatness.

5. Lower Dens - Brains (DL)

6. Of Montreal - Ye, Renew The Plantiff

Kevin Barnes is at his best when his is pissed off. For the best example, check out the 2007 LP Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? He is still spitting daggers throughout this year's Paralytic Stalks, reaching his frenzied climax on this track. More of a novel than a song, the beginning is deceivingly happy until about the two minute mark when the rant begins. Barnes unloads a fury at some unlucky soul, breathless at one point but we are only at the halfway mark. The second act is a strange, soulful confession, a reality check set through a glammed-out, recurring tunnel. This is the dichotomy of love in all of its bipolar glory.

Link To YouTube stream

7. Royal Headache - Psychotic Episode (DL)

This unkempt, garage-punk debut is bursting with tuneful offerings delivered under rapid-fire. This is one that is born from the holy tradition started by The Ramones, an honorable telling of how crazy can over your mind, making for the best musical fodder. There is only one way to deliver this eulogy, by way of breakneck guitar and screaming the lyrics in a nasty, twisted fit.

8. Moonface - Headed For The Door (DL)

Spencer Krug has had a lot of projects over the past decade. Seemingly restless or perhaps unsatisfied with his past collaboration, here to hoping he doesn't stray again, if only to keep making music like this. The low dirge and primitive percussion set the stage for this literal illustration of a final, vicious breakup. The sexual overtone is palpable throughout until the spoken word/open letter finish. Heartfelt and hilarious, it jabs while it mournfully wishes for a better conclusion to this connection, forever lost as the last notes fade away.

9. Tame Impala - Apocalypse Dreams (DL)

"This could be the day that we push through."

Tame Impala's anthem on their sophomore LP Lonerism is a joyful stretch, full of organic encouragement and ready-made power. The lyrics are still unsure, but under that marching beat, no one could stay down for long. For an album completely dedicated to reproducing styles from the past, this is the one track that breaks free to only travel perpetually forward.

10. Polica - Dark Star (DL)

11. Cat Power - Manhattan

Finally past her long-term relationship and working clean and sober, her album Sun not only was a triumphant return, but broke into new, powerful moments of ingenuity. This track describes that feeling of wandering through a sprawling metropolis, of being desperately alone in a seething crowd. It is that freedom of solitude so eloquently expressed here in five angelic minutes.

12. Japandroids - The House That Heaven Built (DL)

There has been not much left to say about what this band has done in 2012. What is not lost in the exaggerated production and fist-pumping is the unbridled enthusiasm and spirit of rock music that seems to be disappearing in the 21st century. This is the track that has that in spades with the added bonus of the most elemental of lyrics that you can't help screaming in unison. 

13. Evans The Death - I'm So Unclean (DL)

My personal candidate for Most Shamefully Overlooked Album of the year is from this new London quintet. Every song on their self-titled debut is infectious, but the lyrics on this particular track make it a half-step ahead of the others. The story is familiar to anyone missing their lost love: not practicing proper hygiene, becoming a shut-in and every mundane activity you perform reminds of that missing piece in your life. Set that to a speedy, double beat and you have yourself a well-established earworm.

14. Dirty Projectors - Offspring Are Blank

Disclaimer: I am not a fan of Dirty Projectors. I often find their deliberations on music fussy and unnecessary. However, their contribution for 2012 starts with this emotive fireball. The facetious claps and hums setup the deception, with the quirkiness and ambiguity continuing well after the power chord cuts your head clean off. It is that push and pull that makes this so special. 

(Link to YouTube Stream)

15. Grizzly Bear - Half Gate

16. Andy Stott - Sleepless

The distinct dub techno of Andy Stott's amazing Luxury Problems makes for a soundtrack to drift into restless slumber. The title of this track is misleading as the first half is a thick murmur through the stages of REM that deliberately builds into a vivid dream state. The cut up vocals poking through the mix as the dark waters swirl creates a dire, lonely space that eventually becomes the most memorable moments of your favorite dreams.

17. Liminanas - AF3458 (DL)

The concept seems so incredulous, yet so appropriate: A French group making bare-bones music in the simple traditions of The Velvet Underground while touching on the ardent sexuality of countryman Serge Gainsbourg. The resulting sounds on Crystal Anis are simply spot on where the primitive thump carries the coy, ye-ye lyrics until you hit the psych guitar buzz. The only shame is that the song is so damn short.

18. Blur - Under The Westway

This track was written exclusively for the closing ceremonies for the Summer Olympics, which could have signaled a half-assed, heavy handed ode to sports (Hi, Shakira!). However, the newly reunited kings of Britpop sculpted a fitting tribute not to competition, but to the lost souls that often get buried in the urban grime so that the rest of the world can go on being distracted. And not unlike their band's most memorable moments from the 90's, this is plaintive. heartfelt and beautiful.

19. Hot Chip - Flutes (DL)

Released in March as a teaser for In Our Heads, this may be the first release of the year that made me truly excited. On their fifth and undoubtedly best album, this track is the lengthy centerpiece of a full set of bait-heavy hooks. Some many songs these days get pushed aside for the remix, but Hot Chip beat the knob twiddlers to the punch. You can't make this track any better than how it is right now.

20. Rhye - The Fall (DL)

21. Levek - Solemn Feeling Forever Healing

The debut album from David Levesque is a handpicked retrospective of hip music circa late 1960's-early 1970's. This track from Look A Little Closer is almost 7 minute circular groove citing bachelor pad lounge, krautrock and blissful dub. The repetition draws you in like a fog, but the beautiful moments that take over in the second movement are what keep you enveloped and lost.

22. Aesop Rock - Zero Dark Thirty (DL)

These have been dark days for Aesop Rock, both personally and professionally. His first album in five years, Skelethon is a bloodletting steeped in his nightmare visions. This track feels like he has been holding his breath all that time. Spitting each word with vitriol, it raises one's heart rate just to listen to the fury popping from his synapses.

23. Usher - Climax

I am the most surprised out of anyone that an Usher song makes my Top 25 list. Yet, the combination of his affected falsetto with celestial signals and beats courtesy of Diplo makes for the most soulful journey an astronaut ever took. Instead of the tired model of R&B crowd-pleasing crescendos, the chorus is a fluid transport across outer space.

24. Thee Oh Sees - Floods New Light (DL)

This spirited nugget is just one of many reflections from the San Francisco-based psych outfit's latest Putrifiers II. The marching beat over the heady hum is irrefutable and the bubblegum chorus makes an eventual sing-a-long irresistible. Although perfectly enjoyable on your headphones, I recommend seeing catching Thee Oh Sees live for the long lasting impression.

25. A Place To Bury Strangers - And I'm Up (DL)

There were a lot of possible choices to put in the last slot on this limited and arbitrary list. Ultimately, I went with this throwback track off of Worship that grabs all that is good from The Jesus And Mary Chain catalog and pounds it clean through your eardrums. A blissful and raucous jam, the buzzsaw fuzz bursts like sparks as the monotone vocals lament that since he cannot ever get it right, why not be always be wrong? Makes perfect sense to me.

Bonus: Father John Misty - Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings (DL)