whether you believe the cult of the new has turned us all into consumers with the attention span of a goldfish or not, quite frankly, makes no difference, because for us this is what 2012 was made of, in all its ephemeral and enduring beauty. thelineofbestfit

Allo Darlin’ – Capricornia exactly the sort of record that the group’s own songs describe, one that never really leaves you once you’ve heard it and will likely to be considered a treasured companion by many of those who do. popmatters

The Men – Open Your Heart both tremendously physical and friendly, knocking you on your ass one second, then immediately helping you back up to put a beer in your hand. pitchfork

Sharon Van Etten – Leonard Yes, the namesake of Sharon Van Etten’s stunning gem “Leonard” is Leonard Cohen. Sure, it’s an act of hubris for Van Etten to invoke a living legend in the particular genre she works in, but it says a lot about her chops that she flies so close to the sun without getting singed. Like Cohen, Van Etten is able to balance meditative introspection with subtly expansive orchestration: While Van Etten’s down-home voice and acoustic guitar are intensely intimate, layers of tender instrumentation turn the solemn mood transcendent, as Van Etten is joined by the steady thump of a bass drum, the texture of a strummed ukulele, and a slight lift of strings popmatters

Blur – Under the Westway another of those grand, reluctant ballads Blur has spent 20 years perfecting– not the one you play at the bar, but the one that, years later, reminds you of the warmth you felt there and that you haven’t felt it since. Blur didn’t invent this form; “A Day in the Life” belongs here, and so does “Waterloo Sunset.” It’s the kind of rainy-day, dog-eared British pop song that traps the tedium of life in the amber of art. Blur enrich the tradition by acknowledging that it’s a tradition to begin with. pitchfork

Rhye – The Fall the kind of song you can’t help but sink into thelineofbestfit

Lotus Plaza – Monoliths a statement of self-belief so convincing it exhilarates. The geometrically precise guitars and the wide-eyed, stoner-friendly lyrical content stay true to the understated artist, while the passionately delivered vocal harmonies suggest he’s realized his truths are communal pitchfork

Spiritualized – Hey Jane Leave it to Jason Pierce to release a nine-minute single filled with character-study lyrics, choir-like backing vocals, and an extended epilogue, and still make it feel more like two-chord garage rock than “Layla”-style bombast. pitchfork

Grimes – Oblivion Part of its beauty is that its meaning was never precisely fixed; the lyrics hinted at dark nights, the threat of violence, the difficulty of finding love and companionship when you can’t stay still. But the song was beautifully fragmented and open to interpretation… a shapeshifter, just like its creator, a song with open spaces and hairline cracks in which you can see parts of yourself. And being impossible to pin down kept it sounding fresh and new again and again, each listen feeling a little like the first one pitchfork

The XX – Angels a simple, beautiful song about days that end too soon melting into a relationship that continues to grow stronger. Like “VCR” before it, it makes the plunge into love feel both momentous and natural, a big moment rendered in real terms: “With words unspoken, a silent devotion/ I know you know what I mean.” pitchfork

Anna Meredith – Nautilus She’s written for the National Youth Orchestra, had her work performed in Royal Albert Hall, served frequently with the BBC and earned raves from the European press. She’s also as maximalist as Skrillex. pitchfork

Icona Pop – I Love It (ft. Charli XCX) isn’t just a glorious dancefloor fuck-you to an ex-boyfriend. It’s also a celebration of the liberating power of female friendship and 2012’s answer to “Since U Been Gone”. Throwing that ex’s shit into a bag and pushing it down the stairs is always exhilarating, but it’s even more fun with your BFF pitchfork

Solange – Losing You built around the simple, forlorn, repeated refrain “Tell me the truth, boy, am I losing you for good?”. Not that the song is by any means simple, it’s glitchy, trip-hop beats are textured layer upon dance-inspiring layer. It’s addictive, moorish and it has taken us just about everything we have to not rinse it to within an inch of its life thelineofbestfit

Savages – Husbands With the kind of urgent, twitchy bassline that’s like the neurotic output of a riot grrl Joy Division, Savages’ forthcoming single begins in visceral form before transforming into some kind of musical mental breakdown. As singer Jehnny Beth yelps “My house, my bed, my HUSBANDS!” we’re not sure whether to be terrified or aroused. nme

Dum Dum Girls – Lord Knows “The bliss I found in ignorance/ A slow burning of Icarus,” was one of the most evocative couplets to grace a troubled love song this year, but it’s a small measure of just how much this band has grown since early singles “Jail La La” and “Bhang Bhang I’m a Burnout”. The old energy of those songs is still very much present, but it’s now tempered with crimson and clover. “Lord Knows” fairly towers above those old fuzzy rockers and dream pop studies, and the windswept apology of its chorus rings with conviction as it rises… a song about being afraid to fall in love and realizing, too late, that the self-defeating fear is hurting someone else most pitchfork

Jessie Ware – Wildest Moments In different hands, this is an easy love song, a gift-wrapped ode to summer romance or a sweaty fling. The genius of the track, though, is how Ware flips the arrangement to create something much darker and more complex. Sure, there’s love here, but it’s the thorny kind– the type of relationship that isn’t working and both parties know it. “From the outside, everyone must be wondering why we try,” Ware sings. They stick it out against their better judgment for the dream of something greater. With warmth and force, Ware vocally commands this tightrope act, expressing a whole range of emotions– doubt, regret, tenderness, but ultimately, hope– sometimes all at once. pitchfork

Chromatics – Kill For Love  As lushly romantic and upliftng as any pop radio jam released this year and when that celestial chorus goes skywards it takes your heart with it.

Bobby Womack – Please Forgive My Heart cuts like a knife on every play. A perfectly considered composition with Womack’s heaving vocals hanging in the air with an incredible poignancy whilst the outré-sounding bass balloons around a squeaky, skittish beat. Destined to be cherished as a true classic of Bobby Womack’s 60 year career. Flawless. thelineofbestfit

The School – Never Thought I’d See The Day The songs end up feeling weightier than bubblegum even when you know they’re just silly love songs. Or perhaps they’re just reminding us, yet again, that bubblegum music is almost always more than bubblegum; that form and content are one and the same; and that a pretty voice singing over pretty music about the enduring power for the human heart never gets old popmatters

Advance Base – Summer Music the most wistful work he’s committed to tape. Couched in the most immediate and affecting melodies of his career, many of the stories told on A Shut-In’s Prayer look back at the past mainly to remember its contents pitchfork

Dirty Projectors – Impregnable Question these tunes explore vulnerability and vexation, sweetness and cynicism with more manageable musical complications than ever before. For instance, the gorgeous “Impregnable Question” finds the seam between Heart of Gold-era Neil Young and late-1960s Serge Gainsbourg; it’s a love song between Coffman and Longstreth, her coos helping him to soften his voice above a warm acoustic shuffle pitchfork

Django Django – Default Their foundations are a rickety, minimal take on the music of the immediate pre-psychedelic era – Default takes Bo Diddley’s shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits beat and bolts on a jerky R&B guitar line – over which are laid skittering electronics and bleached, vibratoless harmonies, as if Django Django’s four members were supplicants worshipping the desert sunrise theguardian

Japandroids – The House That Heaven Built punk spirit, however you define it, is something that can’t be relegated to the past. There will always be rock kids who go to a show wanting to be saved. In 2012, this was their anthem pitchfork

Fear of Men – Green Sea veers into subsonic levels of DIY kookiness, starting out as an acoustic paean to The Kinks before turning wholly more Cocteau-esque in time for the chorus nme

Beach House – Myth for these four minutes and change, Beach House sound genuinely commanding, tapping into something larger and wiser than themselves. “If you built yourself a myth,” Victoria Legrand sings evenly, “you’d know just what to give.” The one she built is stocked with texture– fleeting bliss, sunlight, and flying ashes– in an evocative language of unblemished blankness and malleability. pitchfork

Chvrches – The Mother We Share about as addictive as a can of Irn Bru dropped in a deep-fat fryer thelineofbestfit

Postiljonen – All That We Had Is Lost The euphoric eighties girl-power anthem that pretty much made a household name out of Whitney Houston gets stripped to its bare bones and turned into a downbeat, wistful emo-fest courtesy of unknown Swedes Postiljonen. Drenched head to toe in autumnal tones and teenage longing. thelineofbestfit

Ace Bushy Striptease – Death By Autofill The album is a maelstrom of voices, shouting, screaming, whispering, coming at you from every angle, and should you find a song you don’t like, fear not, another one will be along in a few seconds. If you want a criticism then you could say it’s all a bit studenty, but the band were students when they formed. It’s difficult to knock songs with this much life in them though thesoudofconfusionblog

Tigercats – Banned at the Troxy There’s that old school of thought that draws comparisons between records and friends, and it’s a valid one. Both can bring us immense joy, both are often there in our times of need to support and console and both etch themselves into our conscious and memories…Tigercats’ 2012 début album, Isle of Dogs, felt like that friend that was, without fail, an utter riot to be around – blessed with an excitable, carefree joy it permeated an aura of wilful abandon and (you can’t help but imagine) a fondness for ordering tequila shots as the first round of a night. londoninstereo

Father John Misty – Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings What caught my attention was the production. It stood out from the album in the best way with the weighty, echoing (I’m a wall-of-sound girl through and through) sound of lazy guitars and ghostly vocals laid over crashing, seductive drums that dare you not to sway along. This song wasn’t about sad, terrified people who could barely get it together long enough to get dressed. It was about people whose lives were heady and exciting and who had sex in cemeteries, specifically Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles, the lovely, verdant final resting place of Marion Davies and Jayne Mansfield that played into my most cherished secret fantasy.

I told myself that as soon as I could, I was going to bail on Chicago and move to Los Angeles. I thought about selling everything I had and flying to the place where my real life would begin. I practiced leaving without saying goodbye. I’ve always wanted to be somewhere else—I left the city I grew up in as soon as I could, and was gone from my college town before graduation day came. But this longing was especially intense, and with little but drinking and spotty freelance work to occupy my time I became obsessed with the eternal “soon.” “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” became the theme song to this new, better me. I listened to it over and over—235 times according to iTunes, but that seems really low, honestly—wearing my earbuds everywhere to drown out my regrets.

But no matter how much I talked about it, no matter how many credit cards I maxed out “visiting friends out West” (two), leaving wasn’t going to make things any better. It wasn’t going to repair the marriage I had neglected until it nearly fell apart, and it certainly wasn’t going to replenish my empty savings account. I had grabbed the steering wheel and careened my life off of the road, choosing a golden dream over my messy reality. But that couldn’t last.

Now, I’m glad I stayed. I can walk to the bus stop or take a shower without needing some sort of distraction, and the silences around the dinner table aren’t so tense. I listened to “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” today, and I didn’t feel anything. I suppose that means I need a new favorite song. music.avclub

First Aid Kit – Emmylou I saw a snippet in the news yesterday about it being the 45th anniversary of Gram Parsons’ death at the Joshua Tree (yes, the one U2 wrote about…). Whenever I hear Gram Parsons name mentioned I always think of First Aid Kit’s delightful song “Emmylou”. nowordsnosong Sept 20 2018 https://nowordsnosong.medium.com/emmylou-first-aid-kit-b45529ce156a

alt-J – Tessellate its piano lollop is as pleasingly creepy as all their other stuff, helped by the superbly delivered line, “And all your friends come… (breathes in deeply and heavily through nose) …sniffing” nme

M.I.A – Bad Girls had it all. Brilliant, bombastic pop chorus lines that punctuate the overall middle-eastern inspired, mid-tempo r’n’b vibe thelineofbestfit

Best Coast – The Only Place tucks lo-fi into bed and cranks the volume up on Cosentino’s strong vocals and moody lyrics. Struggling with fame, she at times comes off as whiny. What is worrisome is that from hearing the first track’s cheerful ode to California- seemingly an example of the band’s maturation- the paired-back language from their first album persists, seemingly juvenile moans about responsibility. This is a band who has polished their sound, and can still write a catchy catchy tune, except they seem to have regressed into sad, pressured teenagers…. I can see the faults and I’m enjoying this regardless. purplesneakers

Boomgates – Hold Me Now a debut album of well crafted songs performed with the relaxed assurance of musicians who seek to please themselves and support each other, with the confidence that the rest of us will appreciate it.  And in every respect that matters to me, it is a triumph. whenyoumotoraway

HAIM – Forever They’re Destiny’s Child with snare rims, cowbell, Ray-Bans and ripped denim shorts. And there’s something kinda cool about that nme

Here We Go Magic – How Do I Know? In the video a man must sort out his feelings for a dancing robot girl. From what I understand, this is an all-too-common dilemma stereogum

Beth Jeans Houghton – Dodecahedron The first single from Beth’s acclaimed ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’ gets another chance to set the charts alight, as the record-buying public was mystified by a song about 12-faced polyhedrons the first time round. Thankfully we’re all clued up on Euclidean geometry these days. nme

Cat Power – Manhattan great if it comes at the right time in your life. It’s about loving the world you’ve built for yourself for so long, and how, eventually, inevitably you look around and realize that the friends you used to know are gone and the place you used to recognize has become something else entirely. vulture

Hospitality – Betty Wang Despite a slightly quaint feel it packs in enough honeyed melody to seduce even the most cynical pair of ears thesoundofconfusionblog

Jens Lekman – Become Someone Else’s He’s always gotten a kick out of wordplay (“And when she talked about the fall/ I thought she talked about Mark E. Smith” remains one of his greatest deadpans), but on the standout “Become Someone Else’s”, it’s used with remarkable deftness– not a punchline so much as a gutpunch. Over a moseying, Bacharach-y piano riff, the title phrase transforms from an idyllic profession (“Life’s too good to become someone else’s“) to an image of loneliness (‘That lonesome feeling and what it tells us/ Sleeping on my arm ’til it becomes someone else’s“). It’s funny, until it’s not– at which point you realize that it ranks up there with his best songs pitchfork

The Cribs – Chi-Town finds the Jarmans retreating to an area of expertise they know best. The hipster fascinations of their lyrics live on in ‘Chi Town’ with Ryan’s reminiscing about the artistic commune he lived in for a couple of months nme

Exlovers – This Love Will Lead You On bounces down the sidewalk into the aural world as simple, sweet, and carefree promenade – the suggested serving on a sunny day. The loopy riff is enough to quicken your pace, but an overstepped repetitiveness shows a crack in the pavement, and by the end there’s a risk the words have tired you out, the ‘love’ that endlessly ‘leads you on’ having run so many times that it’s out of breath. goldflakepaint

The Yawns – Summer’s Wasted We shouldn’t even be surprised by the quality of music that comes out of Scotland anymore… this year it was the debut album from The Yawns that grabbed us by our scrawny necks, took us on a wonderful impromptu date, snogged us under a streetlight and then left without even a hint of a phone number. Most of the record plays out like Belle & Sebastian jamming with Orange Juice, and we shouldn’t have to say another word to entice you in. Just play it loud and have the time of your life. goldflakepaint

Kissed Her Little Sister – That Was Only Wasting Time a record to inspire, to delight and to reaffirm your belief that both love and music really can change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but at least your own; and that’s a pretty special thing to believe in. goldflakepaint

Free Energy – Electric Fever has cowbells and whoa-oh backing vocals and chicken-scratch funk guitars and a solo that would not sound out of place on the Dazed And Confused soundtrack. stereogum

Terry Malts – Tumble Down What is chainsaw pop? With Terry Malts punk pace, “chainsaw” guitar, aggressive drumming and a bass that is so upfront that you’ll look over your shoulder to see if the dude is standing behind you whenyoumotoraway

Peace – California Daze The casual unfurling of sun-dappled beach ballad ‘California Daze’ is a testament to the band’s patience and confidence thelineofbestfit

Daughter – Smother the trio nervously give Radar the exclusive first listen to their new single ‘Smother’, avoiding eye contact as the song’s ribcage opens and bares its bruised heart in dramatic fashion. It concludes, fittingly, with singer Elena Tonra wishing she’d never even been born nme

Alabama Shakes – Hold On they may break pretty much all the rules about what you should be doing in music in 2012 (make no bones, theirs is a style rooted deep in the soul of the past), but what they do do – perfectly encapsulated in the truck-stop swagger of ‘Hold On’, complete with its “Come on Brittany!” giddy-ups and Keef-meets-Gram cowboy guitar line – is currently unrivalled in the Big Guitar Music stakes nme

The Futureheads – The Old Dun Cow the band’s fifth album, is entirely a cappella, and while it’s perhaps not as controversial as Dylan going electric, it’s a pretty radical change all the same…. It’s the traditional songs that stand out though, as their textures and tonalities lend themselves to The Futureheads’ elaborate vocal arrangements… ‘The Old Dun Cow’ is hilarious, not because it’s a daft gimmick, but because it’s fantastically fun song about getting drunk in a pub that’s on fire. drownedinsound

The Hobbes Fanclub – Your Doubting Heart a storming single with very maroon undertones goldflakepaint

Cats on Fire – A Few Empty Waves On this new jam, it starts off with just a bit of trickling pop vocals, then it reaches this pinnacle, which honestly has me spinning around my room in absolute glee austintownhall

Golden Grrrls – New Pop rattles primarily around a three-chord mantra – presumably because there isn’t enough time in its 100 seconds to fit any other chords in nme

Julia Holter – Goddess Eyes I It’s hard to suggest everyone should rush out and buy Ekstasis, but the more time you spend with it, the more its structures make sense, the more the melodies begin to sparkle, the more the sense of some unsought truth fighting its way out becomes apparen guardian

Moonface – Teary Eyes and Bloody Lips If you ever wanted to combine The Mission with The Killers and sprinkle on a Fleetwood Mac feature, this track will wow you. If that thought horrifies you, listen anyway and you will know what I mean godisinthetvzine

La Sera – Please Be My Third Eye a breezy, rollicking surf pop jam. No wheels are reinvented, but why do they need to be? Wheels still seem to be doing the job these days stereogum

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Jeremy Can you think of a combination any more twee than The Pains of Being Pure at Heart covering The Magnetic Fields? Perhaps that part in 500 Days Of Summer where Zooey Deschanel sings The Smiths. Unlike the latter moment however, this version doesn’t actually make you want to gouge out your eyes and just stop your ears from working thelineofbestfit

Pins – LuvU4Lyf As sweet as they may seem, the debut EP from hype-magnets Pins is all about balancing sugar and spice. Unlike some faddish predecessors (Vivian Girls, The Pipettes), ‘LuvU4Lyf’ is finely weighted, never once swerving into mindless sweetness or impenetrably retro tunelessnes nme

Palma Violets – Best of Friends one of the catchiest guitar songs in years, and for the good of all indie I hope radio devours it (as it rightly should) nme

Spector – Chevy Thunder You know when you’re running down a hill and your legs suddenly start moving faster than you thought you’d asked them to? That’s how ‘Chevy Thunder’ sounds; a power chord-pissed, burnt rubber blur of a track that rattles along at breakneck speed nme

Perfume Genius – Hood in two minutes, he articulates a specific, resonant feeling of bittersweet self-realization: “You would never call me baby, if you knew me true.” Hadreas delivers this concession with an air of lyrical optimism that is matched by the song’s sonic warmth and comparatively strong instrumental build, suspending a soft tension and honest emotional purity throughout pitchfork

Porcelain Raft – Drifting In and Out This is Porcelain Raft at their blissfully sedated best, cloaking instantly infectious pop melodies in a warm, narcotic blanket of sound popmatters

Public Service Broadcasting – Spitfire about the design and construction of the fighter plane that helped hold off the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. The samples in the song are taken from “The First of the Few,” a 1942 feature film starring Leslie Howard as the plane’s designer, R. J. Mitchell. Though Willgoose says that P.S.B.’s songs should be open to interpretation, “Spitfire” is an unambiguous celebration of British gumption and ingenuity newyorker

Purity Ring – Ungirthed mixed the kind of ghostly pitch-shifted vocals that had spent the previous year haunting witch house; it had warped, surging, synth chords that popular online remixers were on the verge of turning into a cliché. And it had the stuttering start-stop drum machine patterns that highlighted how much the pulse of Southern rap had invaded indie music the last few years. But where these production touches were often held up as ends in themselves, “Ungirthed” was a well-constructed and fully realized pop song, with an infectious vocal hook and a melody that went places. This was novel. It was the kind of tune you took notice of immediately. pitchfork

The Shins – Simple Song The complex production that was embraced on Wincing the Night Away is used to arena-sized aim here, with a chunky power-pop riff that couples nicely with Mercer’s still-got-it penchant for unspooled lovelorn observations. pitchfork

The Tallest Man on Earth – There’s No Leaving Now retains his most endearing quality; that of being refreshingly direct and unerringly engaging. So go and put the kettle on and let this be the soundtrack to the best cup of tea of your life goldflakepaint

The Walkmen – Heartbreaker glowing and forceful, Leithauser sings of these being “the good years… the best we’ll ever know”. This contentment is bound up not only in family life, but an acceptance that “it’s not the singer, it’s the song” – a way of paying homage to the various bandmenbers’ individual journeys to date. thequietus

Race Horses – Nobody’s Son boasts the kind of instantly anthemic chorus that could spark a football stadium full of cigarette lighters, but it’s also the most incongruous track here, as it sacrifices the band’s peculiar personality for arena-rock proficiency. pitchfork

September Girls – Wanting More These are brain-tinglingly sweet indiepop songs overloaded with gorgeous girl-group melodies and showered with fuzz like the dusting of edible glitter on a batch of cupcakes thesoundofconfusionblog

Tashaki Miyaki – Somethin’ Is Better Than Nothin’ I’ll agree with that statement wholeheartedly…. Even though I don’t really know – or care – how to quantify it properly nme

Tender Trap – MBV deals with the issues of being female and gender politics in the present day. Feminists may have already noted that the white, green and purple title on the cover is the colours used by the suffragettes. While some of the issues may involve important issues and statements, they haven’t lost their sense of fun and humour or stepped up on any soapbox. Musically they don’t break from their decade-long crusade to bring us some high quality indiepop and for the most part the results are great, if not exactly venturing far from their comfort zone. thesoundofconfusionblog

Tennis – Origins Despite being drenched in sublime Motown piano chops, it’s the fragility of Alaina Moore’s vocals that push it over the edge nme

This Many Boyfriends – Young Lovers Go Pop! It might be shameless navel-gazing ‘indie about indie’ (about indie?) – but the name dropping is second to the musical quality of the homages the band render to their pin-ups. Though it’s nothing revolutionary, in an age where decent straight up indie seems rather rare and unfashionable, it’s certainly worth a listen. drownedinsound

Toy – Motoring they’ve curbed their more drawn-out, psychedelic impulses in favour of sharp, hungry post-punk, and it’s all fine nme

The Very Most – Ununiversalizable Us If you’ve got a warm spot in your heart, you’re going to adore the boyish vocal delivery and the easily consumable hooks of the guitar work. It’s all twee, and it’s all remarkably wonderful. austintownhall

Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards Kevin Parker loves to play with the concept of time, and on “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards,” he examines it from a place of internal debate. A cyclical synthline pleasantly drones on while Parker repeats over and over, “It feels like I only go backwards, darling / Every part of me says, “Go ahead” / But I got my hopes up again, oh no, not again / Feels like we only go backwards, darling.” Put this on a loop and you’ll probably fall into a deep, deep slumber—now when I snap my fingers, act like a duck! Just kidding, I don’t know how to hypnotize people. But I’m convinced Kevin does pastemagazine