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Music of 2012


GLASSJAW

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is i might be wrong considered an EP? i always thought it was just a proper album because its 40 minutes long. but yeah its pretty great, spinning plates and true love waits in particular.

2012 has been one of my favorite years in a while, despite some disappointing releases. what kind of stuff are you looking for.

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I Might Be Wrong was labeled as an EP, incorrectly imho. The My Iron Lung EP changed my life, so I have to include it. Jar of Flies was a brilliant collection, probably the best thing AIC ever did.

As far as 2012, weakest year in recent memory. I was really disappointed with The Mynabirds second effort, since What We Lose In The Fire.... was one of my favorite albums of it's time. The xx, Twin Shadow, Stars, Animal Collective and Crystal Castles all failed to impress me (again). The new Dirty Projectors, Grizzly Bear, Jens Lekman, Andrew Bird and Regina Spektor albums were subpar, which is more painful because I actually expect a lot from them. The Shins was terrible. Sigur Ros put out an album that wasn't worth getting the band back together for, and Godspeed put out a B-Sides album from 2000 listed as new music. The David Byrne/St. Vincent collab was awful. The Chemical Brothers album sucked, but that's as much my fault for expecting them to do anything good anymore.

Basically, off the top of my head, 10 albums from this year worth listening to;

- Young Man in America - Anais Mitchell

- Algiers - Calexico

- Maraqopa - Damien Jurado

- Observator - The Raveonettes

- Quakers - Quakers

- Open Your Heart - The Men

- An Awesome Wave - Alt-J

- Yours Truly, Cellophane Heart - Beth Jeans Houghton & The Hooves of Destiny

- Until The Quiet Comes - Flying Lotus (and I'm grasping now, because this was not exceptional)

- Like, Ben Kweller, I guess? He deserves credit for coming around and putting out a decent album again

So many disappointments.

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I didn't care for Veckatimest either. They kind of went, to me anyways, from a band where their first LP I was a bit excited, their second LP matched the enthusiasm I had for them, and then I was just never able to find a place to meet them again. I far prefer Daniel Rossen and Chris Taylor's solo work to GB. It's not even just that I thought Shields was subpar, I think it's the worst Grizzly Bear album to date. There's few bands, in my opinion, that would benefit as much from a long hiatus as Grizzly Bear.

If you wanted it in a less emotional responsive way, I simply don't think they've written a song as good as Knife in their last 2 albums. Like, not even close. It's formulatic. I'm not going to be that guy who calls it hipster trash or manufactured, I know they're into what they do, and that's cool. I just feel like they're more interested in writing songs that sound like Grizzly Bear than they are writing good songs nowadays.

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that's weird, with the new album i actually felt like they shed some of the pretention and did things a little more straight-forwardly satisfying. i sometimes also feel like they're more into taking themselves really seriously and sticking to their aesthetic than putting out the best music they possibly can, but i felt like their super detailed/textured sound worked perfectly with this batch of songs, and i found over half of them super memorable in a way that's a lot less obnoxious than the hits on the last album.

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It might help to know that I've enjoyed Grizzly Bear, but I've never, ever loved Grizzly Bear. That might play into things. They're certainly not terrible, but I don't ever feel the need to defend their greatness, so it's pretty easy for me to listen to Shields 4-5 times, give it 3 stars and walk away from it indefinitely.

Although, this is one of my favorite things:

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If you wanted it in a less emotional responsive way, I simply don't think they've written a song as good as Knife in their last 2 albums. Like, not even close. It's formulatic. I'm not going to be that guy who calls it hipster trash or manufactured, I know they're into what they do, and that's cool. I just feel like they're more interested in writing songs that sound like Grizzly Bear than they are writing good songs nowadays.

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? I assume this isn't a Green Day reference, since you seem interested in it. Is The Weeknd doing another trilogy?

EDIT: Ah, there it is. Well, the trilogy was decent, but I'd say it's counts as three 2011 releases. I don't see the point of re-releasing it.

EDIT 2: Apparently the re-masters of the songs steal the atmosphere from the album. That's disappointing.

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The only possible response I could give to that is 'The Raveonettes are new to me' which they were. I thought the album was real solid, but I haven't taken the time to go into their back catalogue so there very well may be a revisionist history portion of my love for them.

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So, yeah, you could easily say that Grizzly Bear has the disadvantage of expectation. However, based on this convo, I'll give Shields a good headphone listen the next time I score appropriately good weed, so maybe I'll have a change of heart on it.

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So, yeah, you could easily say that Grizzly Bear has the disadvantage of expectation. However, based on this convo, I'll give Shields a good headphone listen the next time I score appropriately good weed, so maybe I'll have a change of heart on it.

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oh yeah, i guess I Might be Wrong isn't an EP at all. i just mentally lump it in with their EPs i guess. so my top pick has been voided, damnit.

what have you loved this year? i guess what i generally look for lately is stuff that kind of fits conventional pop structures while bringing things to the table that are exciting or unexpected to me. vague i know, but i'm super open to anything you want to share.

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