The Freaky Trigger Readers Poll 2012

@koganbot. No, you’re not alone: I’ve submitted my list. More rock/racket (Swans, Japandroids) and pseudo-glam stompers (Metric, Tame Impala) for me this year than for the last few years (hey, Smashing Pumpkins get two entries on my list!). Painfully aware that my music consumption is very blog-driven and that there’s a massive amount of stuff outside that bubble that I’ve not listened to.

One general feeling I have about 2012 in music (that’s orthogonal to a ‘top singles’ list) is disappointment. This came in two main flavors: (i) lots of albums that I was looking forward to from, e.g., Bat for Lashes, Grizzly Bear, Jens Lekman, Dirty Projectors, Passion Pit were just OK and were significant steps down from their previous records; (ii) lots of records that I was nominally looking to never emerged at all, e.g., La Roux’s record with Nile Rodgers was promised all year, Little Boots released nothing, Roisin Murphy put out a couple of intriguing song fragments but no album. Disappointment felt to me like the constant back-beat to a year which was otherwise quite cheerily dominated by huge, communal event singles from Call Me Maybe to Gangnam Style.