Making fun of mainstream media outlets for being off the mark with their year-end best of music lists is like walking up to a dead beached whale and then fucking its rotted blowhole. Sure, it feels great and the video gets a ton of hits on YouTube, but you end up with rancid whale juice all over your dick, and THAT can ruin a weekend unless you know just the right freaky deaky. I’m preachin’ to the choir here. I know that, guys.
The staff at Spin Magazine wrote down a list of their favorite albums, and it is tiiiiight as a suicidal humpback’s month old decay-fissured carcass.
50. fun. – Some Nights
Saying something is your 50th favorite is the same thing as saying you don’t like it, right? Like my 50th favorite sandwich is probably grape jelly and tuna on cabbage leaves.
49. Heems – Nehru Jackets
Are Europeans actually paying for music still? Is that what dubstep is? Just a bunch of Bulgarians who haven’t figured out how to Google things yet, and now all of us have to listen to this stuff in our brainy hip hop and Windows 7 commercials?
48. Best Coast – The Only Place
I swear to you this almost made me do an internet search for 10,000 Maniacs. I was seriously so close, you guys.
47. Metric – Synthetica
Lou Reed collaborated on one of these tracks. I think he’s trying to tell us something important about ourselves that we don’t want to hear because it sounds so shitty.
46. Spoek Mathambo – Father Creeper
This probably the best leftfield hip hop album I’ve heard since Subtle ExitingARM. Quick, before looking up Subtle ExitingARM, tell me if you A. know what it is off the top of your head, or B. like it, because A. exactly and B. exactly.
45. Nicki Minaj – Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded
I like how there’s a rotating title for the world’s top pop music ass.
44. Deftones – Koi No Yokan
The Deftones are rounding the corner into their 25th year of existence. That’s 25 years as the soundtrack to bored teenagers in shitty towns getting fingerblasted in the back seat of a pot dealer’s RAV4 by a guy in a backwards visor. What an accomplishment, you guys.
43. Kathleen Edwards – Voyageur
According to the internet, Kathleen Edwards is Boning Iver. Let’s hope they’re dedicated practitioners of the withdrawal method.
42. Lindstrøm – Six Cups of Rebel
The Spin staff found their old Jnco jeans and there was an Mtv Amp Best of 1997 compilation CD in the back pocket that made them laugh so hard they snuck this in at 42 to see if anybody would notice.
41. Purity Ring – Shrines
Do they still make these? It’s weird when somebody’s vagina has a pull tab like one of those talking Pee Wee dolls.
40. Animal Collective – Centipede Hz
More like Centipede Hz Donut. (this kind of joke is called a “dud with a long fuse”)
39. Roc Marciano – Reloaded
This is exactly what hip hop is supposed to be for. Something to play really loudly in enclosed places in order to convince yourself you’re not too big of a pussy to go to the dentist.
38. Taylor Swift – Red
I know so little about Taylor Swift I get her confused with LeAnn Rimes, and I just had to Google “LeAnn Rimes” to make sure I spelled it right. That’s how little I know or want to know about Taylor Swift.
37. R. Kelly – Write Me Back
Has there ever been anybody funnier than R. Kelly with less of an idea why he’s funny? It’s like he’s spent years honing his comedy chops by total accident. This is a guy who had a giant Space Jam mural painted in his house, and then he had to sell the house, and then the realtor had to be like, “asking price is $3 million, and oh by the way the basement has a giant Space Jam mural in it.” I’m sorry, but that is funnier than Zach Galifianakis’s entire life’s work.
36. Beak> – >>
It’s weird how people on Twitter use the “greater than” sign to say things like “Bill Cosby > Madea Goes To Jail IMHO.” It’s like the mathematics of how opinions are boring.
35. Jack White – Blunderbuss
Is anybody else really rooting for Jack White to get really into cocaine and have an 80’s Robert Plant phase? Or is it just me? I’m ready for some pastel sport coats, receding gumlines, synthesized orchestras, and questionable sexuality (not as in “I question this person’s sexual preference,” but “I question that this person is behaving sexually”). We need this guy to more clearly demonstrate that he sucks.
34. Mala – In Cuba
I’m not sure if I can do this or even if I like music. That’s what all this is supposed to be, right? Music?
33. Thee Oh Sees – Putrifiers II
Not their best, but this is like when you take a break from painting a buddy’s apartment and he offers you room temperature Diet Pepsi and it’s so good you wonder if you even like cold soda anymore.
32. Goat – World Music
This is like if that room temperature Diet Pepsi gave you a blowjob.
31. The xx – Coexist
Oooh, a buffet of the worst things about music. I’d like to try the sonic insincerity of electronic music, with some of the cloying cutesiness in vocal delivery of twee, a big helping of the maudlin lyrical content of emo, all covered with the distant sheen of thousand-tracked overdone pop, please, and put it all into a plodding midtempo stew that you can’t dance to unless you’re on downers. That’s what I want. Thanks.
30. Frankie Rose – Interstellar
Like for instance this. I cannot for the life of me understand who this is for. Art school graduates who are also die hard Eurhythmics fans? How could there be such a thing?
29. Dinosaur Jr. – I Bet on Sky
I’m 33 years old. When you’re 33, you get to look back at your entire 20’s and say “who was that asshole and why was he so upset all the time?” I can’t imagine how stupid J. Mascis and Lou Barlow must feel on a constant basis whenever they’re in the same room together. It must be so omnipresent one of them could whack a tuning fork and it would say “sorry” and shrug like a Muppet.
28. Jessie Ware – Devotion
“Devotion” is such a sneaky word. I mean, loyalty is fine. Respect is great. But devotion? That’s code for somebody working too hard or too showily for no reason. Even in the best possible context, like “devoted father of three,” what is that supposed to mean, that regular fathers of three don’t give a shit, you’ve got to be devoted? Devotion is somebody with something to hide. For example: I would not have listened to this if it weren’t for my devotion to journalistic integrity.
27. Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror
I was all set to make fun of this, but instead I had all the fun I was supposed to make and now I’m way behind on my fun quota AND my ass is fat from eating all that fun.
26. Tame Impala – Lonerism
You could throw a rock anywhere in Australia right now and hit a better band than Tame Impala.
25. Action Bronson – Blue Chips
This big ups Ken Caminiti 30 seconds into the first track, so I’m sold.
24. Cat Power – Sun
Remember how much you used to hate vegetables as a kid? That’s like me with Cat Power.
23. Dirty Projectors – Swing Lo Magellan
Total missed opportunity not calling this “Go For Baroque.”
22. Torche – Harmonicraft
With the manslaughter charge Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe is facing in the Czech Republic, combined with the fact that Mastodon sucks now, best current metal band is up for grabs and Torche is in the conversation. That’s a thing I just said to sound like I know what I’m talking about. I don’t know what I expect anybody to do with that information. Probably disagree with it so strongly it’ll serve as confirmation that metal fans are weird. I guess I expect that.
21. Daphni – Jiaolon
Finally somebody understands that techno is supposed to be at least 70% dumb.
20. Pallbearer – Sorrow and Extinction
More like Pallman Brotherer.
19. Traxman – Da Mind of Traxman
Apparently this is the king shit soundtrack of footworkin’. In that case I’m for it, because those kids don’t have a fucking chance in hell if they don’t invent something they can convince other people is really a thing.
18. King Tuff – King Tuff
I like this alright but more importantly so does my girlfriend, which is my version of the Old Grey Whistle Test.
17. Grizzly Bear – Shields
Hey now, hey now, don’t dreeeeam it’s overrrrr.
16. Fiona Apple – The Idler Wheel
Every time I admit to not liking Fiona Apple I feel like one of those Andy Capp cartoons where he tries to sneak into the house but then his wife throws a frying pan at him. Like in the instant where he thinks he’s made it.
15. Baroness – Yellow & Green
If I was one of those died in the wool metal fans I would be pissed as hell at the apparent metal-nerd/prog-nerd merger that happened in 2007 without my consent. Who agreed that keyboards are okay? Can we still have shredding, or are you just dangling the possibility of shredding in my face so I’ll sit through your boring sad songs about how God doesn’t love you? Do I hear violins? Wait a minute, is that guy wearing SANDALS? Are we sure it’s not okay for me to punch these people?
14. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
This is such a strange comeback. If fans of this band were a sect of Christendom they would be “Bored Again Holocaustials.”
13. Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory
I watched The Bourne Legacy the other night. These guys are like the bad guy from the other even scarier government program where they take Times New Viking and genetically remove all the fun.
12. Death Grips – NO LOVE DEEP WEB
Little known fact: the dick on the cover is the Nirvana Nevermind baby’s dick.
11. Future – Pluto
I thought we stopped using autotune once those guys made Katie Couric sound like a club banger three and a half years ago.
10. Santigold – Master of My Make-Believe
Not content to be a shitty but more reliably punctual and less distastefully political version of M.I.A., Santigold is now going for the same thing with being a shitty but domestic violence-free Rihanna. It’s all the multicultural pop hooks without all that thinking about anything baggage. I like her career. She’s like that video production house that makes the Transmorphers movies.
9. Ty Segall – Twins
Yeah, I’m not really that into rock music. It’s only like my ninth favorite thing.
8. Killer Mike R.A.P. Music
Of all the hip hop I listened to this year, this is… wait. I didn’t listen to hip hop at all this year.
7. Swans – The Seer
I’m glad that if you hang in there making loud angry insane noise for long enough eventually the artsy fartsy crowd will be able to prop you up as a venerable old artist type, and the rank and file pretentious music dickhead guys who wear trench coats and turtlenecks even though they’re 25 will line up to fork over their cash and pretend they were hip to your act the whole time, and you’ll enjoy a career twilight as a fashionably antiquated professor who can both go to bed early and get laid at the same time. All you have to do is keep up the appearance of being super serious about what you do. You can’t ever crack the veneer of art is important. No winking. If that sounds like hard work, it is, but the good news is since we’re dealing with noise music, this path completely (thankfully) sidesteps the idea of “talent.” Remember all this, untalented noise guys. Keep wailing. Or else, you know, don’t, because it’s the kind of thing that takes so much effort you can’t do it unless that’s really who you are.
6. Bat for Lashes – The Haunted Man
The more of these I read the more it seems like most critics have no interest in altering the way culture unfolds. They’re just reporting. The attitude is here’s what’s happening now, here it is if you’re curious, and attached are some reasons to either like it or not like it, and I’m not going to make a value judgment as to whether things should sound like this because that would be “trolling” and “unprofessional” and therefore a potential turnoff to “the only people left in the world who have any money.” There are a lot of interrelated reasons for this that I can guess at but can’t exactly put my finger on, and they all center at the nexus of the internet and the end of revenue for content. In today’s “media landscape,” it’s impossible to know who is actually cynically colluding, who is passively participating in that collusion through laziness or gullibility, who is a zero-carat hustler merely parroting the results of that collusion in order to position themselves to participate in it, and who is a full blown actual fan of Bat for Lashes that genuinely loves this band and this album and sincerely wants things to sound like this and be like this in spite of the fact that this is exactly everything that there is already now and always too much of. There’s no way to know. The internet has robbed us of all authority, and instead of growing a pair of balls and shouting “Bat For Lashes SUCKS” to the hilltops, we’re out here in the cold tap dancing for our dinner. Fuck it, guys. There is no dinner. And the worst thing is: I’m railing against the 6th selection of some dead magazine’s top 50 list as if that’s an actual thing anymore, and it’s not. The custodian left, guys. Nobody knows we’re here. We can do anything we want. THAT MEANS WE DON’T HAVE TO EVER LISTEN TO BAT FOR LASHES. Unless, you know, you want to. In which case, congratulations on making it to the sunny side of the class division, congratulations on your recent condominium purchase, and go fuck yourself. You’re going to die someday just like the rest of us, and in the meantime you’re the reason everything sucks.
5. Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream
I like him because he’s so sexy.
4. DJ Rashad – TEKLIFE Vol. 1 – Welcome to the Chi
I take it back, THIS guy is the king shit of footworkin’. I hope you Bat for Lashes assholes are paying attention, because this is what your kids want to listen to in order to prove that they’re not like you.
3. Japandroids – Celebration Rock
Oh come on, go fuck yourselves.
2. Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city
Because Dr. Dre needs more money?
1. Frank Ocean – channel ORANGE
Actually not all that bad, but I’m on a roll here. Pretend I finished strong.
Best of the Best of 2012: Spin
Posted Thursday 01.03.13