DIS' albums of the year countdown continues...

What does your end of list say about you? And what does it say about 2012 that this isn't considered the most nauseating question imaginable? Each year, these two questions seem to loom large as DiS compiles its list.

Trying to define a 'brand' (for want of a much better word!) is muddled with an idea of self-presentation and - to a lesser extent - politics. What do I think this year's end of year list says about DiS and the year in music? I hope that it gives you a rather large clue that we love music, and that there has been a lot of albums worth listening to. There's a part of me that also hopes that this list says "while we like stuff that a lot of you like, here are some things you maybe missed that we individually and/or collectively extra-especially loved."

If I was some marketing savvy twonk, I could have compiled a list to appease PRs and advertisers, whilst also attempting to lure in potential new readers by putting the most 'relevant' and/or popular seeming stuff to the top of the pile. The idea of generating a list of 'relevant' records, sickens me... but then am I intentionally being contrary in DiS' choices, for the sake of not being like every other publication? Actually, how could I even know what will be popular elsewhere? This question poses perhaps a sightly more profound puzzle as to why are certain records are more popular than others...?

How things rise to the fore in now is depressingly perplexing. There seems to be a semi-randomness to 'success' and for a large chunk of the records which dominate 'the agenda' luck and timing seem as important as to whether it's a truly great album. Getting a fair shake can be a week-to-week roll of the dice, as artists their eyes and hope it's all a-okay from something they have spent months/years writing and recording... I mean, say your label picked a week of release with 30 note-worthy releases out, are you going to get one of the 25 reviews on major websites or 5 reviews in national newspapers? Will you get one of the 10 feature slots in the monthly magazines? Is the person who was tasked with writing the review someone who would actually be a fan of your stuff? Or is the unpaid freelancer who said they'd review your album going through a busy patch and only has time to play the record three times before submitting a review... will they not even find time to write their review? Will the overwhelmed reviews editor remember to chase for the copy?

If the 5-star-reviews do align in your favour and you somehow catch the wind blowing in the right direction, the wheels on your bandwagon can fall apart very quickly, as 'people' flit from one act to the next. Acts can be talked about for two hours online, and then nothing... Imagine when your second single video 'drops' but it's on the very same day that something else is distracting everyone (Frank Ocean coming out, Olympic fever, Lana Del Rey hiccups, etc), and no-one has time to watch let alone post it, and a few hours later, uh-oh, it's no longer 'relevant' and everyone's all "oh, sorry, next time, yeah?" Or maybe you will book a show four months in advance to play New York or London or [insert other major cultural epicenter], but it's the same night that 20 other big shows are on?!

Of course, throwing a large marketing sum or a strong but considered and strategic campaign behind a great record, can quickly solve a lot of these problems. Half the time sadly, all the planning in the world can't seem to get a record of the year listened to, let alone covered and supported... which is kind of what I hope this end of year list solves.

Of course, you would hope that the principles of meritocracy would ensure music is never in rude health. Right-thinking music-fans-turned-critics will ignore all of this timeliness lunacy, right? Sometimes, yeah, but in 2012, something else has happened that seems to be making things even worse. I've been calling it the race to the bottom. Essentially, what I mean by these is the shameful churnalism that seems increasingly prevalent, and it involves a near-constant deluge of YouTube teasers, audio embeds, and shared links to articles entitled "Album Stream of [insert band names new album]" and all you get for your time clicking through is a sentence or two, and a link to NPR, the Guardian or Pitchfork, or wherever. Some sites are posting upward of 50 posts a day, and the average music fan has what, half an hour at lunch time to flick through some tracks, maybe an hour or two when they get home? And what about the time music fans spend with the albums and songs they already love? And the hours spent exploring the web for themselves? Above all that, it is insane to think that a sentence and an embed is actually a recommendation, when all it really is, is some Google-friendly link-bait, aimed to bring in a few hits, and rack up a few more ad impressions. And yet, with ad revenue tumbling, and people's time and attention harder to 'acquire' via social media, this race to the bottom seems to have picked up pace, a totally unsustainable heart-attack-inducing pace, and its gotten to the point that end of year lists are the only way that I can work out what some websites actually like any more, let alone what they genuinely LOVE.

What I'm trying to say is that putting together this list is like a serpent chasing a dragon, that quickly realises it's chasing its own tail, but forgets or deludes itself that it's its own tail, and the circle starts again... I really hope it doesn't seem like some cynical presentation of what we want you to think DiS is or isn't. I hope you consume this list as it is intended: a selection of some of the albums that we collectively and some of the music-loving individuals who are involved in DiS, would like to put to the fore, for your consideration.

DiS' Favourite Albums of 2012: 100-51 // 50-26

Related: Lost 12 of '12 // DiS Staff #1s of 2012 // Vote: 2012 DiS Reader Poll // DiS albums of the year - compiled

![Deftones][88278][600x600]

25) Deftones Koi No Yokan

"While Diamond Eyes could occasionally feel like a step back from Saturday Night Wrist – all riffs, and not enough ambience – Koi No Yokan welds the finest elements of the two to create a heady fusion. This is widescreen alt-rock with an appropriately mammoth production, where euphoric choruses and crushing verses don’t just sit alongside each other but ebb and flow to become inextricable entities – see gargantuan rockers such as ‘Leathers’ and ‘Gauze’, cutting with serrated riffs before soothing with embalming melodies. Koi No Yokan is Deftones coming to terms with their own strengths, taking everything that’s gone before, then refining and polishing it to an impossible sheen." - Michael Brown

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24) Cat Power Sun

"Sun is the most rounded and accomplished album of Cat Power’s career. It seemed that she may have reached a creative peak with The Greatest, which signified a definitive leap in her musical evolution. That wheel kept on turning though and Sun marks an even bolder step forward; the songs sound light and layered with space and sound, where The Greatest was dense in comparison and played to an era, toying with the sound of Memphis soul. Sun, though, is rich with an air of experimentation, with none of the pitfalls of amateurism that often accompany such forays into musical exploration. The electronic bedding of the tracks act as a buoyancy aid for her rich vocals and even when ‘Silent Machine’ descends into a deliberate mess of auto-tune and cut‘n’spliced vocals, it’s considered and fitting to the song, rather than simply serving as gratuitous sound-f^ckery..." Hayley Avron

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23) Django Django Django Django

"If you excuse my forays into journalistic cliché, I’ll now play the unavoidable game of likening one Scottish band formed at art college to another, by drawing comparison to the excellent Phantom Band and FOUND. There’s FOUND’s electronic inventiveness and elements of The Phantom’s tribal folk tinged opuses on show. But to swerve away from the incestuous nepotism regularly clogging up the arteries of the Scottish music scene, the best compliment I can give this album is that it feels like Clor. A fantastic band who showcased inventiveness, intelligence and variety, yet were surprisingly accessible (before the dicks broke up)." - Andrew Kennedy

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22) Motion Sickness of Time Travel Motion Sickness of Time Travel

If you fell under the spell of Emeralds, Oneohtrix Point Never or enjoy anything that can be described as 'meditative' 'undulating' or any number of descriptors people lazily sling at ambient music, then come a little closer. DiS interviewed MSOTT aka Rachel Evans a while ago and ever since she's been slipping out gorgeousity via her bandcamp. This self-titled, sprawling, album-length EP defies categorization as drone or ambient or even post-rock, it simply oozes and has an almost cat-like sleepiness. Don't just take our word or that of the endless praise from the DiS community for it, stream it below:

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21) Twin Shadow Confess

"Following in the exhaust fumes and tire-spin howl of last year’s Drive soundtrack, the album is a total Eighties throwback, all John Hughes-film-accompaniment pop regalia, fizzing guitar lines, Italo Disco keyboards and hushed eroticism. But where Cliff Martinez’s score bore a certain muscular power, Confess is agile, zippier, more direct than the likes of College and Chromatics’ contributions there. It’s as if the motorcycle-obsessed Lewis Jr. has crafted a slinkier two-wheeled spin-off score." - Al Horner

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20) FOE Bad Dream Hotline

"You certainly do get the impression that the inside of Clark’s head is a rather interesting place to visit. Streaming out from under her trademark pink wig is a torrent of musical ideas that threaten, but never succeed to wrestle each other to the ground in a mutually assured defeat. Bad Dream Hotline can’t decide whether it’s a Riot Grrrl revival, a dirty pop frisson, a proto-grunge embrace or a streaked mascara-punk riot. And frankly, it's all the better for it. In being tossed between several different musical corners yet retaining its style and individuality, it comes across as a remarkably strong and luminous statement of intent in the dark dawning of the year." - David Edwards

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19) LHF Keepers Of the Light

"...Keepers of the Light is a rarity for a double album: its indulgence (seriously, 144 minutes?) rarely grates, and its individuality doesn’t cramp its funkiness. Either divinity or extreme precision has made these ideas click, so Double Helix, Amen Ra, No Fixed Abode and Low Density Matter deserve their egos - at least until they produce a triple album, with ideas spread more thinly than Stadium Arcadium. But with a rumoured archive of 1000+ tracks, that seems unlikely. The years LHF have ploughed into Keepers… have been worthwhile, crossing rave, funk, garage and the clever lines from Matrix Reloaded. You need more than just a food mixer to do that." - George Bass

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18) Killer Mike R.A.P. Music

"As Mike claims rap music to be his religion on the closing title-track, it’s the final proof that this art is all he’s known, all he’ll ever know. And his own interpretation of scriptures first laid down over 40 years ago and in a state of flux ever since have never sounded more alive. This is jazz, this is funk, this is soul, this is gospel… but most importantly, R.A.P. Music is rap music, as fresh as it comes." - Mike Diver

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17) Jessie Ware Devotion

"Ware could quite easily have served us up with ‘Dubstep Cuttings, Female Vocal, Volume 564’ but she was smarter than that, and, importantly, she was more honest than that and instead supplied a solid album of strong, emotive pop music that is currently in very real danger of usurping Whitney Houston’s 1987 long-player as the go-to musical comfort blanket of choice, in times of need." - Hayley Avron

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16) Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d City

"..." - review coming soon.

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15) Perfume Genius Put Your Back N 2 It

"...a minefield of trials, traumas and tribulations to be explored and get lost in... Comparisons to the likes of Conor Oberst, Elliott Smith, Stephin Merritt and Justin Vernon are all warranted and justified at various points, Hadreas's assertion that he "wanted to make something you can listen to for a long time" rings true when placed alongside the cream of that list's impressive works. 'AWOL Marine' might sound like a simple semi-classical piano piece from the outset, yet there's something quite evocative about the song said to be inspired by a homemade basement porn movie. Likewise the acoustic country strum of 'Normal Song', Hadreas's vocal pitch switching uncontrollably throughout, intoning "Please pray for me" at one point." - Dom Gourlay

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14) Poliça Give You the Ghost

"...you could denounce Give You The Ghost for its seemingly uber-hipster credentials, and slate it for being just another derivative detour to a land of post-Knife, post-Animal Collective, post-LCD, post-Daft Punk, post-Talking Heads, post-Kate Bush, post-Bowie, post-Roxy Music, post-Velvet Underground, post-[insert obscure prog-disco band obsessed with space travel] 'band', weaned on TLC, Aaliyah and Madonna. Yes, you could be put off by the perfect storm of hype, by Justin from Bon Iver being verbose about them, Jay-Z championing them, by the un-ending blog-love, broadsheet love, music mag love, decent-radio-station love or by the gyrating rhythms that at times seem to be shorn from the same Euro-disco anthems that Gaga adores (especially on the ‘All That She Wants’-ish track ‘Form’). Trace the faint outlines of inspiration all you like but there's something happenin' here and I'm not totally sure what it is but it's exciting, intoxicating and unique, and has me wondering if people will be writing post-Poliça before the year is out..." - Sean Adams

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13) Twilight Sad No One Can Ever Know

"...this marks a third consecutive triumph for the Fat Cat signatories, and one that’s best appreciated with uneasy moonlight and sandpaper-on-brain loudness. The versatility is what marks it out as their finest work: disjointed diary snippets are punctuated by unexpected moments of lyrical and vocal lucidity, while ‘Another Bed’s strobe-lit bass bob wildly out-pops the Hail to the Thief skitter of ‘Sick’. It tends to sound like the furtive Scottish lovechild of Raymond Carver and Robert Smith, blundering its way through an intensive course of emotional therapy. It’s the third in a line of abortive baby boys, beholden to a stubborn single mother in desperate need of female affection...

...Purer than innocence and richer than gold, No One Can Ever Know confirms that The Twilight Sad are simply too good to remain a-little-less-than-well-known outside the restrictive realms of slightly-less-than-world-conqering ’zines. These are people with a mandate to raze the roof, and cleverness, soaring ambition and all their best-laid plans to burn. At a time when you might be considered fashionable to bemoan a dearth of sincerity in popular music, let’s start by returning that irredeemable mope of a genre ‘indie’ to the criminally talented f^ck-ups that wrought it.' - Jazz Monroe

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12) Chairlift Something

"...With Polachek's enriching vocal lying somewhere between the lascivious poise of Stevie Nicks and errant charm of Carly Simon, Something finds itself firmly nestled in the Eighties, albeit a more mature take on the decade of hedonistic excess and dayglow fashion disasters than Does You Inspire You? At the same time, its subject matter has an ambiguous diversity throughout rather than wallowing in self pity at Polachek's break-up. The first fruits of the older, wiser Chairlift emerged in August via Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor's imprint Terrible Records. Decidedly funkier and built around a looped processed beat, 'Amanaemonesia' heralded a breath of fresh air not to mention stirring up a wave of expectation for the long player to follow. With Something, Chairlift haven't so much redefined their sound as papered over the cracks with an added coat of emulsion for good measure." - Dom Gourlay

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11) Frank Ocean channelORANGE

"Where channel ORANGE goes beyond mere subversion - or, perhaps worse, therapy - is in its execution. By starting at the story's end, taking a trip down memory lane leading to an evocative, rain-soaked loose end of an outro, the structure is more like a novel than the random jumble of radio-friendly bite-size nuggets so many albums are now made of. Not that any of these songs would struggle to become major hits, with the likes of 'Thinkin' 'Bout You', 'Pilot Jones' and 'Bad Religion' owning several of the year's catchiest melodies, referencing everything from Jimi Hendrix to Motown via just a smidgen of Blade Runner. It's musical storytelling in its purest form, demanding several listens and uncovering itself as perhaps one of the more individual takes on the great American dream." - Krystina Nellis

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10) Julia Holter Ekstasis

"Although it still occasionally feels like there is something distant about Ekstasis, something yet to thaw (chalk this up to its chilly aesthetic and Holter’s wilfully eclectic approach to her art), it is a genuinely enthralling listen. “This is not the quietness / This is the Ekstasis / This is not Ekstasis / This is the quietness” she sings, confusingly, on closing track ‘This Is Ekstasis’. It is a dense, fascinating jumble, a persistent bassline underpinning whirling vocals, crashing percussion, ragged breathing, excursions into free jazz and an extended breakdown. If that sounds a little heady, well. It is called Ekstasis, after all." - James Skinner

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9) Aesop Rock Skelethon

"It first hit me that this record needed my undivided attention just as it was about to finish. I'd been trying to decipher the lyrics when all of a sudden the cryptic choruses and abstraction just stopped, leaving a passage of direct, simple words in their void. In the penultimate verse of the record, we get to see the man behind the metaphors laid bare and it's heartbreakingly honest. Writing them here would be a waste without all that goes before (a little like ruining the ending to Psycho) but such was their impact I felt compelled to listen even more intently.

For Skelethon is the kind of record an artist only makes once in their career; the culmination of long-gestation, departing loved ones and having to innovate out of your comfort zone. And Aesop Rock's recent turmoil is very much our gain.

Its impossible to dissect an Aesop record without dwelling at length on the lyrics. 'Lyrics' doesn't begin to do them justice, in truth they're more like dense prose or poetry. There is so much going on within a verse of any track here that several months on, I'm not entirely sure what some of it is about. In these times of instant gratification and downloadable mixtapes, Aesop Rock is a relative enigma; a reminder of hip hop's literate past, concerned more with having points than posture. Skelethon sees the protagonist coming to terms with a variety of issues all revolving around death; from a close friends absence via ended relationships and conversations with his father when stopped from going out to play as a young boy for not eating his greens on 'Grace'; "Yup / I told them he were busy / He staring at his green beans being a total pussy"." - Sean Thomas

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8) School of Seven Bells Ghostory

"...its guitars are whooshing through me... the pace of the world seems to speed right up or slows right-right down as the drums skitter along and then stop as if they soar over a ravine and then tumble you into a crescendo... I pull out my phone and start making notes-for-this-review, and I'm scribbling things like 'Guitars erupt like flowering fountains...' I love this record because it’s the exact album I was hoping M83 was going to make last year.... it’s shoegaze gone a bit headlight-staring, drums-as-guns, guitars-a’blaring then guitars-gone-misty, all the while I’m a reviewer-gone-gushing-puddle-of... A blustery, blizzardy, blowy, blasty, bubbly, jumbly, juttering, jiggering, juddering, jack-knifing, zig-zagging, zip-zippity, whizzing, whizz-banging, whirling, wowing... a most wonderful storm of a record indeed." - Sean Adams

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7) Godspeed You! Black Emperor Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

" two longer songs – ‘Mladic’ and ‘We Drift Like Worried Fire’ – were in the band’s set before they went on hiatus in 2003. This seems to have already disappointed a few folk who wanted more in the way of reassurance as to the band’s songwriting prowess as of 2012. I kind of see what they’re saying, but the band’s achievements really shouldn’t be understated: taking 40 minutes of doomy, dreamy neo-classical apocalypse rock, relearning it – presumably from decade-old tapes – and then rearranging and recording it for a different nine piece band to the one that played it originally, and then making it good... well that’s decent going.

It’s more new music than Blur, the Pixies, Pulp and My Bloody Valentine have put out, combined, since their reformations. And perhaps key to the record’s success, it’s actually a fairly pragmatic venture – the shadowy Montreal collective had an album’s worth of music, so they put it out as an album, bringing their commercially available repertoire of songs up from 13 to 17... For now, though, they’ve made a modestly magnificent record that entirely validates this reformation." - Andzej Lukowski

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6) Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do

"Discarding the lush orchestrations of her earlier albums, this is Fiona Apple as her most raw and uncompromising. Vocally startling and relentless in its lyrical onslaught, The Idler Wheel... is a masterclass in how a confessional artist can grow up and up. Ignore those that may tell you that Apple is a songwriter stuck in a "teenage" rut. Listen closely and you'll hear her wry humour and knowingness permeate even the most dour moments of the album. Featuring some astonishing vocal takes that lesser artists would shrink from, at times Apple's voice contains the kind of richness of experience that you've come to expect from someone like Tom Waits. Here's to the next twenty years..." - Cate Blanche

Drowned in Sound's Favourite Albums of 2012: 25-6

6) Fiona Apple The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do
7) Godspeed You! Black Emperor Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
8) School of Seven Bells Ghostory
9) Aesop Rock Skelethon
10) Julia Holter Ekstasis
11) Frank Ocean Channel Orange
12) Chairlift Something
13) Twilight Sad No One Will Ever Know
14) Polica Give You the Ghost
15) Perfume Genius Put Your Back In 2 It
16) Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d City
17) Jessie Ware Devotion
18) Killer Mike RAP Music
19) LHF Keepers Of the Light
20) FOE Bad Dream Hotline
21) Twin Shadow Confess
22) Motion Sickness of Time Travel Motion Sickness of Time Travel
23) Django Django Django Django
24) Cat Power Sun
25) Deftones Koi No Yokan

MORE: DiS' Favourite Albums of 2012: 100-51 // 50-26

Sampler Playlist

DiScuss: Why isn't [insert the name of your personal album of the year] DiS' album of the year? Are you stupid or something?

Related: Lost 12 of '12 // DiS Staff #1s of 2012 // Vote: 2012 DiS Reader Poll // DiS albums of the year - compiled