Albums of the Year 2012 - #1 Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

After the hype, gossip, and sensationalist 4-real authenticity debate that greeted Lizzy Grant aka Lana Del Rey as she emerged into the spotlight, this collection of sumptuous and rich songs received a critical slapping in the U.S. “It’s the album of a faked orgasm– a collection of torch songs with no fire,” said Pitchfork. “Given her chic image, it’s a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved Born to Die is,” said Rolling Stone.

Yet Born to Die is Breaking More Waves favourite album of 2012. If the orgasm is fake we’d take this wonderful piece of acting over some half-hearted whimper of a real one from a half asleep housewife who just wants her buttons pushed as quick as possible so that she can go to sleep. And if being pop-starved means producing a record that’s capable of getting in the charts without sounding like another Poundland Rihanna wannabe then we’re more than happy to listen.

Thankfully our homeland’s press largely agreed with us. “A delicious hybrid of Portishead and Nancy Sinatra,” suggested The Independent on Sunday, whilst the likes of the BBC, Mojo, Q, NME, Telegraph and The Fly all gave Born to Die positive reviews. There seemed to be a wide division between UK music critics and American ones, even though Del Rey herself is American. 

Let’s not beat around the bush here, Born to Die is our most played album of 2012. It has soundtracked our spring, summer, autumn and winter. It’s the record that’s moved us the most. The one that we’ve connected with more than any other. The one that has turned us into a besotted fan. The only one where we’ve found ourselves learning every lyric without even trying.

Born to Die is a pop record, but a fascinating and absorbing pop record. It’s distinctive, full of melody and strong choruses, but more than that it’s an album that smoulders with intelligence and dare we say it, concept. It’s a very cinematic album, both in terms of its lush arrangements but also its lyrical themes and Hollywood symbolism where Del Rey takes the role of the femme fatale, the trailer trash girl and tragic lounge singer. It’s an album about submission, co-dependency and drips with woozy downbeat sadness.

When we first featured Lana Del Rey in May 2011 we had no idea about the tsunami of internet chatter that was about to follow her. However, she rode this wave incredibly well and delivered an album that we've fallen in love with. Born to Die is our favourite album of 2012 by a country mile. 

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die (Video)

Lana Del Rey - National Anthem (Video)

Albums of the Year 2012 - #2 Grimes - Visions

Visions is one of those albums that it’s very easy to approach with a hefty degree of cynicism. As the record was released the music media (and in particular music blogs) seemed to go into overdrive with enthusiasm. Yet this was genuine enthusiasm rather than some sort of sheep like, PR generated hype. For Visions is no featherweight buzz release that by the end of the year nobody actually remembers. Visions is one of the defining records of 2012.

It’s a record that manages to be pop and yet possess depth, originality and moments of weird-out groovy confusion. It’s a record you can dance to, listen to or f*ck to, but however you decide to enjoy it, enjoy it you will.

From Circumambient which takes wonky Orbital like computerisations and adds a clatter of rhythm, to the seductive six minute ethereal sexiness of Skin, to Genesis -  a tune so brilliant it takes Kraftwerk on at their own game of icy coolness and wins, this is a record that’s chock full of ideas. It’s a huge step on from Halfaxa her previous record, which brought Grimes to our attention back in April 2011 when we first featured her on the blog and establishes her as pretty much the perfect pop artist; making music that is edgy, a little oddball but still accessible. The indecipherable falsetto baby doll vocals, futuristic beats and playful captivating bleepy electronic sounds that make up Visions form that rare breed of a record; one that is unpredictable, constantly engaging and draws you further in with its looping exploratory layers. One of 2012’s complete listening experiences. 

Grimes - Genesis (Video)

Grimes - Oblivion

Albums of the Year 2012 - #3 First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

When Swedish sisters Johanna and Klara Soderberg first came on the radar of music fans with their You Tube cover version of Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Pleasant Song aged just 18 and 15 and followed it up with the Drunken Trees EP in 2008 and The Big Black And The Blue album in 2009 the journalistic cliché of “a maturity beyond their years,” was rolled out over and over again. Yet it’s with The Lion’s Roar that First Aid Kit really come of age.

Recorded in Nebraska with Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Alessi’s Ark, M.Ward) The Lion’s Roar is an album of country tinged pop songs with perfectly balanced harmonies of the type that only two sisters can produce.  It’s a bigger, more confident record than either of their previous releases, but most importantly the wonderful songs contained therein are always gorgeous. Flecked with sadness and despair in the lyrics, the music is so charming that it never weighs the record down to the extent that it becomes over-heavy, in fact it’s almost the opposite, The Lion’s Roar sounds quite delightful. Add in some latino trumpets and Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes to help out with some guest vocals on the toe tapping and jubilant King Of The World plus the finest homage to country music stars to ever grace a stereo with Emmylou and what you have is a record that equals its older peer group in quality.

Over the last year a number of singing sisters (The Unthanks, The Staves) have taken traditional forms of music (folk, country) and delighted us by putting a youthful beauty to it, but it’s First Aid Kit who top the family pile with this delightful album in 2012.

First Aid Kit - Blue (Video)

First Aid Kit - Emmylou

Albums of the Year 2012 - #4 Girls Aloud - Ten

“Those who think that Ten shouldn’t count in end of year best of lists because it’s a greatest hits and pop music can f*ck right off. How can any album that has the likes of Biology, Love Machine, Call The Shots, Sound of the Underground and The Promise not be one of the best albums of the year? To deny it shows that you’re some sort of smug intellectual who doesn’t understand pop music.” Those were our somewhat angry and animated words a few months ago and we’re standing by them. OK, maybe we’ll take the bits about smug intellectual back and the bit about understanding pop music as well, but as any fan of any band will know, sometimes being a fan means losing objectivity.

So why Girls Aloud? Why Ten? Because Girls Aloud are the antithesis of everything that so called ‘real’ and ‘non-manufactured’ artists like Jake Bugg stand for. It’s very easy to criticise manufactured pop music, but the reality is that every piece of music that is recorded in a studio is manufactured in some way unless it’s recorded in one take and the sounds are not altered in any way beyond their natural form. Got a fuzzy guitar pedal? Put some reverb on the vocals? Oh hello, you’ve just manufactured your music. The manufactured brigade are often the same gang who also have issues with ‘authenticity’ - another concept that our ears couldn't give a flying fig for – all we want is a good song, irrespective of if it’s been created by a robot in a studio or three bearded men playing acoustic guitars in a cider house. And this is what Girls Aloud have – not cider or beards – but great songs. Forget their celebrity / tabloid coverage, forget their start as puppets in a TV Talent Show, forget their lame solo careers (except for N-Robz who produced one of the most exciting pop records of last year) and focus on the tunes.

Ten is stuffed full of the things; hooks, melodies, killer-choruses, big-pop-bangers, beats to dance round your handbag to and just enough edge and sassiness to set them apart from the banal dirge that masquerades as chart pop in the UK in 2012. “You better watch you’re back, we’re the leaders of the pack,” they chant on Something New, the fierce single used to promote the album. Yes, Girls Aloud know they’re good and they’re right.

Ten is at four in Breaking More Waves Albums of the Year 2012 series. Now that’s something kinda ooooh.

Girls Aloud - Biology

Albums of the Year 2012 - #5 The XX - Coexist

The XX’s debut self-titled record was our no.2 album of 2009 and so expectation was very high for Coexist, their second release.  Like its predecessor Coexist doesn’t exactly smack you in the face. In fact there’s a big danger with this record of giving it a couple of listens, deciding it’s just more of the same and moving on. Yet whilst there’s no doubt that Coexist is more a consolidation than a leap into unknown territories, that doesn’t mean to say it isn’t worthwhile spending a lot of time with it. If anything the production is even more graceful in its beauty, the songs more soulful, and like any really worthwhile album it slowly unfurls itself like a flower in spring to reveal its wonders.

Highlights include the breath-taking Angels the first track on the record. A simple love song, here The XX strip away everything except Romy’s plaintive vocal, chiming guitars and add just the most minimal beats. It’s the sort of tune that must surely have been designed for intimate rooms and spaces yet when the band bravely opened their only UK festival dateof the year at Bestival in front of thousands of people it took on a new life. There’s something always incredibly powerful about a field full of people singing the lyrics alongside the band and as thousands sang “they would be as in love with you as I am,” even the hardest soul would have felt a little tingle down his or her spine. Other highlights include Reunion which evokes long desolate journeys at night with its subtly driving musical soundscape of electronics, Burial like beats and steel drums that slowly morph themselves into something more danceable. Missing, the absolute standout track sounds as dark as the bottom of a well shaft but is carried by Oliver Sim’s unique quietly restrained voice. “Tell me how did this come to be?” he pleads. It really is exceptional.

Coexist sounds like an album where everything has been painstakingly put in exactly the right place, with nothing more than is required, but nothing less either. It’s this attention to perfecting the detail that enables Coexist to ultimately be a quiet triumph.

The XX - Angels

Albums of the Year 2012 - #6 Crybaby - Crybaby

If there’s a common theme running through Breaking More Waves albums of 2012 it’s that a number of the records we’ve chosen in the series are flat out nostalgic. Yesterday’s choice Through The Night by Ren Harvieu was one such sepia tinged past-referencing record and today’s selection, the eponymous debut album from Crybaby is another. 

It’s easy to criticise these retromantic records but there’s a couple of clear distinctions to be made between recordings that simply imitate and those which are made with a real love and craftsmanship. To criticise great art simply because something similar has been done before is to lose sight of two facts. First, human beings through time have always experienced the same emotions - love, loss, pain, worry, happiness - and that certain ideas will always resonate with those emotions. It's why many of us like tradition. Second that great talent or skill is not easily possessed and should therefore be applauded for its rarity. A lot of innovation is just an excuse for being rubbish.

Crybaby is a perfectly crafted, sometimes melancholy sounding album. Created by Danny Coughlan, a balding, bespectacled Bristol based singer - certainly not the sort of man who looks like he was capable of greatness - it’s a record that manages to pay tribute to the likes of Roy Orbison, Morrissey, Richard Hawley and Phil Spector with its soothing, crooning, majesty. The reason that it hits the spot so well is not because of these reference points though, but quite simply because of the songs. Yes, they may sound eerily familiar, but the melodies, the brooding vocal tones and the never over-indulgent instrumentation makes for a wonderful listen both musically and lyrically. Oh, and I Cherish The Heartbreak More Than The Love That I Lost is our favourite title for a song this year.

“With Crybaby Danny Coughlan has created something utterly flawless. It’s hovering around album of the year territory,” we said back in April. It’s stayed in that land all year and so now it find itself here, in sixth place, on Breaking More Waves albums of the year list.

Crybaby - I Cherish The Heartbreak More Than The Love That I Lost (Video)

Crybaby - We're Supposed To Be In Love

Albums of the Year 2012 - #7 Ren Harvieu - Through The Night

Released in the spring of 2012 Through The Night is a lush, orchestrated album of nostalgic torch songs and classic retro-pop tunes that acts as a showcase for Ren Harvieu’s seductive voice. Every word is beautifully sung, recalling the likes of Dusty Springfield, Karen Carpenter, Shirley Bassey and James Bond soundtracks. The trick with Harvieu is that she can do subtle and understated. She never has to bellow or shriek or warble and because of that she can convey both strength and vulnerability at the same time. Every contestant of the X-Factor and Jessie J wannabe should be forced to listen to this album over and over until they get it.

Whilst the singles such as Open Up Your Arms and album title track Through The Night failed to make much of a dent on the pop charts, this was never a record designed for the majority of young teenagers. It’s Radio 2 rather than Radio 1, an album to luxuriate in, to feel, to drift away from the world to. Like a fine red wine Through The Night is rich, warm and full of elegance.

Despite being a twenty-something herself, Harvieu and her songs seem to come from a different era. They are all the better for it. 

Ren Harvieu - Open Up Your Arms

Ren Harvieu - Through The Night

Albums of the Year 2012 - #8 Alt-J - An Awesome Wave

When we first wrote about Alt-J back in October 2011 we said that they were “one of the most interesting bands we’ve heard in a while.” Over a year later that statement holds very true. The band have gone from being a Blog Sound of 2012 longlisted act last December to one of the breakthrough bands of the year and to cap it off, winners of the Mercury Prize.

An Awesome Wave deserves all the accolades it’s received. A genre-melting mix of folk, wonky pop, weird monastic chanting, dubstep and electronica combined with lyrical references that include cowboy and western films, the seedier side of Southampton, the film Leon, your mum coaxing you to sleep, shapes used as metaphors for spooning girlfriends, twentieth century war photographers and er… sex with cleaning implements. “In your snatch fits pleasure, a broomstick pleasure,” is probably one of the oddest and most disturbing lyrics you’ll hear all year.

An Awesome Wave stands out, because in a decade where pop music seems bereft of original ideas any more, Alt-J have grabbed as many as they possibly could, thrown them all into the cauldron, whizzed them around and come up with something that is a little bit surprising, entertaining and unique. 

Alt J - Breezeblocks (Video)

Alt-J - Intro

Albums of the Year 2012 - #9 The Unthanks - Diversions Vol 3 Songs from the Shipyards

This time twelve months ago The Unthanks record Last was declared Breaking More Waves favourite album of the year. Since then the band has defied the industry norm and released three more LP’s and toured with different shows. They’ve managed all of this despite singer Rachel having a baby with pianist and husband Adrian McNally. This is a group that have a massively strong work ethic; and it’s work, or rather industry, that our ninth favourite album of 2012 deals with.

Diversions Vol.3 Songs from the Shipyards contains songs The Unthanks were commissioned to create and perform as a live soundtrack to the film of the same name by Richard Fenwick. It’s a moving and emotionally complex work that manages to beautifully capture the spirit and human side of a dying but once colossal industry.

Like anything The Unthanks do, the haunting voices of Rachel and Becky Unthank elegantly shine through as they sing of jetties, dirty swearing welders, riggers, coppersmiths, metal workers and big ships carrying their loads against wonderfully sparse music arranged by McNally combining with the evocative sounds of the shipyards themselves.

Considering this album is only a ‘diversion’ we can only imagine what The Unthanks will accomplish next time when they’re less distracted, but ‘diversion’ or not, Songs from the Shipyards is still a record the band can be immensely proud of.

The Unthanks - A Great Norther River (Video)

The Unthanks - Great Northern River from Mocha on Vimeo.

Albums of the Year 2012 - #10 Clock Opera - Ways To Forget

“If indie carries on likes this, we’re gonna need a bigger landfill,” said Simon Price of the Independent of Clock Opera’s Ways To Forget. “Predictable arrangements…. middle-of-the-road sentimentalism and lack of killer tunes,” said Drowned In Sound in their 4/10 review. The NME went even further in its 2/10 review:  “If you’re vapid enough to buy into anything this pointless waste of a beard meows into his distortion pedal, you should probably never watch the film Up as you might find it a bit much.”

Yet to the ears of Breaking More Waves we hear something very different. This is a collection of songs that bristle and explode with euphoric climaxes over and over again. Maybe it’s the abundance of crescendos that grated with some reviewers, maybe it’s the way the record is carefully structured in an almost scientific way from spliced loops and live musicianship, or maybe it’s just that the NME reviewer had just been dumped by a man with some facial hair when they wrote the review.

Whatever it is that made some critics shake their head in despair we perceive as rather glorious. From the questioning lyrics that seem to deal with change, relationships and being yourself to the dots, dashes, chimes, beeps and circling notes of songs that drive relentlessly until they lift-off under the guidance of sonic lab-technician Guy Connelly, we find Ways To Forget a life affirming air punching listen.

This album may have been some time in gestation, Clock Opera first appearing on the blog in 2009 and being named as one of our Ones to Watch for 2010 but the wait was worth it. This is a tsunami of record. The critics don’t always get it right.

Clock Opera - The Lost Buoys

Clock Opera - Once & For All

Albums of the Year 2012

Just like every year in this blog’s life we will, from tomorrow, be revealing our ten favourite albums of the year.

Last year we wrote an over long explanation of how we decided on our top ten albums. That post still holds true for 2012. So we’re going to repeat it for this year, in a slightly (but not that slightly) summarised form.

Here are the key points

1. We haven’t listened to every album that has been released this year. That’s impossible. So we’re pretty sure we’ve missed some good ones off our top ten. To hear a lot of albums you either have to be time rich or paid to listen, neither of which we are. So don’t criticise us if your favourite album doesn’t appear on our list. We may not even have heard it.

 2. Many of these end of year lists are often the result of a democratic committee vote. This leads to the quirks of the individual being ruled out. Our list is a fan list. This means not only is it from a single viewpoint, but our prejudices can run excitingly rife. It’s why last year an album by Northumbrian folk miserablists The Unthanks was number 1 in the Breaking More Waves list despite hardly featuring on any other lists out there and Girls Aloud member Nicola Roberts was number 3. ‘Teamwork’ in this case buffs down the rough diamonds and that’s not necessarily a good thing in pop music.

3. Our list been calculated using a spreadsheet and some musical maths. We’re all for a bit of qualitative analysis “that’s good,” “this is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G,” “that is a stinking dog turd of a record” but we quite like the Pitchfork idea of giving an album 7.3 out of 10 as well. So we’ve decided our albums of the year by using some numeric criteria, some of which are derived from qualitative data. If this appears somewhat geeky, we make no apologies. Albums of the Year lists are a science unto themselves. Here are the criteria.

Musical quality For that you could just read 'taste' because we have no qualification or evidence to suggest we’re a better judge of quality than anyone else.

Emotional connection to us as a listener Extra points are earned for making us blub uncontrollably, feel really horny, make us thoughtful / melancholy, makes us feel alive, make us want to dance and snog strangers.

Number of times we’ve played the album This is then divided by number of months since first listening. We’ve used a combination of Last FM and a tally we’ve been keeping of CD plays during the year. The theory is if we’ve played it a lot we must like it.

A fan factor This represents our prejudices. For example if the album contains members of Girls Aloud the fan factor is increased threefold before we’ve even heard the album.If the Pigeon Detectives feature at all it is immediately banned from the list no matter how good everyone else says it is.  

We’re not going to bother you with the complexities of the formula but in its simplest terms it involves (Quality + Emotional Connection + Times Played) x (Fan Factor)

So there you have it. We’ll be starting our countdown tomorrow. Until then let’s remind ourselves of our previous albums of the year.

2008 Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago

2009 Blue Roses – Blue Roses

2010 The National – High Violet

2011 The Unthanks – Last

The spreadsheet has done its job. 2012 has a clear winner. We’re ready to countdown the top 10. Starting tomorrow.

In the meantime, in case you're wondering where our 2009 album of the year winner has been, here's Laura Groves aka Blue Roses in a new guise as a member of trio called Nautic who also comprise producer Bullion and someone called Tic who we know very little about with a gently bubbling song called Fresh Eyes.

Nautic - Fresh Eyes