Back to 2012 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists) • Page 3

Also, it's nice to see people mentioning Circa's "Violent Waves", I always thought most people disliked that album here, or rated it as their worse one at least. I personally love it, but it wouldn't be on the same level of interaction etc. to rank it so high. I think very often my AOTY is something out of nowhere or without any higher expectations, though "On Letting Go" was a high TOP AOTY for me and remains really important to this day.

 

probably my least favorite circa album

 

That's what I was talking about and generally the vibe that I was getting around here ;D but still, at least like 5 people already mentioned the album in their lists, so it's cool to see there's the other side to it.

 

2012 was the year I moved from my hometown to the suburbs of Madison, WI. I left the job I had worked all through college with the hopes of finding better prospects in a bigger city (the town I was living in had around 50,000 people). I didn't have a full-time job and I was moving in with a roommate so I remember that summer was pretty worrying (would I find a full-time or 2nd part-time job? what would it be like to live in a new city away from family and security nets?).

The albums I listened to nonstop that year include Yellowcard, Fun, The Gaslight Anthem, Say Anything, and Motion City Sountrack. Some of these have stuck with me longer than others but I think 2012 was the year where I finally felt like I was becoming an adult. Crazy to think that it's been 8 years since then and looking forward to how much will change in the next 8 as well.

1. MewithoutYou - Ten Stories
2. Yellowcard - Southern Air
3. The Gaslight Anthem - Handwritten
4. Anberlin - Vital
5. The Avett Brothers - Carpenter
6. From Indian Lakes - Able Bodies
7. Fun - Some Nights
8. All Time Low - Don’t Panic
9. Motion City Soundtrack - Go
10. House of Heroes - Cold Hard Want
11. Anchor & Braille - The Quiet Life
12. Bad Books - II
13. Good Old War – Come Back as Rain
14. The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past
15. The Early November - In Currents
16. Circa Survive - Violent Waves
17. Kendrick Lamar – Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
18. Passion Pit – Gossamer
19. Showbread - Cancer
20. Anthony Green - Beautiful Things
21. Neon Trees - Picture Show
22. Less Than Jake - Greetings and Salutations
23. Taylor Swift - Red
24. States - Room to Run
25. Say Anything - Anarchy, My Dear
26. Mumford & Sons - Babel
27. Misser - Every Day I Tell Myself I'm going to Be a Better Person
28. Sleeping with Sirens - If you were a movie, this would be your soundtrack
29. Eve 6 - Speak in Code
30. Wolves at the Gate - Captors

 

Going back through my library, genuinely surprised to see so few albums from 2012 which actually resonated with me.

1. Good Kid, M.A.A.D City - Kendrick Lamar
2. Channel Orange - Frank Ocean 9.5
3. Southern Air - Yellowcard 9
4. A Flash Flood of Colour - Enter shikari 9
5. 18 Months - Calvin Harris 8.5

Honourable mention to Don't Panic by All Time Low. I couldn't even find 10 albums I really liked from that year that I'd listened to fully. I've listened to The Menzingers/Japandroids/Gaslight Anthem a couple of times but haven't come back to them in years due to my own laziness.

 

I'm late once again, but because for some reason, my 2012 memories were blurry. The first half of that year in particular.

I remember my tastes changing drastically, and on the more personal side, having a hard time at high school, starting to suffer more noticeably from depression and more, finally seeing my former favorite band months before finding out the singer is a pedo, and getting into politics stuff on the ap.net forum and just having to question a lot of ingrained things... even if all this turned out to be important, it's not a year I look back fondly. A year of painful growth in some sort.

On a more positive side, I can vividly recall the day Laura Jane Grace came out, one of the most importants of my personal journey as I wouldn't be the person that I am today without her. Seeing Blink-182 that summer not only was a childhood dream fulfilled, but it also made for one of my most memorable trips with my brother and our friends. It gets to the point where we all recall more the funny shenanigans that went with the silly drunken dudes we met on the parking and became show buddies with, than the actual show itself.

But to get back to the music, here's my list and yeah, perhaps that year wasn't more stacked than I remember when it comes to my then faves. However, the album that do come to mind remained important over the years:

Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Ellie Goulding - Halcyon
Young Guns - Bones
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
Purity Ring - Shrines
Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city
Anberlin - Vital
Friends - Manifest
Gallows - Gallows
Submotion Orchestra - Fragments
HaKU - Simulated Reality
The Intersphere - Hold On, Liberty!
Every Time I Die - Ex-Lives
Billy Talent - Dead Silence
Matryoshka - Laideronnette
The Chariot - One Wing
The Early November - In Currents
Now, Now - Threads
Brendan Rivera - No Ocean In Ireland
Belle Histoire - Dreamers
Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream
Jessie Ware - Devotion
Turboweekend - Fault Lines
Converge - All We Love We Leave Behind
Sucré - A Minor Bird (haven't heard it in years though)
Mark Rose - Wonderful Trouble (looks like it came out late in 2011 but for some reason I recall it from 2012)
Hit The Lights - Invicta (one of those rare cases where I like one and only one album from a band, but I'm not sure this still holds up by the way)

I got slightly disappointed by Circa Survive, Enter Shikari, Say Anything, Motion City Soundtrack, Minus The Bear, etc... and since then, those records weirdly still not resonate that much with me.

I *really* got into these albums a bit latter too:

Taylor Swift - Red
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel
All Time Low - Don't Panic
Yellowcard - Southern Air

 

Oh samesies. I have to add Die On Stage was a bounce back but I'll get into that in the 2014 list.

 

I agree with you 100%

 

I completely forgot about this album. Gonna listen and reminisce about 2012.