17 Seconds Top 50 Albums of 2012

grimes-visions

1. Grimes ‘Visions.’
2. Bill Fay ‘Life Is People.’
3. Frank Ocean ‘Channel Orange.’
4. Trapped Mice ‘Winter Sun.’
5. Viv Albertine ‘Vermilion Border.’
6. Bobby Womack ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe.’
7. Death Grips ‘The Money Store.’
8. Jack White ‘Blunderbuss.’
9. Steve Adey ‘The Tower Of Silence.’
10. Meursault ‘Something For The Weakened.’
11. Sonic Youth ‘Smart Bar Chicago 1985.’
12. Gallops ‘Yours Sincerely, Dr. Hardcore.’
13. Twilight Sad ‘No One Can Ever Know.’
14. Django Django ‘Django Django.’
15. Cat Power ‘Sun.’
16. Spiritualized ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light.’
17. Public Image Ltd. ‘This Is PIL.’
18. Jesus H. Foxx ‘Endless Knocking.’
19. Dead Can Dance ‘Anastasis.’
20. Snide Rhythms ‘Snide Rhythms.’
21. First Aid Kit ‘The Lion’s Roar.’
22. De La Soul’s ‘Plug 1 & 2 First Serve.’
23. RM Hubbert ‘Thirteen Lost and Found.’
24. Mark Lanegan Band ‘Blues Funeral.’
25. Liars ‘WIXIW.’
26. Cancel The Astronauts ‘Animal Love Match.’
27. Antony and the Johnsons ‘Cut The World.’
28. Cornershop ‘Urban Turban.’
29. Flying Lotus ‘Until The Quiet Comes.’
30. Scott Walker ‘Bish Bosch.’
31. Darren Hayman and the Long Parliament ‘The Violence.’
32. Beth Jeans Houghton & the Hooves of Destiny ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose.’
33. Leg ‘An Eagle To Saturn.’
34. Metz ‘Metz.’
35. Grinderman ‘Grinderman 2 RMX.’
36. Mogwai ‘A Wrenched Virile Lore.’
37. Piano Magic ‘Life Hasn’t Finished With Me Yet.’
38. Stumbleine ‘Spiderwebbed.’
39. Soap&Skin ‘Narrow.’
40. Very Best ‘MTMTMK.’
41. Laura J Martin ‘The Hangman’s Tree.’
42. Chris Devotion and the Expectations ‘Amalgamation and Capital’
43. Paul Buchanan ‘Mid Air.’
44. We Are the Physics ‘Your Friend, The Atom.’
45. Princess Chelsea ‘Lil Golden Book.’
46. The Sea & Cake ‘Runner.’
47. Easter ‘Innocence Man.’
48. Divorce ‘Divorce.’
49. Dirty Projectors ‘Swing Lo Magallan.’
50. Yusuf Azak ‘Go Native.’

This year I have heard an unbelievable amount of music. The Grimes album stood out for me, and was clear to me quite early on that it was probably going to be my album of the year, but while for the first time ever my track and album of the year are by the same artist, there’s much less overlap with the tracks of the year.

At times I have toyed with the idea of not doing a list -trying to rank the albums of the year when you have heard over 400 of them is not easy! – but this is what the list looks like. The Top Ten were definitely the strongest (er, obviously) but there’s probably not so much of a gap between no.11 and no.50.

Due to the fact that despite they are free but not meant to be rehosted (???) enjoy these, messily laid out though they doubtless appear to be…