2013年 Jan 1日 Tuesday, 8:31
It would seem that I haven't bothered to write a journal entry since my last "best of" which I posted exactly a year ago today. How the time flies.
Artists
Skinny Puppy has been in my top three artists since I joined last.fm in late 2006. Like Nine Inch Nails though, I haven't been listening to their music as much as I used to and when I do it tends to be in spurts; often triggered by hearing a particular song when I have my media player on shuffle. However, I finally got around to picking up their most recent (2011) release hanDover in July which triggered a landslide of scrobbles. Interestingly, hanDover only came in at 11 on the album charts which goes to show when I listen to Skinny Puppy I listen to random pieces of their body of work which stretches over almost thirty years. Skinny Puppy just barely held onto the top spot with Crystal Castles being only four scrobbles behind them. Crystal Castles is one of my favorite bands but they have had the unfortunate habit of releasing music the same year as better releases. Their Debut album was released the same year as Nine Inch Nails Ghosts I-IV and their second came out the same year The National released High Violet. Had they released Crystal Castles (III) earlier this year I'm quite confidant they would hold the top spots in all three areas of this list. Coming in third place and trailing by a hundred scrobbles is Radiohead. They haven't released any new music this year but they are my overall number three artists and one of my "go to" artists when I have company over.
Albums
Despite being released in November Crystal Castles (III) managed to take the top spot. Considering how fantastic it is and that Crystal Castles debut and (II) are both in my top five albums I'm sure it would have distanced itself from everything else by quite a bit had it been released earlier. Following Crystal Castles (III) is Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross with their score for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I think the main reason this album is here is because it's so easy to rack up scrobbles listening to it. Seriously, it's great background music and it's three discs long spanning thirty nine tracks! You only have to listen to it a couple times for it to shoot up your charts. Their previous score for The Social Network came was also one of my top albums in 2010. Coming in at number three is Unheilig with their newest album Lichter Der Stadt. I got into Unheilig last year when I got a copy of Grosse Freiheit which absolutely blew me away. Honourable mention goes out to How to Destroy Angels with their release of An Omen EP which, despite only having six tracks and being released in mid November, managed to make it to the number six spot.
Songs
Tied for the top spot this year are Goth Star by Health and Wrath of God by Crystal Castles. Goth Star is just a random one off by Health which they released as a free download back in 2011. I grabbed it early this year and have been coming back to it over and over for the entire year. Wrath of God isn't necessarily my favorite song from Crystal Castles (III) but it, and Plague, were released as free downloads in the month leading up to the release. That is also why Plague comes in at number three. Had (III) been released earlier I'm sure most of my top tracks for 2012 would have taken most of the top ten spots with its tracks.
And there we go. Another year, another lot of fantastic music. I wouln't say 2012 was as good a year as 2010, but that was just a great year for music. If nothing else it's just nice to finally be able to say that Crystal Castles released my favorite album this year. I'm looking forward to seeing what new music gets released and discovered in 2013. I just got my copy of the newest release by tweaker titled Call The Time Eternity yesterday and I'm thinking it will be mentioned when I do up my next year in review. Thanks for reading.