Open Music Thread

In the absence of any Giants-related news -- I was really looking forward to a "SHOULD THE GIANTS GET MATT DIAZ??/" post, but the Yankees blew it -- I figured a post about my favorite albums of 2012 could get a good music discussion going.

This is the first year in quite a while that I've actually listened to more than 10 new albums. I don't like downloading music without paying for it, and eMusic changed their format, so I stopped subscribing. I don't like Pandora or Last.fm as ways to discover music because I'm an albums man. Also, I'm long past the days of spending $200 a month on music like I used to. Add it all up and I didn't listen to new music in 2011. It was awful. I think if I did a top-10 list last year, I would have had to put Kidz Bop 19 on there if I wanted to be honest. Technically, it was one of the 10 best new albums I listened to in 2011 ...

This year, thanks to Spotify, I actually listened to a ton of albums. The three albums I listened to the most this year were classics that I just discovered -- Solomon Burke's I Almost Lost My Mind, Refused's Shape of Punk to Come, and Bathory's Hammerheart. How I made it to 2012 without hearing any of those ... I don't know, man. But they're all amazing.

Sans faux-critic commentary, my top 10 of 2012 in no particular order:

Ancestors - In Dreams and Time
Father John Misty - Fear Fun
Christian Mistress - Possession
Kowloon Walled City - Container Ships
Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again
Ty Segall Band - Slaughterhouse
Baroness - Yellow and Green
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
El-P - Cancer for Cure
Neurosis - Honor Found in Decay

There's so much I didn't listen to this year, so it's not like this is an authoritative list. But those are the ten that I probably listened to the most in the Year That I Actually Listened To Music Again.

Now I have to go back and see what I missed last year ...