The 2012 Ho Media Awards
Website of the Year - The Wertzone
Adam runs a great sci-fi and fantasy-centric blog that reviews both new releases and releases that are new to him. He's fairly even-keeled, which is really saying something for a Random Reviewer Dude With A Blog. It's always interesting to compare and contrast his reviews with Pat's over at the Hotlist.
Book of the Year - Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Prisoner of Heaven
Runner-up: Henry David Thoreau's The Maine Woods
There is a little less social commentary here than in his more famous works, but his talent for describing the natural world still moves me like few others can. John Burroughs came to me through a recommendation after reading this book and I've now lined a shelf with both of them. I also completed my Thoreau collection this year by getting Dover's 14-in-2 volume set of his journals and a separate hardcover copy of the lost 1840-1841 journal. If he said it, I've got it - so much insightful stuff to look forward to.
Movie of the Year - The Avengers
No movie released this year had a better combination of great action and great, uh, costumes:
$4 Artist (Discovery Artist) of the Year - Sigur Ros
It was very nearly a $4 find this year; with a gift certificate I had for Best Buy, I was able to pick up Valtari for $5. It's a great background album. My infant son approves of it as sleepytime music. I've picked up a couple of their other albums and they all have about the same effect. Sometimes that's a good thing, but with a baby, the importance of this find can't be over-stressed.
Album of the Year - Andrew Bird's Break It Yourself
[Deluxe
]
It's good to see the man enjoying his work. Recording The Mysterious Production of Eggs gave him fits and dizzy-spells as he scrapped recording after recording, obsessing over every detail until he said he wasn't enjoying it anymore. The next album, AA, reflected that aggressive attitude, but turned inward. NB was supposed to be a relaxed reflection of TMPoE, but the sound still has that slightly over-crafted feeling - compare the Cemetery Gates version of "Nomenclature" to the studio version and tell me you still prefer to studio version!
Finally, maybe as best shown by this album's companion volume Hands of Glory, he's reached a point in his career where recordings can be done in a single take, with everyone gathered around a single microphone. Sure, it's a simple affair, but it's light years ahead of a lot of other people.
"Danse Caribe" features a foot-stomping solo like we haven't seen since his Bowl of Fire days. "Lazy Projector" has a bridge, shared with the illustrious Nora O'Conner, that makes me shiver when I hear that beautiful harmony. "Near Death Experience Experience" has been derided as having stolen the melody from Fastball's "The Way"...but I don't hear it. Either way, it's another example of his outstanding ability to match a tune to a particular set of lyrics. "Orpheo Looks Back" is a fun round - its only disappointment lies in that it's not the sort of round that you can actually get a group of people to do together very well: Bird alone beats a handful of ordinary mortals (again!). I was afraid that "Fatal Shore" was a reworking of "Souverian," but luckily it stands on its own. In fact, I believe it's better than that track. The final vocal track on the album, "Hole in the Ocean Floor" is bound to be considered one of his greatest pieces of all time. The words are few, and I couldn't begin to tell you what they mean, but they float back and forth like kelp in said ocean, supporting the weight of what might otherwise have been an over-long 8 minute track. Hands of glory indeed, Mr. Bird.
Song of the Year - Keane's "Sovereign Light Cafe"
2012 is one of those uncommon years where the best track isn't on the best album. In this case, it's mostly because it's hard to pull any single track off of Break It Yourself. They're ALL amazing. But part of the Song of the Year title also means it has to have a greater, universal appeal - has to work with any mood / season, has to work on any given shuffle or mix-tape, and should (but isn't always) be an official single. SLC meets all of the above conditions. The chord progression in the chorus isn't very original, but it's one of those easy ones that we all naturally gravitate to. Even if it's a little "pop" in that way, I'm still diggin' it.
"Hey, What About THAT Album?" - The Almost-Made-It Edition
---Bell X1's Field Recordings
Great live album. If I thought live albums belonged in a top ten post, this probably would have ranked. This isn't the sort of live album where the songs are almost indistinguishable from their studio versions. This is two discs of acoustic reworks of a wide sampling of their back-catalog.
---Bobby Long's A Winter Tale / Marcus Foster's Nameless Path
Two smoky albums whose only weaknesses lie in that the songs start to blur together after a while, even between the two albums. Long gets the edge here overall, although Foster burns down the house playing "Movement" live:
---The Lumineers' The Lumineers / Of Monsters and Men's My Head is an Animal / The Head and The Heart's The Head and The Heart
This is the folksy trio that headlines most of the stories in music rags this year about the resurgence of folk in pop music and culture. They're all great and all slightly different, but ultimately it's hard to rank any one of them over the other. However I WILL say that if I hear "Ho Hey" one more time I'm going to start throwing puppies in a wood-chipper. U93, you've been warned.
Note that this does not include Babel - another Mumford causalty (see below).
---Shearwater's Animal Joy
This was a downright shockingly accessible album from the falsetto-loving Will Scheff. Right now I think it's terrific, but I fear that it is this accessibility that will make it less remarkable as it ages.
---Grizzly Bear's Shields
On the other end of the spectrum, this is the first time Grizzly Bear has been accessible enough for me to enjoy an album. "What's Wrong" is almost worth the price of the entire album alone.
"Hey, What About THAT Album?" - The ...wtfuck? Edition
---The Killers' Battle Born
I'm done with you guys. This was absolute shit. Die hards choke on their vomit every day by trying to defend this worthless disc of crap, but I wouldn't even use it as a coaster. Ah well, we all run out of steam at some point.
---Mumford and Sons' Babel
Er...you still haven't learned how to properly record / mix an album. Might want to look into that. Decent songs, but I wouldn't buy a third album based on your first two.
---fun.'s Some Nights
Hey, congratulations, you're famous! Now that you've made it, I would love to pretend this album (the second half in particular) didn't happen. The title track is great, but it's also being overplayed to death.
---Maroon 5's Overexposed
Interviews with the band have all indicated that they decided to change directions because their previous album didn't do as well as they wanted it to. I wonder if releasing something to reviews and sales that are exponentially WORSE than that is what they really had in mind. It's interesting that they have kept to releasing songs as singles when they sound like their earlier work.
Dumbass of the Year - Gollancz Publishing
I've never awarded this category to a group of people before, but there's a first time for everything. And Gollancz really, really deserves it. See my "Looking Ahead" section below.
Best Things I've Heard This Year
Aside from things that came out this year, here's a few albums that really stood out amongst the variety of things I picked up this year.
---John Mayer's Continuum
- Yeah, way late to that party.
---Mahler's Symphony No. 3, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, recorded in 1986 for DG
- Only Barbirolli does it better, but the only recordings of his in existence are absolutely terrible.
---Patrick Watson's Wooden Arms
- Fuzzy, dreamy, but very mood-specific; I'm not entirely sold on his voice.
---Motopony's Motopony
- Another great find courtesy of House, MD.
Playlist of the Year
Any of the album highlights mentioned over the last few weeks combined with these tracks would make a great "best of 2012" CD:
Grizzly Bear - "What's Wrong"
The Head and The Heart - "Ghosts"
Hanni El Khatib - "You Rascal You"
The Wallflowers - "Love is a Country"
Counting Crows - "You Ain't Going Nowhere"
Dave Matthews Band - "If Only"
Matchbox Twenty - "Like Sugar"
The Black Keys - "Little Black Submarines"
Sigur Ros - "Varuo"
Of Monsters and Men - "Yellow Light"
The Boxer Rebellion - "No Harm"
M. Ward - "Me and My Shadow"
Looking Ahead: 2013
In a matter of less than a week, the celebrated Wheel of Time will finally come to an end. I think we can safely assume A Memory of Light is 2013's Book of the Year.
The Chathrand Voyage did come to an end in 2012...but without a hardcover release for the final installment. What the hell, Gollancz? According to the author, it was decided about three weeks before its intended release that they would not be producing a hardcover version of the novel. How asinine. They certainly can't be complaining about the cost to produce one of these hardcovers - I've imported all three of the first books from the UK to get the Gollancz cover art and I was disappointed with the cheap feel of the binding. The e-book version will be out in a few weeks, and I'd much rather get the final book electronically from Amazon than give Gollancz any kind of profit on a paperback version. The whole ordeal is disgusting on a number of levels, from insulting to the man who spent ten years of his life to bring these characters and these stories to life all the way down to those of us who have followed the story for almost as many years and waited with bated breath for this finale. I emailed Mr. Redick, who was kind enough to respond and confirm that there is a chance that a limited edition hardcover (almost certainly from another publisher) would be made available at a later date. Sign. Me. Up.
In music, I see very little on the horizon. Stornoway's Tales From Terra Firma and Atoms for Peace's AMOK are due in Q1. Baxter might finally get his act together and release an album in Q2 or Q3; I never bothered with his three track EP this fall. Beady Eye will likely release something later in the year. C'mon, music world - surprise me!
Hope I've brought everybody something new / interesting! Have a fantastic 2013!
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