Pizza FM's Favorite Albums of 2012
While you probably don't care, after seeing several year-end lists, we decided to let you in on what Pizza FM has been listening to in the past year. So, the Pizza FM Executive Board compiled some blurbs about its favorite albums of 2012.For some local flavor, check out Smile Politely's lists of its "Top Ten C-U Rock Albums" and "Top Twenty C-U Songs" of 2012.
-Staff List-
Personal favorites of each member of the Pizza FM Executive Board
Elle Wroblewski - Social Media Director
mewithoutYou - TenStories
I have always been amazed by how many words mewithoutYou are capable of cramming into one song. They tell stories, stories about circus animals, a beetle king, various colored spiders, January 1979, and all of them backed by this somber sort of gritty passion. I started listening to them in 2007, a year after their release of Brother, Sister. And, as a person with no concept of how to be eloquent in speech or written word, I was enthralled by how easily it seemed the band could story-tell through post-hardcore. Here we are five years later, and I still can’t wrap my head around how well they can make an album that could easily double as an off-putting storybook (especially with the accompanying album art by Vasily Kafanov, the same artist they’ve worked with for every record).
Ten Stories came out in May and tells the tale of a trainload of circus animals that escape from a crash in February, 1878. But beneath the overarching circus-animal-theme, Aaron Weiss continues to relay his personal tragedies and emotional conflicts that have been breaking our hearts since [A→B] Life. The album winds clever lyrics and passionate chorus around the fates of the animals, remaining cohesive between songs until the big finale “All Circles,” A better end to an album than anything else I’ve ever heard.
Tyler Durgan - Content Manager
The Shins - Port of Morrow
In the decade since Chutes Too Narrow, we haven't seen much from The Shins. With only a single album in that span, 2007's Wincing the Night Away, it might seem like James Mercer moves at a frustratingly glacial pace. Luckily, he's just been busy with other stuff, an excellent electro-psych side project and a leading role in a sleek indie film, to name a couple items. And while age seems to be the mortal enemy (irony!) of Mercer's muse, The Beach Boys, the songwriter's longevity seems to merely be an additional boon to his chops. With this year's effort, Port of Morrow, he's crafted another set of perfect pop songs: infallibly catchy and grandiosely structured, yet thoughtful and emotionally poignant.
Unlike The Beach Boys' milk-like progression into spoiled confusion, The Shins are turning out to be more like leftover pizza, delicious upon their warm delivery, but a delightful surprise when you pull them out of the proverbial fridge for tomorrow's lunch.
Robby Wankewycz - Station Manager
Tame Impala - Lonerism
The Aussie band’s second album turned out even better than its first. Tame Impala blend their psych-rock style with pop melodies, and the dreamy psychedelia that results is fantastic. You can put on Lonerism, space-out, and easily get lost in the album for 52 minutes. But after another listen or two, the careful craftsmanship of it really shows.
Tyler Cochrane - Co-General Manager/Treasurer
Math the Band - Get Real
Get Real is, without a doubt, the craziest album of 2012. There are fast 8-bit synthesizers, ridiculous lyrics involving pizza and a distrust for horses, and corresponding music videos featuring gory robot fights, little kids riding sheep, and Barack Obama. What else would you expect from the inventors of candy cereal (Nerds, Starbursts, Sourpatch Kids, and similar candies in Red Bull eaten with a spoon)? The energy on this albums rises to a peak with the first note and doesn't stop; this whole album is a climax.
Shannon Stanis - Unit One Liaison
Minus the Bear - Infinity Overhead
Infinity Overhead is pretty much the most Minus the Bear-like album you could ever expect from the band, and I respect that. While I anticipated the new album, I dreamt of what it might sound like. I heard a fusion of the last ten years of their music, and on my birthday they presented me with exactly what I had dreamt. Happy birthday to me.
Matt Shancer - Marketing Director
Peace Be Still - 64
Peace Be Still’s debut album 64 is a Canadian punk album that I luckily stumbled upon. Holy sandwiches, it blew me away. 64 is a great revival of classic Chicago/Kinsella-influenced punk. The style has been migrating around the world lately with new bands popping up everywhere, but 64 truly understands the genre.
Evan Rogers - Director of Unit One Relations
Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...
The Idler Wheel... is full of raw intensity and emotion, delivered through expertly crafted arrangements and stunningly direct lyrics. Fiona Apple is vulnerable without ever being weak; she lets her audience understand her thoughts and troubles, without asking for sympathy.
Adam Barnett - Executive Director/Program Director
Twin Shadow - Confess
To be honest, nothing in 2012 really stuck out to me as something I could add to my "favorite records of all time" list, among The Microphones' The Glow, Pt. 2 and Cerulean by Baths. This could be a result of my impossible, but half-successful, attempt to listen to every album that has come out since June, at least once. Listening to music became stressful, and when I found an album I really liked the first time through, this stress permanently infected any opinion I could possibly maintain of that record.So, to me, my favorite record of 2012 boiled down to which album I could actually just sit down with and enjoy, over and over again. After much thought and scrolling through playlists overflowing with mediocrity, disappointment, and albums I thought were really good but paled in comparison to an artist's previous endeavors, I pulled Confess by Twin Shadow.
It's an album packed with simplicity, containing synth-driven, 80s-inspired pop songs about the various universal branches of love and lust. But, there are so many artistic subtleties contained in its songwriting and flow that, despite its appeal to shallowest forms of listener engagement, it's almost impossible not to want to immerse yourself in every aspect of Confess. Contrary to most modern pop music, though, Confess has a lot in which you can be immersed.
Jon Tracey - Co-General Manager
The Mountain Goats - Transcendental Youth
For whatever reason, the passionate, but not over-the-top, style of singer-songwriter John Darnielle, Poet Laureate hopeful, has always made me feel all fuzzy inside. Transcendental Youth seems like another step toward the somewhat more recent developments toward a full band, fuller sound and more professional recordings without sacrificing the quality of Darnielle's introspective, yet accessible, songwriting style. While I still miss the homey basement lo-fi feeling of some of his earlier releases, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this album. For these reasons, Transcendental Youth was my favorite album to listen to in 2012.