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    Wednesday, December 12, 2012

    Catching up: Dec 2012

    It's been a fuck of a long time since I've updated. Well fuck that shit. I wasn't inspired. So I'm back to fire off my observations on my listening habits since... what was it, April 2011? So what've I been listening to, and what are my top picks for 2012? Let's find out...

    My current top 8 artists, as of 12/12/12:

    ...looks more or less exactly the same as I left it. That's why I haven't been updating. The plays are all way higher, but it's still the same artists, albeit in a slightly different order. Sun City Girls overtook Xiu Xiu for the #2 spot, which makes sense 'cause their discography is so massive that there's always something to reaquaint yourself with at any given time. Jefferson Airplane and Ennio Morricone both overtook Neil Young & The Beatles. Makes sense, I guess. Why not?
    So what about the rest of my top 35?

    Funkadelic is the newest contender, coming in at #10, previously not in the top 35 at all. Fact is, I tried to get to know funk in 2011, which pretty much consisted of listening to a lot of early Funkadelic. Ravi Shankar also shot way up the list, to #12, as I tried to grab hold of the entire Ravi Shankar Collection--I'm a sucker for thematic packages (I'm looking at you Criterion Collection). Sly & The Family Stone is a new entry, at #14, also owning to my funk fixation. Matt Berry is a new entry at #19, owing to the strength of his album Witchazel, which I listened to every day on my walk to work in the spring of 2011. It also suffered from some weird scrobbling problems, so may be over/underrepresented, but I tried to account for it (cut plays of some songs, left others). Everything else is just rearranging desk chairs on the Titanic.
    The Easy to read scorecard:

    1. Sublime Frequencies
    2. Sun City Girls (+1)
    3. Xiu Xiu (-1)
    4. The Byrds
    5. Jefferson Airplane (+2)
    6. Ennio Morricone (+2)
    7. Neil Young (-2)
    8. The Beatles (-2)
    9. Sonic Youth (+2)
    10. Funkadelic (New Entry)
    11. Melvins (-2)
    12. Ravi Shankar (+22)
    13. Papoose (-3)
    14. Sly & The Family Stone (New Entry)
    15. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti (+6)
    16. Scrapbooker (+2*)
    17. Silkworm (-5)
    18. Dangereus (-1*)
    19. Matt Berry (New Entry)
    20. Wiz Khalifa (-7)
    21. Ghostface Killah (-5)
    22. Bob Marley & The Wailers (+5)
    23. Fugazi (+5)
    24. Madlib (-10)
    25. Patton Oswalt (-10)
    26. Unsane (-7)
    27. Pavement (+4)
    28. Flight of the Conchords (-6)
    29. The Mighty Boosh (-3)
    30. Dinosaur Jr. (-5)
    31. Bear McCreary (-11)
    32. Sebadoh (-8)
    33. The Jesus Lizard (-10)
    34. Gil Scott-Heron (-4)
    35. Bob Dylan (-6)

    Which begs the question, who fell off the leaderboard entirely?
    Todd Barry, Janelle Monae, and Crystal Castles were all knocked off this year (or so). The list is an indication that I've mostly been listening to new stuff, with some heavy-hitters thrown in, as evidenced by those who increased their position. Those who fell down the list are likely going to keep on that trajectory, as their past strong showings were likely the result of listening fads that couldn't be sustained in the long term. Those artists whose work is best and most consistently reprsented on this list are those with strong back catalogs, or write lots of short songs.
    Stay tuned for an upcoming post highlighting what I consider to be THE BEST RECORDS OF 2012 (DIY OR DIE).

    *Full Disclosure: I am in these bands, and have manually removed certain scrobbles, because I don't want to be seen as playing favorites, conflicts of interests, whatevers.