Best of 2012

I wrote most of the post a month ago, and then promptly forgot about it.  It's a bit late now, but I figured I might as well give it a touch up and post it. Anyways, 2012 has been an astonishingly bad year for good songwriting.  You'd have to go back more than a decade to find a year that had as little good music.  The good news is that, despite the lack of quality songwriting, music continues to move forward:

• After almost a decade, R&B has finally stopped trying to sound like Usher's Confessions.  Drake, Frank Ocean, The Weeknd, Miguel, and others have been experimenting with personal lyrics, electronic textures, and warm sounds with very compelling results.
• Electronic music has gone on a maximalist bent with artists like Rustie and TNGHT.
• With electronic music moving forward, Pop music has happily stepped in and claimed dubstep as it own.  Also, there's been a lot of very compelling pop music that blurs the line between mainstream and indie (ex. Jessie Ware, Sky Ferreira, and Solange Knowles).
• As of right now, all mainstream Rappers are abysmal.  To counteract that, producers like DJ Mustard, Young Chop, and T-Minus have been making beats so good that even the idiots shouting over them manage to sound passable.

Also, despite the general lack of quality, there has been some stellar music released this year, the best of which I've collected below.

Top Songs:

1. Big Bang - Bad Boy: "Bad Boy" is best song of the year by a country mile.  It is a perfect distillation of 90's R&B, the same way Jay-Z's "99 Problems" was a perfect distillation of 80's rap.  I can comfortably say that this is one of the top 20 greatest songs of all time.
2. Usher - Climax: Whoever came up with the idea of writing a song that never climaxes called "Climax" is an absolute genius.  As for the music, Usher actually knows how to sing, unlike the current crop of pop stars, and Diplo's beat is probably the best beat of this year.
3. Lotus Plaza - Monoliths: They say that music runs in a 20-year cycle.  This is proof of that.  Monoliths is a cathartic slice of early 90's noise pop.
4. Dum Dum Girls - I Got Nothing: There's nothing complicated or flashy about this song's construction, but it somehow manages to sound gigantic, humble, joyful, and sad all at the same time.
5. The Tallest Man on Earth - There's No Leaving Now: "There's No Leaving Now" is a simple straightforward pop-rock ballad.  It's kind of a pipe dream, but I hope Adele covers this one day.
6. Skyler Grey - Coming Home: Stripped of Diddy's abominable rapping, the brilliance of Skyler Grey's songwriting finally gets to shine through.
7. Maroon 5 - Wipe Your Eyes: Maroon 5 released their first great song in a decade with the help of a great sample.
8. Kanye West - White Dress: The soul sample and warm drums sound like something off of Kanye's debut album, The College Dropout, almost a decade ago.  For the first time since that album, he sounds decidedly human.  It suits him well.
9. Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe: The chorus melody is brilliant and the plucky string arrangement puts it over the top.

Top Albums: Frankly, no album deserves to be mentioned here.  The best album of this year wouldn't have even made the top 10 last year.  Think of the list below more as a honorable mentions list.  I'm not gonna write about any of them since that's more than they deserve.

1. Rick Ross - Rich Forever
2. Bloc Party - Four
3. Purity Ring - Shrines
4. Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
5. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city

Top Music Videos:

1. Psy - Gangnam Style: I've seen it.  You've seen it.  It's brilliant.  Greatest of all time? Maybe.
2. M.I.A. - Bad Girls: If someone asked me to define cool, I would just show them this music video.
   
3. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - Thrift Shop: The fact that this plucky little tune is, as of today, the #1 song in the country is crazy.  Also, my little brother (who's in high school) told me that he's the only person he knows who gets the R. Kelly piss joke.  I've never felt so old.
4. Haim - Forever: I hope the three sisters in this band are as awesome as this video makes them seem.  At the very least, I know that they're baller live performers.
5. BoA - Only You: This video made me realize how much I miss properly interesting choreography in music videos.