Friday, June 22, 2012

Mid-Year List Time

My Favorites of the Year So Far

The halfway point of the year:  It provides a nice opportunity for a lazy blog post about my favorite music so far.  If you run a particularly evil and annoying site, it also provides a nice opportunity to post one of those "slide show" list-type articles in which you force readers to click forty or fifty times in order to read the whole list.  I'm restricting my list to five albums, and I'm placing them all on the same page.  For anyone who comes here regularly (Thank you!), this list shouldn't come as much of a surprise.  Apparently, I really like guitars, pop/rock, and New Jersey.

5.  Tramp, Sharon Van Etten
Van Etten's haunting vocals and confessional songwriting leave an impression that's hard to shake.

4.  Ugly, Screaming Females
More than any of the other albums by this New Brunswick, NJ band, Ugly captures some of the scorching energy of the band's -- and guitar hero Marissa Paternoster's -- live performances.

3.  Open Your Heart, The Men
They're a Brooklyn punk band, but this album makes it clear that they know their Stones, Mats, and Velvets.

2.  Hospitality, Hospitality
If I based this on sheer number of listens, Hospitality would have been #1 by a wide margin.  This is an excellent debut album from a band that also puts on a pretty good live show.

1.  Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger, River City Extension
Home-field advantage maybe?  Who knows?  But anyone who knows me understands that comparing any album to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or The Monitor is not something I would do lightly.  This Toms River, NJ eight-piece has made nothing short of a fantastic album.

For something with a bit more diversity, here's the Spotify playlist I've been maintaining of my favorite tracks of the year (that are available on Spotify).



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