music-and-concert-reviews-you-wont-see-anywhere-else
#1 album of 2012 – Earth! by the Agony Family
Artist: Agony Family
Album: Earth!
The Agony Family’s Earth! is an album of mainstream impulses. It’s pleasant, it’s easy to like (if you don’t recoil at synthesizers and glossy guitar in your pop music), but it’s a tough sell as something truly great, and as my favorite album of a strong musical year. I’ll make multiple awkward stabs at it. My first is to discuss a pop song I wish I could like more than I do, the […]
#3 album of 2012 – Harakiri by Serj Tankian
Artist: Serj Tankian
Album: Harakiri
I’m not sure how famous Serj Tankian is on his own, but through 2006 he spent a decade as lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and occasional keyboardist for System of a Down, who scored the flat-out weirdest series of major hit songs (Chop Suey, Toxicity, B.Y.O.B.) of any band since the 1970s. I’d only recommend three of their five albums, but those include Toxicity (’01) and Mezmerize (’05), each a fair candidate for my […]
#4 album of 2012 – Theatre is Evil by Amanda Palmer
Artist: Amanda Palmer and the Grand Theft Orchestra
Album: Theatre is Evil
Amanda Palmer exists in that odd demi-celebrity where most people haven’t heard of her, but many who *have* heard of her, and formed opinions, have done so without ever hearing her music. Skip down to the asterisks if you don’t care, cuz I want to speak of those issues. I think she and novelist Neil Gaiman make an adorable couple. I don’t think it was her […]