arts & entertainmentDec. 14, 2012 10

newest album, is a hipster’s dream, complete with a track featuring Zooey Deschanel, the quirky pre-hip-ster hipster. Hipster-bashing aside, Companion is a great album, sure to start a surf guitar revival.

NEW: New wave pop is a difficult genre, gener-ally composed of over-played prima donnas. Howev-er, hope came to me when I first heard Ladyhawke’s Anxiety. It’s very poppy, slightly techno, a bit lazy, and reminiscent of ‘90s pop. It’s an album that will not easily escape your head. The lyrics seem to circle about, in and out of the beats. It’s peppy, uplifting and full of sunshine.

Best of New-Wave Alternative:There have been at least eight notable alternative

albums this year. The best, however, is unapologetical-ly Passion Pit’s Gossamer. It’s true nu-alt. It makes you bob your head. Finally an alternative band that makes you feel something other then sublimity. Passion Pit has an impressive catalogue, but Gossamer takes the cake. This album demonstrates the band’s maturity. Its come from 2008’s Chunk of Change techno and overly rhythmic sound to a refined, more magnetic experience.

Best of Metal:DEATH: Riding in on horses of fire is the always

valiant Dethklok, butchering all other bands for the best death-metal album of the year. Much like Deth-klok’s past two albums, Dethalbum I and II, Dethal-bum III is no disappointment. The much-anticipated work of Brendon Small comes as a relief to the world of Metalocalypse lovers. This high-voltage album is full of Deathklok’s classic fast, dark, pounding guitar lines, as well as Small’s signature sweep-picking solos. Small, who released Galaktikon, a non-Dethklok al-bum, six months before Dethalbum III was released, is certainly a force to be reckoned with in the world of metal.

THRASH: It has been an exceptionally bru-tal year for thrash, with the release of Testament’s Dark Roots of Evil, Overkill’s Electric Age, Municipal Waste’s The Fatal Feast, and Tantara’s Based on Evil. I am not King Solomon. I’m physically unable to de-termine the single best thrash album of 2012. Both Testament’s and Overkill’s new releases retained their signature sounds, and unlike Metallica’s Death Mag-netic, have evolved it to fit the times, in a pleasing, non-sellout way. Thrash has been a work in progress from 1980 to the present. With the promising releases this year, hopefully thrash continues to grow and more new thrash comes to light.

Worst of Music:This year, there has been a plethora of great releas-

es. Unfortunately, there have also been a number of albums by artists that would be better off never having released anything. For the sake of humanity, please make it stop.

First and foremost, Now That’s What I Call Mu-sic. This year was the release of its 44th U.S. album. The compilation album riddles the late night airwaves with its infomercials and bombards grocery store shoppers. In this day and age, if a person likes a cer-tain song, he or she can simply spend 99 cents on the Internet, as opposed to $11.39 for the full Now compi-lation.

Now That’s What I Call isn’t the worst offender, however. No, the worst offender has a cult following. Oh yes, Juggalos and Juggelettes, prepare yourselves for a verbal lashing. Insane Clown Posse, which re-leased Mighty Death Pop this year, may not be com-pletely talentless, but has released 12 albums too many. Out of the 12 albums, there is possibly not one song I can force myself to sit down and suffer through. I gave Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope a try, but I couldn’t get over the pathetic, womanizing, pro violence and overall senseless stupidity of the lyrics. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for ridiculous songs about violence and self-empowerment. ICP doesn’t come close to the low bar I have set for the maturity of songs. The theme of the vast majority of the songs are a sad attempt to be obscure and twisted, but usually comes off as self-conscious and insecure. The ICP has accumulated a vast following over the years; hopefully one day they’ll realize how dumb their music is.

Just like the sanctity of rap has been slaughtered yet again this year, the purity of punk rock has also been violated. NOFX, presenting itself as a “punk-rock” band, lied to the population at large, and re-leased another pop-punk album that’s mediocre if even that. I’m not asking the band to be as fantastic as Wire, or even Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreak-ers. I’m just begging for its sincerity when it oh-so-corporately markets itself as punk-rock. It lacks the passion, the spontaneity of real punk, and comes off more as extremely poppy Adam Ant, or even, dare I say it, Green Day.

Randy Newman said it best in “I’m Dead,” stating, “everything I write all sounds the same/each record that I’m making sounds like a record that I made/just not as good.” The Rolling Stones are an amazing group, and one of my personal favorites, but they’ve gotten to the age where everything just starts to blend musical-ly, and they no longer are producing life-changing al-bums. This year’s Stones album, Grrr! along with Kiss’ latest, Monster, makes me sick of hearing bands that were once revered turn into mushy, unoriginal, static.

Nothing’s worse than a bad album. Fortunately, we’ve had a few good ones this year to make up for the massive number of disappointments. Music can only go up hill from here. This year gave some encouraging signs of a shift in the world of music. Shifts back to appreciating artists for more then their physical ap-pearance, or how well they dance. Auto-tune is slowly but surely falling through the cracks. Our generation is the future of music. Stay gold Ponyboy, and don’t let us down.

Generally, I don’t look forward to new albums, or even to a new album from an old artist. As pessimistic as that may be, it is because I love music so much. I live in fear of new, and usually awful, releases. Over 390 major albums were released in this past year. You can’t expect all, or even half of them, to be decent. For-tunately, this year gave birth to a number of refresh-ingly decent albums. Since nowadays there is a large variety of musical styles, it wouldn’t be practical to compile a definitive list of the best songs, from all the categories. Instead, here are the best songs from most of the categories. And no, you won’t find Taylor Swift’s new hit album on any list of mine. We’re talking about music here, not annoying Corporate America noise.

Best of Rock:INDIE: Jack White has always been a difficult

musician to categorize. He’s managed to create a mu-sical style all his own, much like Van Halen and Nir-vana did before him. His April release, Blunderbuss, is the best White-styled album since Icky Thump. It’s catchy, easily relatable, and is coated in the all-so-loveable sound of Jack White.

A close second is Mumford & Sons’s ridiculously well received and widely accepted Babel. It excels po-etically, and much like White, is extremely difficult to put a label on. As the folkiest music I have ever heard on the mainstream radio, it definitely deserves credit for creativity.

HIPSTER: Hipster rock is a newer genre, growing at an unbelievable rate, with new bands being born every day. Grizzly Bear, a band containing a Coldplay-esque vibe in its mellow tunes, put out its first album in three years, Shields, which was definitely worth the wait.

CLASSIC: Neil Young hasn’t released a good al-bum without Crazy Horse standing behind him. The band is half the reality of Young’s success. Psychedelic Pill is another Young and Crazy Horse masterpiece.

Notably, Leonard Cohen also released an immacu-late album, Old Ideas, in late January. Any folk fan, or fan of any classic rock, will certainly enjoy this always-eloquent artist.

NEW: I try to stay away from new rock. It’s one of the most unoriginal and talentless forms of rock I’ve forced my auditory canals to endure. Foxy Shazam, however, is an exception to the dull genre. Its debut al-bum, The Church of Rock and Roll, is fun, soulful and aggressive. It’s exactly what the skeptic fan is looking for in a pick-me-up album. It’s something to shake your body to. It certainly is a religious experience. The Church hit the shelves Jan. 24, and has been gloriously streamed on the radio since.

ALTERNATIVE: The genre of alternative rock, a genre whose sound changes every year, is a complex animal. Though the Smashing Pumpkins’ Oceania, as well as Marilyn Manson’s Born Villain, were great albums, the little-known Chelsea Wolfe’s Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs is truly stranger and more haunting than the rest. Wolfe, who’s been known to whisper-sing into the microphone, finally allows us to enjoy her soft voice in front of streams of strings.

POP: I’m not entirely sure what Tame Impala is. Is it hipster-rock? Is it just a translucent formation of sound waves? How easily could I jog with them on my Walkman? The airy sound of Lonerism, Impala’s Oc-tober release, takes you on a windy walk down a hot beach to the ocean. Lonerism can make even Nebras-ka, in the crest of winter, feel like you’re in the band’s native Australia, afloat on the sea.

Best of Pop:HIPSTER: M. Ward has been synonymous with

Connor Oberst, the king of hipsters, ever since the Oberst/M. Ward collaboration for the group Mon-sters of Folk. A Wasteland Companion, the band’s

By Skylar HarrisA&E EDITOR

BEST OF 2012Year brings satisfying new albums

THE GOODBlunderbuss Jack White

Babel Mumford & Sons

Shields Grizzly Bear

Psychedelic Pill Neil Young

Old IdealsLeonard Cohen

The Church of Rock and RollFoxy Shazam

OceaniaSmashing Pump-

kinsBorn VillainMarilyn Manson

Unknown RoomsChelsea Wolfe

LonerismTame Impala

A Wasteland CompanionM. Ward

AnxietyLadyhawke

GossamerPassion Pit

Dethalbum IIIDethklok

GalaktikonBrendon Small

Dark Roots of EvilTestament

Electric Age Overkill

The Fate FeastMunicipal Waste

Based on EvilTantara

Death MagneticMetallica

THE BADNow That’s What I Call Music 44Mighty Death Pop Insane Clown

PosseGrrr!Rolling Stones

MonsterKiss