Gallery: Forget Singles: The Albums You Needed to Own This Year
Watercutter, Angela01digital-booklet-channel-orange
It's easy to cherry-pick quick hits off iTunes, but what moved us most this year were the musical releases that were more than just the sum of their parts -- the albums that demanded to be heard in full, like Frank Ocean's genre-defying masterpiece *channel Orange*, the cool sizzle of The xx returning to form on *Coexist*, or the lyrical thrill of Kendrick Lamar living up to his hype in *good kid, m.A.A.d city*. Check out the ten musical releases we wanted to hear top to bottom this year and drop your full-album favorites in the comments. __Above:__ Frank Ocean's *channel ORANGE* ------------------------------ Nearly every single track on Frank Ocean's *channel ORANGE* is fantastic, but the album would've made this list based on the track "Pyramids" alone. Nearly 10 minutes long, the pop opera starts in Cleopatra's Egypt and ends in a seedy motel but somehow manages to make turn an otherwise creepy love song into a profound statement about the treatment of women. Once queens, now sex workers, the females in Ocean's song hold incredible power – strength that makes the male voices narrating the track want to control them, even when they know they can't. Ocean, a unique voice in both his vocal style and musical complexity, made waves this summer when he revealed his previous [love for a man on Tumblr](http://frankocean.tumblr.com/post/26473798723 ), but 2012 is almost over and while that bold move is still being discussed, the praise for *channel ORANGE* is much louder. *– Angela Watercutter* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F49080453](100%x166)||||||
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Cat Power's *Sun* ----------------- It's probably cliché to say that Cat Power's *Sun* is a ray of light, but that's simply the best way to describe it. Six years after her last album of original tracks *The Greatest*, the artist otherwise known as Chan Marshall came back strong. Melding dark concepts – "What are we doing? We're sitting on a ruin," she sings on "Ruin" – with surprisingly upbeat rhythms and jangly guitars and her own weathered voice has proven to be a magic mixture on the album's 11 tracks. Cat Power's music has always been about finding beauty in the darkest of places, but with *Sun* Marshall brought just a little more glimmer with the grime. *– Angela Watercutter* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F50742884](100%x166)||||||
03aesoprock-skelethon
Aesop Rock's *Skelethon* ------------------------ Aesop Rock's storytelling skills have been evident since 2001's *Labor Days*, his classic album about why having a job sucks. His latest release, *Skelethon*, earns a best-of spot by merit of his lyrics alone, even if you commit the catastrophic error of setting aside his beat selection and flow. Just listen to "[Ruby '81](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUPbZJ1h-yg)," his 2 minute 33 second slip of a song that deftly traces the path of a two-year-old girl across the lawn and into a pool at her family's 4th of July gathering: "Past the pyrotechnics undetected and invisible/ Woke the sleeping beagle skipping toward the kidney swimming pool/ Off into the yawning blue." By the end of the song, the tableau feels as real as any home video. Each new record seems better than the last, and *Skelethon* is yet another high point. *-David Brothers*
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Regina Spektor's *What We Saw From The Cheap Seats* --------------------------------------------------- Never underestimate the power of a catchy song. Spektor's latest album sounds like a feel-good album but reads like something stranger and more sinister, ready to lodge itself in your brain before you realize it. You can tell whether *What We Saw From The Cheap Seats* is going to be for you or not by how you react to the second track, "Oh Marcello." Does a sublime mixture of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" with poppy-but-creepy lyrics like "She's been saying I'll have a baby/ When he grow up he'll become a killer and kill everybody" sound appealing to you? If it doesn't, trust me: it should. Spektor knows her way around a pop song, and listening to her bend her lyrics into a catchy shape is time well spent. Play it with your windows down and your system up, and have some fun. Some weird, unnerving fun. *-David Brothers* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F37731536](100%x166)||||||
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How to Dress Well's *Total Loss* -------------------------------- Tom Krell makes some of the most unlikely music on the planet: Heartbreaking songs about being lost in depression and without love set against Janet Jackson-inspired rhythms (who knew she’d be so influential in a year when she didn’t put out an album?) and infused with ambient electronic melodies. This special sauce makes How to Dress Well’s *Total Loss* totally mesmerizing. Aside from stand-outs like “& It Was U” and “Cold Nites” most of the album melts together, but that’s the point. You don’t listen to it, you get lost in it. In her opus to heartbreak *Written on the Body* Jeanette Winterson asked, “Why is the measure of love loss?” I think of that line every time I play this record, because it’s so obvious in his falsetto voice that the losses that inspired Krell’s album are total and immeasurable. *– Angela Watercutter* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F58778535](100%x166)||||||
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Kendrick Lamar's *good kid, m.A.A.d city* ----------------------------------------- There's a lot of hype around Kendrick Lamar, even claims that the young rapper might be the "savior" of the west coast hip-hop. Savior or not, *good kid, m.A.A.d city*, proves that Lamar can live up to the big expectations. *good kid, m.A.A.d city* identifies itself as a "short film," combining music, complex narratives and skits in an autobiographical tale about a day in the life of Kendrick Lamar as a young man in Compton. On their own, the individual songs are all strong, with a fistful of tracks -- "Swimming Pools (Drank)," "Backseat Freestyle," and "Poetic Justice" featuring Drake -- worthy of a place in your shuffle rotation. But if you want the full effect, you need to listen to *good kid, m.A.A.d city* from front to back, and hear the tracks build into a must-listen experience that is something much more than the some of its parts. *-David Brothers* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F64065413](100%x166)||||||
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Yeasayer's *Fragrant World* --------------------------- Brooklyn’s Yeasayer manage to make pop music out of some of the most un-poppy equipment out there (Omnisphere? OK, sure.). But at least they know what they’re doing. On their follow-up to 2010’s *Odd Blood*, Yeasayer got even funkier and fresher with their otherworldly sounds, and ended up with an album as far out as it is accessible to pop ears. *– Angela Watercutter* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F46599172](100%x166)||||||
08the-xx-coexist
The xx's *Coexist* ------------------ Haunting bass lines, sparse vocals, melodies that sound vaguely sexual, yet warm: You pretty much know what you’re getting when you get a record from The xx, but they never disappoint. With *Coexist* the British art-rockers pretty much build on the self-titled debut, just adding a little extra sizzle. But it worked. *Coexist* is the best chill-out records of the year. *– Angela Watercutter* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F53371201](100%x166)||||||
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Killer Mike's *RAP Music* ------------------------- Every once and a while, when when an emcee and a producer love each other very much, they manage to produce something magical. The musical duo of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and Brooklyn rapper El-P might sound like a strange combination on paper -- El-P tends to lean New York City cynical, while Killer Mike embodies the spirit of an Ice Cube you love to hate -- but after you hear *RAP Music*? You'll be a believer. El's production runs the gamut from hardcore Bomb Squad boom bap to airy and funereal-sounding. Mike blacks out over all of it, from the opening bars of "Big Beast" to the last two lines of the third verse of "RAP Music." Mike says that he's "gonna spit that real on each and every song and each and every poem until the good Lord call me home." It's a bold promise, but and one that he more than lives up to on album highlights "Jojo's Chillin'" and "Anywhere But Here," he delivers. *-David Brothers*
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Norah Jones's *Little Broken Hearts* ------------------------------------ Forget what you think you know about Norah Jones. In *Little Broken Hearts*, Jones and album producer Danger Mouse have delivered just under forty-five minutes of stellar break-up songs that crawl deep inside you until you find yourself unintentionally singing them in the shower or humming while you walk to work. "Miriam," a sweet-sounding revenge ballad to the other woman, creeps up behind Jones's dulcet tones with lyrics like knives: "Miriam, that's such a pretty name/ I'm gonna say it when I make you cry." Jones has a voice that's built for singing songs about heartbreak, and she has a way of turning a simple break-up song into a powerful dirge full of raw emotion that'll stick with you for ages. *-David Brothers* [#iframe: https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F56443448](100%x166)||||||
