Sunday, December 09, 2012

2012 Review: The Old School

The making of and the presentation of the "Albums of the Year" list is always one of my musical highlights of the year and one of the main reasons for starting Cool Music Central in the first place. Our long standing tradition is to unveil this list at the very last days of December or as the first post of the New Year and despite the strong peer pressure to go public with it early, we shall stick to our guns. Although December usually doesn’t have many new releases, there is always plenty of new stuff to listen to from previous months and we want to make sure that nothing important is left out. The fact that so many year-end lists are out there before our own, actually helps us a lot in the process of discovering those records that eluded us so far.

This means that we are now three weeks away from the premiere of Cool Music Central's "Albums of 2012" list. To build up to the main event, starting today we’ll be presenting mini lists that highlight some of the important releases of the year which have something in common.

For starters, we have the Top 10 Albums of 2012 from The Old School of Rock. All of the following artists and bands have been active since the '80s or '90s and their work has been hugely influential to many of today’s indie rockers. Their latest releases have proven that they still have a lot to offer us; all of these albums are valuable additions to an already formidable body of work, while a couple of them, namely Cat Power's "Sun" and Mark Lanegan's "Blues Funeral", are among their all-time best.

Top 10 Albums from the Old School of Rock

1.   Sun - CAT POWER
2.   Blues Funeral - MARK LANEGAN BAND
3.   Silver Age - BOB MOULD
4.   I Bet On Sky - DINOSAUR JR.
5.   The Bears For Lunch - GUIDED BY VOICES
6.   Meat And Bone - THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION
7.   Kill My Blues - CORIN TUCKER BAND
8.   Between The Times And The Tides - LEE RANALDO
9.   Tuscon - GIANT GIANT SAND
10. The Seer - SWANS


Cat Power - Cherokee


Mark Lanegan Band - 4AD Sessions ("The Gravedigger's Song", "St. Louis Elegy", "Riot In My House", "Harborview Hospital")


Bob Mould - The Descent

Coming soon: The Debuts of the Year

Cat Power photo by Indie Design Studio

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