Addicted To Vinyl Musical thoughts from the open road, with headphones on

2012 Favorites, ATV Style

In the almost five years that I've had this Addicted to Vinyl thing, I don't think I've ever gotten around to posting a "best of" list. Part of that comes down to how the musical listening habits (for a lot of folks) have shifted to files and streaming services. Certainly, there's the convenience of carrying eight billion albums around in your pocket (or accessing those same albums via the cloud, whether it is Amazon Cloud Player - my personal choice, or the streaming services like MOG, Rdio, etc.), but the trade-off of that, at least for me, is that albums get lost.

You get access to so many albums in the course of the year, that the amount of music becomes overwhelming - a point which I was recently discussing with my pals Jeff Giles and Scott Malchus of Popdose.

What I've been doing the past few years is putting a note for each album that I listen to, into a Google document, which is a pretty good system to track what comes out during a particular year, as long as I remember to do it each time (and as you might guess, I don't always remember to do that).

Working off of that list, here are some of the many albums that caught my ear this year (for the most part, I left out reissues, live albums, box sets, etc.). As much as I see people gripe each year about the lack of good music coming out, I find that in each of those same years, I happily have to disagree with them. This year was no exception.

Presented in no particular order...

Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of the Mind

Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth

Brendan Benson - What Kind of World

Squackett (Chris Squire and Steve Hackett)  - A Life Within a Day

Heart - Fanatic (new album) and Strange Euphoria (box set)

Jets Overhead - Boredom & Joy

Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball

Mary Chapin-Carpenter - Ashes & Roses

Flying Colors - Flying Colors

Counting Crows - Underwater Sunshine

Rick Springfield - Songs for the End of the World

Nada Surf - The Stars are Indifferent to Astronomy

Jim Ryser - Lubricate My Mojo

Scout - All Those Relays

Steve Poltz - Noineen Noiny Noin

Rush - Clockwork Angels

Scars on 45 - Scars on 45

Robert Cray - Nothin' But Love

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur

Bonnie Raitt - Slipstream

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Last of a Dyin' Breed

Joe Walsh - Analog Man

There's a few of my favorites...and a big chunk of additional albums that I heard and enjoyed this year can be found below.

Cheers!

Allo Darlin' - Europe
Arkells - Michigan Left
Big Wreck - Albatross
Jack Blades - Rock and Roll Ride
Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory
Corrosion of Conformity - Corrosion of Conformity
Cowboy Junkies - Wilderness
Cranberries - Roses
Cuff The Duke - Morning Comes
Steve Hackett - Genesis Revisited II
Susanna Hoffs - Someday
Bruce Hornsby - Red Hook Summer (original soundtrack)
Emily Hurd - Any Given Day
Jimi Jamison - Never Too Late
B.B. King - Live at Royal Albert Hall
Keith Moody - Dreaming Out Loud
Bob Mould - Silver Age
Our Lady Peace - Curve
Pet Shop Boys - Elysium
Re-Machined - A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head
Rosavelt - The Last 10 Days
Soul Asylum - Delayed Reaction
Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill
Jenny Owen Youngs - An Unwavering Band of Light
ZZ Top - La Futura