Below you will find a brief outline of my top 5 albums to drop this past year. While a lot of great records were released within 2012, these 5 as well as the honorable mentions stood out to me as some of the best vocal, sonic, and lyrical work to debut this year. The list is not numerical in order of "most favorite" as the field this year was so tight and definitely offered a variety of great albums depending on your mood. Some artists had strong comebacks this year (Brandy; Alicia Keys), others were brought more into the mainstream with solid debuts (Emeli Sandé; Frank Ocean), and one cat "reintroduced" himself with a hot mixtape that snowballed into a solid sophomore LP (Miguel). Peep the list below and in addition to several honorable mentions.
1. Our Version of Events - Emeli Sandé
2012 brought with it the introduction of some great new artists to the mainstream and while I had been rocking with Emeli Sandé since 2011 with her sublime joint "Daddy," her debut album Our Version of Events saw her explode in the UK becoming the best-selling debut album of 2012 and making some waves here in the US as well. While she didn't pick up a lot of traction here in the States yet (chart success, Grammy nominations, mainstream radio play), her debut put forth a solid collective of songs that made this such an enjoyable album to listen to from start to finish. Some standouts in my book include "Heaven," "My Kind of Love," "Wonder," "Mountains," "Clown," "Daddy" of course, " "Maybe" and the thumping "Next to Me." As you can tell, I listed more than half of the joints featured on Sandé sublime debut and it really is worth checking out as she is not just an accomplished singer, but also a songwriter as she co-wrote her entire album as well as several tracks on Alicia Keys' Girl On Fire and Rihanna's Unapologetic.
2. Girl On Fire - Alicia Keys
Speaking of Alicia Keys, 2012 saw the release of her "comeback" fifth studio LP after taking a mini-musical break to have her first child Egypt. While I did not really feel her fourth album The Element of Freedom, Keys brought it back to the basics a bit with her latest release. Openly not fan of the title-track or "New Day," if you skip these two songs (which happen to be back-to-back on the album), you have a complete album that is up there with her best effort Songs in A Minor. The Emeli Sandé co-written "Brand New Me, "Not Even The King," and "101" are some of the real standouts from her LP which even saw her collaborate with Maxwell and Gary Clark Jr. on the grown and sexy fire of a cut "Fire We Make" and my personal favorite "When It's All Over," which features her son Egypt at the end. "Listen To Your Heart" is also a solid mid-tempo banger which has single potential written all over it. While Keys' lead single and "New Day" originally turned me off from the album, I was pleasantly surprised to find an album worthy of her immense musical and vocal talents that are still shinning over a decade since her debut LP.
Brandy had a true comeback in 2012 with her Chris Brown assisted single "Put It Down" becoming the biggest hit of her career since her joint "Full Moon." While Brandy's sixth album Two Eleven was a welcomed commercial return since the release of 2008's commercial failure Human, it also marked an album that successfully combined Brandy's classic 90s sound with some more contemporary sonic discourse. Though "Wildest Dreams" seems to of stalled on radio and the charts and Brandy is busy selecting the upcoming third single to be lifted from Two Eleven, the album as a whole followed perfectly well that it is one of a few albums that were released in 2012 that I can listen to all the way through. Other standouts in my book include "So Sick," "Slower," "No Such Thing As Too Late." "Let Me Go," "Without You," the background vocal blowing "Hardly Breathing," should be next single "Do You Know What You Have," the Frank Ocean penned "Scared Of Beautiful," and "Paint This House." As you can tell, Brandy really work her behind off on this LP and the culmination of this work was one of the best R&B albums of 2012 hands down and also one of the most slept on releases in my book. Hopefully 2013 will find more commercial appeal to Two Eleven as it really has the musical gas to go for the next 12 months.
4. channel ORANGE - Frank Ocean
Frank Ocean made a huge splash last year with his mixtape "nostalgia, ULTRA" and expectations were high for his debut album and Frank delivered with channel ORANGE. Topping many best of lists and securing him a nominations for Album of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, Frank Ocean's debut album push both sonic and ideological boundaries as he stayed true to himself and put out arguably one the best album of the year. Singles "Thinkin Bout You" and "Pyramids" are just two of the numerous standouts that include "Sweet Life," "Super Rich Kids," "Crack Rock," and the poignant "Bad Religion" and "Forrest Gump." There is really not that much that one can say about this album that hasn't already been said, but his critically acclaimed LP, which will hopefully find more commercial appeal after the Grammys is the clear standout of 2012 that people will be listening to years after we ring in the new year at midnight tonight.
5. Kaleidoscope Dream - Miguel
Miguel burst onto the scene at the end of 2010 with his solid debut LP All I Want Is You, and his appeal was very much rooted on the R&B charts with his hit singles "All I Want Is You," "Sure Thing" and "Quickie." With that siad, 2011 saw him build himself as an artist and 2012 has really been a breakout year for Miguel with the release of his sophomore LP Kaleidoscope Dream and his #1 hit "Adorn," which even secured him a Grammy nominations for Song of the Year. Though he was shut out of the Grammys this past year, Kaleidoscope Dream nabbed him 4 Grammy nominations for the pending ceremony. Kaleidoscope Dream has some really brilliant moments for me, but suffers a bit from its lack of cohesion in my book and is an album that I find myself skipping several tracks to get to the bangers. "Adorn," second single "Do You...," the title-track "Kaleidoscope Dream," and 'ad-libbed' "Pussy Be Mine" are the clear standouts from his solid sophomore LP.
Honorable Mentions:
Perfectly Imperfect - Elle Varner
Beautiful Surprise - Tamia
I Will Always Love You: The Best Of Whitney Houston - Whitney Houston
Landing On A Hundred - Cody ChesnuTT
Greater Than One - Dwele
Black Radio - Robert Glasper Experiment
Is Your Love Big Enough? - Lianne La Havas
True - Solange
Superconductor - Andy Allo
The After 2am Sessions LP - Ahmed Sirour
Devotion - Jessie Ware
Heaven - Rebecca Ferguson
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