If you’re on this page, you really should have seen the Thrash Hits Albums of the Year 2013 list already. If you haven’t, you should click that link or this link and sort that out. This piece will attempt to delve into some vague statistical analysis of the results. This is really only interesting if you care deeply about either the Thrash Hits Top 20, any old statistical analysis or both, so the chances are you’ll have clicked through to something else by now. Anyway…
This week has been all about our albums of 2012 – our writers, editors, photographers, web monkeys, and everyone who’s had a hand in making Thrash Hits a success in 2012 got a chance to have their say, and we collected them all together to find out what truly were the best releases of the last 12 months. So naturally, this week’s Sunday Spotify Slaylist is also all about those records – the music we’ve truly loved from 2012.
Well, it’s all been leading to this. The votes are in, the results have been tabulated, calculated, and any other kind of mathematically something-lated you can think of. This is the Thrash Hits Top 20 Albums of 2012.
So we’ve already published part 1, part 2 AND Dep Ed, Hugh Platt’s Albums of the Year lists, so now it’s time for the next stage of #RaziqRaufsReignOfTerror. Here’s the eclectic and ridiculous list of Raziq Rauf.
So yeah, you’ve checked out Part 1 of our contributors’ Albums of the Year lists, and you’re hungry for more, right? Well, stop reading this and click the ‘Read More…’ link to find out what the other half of our contributing writers and photographers thought were the best releases of 2012.
After 12 months of bickering, debating, fighting and general disagreement, the Thrash Hits contributors have finally settled on their records of the year. Later this week we’ll be publishing Raz and Hugh’s lists, as well as the final, collaborative, everyone-from-Thrash-Hits mathematically-calculated Albums Of The Year list, but for the time being, here’s (part 1) of what our contributors thought were the best and the brightest of 2012.
When we asked our contributors to tell us their albums of the year, we also offered them the opportunity to retrospectively review any of their Top 10 list that we hadn’t reviewed already. Jon Kerr took us up on that offer.
Foo Fighters
Wasting Light
RCA Records
11 April 2011
by Jon Kerr
Twenty years after Nevermind, Butch Vig finally produces a Foo Fighters album. In Dave Grohl’s garage. On tape. And Krist Novoselic plays bass on it. Whether you think the “Nevermind-effect” on the rock industry was a good or bad thing is one of the divisive questions for rock fans of a certain age, making this collaboration one that was destined to raise both ears and eyebrows.
When we asked our contributors to tell us their albums of the year, we also offered them the opportunity to retrospectively review any of their Top 10 list that we hadn’t reviewed already. Ruth Booth took us up on that offer.
The Devin Townsend Project
Ghost
Hevy Devy Records
20 June 2011
by Ruth Booth
With those weightless woodwind notes, we come to the final (planned) part of the four-year, self-titled epic: Ghost, the ambient calm to Deconstruction’s storm of chaotic metal. Though Deconstruction is the more abrasive and complex of the two, Ghost has potential to be the ‘difficult’ record here – and not just if you’re still pining for Strapping Young Lad. Townsend has attempted ambient and folk sounds before, though they’ve largely been complimentary or quirky flavours on more eclectic albums. Meanwhile, his only fully ambient records, The Hummer and Devlab, were self-conscious, rather willful experiments in THC sound, and remain cult choices even amongst devoted Dev fans.
When we asked our contributors to tell us their albums of the year, we also offered them the opportunity to retrospectively review any of their Top 10 list that we hadn’t reviewed already, we didn’t expect Ruth Booth to send us a Kate Bush review.
Kate Bush
50 Words for Snow
Fish People
21 November 2011
by Ruth Booth
Now, this is the kind of move you might expect from The Darkness. Or to take a lot of her once peers, one of those pensioned big names, long on contract, short on inspiration and hefty of tax bill. But Kate Bush? A seasonal record? Well, huh. Maybe we missed the Rapture after all.
We’ve shown you what Raz and Hugh’s albums of the year are, but they’re not the only ones responsible for the Thrash Hits Top 20 Albums of 2011. Oh no. We’ve got a whole load of contributors – writers, photographers, and miscellaneous behind-the-scenes types – that help keep Thrash Hits running smoothly, and the albums they loved the most from 2011 matter just as much as those favoured by the boss men.