As I was saying on a recent post on The Kitchen Facebook page, I always have the same issue every year when it comes time to do these year-end wrap-up lists: what criteria should they be based on? Should I do them by ‘best’, my favorites or most ‘popular’ and how do you define best and most popular anyway?? Each approach can generate very different lists, at least based on my ‘eclectic’ tastes.

This year is especially tough though. Despite what some cynics might argue, it was a really good year for music from my point of view and I liked a lot of albums. There’s probably about three or four of them that could make a strong case for being my favorite of the year, but as for the rest? I liked them all pretty much equally but at different times, for listening under different circumstances to the point where the exercise of trying to rank them verged on becoming meaningless. What does it mean to be my eighth favorite album versus my thirteenth, or twenty-first and what criteria would I be using to make those distinctions that I could share with readers that would be of any value to them?

So in the end I decided that just listing these albums alphabetically was the best way to go. But for those of you who like the competitive aspects of list-making and the horse race and list-based nature of news that our 24/7 blog and social media-powered world has given us, let me say that my most-played albums over the course of 2012 were The Slakadeliqs‘ The Other Side of Tomorrow, Miguel‘s Kaleidoscope Dream, THEESatisfaction‘s awE naturalE and Saukrates‘ Season One. And if you still wanna get into a conversation about what the ‘best’ albums were, I’m gonna have to add Cold Specks‘ I Predict a Graceful Expulsion, Killer Mike‘s R.A.P. Music, METZ‘s self-titled banger and also the Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city and El-p Cancer 4 Cure albums, neither of which is even on my list, to the conversation as well. And when you consider all the non-commercial ‘street’ mixtapes and EPs, neither of which are categories that are super well-covered by my list, then yeah, there really was more good music than anyone could really reasonably expect to properly enjoy or get through over the course of last year.

Given all that though, hopefully, there’s some albums on my list that will still be new to you. Maybe you’d heard of some of these titles but hadn’t actually heard them. Or you saw them in these pages but dismissed them as just another post to fill up space and time and hopefully catch your attention (but didn’t really). Maybe now though you’ll decide to explore them based on The kitchen‘s year-end co-sign! After all, that’s kind of the point of these wrap-ups, no? See what you might have missed or compare what someone else liked and deemed ‘worthy’ (by whatever criteria) and see how it matches up with your own tastes, or not!

Just ‘cos we’re into a new year now is no excuse to jettison everything from the last one. If there’s one thing I’ve struggled with over the almost ten years I’ve done this site, it’s trying to not get caught up on the ‘Be first or post only new stuff’ treadwheel that seems to snare other bloggers and sites. We try to maintain a standard at The kitchen where, while we might not cover everything or be the first to cover something, you can be sure that the stuff we do cover is great or at least worth your attention on some level or another. Our goal is to try and continue to do that over the next year and, if we can get our sh-t together, also have some treats to celebrate our tenth year anniversary in the fall. You’ve been warned!

And now to the list…

2012 FAVORITE ALBUMS
The Alchemist, Oh No, Gangrene – Vodka & Ayahuasca
Azari & III – Azari & III
Cold Specks – I Predict a Graceful Expulsion
Curren$y – The Stoned Immaculate
DJ Premier & Bumpy Knuckles – KoleXXXion
Flying Lotus – Until The Quiet Comes
Game – Jesus Piece
Kanye West Presents – Good Music Cruel Summer
Hot Chip – In Our Heads
Jai Nitai Lotus – Something You Feel
R. Kelly – Write Me Back
Killer Mike – R.A.P. Music
KJ – Water
METZ – METZ
Miguel – Kaleidoscope Dream
Mint Condition – Music @ The Speed Of Life
Georgia Anne Muldrow – Seeds
Nneka – Soul Is Heavy
Frank Ocean – Channel Orange
Phenomenal Handclap Band – Form & Control
Planet Asia – Black Belt Theatre
Saukrates – Season One
The Slakadeliqs – The Other Side of Tomorrow
SonReal & Rich Kidd – The Closers
Tame Impala – Lonerism
THEESatisfaction – awE naturalE
Tyga – Careless World

Previously on The Kitchen:

– DIFFERENT KITCHEN’S FAVORITE SONGS OF 2012

– The Best Of The Kitchen 2011 – Albums

– Brendan Philip’s Top 10 Album Picks For 2011

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