Music is important. That was the idea I kept coming back to while I was in the process of making my end of the year list for 2012. I was thinking about my own music, and how important and even essential the creative process feels to me, and I was thinking about my peers (and, in increasing numbers, friends) who get in vans and take their music as far as they can. I was thinking about the three million or so copies of "Some Nights" that Fun. sold this year, and how strange it feels that at least three million people besides myself found enough value in that song to spend money on it. I was thinking about Ghost Key shows in coffee shops and pizza places and how Austin O’Brien pouring his heart into those songs convinced me to take a chance on a genre of music to which I hadn’t previously given much thought. I was thinking about a Joie de Vivre show in Kyle Rotta’s living room where my PA wasn’t powerful enough to make the vocals audible, but that it hardly mattered anyway because everyone there was singing so loud, and I was thinking about a Wonder Years show in the middle of the afternoon in Chicago where Rachel Branson and I got to watch a record that we loved and bonded over and wrote letters about to each other performed from front to back. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was raw emotion of the whole thing, but there are parts of that set that I swear I have no memory of because I was so focused on that moment, and as the last notes of "And Now I’m Nothing" rang out, I knew I might never feel anything like that again.
But also knew that I had to keep looking. You can’t close yourself off and assume that nothing is ever going to be as good as it used to be. There are great new records being written every day. There is a burgeoning new scene to replace the one that felt so dead for the last few years. There is always something more to feel and experience and hope for. It’s a lesson I’m learning every day: "My best years may still be ahead of me."
This has been my 2012.
My Twenty Favorite Albums of 2012
- The Gaslight Anthem – Handwritten
- The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past
- Joie de Vivre – We’re All Better Than This
- The Tower and the Fool – How Long
- Fun. – Some Nights
- John K. Samson – Provincial
- Forever Came Calling – Contender
- Swear and Shake – Maple Ridge
- Hostage Calm – Please Remain Calm
- Daytrader – Twelve Years
- Basement – Colourmeinkindness
- With the Punches – Seams and Stitches
- Masked Intruder – Masked Intruder
- Mixtapes – Even On the Worst Nights
- Major League – Hard Feelings
- Make Do and Mend – Everything You Ever Loved
- Alex and the XO’s – North To the Future
- The Forecast – Everybody Left
- Sharks – No Gods
- Hold Tight! – Blizzard of ’96
Honorable Mention
- No Trigger – Tycoon
- Pentimento – Pentimento
- Title Fight – Floral Green
- Misser – Every Day I Tell Myself I’m Going To Be a Better Person
- Handguns – Angst
My Five Favorite EPs of 2012
- Real Friends – Everyone That Dragged You Here
- The Swellers – Running Out of Places To Go
- The Menzingers – On the Possible Past
- The Wonder Years/Stay Ahead of the Weather – Punk Is Dead. Get a Job.
- Candy Hearts – The Best Ways To Disappear
Honorable Mention
- I Call Fives – Someone That’s Not You
- Dowsing/Parker – Dowsing/Parker
My Thirty Favorite Songs of 2012
- The Wonder Years – Me Vs. the Highway
- Fun. – Some Nights
- The Menzingers – Casey
- Real Friends – Home For Fall
- Joie de Vivre – High School Me Would Have Been Pumped
- The Tower and the Fool – Dive Bar
- The Gaslight Anthem – Biloxi Parish
- Daytrader – Letter To a Former Lover
- Swear and Shake – Marbles
- John K. Samson – When I Write My Master’s Thesis
- Hot Water Music – Drag My Body
- Parker – Make It Home Safely
- No Trigger – Maple Boy
- The Swellers – Running Out of Places To Go
- Hostage Calm – On Both Eyes
- Motion City Soundtrack – Timelines
- Sharks – Able Moving Hearts
- The Forecast – Everybody Left
- Close Only Counts – Carpet Doritos
- Make Do and Mend – Desert Lily
- Into It. Over It. – Don’t Let Me Cave In
- I Can See Mountains – Hey Man
- Candy Hearts – Miles and Interstates
- I Call Fives – Someone That’s Not You
- Alex and the XO’s – Meddling, Mellowing
- Late In the Playoffs – The Wayside
- Handguns – Long October
- Basement – Pine
- Forever Came Calling – Contender
- Hawthorne Heights – New Winter
Honorable Mention
- Cheap Girls – Gone All Summer
- Empires – Hard Times
- With the Punches – Cags
The Five Best Shows I Attended In 2012
- The Wonder Years – The Bottom Lounge, Chicago, IL – 3/17/2012 (Early show, Suburbia I’ve Given You All And Now I’m Nothing performed in full)
- Joie de Vivre – The Marilyn Mansion, Normal, IL – 10/15/2012
- Real Friends – The Step Back House, Normal, IL – 5/18/2012
- Swear and Shake – Tommy’s, Bloomington, IL – 10/4/2012
- The Front Bottoms – The Firehouse, Normal, IL – 11/9/2012
- The Story So Far – Bradley University Quad, Peoria, IL – 9/14/2012
Troy Sennett 