Episode 65: The Moment You’ve All Been Waiting For

This is it, freaks. The last show of the year! And you know what that means, right? Well, you should if you have been listening…it means The Sideshow Podcast reveals it’s Top 10 of 2012!! And what a list it is. We all agree this is a very respectable list, but what you discover throughout the episode is how very different our individual preferences in Metal are. But that is what makes this show interesting, right? RIGHT?! Yeah, that’s what we thought.

Oh, and we also have one more honor, which we kick off the show with, and that is Best Debut Album.

Anyway, feel free to praise, discuss, argue, whatever the list here in the comments. Also, be sure to keep an eye on the site because throughout the week, the hosts will be posting their personal Top 10 (or 25, as the case may be) lists.

Happy New Year everybody! See ya in 2013!

SideShow.65

Top 10:

Converge – All We Love We Leave Behind

Katatonia – Dead End Kings

Deftones – Koi No Yokan

Periphery – Periphery II

Ne Obliviscaris – Portal Of I

Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage

Cattle Decapitation – Monolith of Inhumanity

High On Fire – De Vermis Mysteriis

Every Time I Die – Ex Lives

The Contortionist – Intrinsic

While I think 2012 has been a great year for metal, as your lists show it has also been a very diverse year that is difficult to come to a consensus as to the top albums for the year. But it also means that there is such a diversity of opinion that you can probably find someone who agrees and someone who disagrees with you no matter what your opinion is on an album. For example, I like Brian’s top pick of Cattle Decapitation but I just could not get into that High On Fire album which ended up being Kyle’s top pick. To me it sounds like High On Fire got stoned one night while they were listening to Mastodon’s Crack The Skye and said to themselves: “hey, we can make an album that’s twice as crazy as Crack The Skye but only half as good!”

But I do agree with Kyle about Katatonia. I can’t see what is so great about Dead End Kings. Catchy? There is nothing catchy about it to me.

And I agree with everything Nick said about Converge. I just don’t get them.

While I could continue to quibble with a few other picks in your top 10 list and also bring up the inevitable “how could leave out such and such”, what I really want to mention is the criteria and reasoning we all use when making our own personal top 10 lists for the year. When making my own list, I want it to reflect not just what music I enjoyed the most throughout the year, but I also want it to represent who I was as a person in 2012. Music plays a large and personal role in my life and when I look back on 2012, I feel that the music I enjoyed the most in any year represents who I was at that time. My list reflects myself in such a way that if I look at it 30 years from now it should be able to evoke some fond memories of enjoyable music of that time and also remind me of who I was as a person at that time of my life.

One thing my list does not represent is what music I think I’ll listen to the most in the future. If I had made a top 10 list of albums 30 years ago, it would have included Duran Duran’s Rio and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It would not have included Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast or Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance (all released 30 years ago). I was just a kid at that time and was listening to the pop music they played on MTV. Even though I outgrew both Duran Duran and Michael Jackson and later discovered Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, the pop music more accurately reflects who I was at that time when I was a child. As many of us have seen throughout 2012, our tastes can certainly change. I’m guessing that one year ago Brian might not have thought he’d like Converge and Nick might not have guessed he’d like Veil of Maya or Spawn of Possession. One year ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d like Nightwish or Alcest. So there is no way for me to know what albums from 2012 I will listen to the most in 2013. Might I wake up one day 6 months from now, put on that Alcest album and say “what was I thinking putting this as my number 3 album of 2012? This isn’t even metal!” It’s certainly possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that in 2012 I felt that Alcest broadened my horizons as to what metal could be and I enjoyed listening to that album in the year 2012.

Another thing my top 10 list does not represent is any sort of reflection of what is on other people’s lists. I don’t see Allegaeon listed anywhere on Decibel or any internet blogs top albums of 2012. That does not diminish the impact that hearing those songs and their amazing guitar playing had on me in 2012. But if Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was the album that impressed me the most in 2012, I would have put that as number one. If Coheed and Cambria is the album that you enjoyed the most and made the biggest impact on you in 2012, then why not put that as your top album? Don’t worry about if it’s metal or not. Don’t worry if other people might judge you for liking Coheed and Cambria more than other “extreme” bands. Nightwish is my number 5 album of the year. There are songs on Imaginaerum that sound more like ABBA than Cannibal Corpse. But does that matter? Imaginaerum made an impact on me in the year 2012 that I would be dishonest with myself if I denied. Last year Nick put Fair To Midland as his top album. Did anyone else’s list anywhere on the internet blogs have Fair To Midland as a top album? Are they even metal? Did Nick care about that? I’m guessing not. Even if Nick is a huge fan of Fair To Midland despite no one else seemingly even knowing who they are, it doesn’t diminish the impact the album made on him in 2011 and therefore deserving of the top spot on his list last year.

2 comments

Corey says:

01/02/2013 at 3:18 pm

Boo, Kyle. Katatonia is amazing. I don’t get what you’re missing….
I got into this album at the Great Cold Distance (thanks Chris) after rocking to Atomship’s the Crash of ’47 pretty hard. Dead End Kings is extremely complex and well written…

Bob Sala (@bobjsala) says:

01/01/2013 at 12:21 pm

While I think 2012 has been a great year for metal, as your lists show it has also been a very diverse year that is difficult to come to a consensus as to the top albums for the year. But it also means that there is such a diversity of opinion that you can probably find someone who agrees and someone who disagrees with you no matter what your opinion is on an album. For example, I like Brian’s top pick of Cattle Decapitation but I just could not get into that High On Fire album which ended up being Kyle’s top pick. To me it sounds like High On Fire got stoned one night while they were listening to Mastodon’s Crack The Skye and said to themselves: “hey, we can make an album that’s twice as crazy as Crack The Skye but only half as good!”

But I do agree with Kyle about Katatonia. I can’t see what is so great about Dead End Kings. Catchy? There is nothing catchy about it to me.

And I agree with everything Nick said about Converge. I just don’t get them.

While I could continue to quibble with a few other picks in your top 10 list and also bring up the inevitable “how could leave out such and such”, what I really want to mention is the criteria and reasoning we all use when making our own personal top 10 lists for the year. When making my own list, I want it to reflect not just what music I enjoyed the most throughout the year, but I also want it to represent who I was as a person in 2012. Music plays a large and personal role in my life and when I look back on 2012, I feel that the music I enjoyed the most in any year represents who I was at that time. My list reflects myself in such a way that if I look at it 30 years from now it should be able to evoke some fond memories of enjoyable music of that time and also remind me of who I was as a person at that time of my life.

One thing my list does not represent is what music I think I’ll listen to the most in the future. If I had made a top 10 list of albums 30 years ago, it would have included Duran Duran’s Rio and Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It would not have included Iron Maiden’s Number of the Beast or Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance (all released 30 years ago). I was just a kid at that time and was listening to the pop music they played on MTV. Even though I outgrew both Duran Duran and Michael Jackson and later discovered Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, the pop music more accurately reflects who I was at that time when I was a child. As many of us have seen throughout 2012, our tastes can certainly change. I’m guessing that one year ago Brian might not have thought he’d like Converge and Nick might not have guessed he’d like Veil of Maya or Spawn of Possession. One year ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d like Nightwish or Alcest. So there is no way for me to know what albums from 2012 I will listen to the most in 2013. Might I wake up one day 6 months from now, put on that Alcest album and say “what was I thinking putting this as my number 3 album of 2012? This isn’t even metal!” It’s certainly possible, but it doesn’t change the fact that in 2012 I felt that Alcest broadened my horizons as to what metal could be and I enjoyed listening to that album in the year 2012.

Another thing my top 10 list does not represent is any sort of reflection of what is on other people’s lists. I don’t see Allegaeon listed anywhere on Decibel or any internet blogs top albums of 2012. That does not diminish the impact that hearing those songs and their amazing guitar playing had on me in 2012. But if Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata was the album that impressed me the most in 2012, I would have put that as number one. If Coheed and Cambria is the album that you enjoyed the most and made the biggest impact on you in 2012, then why not put that as your top album? Don’t worry about if it’s metal or not. Don’t worry if other people might judge you for liking Coheed and Cambria more than other “extreme” bands. Nightwish is my number 5 album of the year. There are songs on Imaginaerum that sound more like ABBA than Cannibal Corpse. But does that matter? Imaginaerum made an impact on me in the year 2012 that I would be dishonest with myself if I denied. Last year Nick put Fair To Midland as his top album. Did anyone else’s list anywhere on the internet blogs have Fair To Midland as a top album? Are they even metal? Did Nick care about that? I’m guessing not. Even if Nick is a huge fan of Fair To Midland despite no one else seemingly even knowing who they are, it doesn’t diminish the impact the album made on him in 2011 and therefore deserving of the top spot on his list last year.