2012. Well, the world didn’t end as predicted, and so we keep on kicking along, which is nice. And so I thought I’d get down my thoughts on the year and in keeping with this project, call out some albums that I’ve loved throughout the year.
It’s not that 2012 was a bad year – in fact, it was a fantastic year – but it was unbalanced (and I guess that’s what you call life). Work turned out to be more challenging than it should, and reached a crescendo in June when I literally walked out on the job I was doing. I had been on secondment for the 5 months prior in a role that I just wasn’t suited to and it ended up being too much for me. Luckily I work at a great place and they placed me back in my old role and gave me some time and space to get my shit together, and the second half of the year was really pretty excellent.
And for what it’s worth I guess what I learned out of that experience was:
(1) admit it when you’re not suited to a job, especially one that demands a lot of you; as trite as it sounds, life is too short;
(2) sing out for help (especially guys) – it’s not weak and everyone needs help at some point and your mental health needs looking after;
(3) don’t stop exercising and do stop drinking so much when things get hard to deal with; and
(4) you need to have things to fill your time and brain other than work – it’s out of this realisation that this project incubated. I worked out I need some other things to occupy my time and my thoughts when I went home from work. And so far so good.
Hugely, in November I married (so much as is legal in Australia right now) my partner Andrew in front of 100 guests here in Melbourne and it was the most amazing day. Years in the planning, it was exactly what we wanted and we were both so blessed to have so many people fly from Perth and around Australia to celebrate with us. Now political leaders of Australia, hurry up and fix our clusterfuck marriage laws.
Other highlights? The weddings of Zack and Ash and Sam and Leah, the whole period of our own wedding with everyone here in Melbourne, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Parklife and fun in Perth, and hanging with Matt Baker in Melbourne. And musical highlights?
Lana Del Rey, ‘Born to Die’
Andrew bought this mid-year really for “Video Games”, but I high-jacked this album big time. This is just stunning: glorious and shining and shimmering, epic and tragic. It’s an album that needs to be appreciated as a whole. Criticised for being manufactured, Del Rey’s songwriting is anything but; these songs sweep and soar. If only manufactured pop was this good. “National Anthem” is great, as is “Radio”, and “Video Games” deserves all of the rapid-fire recognition it garnered, but the title track is the album’s zenith. Sad and mournful, this really is something else – it’s beautiful tragedy for the MTV YouTube generation.
Arctic Fire, ‘The Suburbs’
Thematically, sort of, The Suburbs shares a little with Born to Die. Embarrassingly, I now know Arcade Fire to be huge, but at the start of 2012 all I knew of them was a couple of songs from a Hottest 100 (2011 maybe). Now I know them to be a lot bigger than I ever realised, and now I know why. I picked up this album after listening to “Ready to Start” over and over in the car, and this was one of those albums that just grabbed me and never let go. Another album you need to appreciate beginning to end, The Suburbs is all about teenage years in suburbia. A lush sound, so musical and lyrical, there’s something foreboding, something apocalyptic about the soundscape of this album. For me, this is one of those albums where I love the whole album and what the tracks create together. But highlights are “Ready to Start”, “the Suburbs”, “Sprawl I (Flatland)”, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”, “Half Light” and, the best track on the album, the pumping, desperate, breathless “Half Light II”. As an aside, Mr Little Jeans’ cover of “The Suburbs” is fantastic – driving around Australia’s desert listening to this was magic.
M83, ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’
“Midnight City” and one of the best album titles ever.
One Direction, ‘Up All Night’
Now this I might need to explain. I’ve always pretty readily jumped on a pop bandwagon. More than anything this is fun pop music, almost perfectly written, 100% manufactured, but it works and the boys can actually sing. In interview they’re charming and funny, and the music is good. Not quite smart pop, but not objectively shit, and subjectively I think they’re a pretty good product.
thehifielective 