Oh, hello there.  I missed you too!  Aauugghh, STOP IT.  I know.

It's been a painful hiatus, but if anything can get me out of the funk, it's the year-end list.  As always, the list is just a snapshot of my year in music; I've never been more off my game and am sure my critical faculties abandoned me long ago.  Even I think my list is weird.  But this is what tickled my fancy in 2012.  Truthfully, I was uninspired by music for extended stretches of this year, but you put together a list like this and wonder how that's possible...  

Ima Numba One Stunna

Frank Ocean - Channel Orange.  I can't believe I even considered anything else.  There is nothing else.  Channel Orange owned this year and easily settled itself among my favorite R&B albums ever.  Sh!%, I never even realized what my favorite R&B albums were until this bad boy came along and got me thinking.  Mr. Ocean's year out of the studio doesn't hurt the cause either.  Hard not to love this kid.

The Noble Challenger

Quantic & Alice Russell with the Combo Barbaro - Look Around the Corner.  This album won the sentimental vote and definitely filled our apartment more than any other this year.  Quantic just keeps getting better at what he does, and this time around, he found the perfect muse for his signature blend of latin- and funk-inflected soul.  

#s 3-9, in no particular order

Poliça - Give You the Ghost

Andrew Bird - Break It Yourself

Chris Cohen - Overgrown Path

Cat Power - Sun

Grizzly Bear - Shields

Lambchop - Mr. M

Chromatics - Kill For Love

#s 10-25, in no particular order

Hospitality - s/t

Jessica Pratt - s/t

Tanlines - Mixed Emotions

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory

Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream

Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes

Ariel Pink - Mature Themes

Beach House - Bloom

Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Fiona Apple - The Idler Wheel...

Tame Impala - Lonerism
Wild Nothing - Nocturne

Animal Collective - Centipede Hz

Lower Dens - Nootropics

The xx - Coexist

Big Boi - Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors

Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d. city

Bat for Lashes - The Haunted Man

Individual Awards

Jam of the Year: Frank Ocean - 'Super Rich Kids'

Best non-album single: Radiohead - 'Daily Mail'/'Staircase'

Album I most want to hear live: Beach House

Most intriguing: Daughn Gibson - All Hell

Biggest disappointment: Bjork - Biophilia

Best opening tack: Walkmen - 'We Can't Be Beat'

Guaranteed Starbucks pleaser: Michael Kiwanuka - Home Again

Go-to good time: Tanlines

Best soundtrack: Drive OST

Best archaeological dig: Paul & Linda McCartney - Ram

Biggest what have you done for me lately victim: Cloud Nothings

Doin it for me lately: Jessica Pratt and Bat for Lashes
New obsession: Tom Waits catalogue (thx MA)

Best week o' shows: 4/16: Horrors @ Bimbo's; 4/17: WU LYF @ Independent; 4/19: Wild Beasts @ Independent; 4/20-22: Coachella

Not so guilty pleasure:  Ellie Goulding - 'Anything Can Happen'