Top 10 National
1) Bruce Springsteen, Wrecking Ball (Columbia)
2) David Byrne & St. Vincent, Love This Giant (4AD)
3) Royal Headache (What’s Your Rupture)
4) Father John Misty, Fear Fun (Sub Pop)
5) Jimmy Cliff, Rebirth (UMe)
6) Baroness, Yellow & Green (Relapse)
7) Killer Mike, R.A.P. Music (Williams Street)
8) Best Coast, The Only Place (Mexican Summer)
9) Frank Ocean, Channel ORANGE (Island Def Jam)
10) Public Image Ltd, This Is PiL (PiL Official)
Top 20 National
11) Leonard Cohen, Old Ideas (Columbia)
12) Cody Chesnutt, Landing on a Hundred (Vibration Vineyard)
13) Big K.R.I.T., Live From the Underground (Island Def Jam)
14) The Men, Open Your Heart (Sacred Bones)
15) Sharon Van Etten, Tramp (Jagjaguwar)
16) Witchcraft, Legend (Nuclear Blast)
17) The XX, Coexist (Young Turks)
18) Jovanotti, Italia 1988-2012 (ATO)
19) Dwight Yoakam, 3 Pears (Warner Bros.)
20) Chimes of Freedom, The Songs of Bob Dylan (Amnesty International)
Top 10 Local
1) Gary Clark Jr., Blak and Blu (Warner Bros.)
2) Alejandro Escovedo, Big Station (Fantasy)
3) Heartless Bastards, Arrow (Partisan)
4) Willie Nelson, Heroes (Sony Legacy)
5) The Golden Boys, Dirty Fingernails (12XU)
6) Flesh Lights, Too Big to Fail (Super Secret)
7) The Flatlanders, The Odessa Tapes (New West)
8) Riverboat Gamblers, The Wolf You Feed (Volcom)
9) Elias Haslanger, Church on Monday (Cherrywood)
10) Amy Cook, Summer Skin (Root House/Thirty Tigers)
Ten Locals You Missed
1) Deep Time (Hardly Art)
2) The Bad Lovers, Actin’ Strange (Burger City)
3) Manuel Cowboy Donley & His Trio Romantic-o, The Brown Recluse Sessions (Mini)
4) Kingdom of Suicide Lovers, Distant Waves (Golden Hour/Super Secret)
5) The Coffee Sergeants, Purple Martin Sanctuary (Monkey’s Paw)
6) Amy Annelle, The Cimarron Banks
7) El Pathos, Love and Hate (Saustex)
8) HeadCrusher, Let the Blood Run
9) Starlings, TN, Heartache in 4/4 Time (Chicken Ranch)
10) The Hobart Brothers & Lil’ Sis Hobart, At Least We Have Each Other (Freedom)
A Dozen If Not Vinyl Only Locals, Then Vinyl Mostly
1) The Golden Boys, Dirty Fingernails (12XU)
2) Foreign Mothers, Duh (Thread Pull)
3) A Giant Dog, Fight (Tic Tac Totally)
4) Dikes of Holland, Braindead USA (Screamers)
5) Doug Sahm, The Return of Wayne Douglas (Steady Boy)
6) Pong, Live at the Continental Club (The Rock Garage)
7) Crooked Bangs (Western Medical)
8) XYX, Teatro Negro (Monofonus)
9) The Gary, Remains (Sick Room)
10) The Sour Notes, Last Looks
11) Eagle Claw, Timing of the Void
12) Zlam Dunk, Balcones (Mission Social Club)
Eight Austin EPs
1) The Saint James Society (Tee Pee)
2) The League of Extraordinary G’z, The Plug
3) Gary Clark Jr., HWUL Raw Cuts Vol. 1 (Warner Bros.)
4) East Cameron Folkcore, The Sun Also Rises
5) Burgess Meredith, Banana Moon
6) Grace London, Rocketship Girl
7) Junior Brown, Volume 10
8) Prey for Sleep
This article appears in 2012.
