New Music Roundup, 1/15/13

Guess who's back?

I got keys

Comin' from overseas

Cost a - (This seems like an appropriate time to raise the question: am I allowed to use the n-word if quoting a rap song?  No?  Ok, then.  Moving on...)

Anyway, as that aborted rap verse indicates, after a several month-long hiatus, the new music roundup is making its - if not exactly triumphant, then at least enthusiastic - return.  Not all of this is technically new music, but it's all new to me, so you'll just have to indulge me.  I swear to god, fictional audience, sometimes you can be so picky.

Emile Sandé - Our Version of Events

This is one of those older albums I only discovered the past couple of days.  I'm a little unsure when the album was released in the US, but it was released in the UK almost a year ago.  If my Sirius Radio listening experience is any indication, Sandé is starting to get a lot more exposure over here in the past couple weeks, and with good reason: if I had to succinctly describe what Sandé sounds like, I'd go with "Alicia Keys on steroids."  This isn't meant to be a knock on Keys, who's perfectly acceptable, but I think Sandé has the more powerful voice of the two, and she is at least Keys's songwriting equal.  Like Keys she's comfortable working across a couple different genres, mainly R&B, hip hop, dance, and soul.  I'm honestly surprised this record hasn't gained much traction in the United States to date, listening to it I thought it could very easily be in the same vein as Adele's 21 and think it deserves something approaching that ubiquity.  If nothing else, if you haven't yet heard the song "Next to Me," I'm fairly certain that will be rectified in the coming months.  

Selections

Next to Me

Heaven

Read All About It (Part III)

My Kind of Love

Best 13 Albums of 2012

It sure felt like it was an awful good year in music this year.  It's been interesting compiling this list after paying so much closer attention to new releases on a week to week basis: some of the albums released in the first quarter of the year feel like they came out a decade ago.  Still, these selections have managed to stay at the forefront of my mind, and I fully expect to be reaching for these albums often in the years to come.

13) Tribes - Baby

I listened the hell out of this album at the beginning of the year.  Old-school 90's Britpop with plenty of singalong choruses.

We Were Children

When My Day Comes

Corner of an English Field