Blunderbuss on 2012 Best Albums year-end lists

[DeeBee]

It's that season when music critics start compiling lists of their favorite albums of the year. Over the summer, Blunderbuss was turning up on a lot of mid-year "Best Albums of 2012" lists. It should be interesting to see how it's perceived and ranked on the year-end lists of music critics. Since it came out seven months ago, have they forgotten all about it?

Here were the Blunderbuss rankings on "best albums" lists at mid-year:
viewtopic.php?f=65&t=6531

This thread is a follow-up to that one, end-of-lists that include Blunderbuss, and also meta-critic sites that rank albums based on a compilation of statistics from large numbers of critical reviews.

I have not done much searching for year-end lists yet, and may not get around to it soon. I'm hoping others will also post here as they happen to come across such lists. A quick first look turned up the following two meta-critic sites.

Blunderbuss is currently ranked at #17 on the Acclaimed Music site:
http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/forums/vi ... ?f=2&t=654

And it's now at #2 on the Best Ever Albums site:
http://www.besteveralbums.com/yearstats.php?y=2012

Metacritic.com lists reviews for the album and compiles stats:
http://www.metacritic.com/music/blunderbuss

Their end of year list is not there yet, but Blunderbuss was at #13 on their mid-year list:
http://www.metacritic.com/feature/best- ... at-midyear

A site called "Album of the Year" ranks it at #99 out of 566 albums:
http://www.albumoftheyear.org/album/337 ... erbuss.php
(But their rankings are based on only 14 reviews, compared to over 80 for other similar sites.)

Most music critic sites have not yet posted their end-of-year lists, but a few have.

The Guardian has it at #29 on their list:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicbl ... 2012-40-21

It's at #15 on Paste Magazine's year-end list:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/list ... .html?p=4a

It's #149 out of 573 on Pitchfork's 'highest rated' list:
http://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/1 ... ted/2012/6

At #4 on this University of Massachussetts student newspaper, included here mainly for the 'explanation':
http://dailycollegian.com/2012/11/15/to ... 12-albums/

Also, FWIW, a wonderfully written review that I hadn't seen before:
http://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-revie ... lunderbuss

[Stay Gold]

Just saw that Blunderbuss is nominated for album of the year at the grammys. Along with the black keys.

[theeradicaleclectic]

lets get the campfire roastin and make us some smores... these black keys just need to learn how to each more chocolate and like it

[DeeBee]

Just saw that Blunderbuss is nominated for album of the year at the grammys. Along with the black keys.

Thanks for letting us know. Grammy nominations are definitely an important end-of-year "Best Albums" list. I'm not surprised that Blunderbuss was nominated for best album, given all the rave reviews. It would be great if it won this year.

List of Grammy nominees this year:
http://www.grammy.com/nominees

Blunderbuss is also nominated in the category of Best Rock Album, again in competition with The Black Keys. I was expecting that it might turn up in the 'Alternative' category, since much of the album is not really rock'n'roll. The White Stripes albums were all more rock'n'roll than Blunderbuss, and their nominations were all in the 'Alternative' category.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aw ... te_Stripes

Also Freedom at 21 is nominated in the category of Best Rock Song. (Against 'Lonely Boy' from TBK, which I must confess that I actually like better. I like Freedom at 21, but it's not my favorite track on the album, and I'm surprised that Sixteen Saltines was not nominated instead.)

It would have been nice to see some JW videos nominated, but no such luck. And for some reason I was thinking there was a category for Best Cover Version of a Song, and I thought that Jack White's cover of Love Is Blindness should win that category. But now I see that that there is no such category. What really seems strange to me is that there are over 80 categories, and only two are rock music.

_______________________________________________________

Add: I just read that The Black Keys' album El Camino was released in 2011, as was the single Lonely Boy. (The single in October and the album on December 6th.) I had assumed the nominees this time were all from 2012, but apparently not.

Some sales numbers on the nominees for best album, fwiw:

Ocean’s album [“Channel Orange”] has sold about 390,000 copies to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan, compared with 791,000 for “Some Nights,” a little more than 1 million for The Black Keys’ “El Camino,” 1.2 million for Mumford & Sons’ “Babel” and more than 400,000 for Jack White’s “Blunderbuss,” the other album nominees.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/en ... 4387.story

[AJ123]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

[arewhyehen]

Jack has been nominated for 3 Grammys, including “Album of the Year.” In addition to “Album of the Year,” Blunderbuss is also nominated for “Best Rock Album” and “Freedom at 21″ is nominated for “Best Rock Song.” The 55th Annual Grammy Awards will be broadcast live on CBS at 8 pm ET/PT on February 10th, 2013.

URP just posted this on facebook...


Guess all that muscle cars and sexy girls really helped out Jack's Freedom at 21 music video..

[arewhyehen]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

its got all the muscle cars and sexy girls in the video....that shit sells

[DBCooper]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

Well 75% of the album is country/folk...not rock. Jack White is known mostly as a Rock Artist. This is extremely confusing to the comittee and pop world who care about the gay grammy's. I hope he doesnt even go.

[mojoryan]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

Well 75% of the album is country/folk...not rock. Jack White is known mostly as a Rock Artist. This is extremely confusing to the comittee and pop world who care about the gay grammy's. I hope he doesnt even go.

Ok DB, could you qualify that? That's roughly 10 out of 13 songs. And really, if you look at most of the great rock albums, you'll see a decent variety of interpretations of "rock" within one album. Come on now, man....it's rock-n-roll. Sure, there are some pretty broad influences throughout, but still r-n-r in my playbook.

[DBCooper]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

Well 75% of the album is country/folk...not rock. Jack White is known mostly as a Rock Artist. This is extremely confusing to the comittee and pop world who care about the gay grammy's. I hope he doesnt even go.

Ok DB, could you qualify that? That's roughly 10 out of 13 songs. And really, if you look at most of the great rock albums, you'll see a decent variety of interpretations of "rock" within one album. Come on now, man....it's rock-n-roll. Sure, there are some pretty broad influences throughout, but still r-n-r in my playbook.

Yes I can qualify that...what are the rock songs on the album please? I get 16 Saltines, Freedom at 21, and maybe Shakin. I would classify the album strictly in the "American Roots Field" categories and country. Look at Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Kid Rock, Toby Keith, and Keith Urban. Those guys are playing rock and roll dressed up with cowboy hats and pictures of tractors on their album covers. Jacks typecast as a rock n roller. Even though I think he does more of everything else besides rock n roll now. And thats cool by the way!

[Kali Durga]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

I love Freedom at 21. It's got one of the sexiest riffs Jack's ever written.

[Stay Gold]

F@21 seems to be getting all the award nominations when in actuality it is one of the weaker tracks on the album

Well 75% of the album is country/folk...not rock. Jack White is known mostly as a Rock Artist. This is extremely confusing to the comittee and pop world who care about the gay grammy's. I hope he doesnt even go.

Your beloved foo fighters were in the same category last year. They seemed happy about it. The Grammy have never been cool anything, but damn when an actually good artist gets nominated for something big, why not appreciate seeing them on the big stage?

It was great to see arcade fire come out of nowhere and steal the award from the heavy favorites like Katy perry and Eminem

Plus the chances are Jack will be performing and maybe we will see something cool with the two bands.

[DBCooper]

Id rather put a stick in my eye than watch the grammy's.

[Stay Gold]

Id rather put a stick in my eye than watch the grammy's.

dang, you're so like.. punk rock anti establishment and against the mainstream..

but seriously the grammys suck, but if there is moment when something cool is on why not watch it? stop trying to act too cool.

[rsimms3]

Id rather put a stick in my eye than watch the grammy's.

dang, you're so like.. punk rock anti establishment and against the mainstream..

but seriously the grammys suck, but if there is moment when something cool is on why not watch it? stop trying to act too cool.