At long last, UPROXX will publish our best albums of the year feature tomorrow (“Hm, Eve 6 or Matchbox Twenty?” reads Cajun’s notebook), but to hold you over, let’s talk about some records that won’t be on that list. Specifically, 2012 releases from bands that you’ve heard of, but didn’t know they put out something new this year. Like Smash Mouth. Yes, there was a new Smash Mouth album, but no one blabbed about it because everyone was busy listening to their Fiona Apples and Kendrick Lamars. Let’s correct America’s mistake.
Here are eight albums from eight popular bands that came and went in 2012, with little notice.
Magic by Smash Mouth
Actual lyrics from an actual Smash Mouth song that was actually released in 2012:
Did we have enough of all the Facebook Tweeters?
Did we really have to hear about it all the time?
Whatever happened to the die hard Gleekers
They covered everything except a song of mine
Oh, and the song’s called “Justin Bieber.” Smash Mouth is timeless.
The View from the Bottom by Lit
The View from the Bottom? “Same Shit, Different Drink”? The guys in Lit are going through something.
Après by Iggy Pop
Great artists are allowed the occasional vanity project — it’s just a shame Iggy Pop chose an album full of covers of French songs. Couldn’t he have done a tribute to, I dunno, Goatwhore instead?
Havoc and Bright Lights by Alanis Morissette
Fun bar bet: anyone who can name all EIGHT ALANIS MORISSETTE ALBUMS gets free drinks for life.
Days Go By by the Offspring
Never forget.
Invisible Stars by Everclear
Every song was about divorce, probably.
My Teenage Dream Ended by Farrah Abraham
Farrah Abraham is one of the more famous contestants on MTV’s Teen Mom, so of course she’s worthy of a record deal. My Teenage Dream Ended, the AV Club’s “least essential album of 2012,” needed to be included on this list because of the song titles alone: “The Phone Call That Changed My Life,” “Unplanned Parenthood,” “After Prom,” etc. Some websites attempted to contextualize the album, calling it “outsider art” and a “reflection and magnification of the typical issues of the teen Self,” but this anonymous Amazon review is more accurate: “No matter how horrible my life gets, I can feel better about myself because I didn’t make this album.”
Kidz Bop 22
Just a reminder that Kidz Bop is still around, and that they’re covering Nicki Minaj, Adele, and Train.
