Some Stuff We Liked in 2012

Wulgus is a fat sad sack of crap. He was the idiot on last year's list who liked that iCarly girl song. He's in his mid-20's and recently deactivated his Facebook.

ULTRAíSTA, "Gold Dayzz"

I feel like Ultraísta went criminally under-reviewed and under-heard in 2012, despite the fact that it came from Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, who I had never heard of until Ultraísta. Some of their videos will make you feel like your eyes are going to vibrate out of your skull, but if you close them then Laura Bettinson's bouncy vocals are perfect for the fusion of afrobeat/krautrock/glitter falling out of your monitor. Such good goddamned electro-pop.

MAKEUP AND VANITY SET, "A Glowing Light, A Promise"

Did you know there is an entire genre dedicated to reliving the glory days of the 1980s synthesizer? And that that genre has its own separate subgenres? The world is so weird and cool sometimes.

I'm glad this kind of thing exists, because it has helped bridge the relatively short generational gap between my mother and me. A tip to the preteen readers: do not have children while you're still in high school because otherwise you will be forced to bond with your firstborn son over your shared love for nostalgic synthesized '80s beats made by a couple of kids who are actually younger than said son. This song rules, my mom and I both think so.

TEEN, "Electric"

The middle segment of this video is like one of the dancing-girl transition scenes from Austin Powers as performed by the cast of Twin Peaks. Then it just turns into Twin Peaks. No member of TEEN is actually a teen, but they all have the detached soulless expressions and spastic body movements of the current teen generation down perfectly! They are insanely nuts and two of them are sisters and they made a badass catchy pop song and ran it through a buzzsaw to make it better somehow. They will probably be at the Medium Level Tent at the Pitchfork music festival in 2013.

TINASHE, "Boss" (Ryan Hemsworth Remix)

Like a lot of other trap DJ's, Nova Scotia's Ryan Hemsworth is going to be making a lot of pretty cute college-aged white kids sweat through their neon clothes while they're all smiled out on MDMA. I wish him well on this honorable journey. Start playing this mix he did for Truancy if you want to distract your friends into dancing instead of using your fridge magnets to spell out HOMOBOY.

What can I say about Tinashe? Except that she is great and talented and watching the video that she made by her own damn self makes me kind of regret my recent transition to assexualtiy.

RIFF RAFF & TrapZillas, "Midnight Sprite"

It's pretty simple: Jody Highroller is the future of 2012.

Oh, and here's a Riff Raff remix by Hemsworth.

KASPER BJøRKE ft Laid Back, "Bohemian Soul"

I love everything about this song and video and I hope you do too. That is all.

– WET BUTT, cf, Wulgus and Andrew "Garbage Day" Miller