T in the Park: the Best and the Worst

Scotland's most popular music festival, T in the Park, enjoys some big acts, BBC coverage and over 85,000 paying customers, so it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to learn it’s also an empty, lifeless husk of an event. It’s a bit of a festival for people who aren’t so fussed about music, and judging by the amount of random fights, obnoxious chants and people hunched forward in their own sick (at 4pm, might I add) every idiot in Scotland got the memo and bought a ticket. Despite this and it’s already terrible national reputation there were some great acts playing (also it was sunny for the first time in probably forever), so let’s ignore the festival as a whole and have a little look at the highlights.

Nathan Flynn's Top 40 Songs of the 2012

After a year of listening to new music, I find that I’m not listening to a lot of 2012 music. There have been a few standout albums (Good Kid m.a.a.d. City, Some Nights, Vital, Cruel Summer) that I still listen to on a regular basis, but most releases, even some that I liked a lot- sorry Regina Spektor- have just fallen by the wayside. Well, this isn’t about the best albums of the year: this is about some diamonds in the rough scattered around some of 2012’s best and worst releases. My 40 favorite songs I would recommend checking out from this year (with links!) are: