Speculative Albums
Albums for which early rumors have started to surface but no concrete details have been given. Nevertheless, we are hopeful to hear them in 2013.
Abe Vigoda
It’s been almost three years since Cali Punks Abe Vigoda had their last reinvention. After starting out as The Smell’s resident tropical influenced band, Abe Vigoda ditched those island influences for the gothic recesses of synthy post punk. With all this ADD genre jumping, you might imagine that the band hasn’t quite found their own sound yet, but they have this way of owning whatever corners of indie rock they squeeze themselves into. As of February of last year, the band was in the process of writing their next record so one might imagine, given the recent dearth of live dates that they’re hard at work on the latest incarnation of their sound. It seems pretty likely that we’ll see something from them this year.
– Colin Joyce
Arctic Monkeys
After testing out their pop chops on Suck It And See, the lairy lads from Sheffield are returning to the Joshua Tree desert for album number five. In case you’ve forgotten, the desert was the spawning ground for the perpetually underappreciated Humbug back in 2009. The Monkeys have built up some solid intra-album buzz, collecting no small amount of goodwill thanks to the success of last year’s one-off single “R U Mine?”. With a series of festival dates already confirmed and the band’s well-established reputation for prolificacy, a summer release seems likely.
– Brendan Frank
Deerhunter
Bradford Cox’s prolificacy is already the stuff of modern legend, and with good reason – see the release of Atlas Sound’s four volume Bedroom Databank series within about a year of both of his most recent solo outings for a particularly clear example of his output level. Between the main band, Atlas Sound, and Lockett Pundt’s solo project, Lotus Plaza, there hasn’t been a year since 2007 (!) without at least one Deerhunter-affiliated release, and I’d wager that 2013 will be no different. New material could very well take the form of a new Atlas Sound release or a debut from Cox and Cole Alexander’s Ghetto Cross project, but, given that Microcastle and Halcyon Digest are still some of my most revisited records, I’m holding out hope for a new Deerhunter record. Please.
– Ryan Stanley
Eminem – TBA
Oh, Marshall. It’s been a hard road for longtime Eminem fans, to hear their ringleader silenced, only to witness a return dependent on accents, and then worse, bells, whistles, and a Rihanna hook. For all intents and purposes, it seems like the real Slim Shady sat down quite some time ago. Yet, as the gears begin grinding in support of LP #8, a spot of promise looms: no one knows, in the least, what it will sound like. Glimmers of hope remain: just check out his verse on the already infamous Shady Cypher with his label mates: Mathers literally envelops all other comers. Rumors abound of his despising the pop Jimmy Iovine “forced” down his throat do battle with rumors that he’s only journeyed farther down commercial lanes. In truth, Em has been typically quiet, letting nothing on aside from that fact that is happening. Maybe those weighty words on 50 Cent’s “My Life” are true: ‘he wishes he’d never made Recovery.’ So do we, and I can only hope Slim has found his voice again. One thing is certain: no matter what he does, everyone will be listening.
– Chase McMullen
Kanye West
Kanye’s been busy. Since his last solo album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (the first, and only album (so far) to be rewarded a perfect 100% score by BPM on initial release, and our 2010 album of the year), he’s released an album with his idol Jay-Z, and a compilation for his own record imprint G.O.O.D. Music. On the side he launched his own fashion line, released another shoe with Nike, started dating Kim Kardashian, and well, got her pregnant.
So things have been looking up for Mr. West since the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, prior to the release of which he was dealing with the death of his mother and the isolating Taylor Swift incident. Still, that’s no reason to dismiss the chances of the polarizing and prolific producer turned emcee dropping another classic album.
Plus, he’s purchased the rights to TNGHT’s original version of “Higher Ground,” entitled “R U Ready?,” so why wouldn’t you be excited?
There’s also talks of a Cruel Summer follow-up called Cruel Winter but if it comes out at all we’ll probably be waiting til Cruel Spring.
– Evan Kaloudis
Los Campesinos!
Los Campesinos! officially brought an end to their Hello Sadness era with a Christmas blowout gig last month. The band will now get their heads down and work on their new album, sadly this time without bassist and original member Ellen, but it’s not as if losing a member is something new for the Welsh troupe. What the album will sound like can be somewhat surmised; the band has grown out of the tweeness of their early releases, but the raucous nature and cheeky attitude has never left them (evidenced daily by Gareth Campesinos’ highly amusing twitter feed) so we can expect to hear more of that on LP5. Whether it will be a sprawling epic like Romance Is Boring, a more concise release like Hello Sadness or somewhere in between, there are almost guaranteed to be tracks that will get you hopping around madly sitting comfortably alongside gutwrenching tracks that make you choke into your drink – and we can’t wait.
– Rob Hakimian
Spoon
It’s been three years since Spoon released their last album, Transference, and while we loved last year’s release from Britt Daniel’s new band Divine Fits, there are certain idiosyncrasies to Spoon’s sound that we’re not going to get anywhere else. In his recent Reddit AMA Daniel told us that he was hopeful that he and Spoon’s co-mastermind Jim Eno would be getting together in February to start discussing ideas for a new album. It’s a long way short of confirming that there will be a new album in 2013, but if sparks of brilliance and inspiration fly when they reconvene, you never know what they might be able to produce before the year draws to a close.
– Rob Hakimian
