The year is almost up and you’ve probably overlooked a lot of music that you should have given a listen. These are songs that deserved more recognition than they received. Here’s our pick of the five most underrated tracks that were overlooked in2012.
1. Frank Ocean – ‘Sweet Life’ (Channel Orange)
‘Channel Orange’ is praised as one of the most influential and ground-breaking albums of the decade not alone 2012. Well, with songs like ‘Pink Matter’, ‘Thinking About You’, ‘Bad Religion’ and ‘Forrest Gump’ it’s no wonder that millions of music fans were taken in by Ocean’s obscure yet vivid notion of life, love and youth. ‘Sweet life’ is not only the perfect summer nights and mojitos soundtrack, its melodic keys are reminiscent of those of Wonder and Vandross. Oh and how could we forget that falsetto?
2. Kendrick Lamar – ‘Poetic Justice’ (Good Kid m.A.A.D City)
Kendrick’s ‘Good Kid m.A.A.D City’ was one of this year’s most anticipated hip hop albums and for many the 25-year-old, rapper didn’t fail to disappoint. As much as we love a serious hip hop album, there has to be room for at least one slow jam and ‘Poetic Justice’ does it for us. With 16 slick bars from Drake and a sample of Janet Jackson’s hit ‘Any Time, Any Place,’ this track is definitely one for the ladies allowing listeners to take a break from the gang-ridden backdrop of Crompton Kendrick depicts throughout the album to spend five minutes focusing on his featured teenaged love interest Sherane.
3. Emeli Sande – ‘Lifetime’ (Our Version Of Events)
Singing sensation and woman of the moment Emeli Sande’s chart-smahing album ‘Our Version of Events,’ captured the hearts of many Brits throughout our Olympic summer and the rest of the year, so critics must have been patting their backs when the Scottish singer took the year by storm just as they predicated. With the hand of producer Naughty Boy tracks like ‘Heaven’ and ‘Daddy’ have become instant hits. Track 12 ‘Lifetime, teams up a chirpy 808 with a let’s just say with some half glass empty lyrics. Despite this ‘Lifetime’ is a still at the top of our favourites list.
4. Labrinth – ‘Sundown’ (Electric Earth)
Everyone loves a bit of auto-tune, right? And what’s better than a little case of vocal distortion teamed up with a few lyrics from the 70s hit, Big Yellow Taxi. Well, singer-songwriter and producer Labrinth obviously thought this too would be a pretty good idea resulting in track ‘Sundown.’ Now like we said we don’t really mind a little auto-tune from time to time and the fact that Labrinth has managed to put a dark almost dreary spin on what could have turned into track that even T-Pain would close his ears to makes us love it even more. Only Labrinth, ey?
5. Lana Del Rey- ‘Off to The Races’ (Born To Die)
Listening to a Lana Del Rey’s album is like rummaging your way through a costume box full of dresses, hats, clown outfits, fat suits and other quirky garments inspired by Minnie Riperton, Kate Bush and Prince. In a nutshell Lana is one over the top and dramatic. Her hit single ‘Born To Die’ lives up to this repute. ‘Off To The Races’ has a mixture of theatrical vocals, kooky mannerisms and some cutesy girly rapping, which makes it a strong track on the album.
Written by Nsofwa Kangwa [@SaffMKC]