Unlike those other fancy blogs, we’re not ones to make a best of post using songs that came out during the year. We’re too hipster for that! Instead, here is a selection of our favourite tunes that we posted about this year. Happy end of 2012, folks!

AJ’s favourites for 2012, in no particular order

Hugh’s favourites for 2012, in no particular order

And that’s it for 2012!

Seems like we were able to keep up this post a day thing till the end of the year, so we’ll keep going with it in 2013. To anyone out there reading this, or anyone that liked any of our posts during the year: thanks! To all the artists, musicians and bands featured on either/or this year: bravo! You guys are totally rad!

For some reason, I’m still watching How I Met Your Mother. There is no accounting for taste, it seems! This song featured on the most recent season finale (Romance! Drama! Poignant staring!), further cementing the show’s Scrubs-like affinity for picking some great music for its episodes. This is one of those optimistic, buoyant indie rock tunes and though you may have heard it a hundred times in other songs, it’s hard to say no to such loveliness.

Too busy to look at either/or this week? Can’t be bothered scrolling down? Well, here’s the week’s worth of posts in one handy list!

Rilo Kiley – Rest Of My Life
Sarah Jarosz – Run Away
Eels – Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
Crooked Still – Distress
Earlimart – Internet Summer
Go Betty Go – The Pirate Song
Burning Idol – Mining Melancholy

Well, we haven’t any video game music for AGES, so here we go! Rather than a straight up piece directly from a game, this is actually a rather superb cover. Anyone who knows anything about video game music will know that Donkey Kong Country 2 had some completely bitchin’ tracks (these guys even did a cover of Stickerbrush Symphony, which is equally awesome), which tend to sound even better when they’re done with real instruments as opposed to MIDI. Too techy? Well, sit tight and listen! (For comparisons sake, here’s the original.)

I remember having a big ‘ol crush on the singer for Go Betty Go years ago, which is weird because I don’t see the appeal anymore. Anyway, then she quit the band and their replacement singer was just terrible. Luckily for me, they didn’t release any albums with their new singer so my memories of them can remain pure! They got back together recently, and I hope they make some new albums now that they have their good singer back. In the meantime, enjoy this awesome song from their 2005 debut, Nothing Is More. It’s a delightful pop/punk song with a frickin’ accordion. Have I mentioned recently how much I love accordions? No? I LOVE ACCORDIONS.

Earlier this year, I posted a rad Earlimart song because I could not find another. Well, that illusive tune is online now, so here’s the post you would’ve got earlier! The song is called Internet Summer after all, so it’d be rather ironic if you couldn’t actually find it online.

As I mentioned back then, this song does have a rather identifiable, Earlimart feel to it, but I maintain that it’s a good thing. Particularly when it’s as pumping as this!

The banjo, as an instrument, is rather a rather difficult instrument to make sound sincere. Stereotypically, it tends to evoke imagery of toothless old hillbillies, strumming about tobacco and moonshine. Thankfully, that is not always the case.

This is just marvellous: a gentle banjo is joined by a lone violin and various other bits and pieces, with the combination graced with beautiful, breathy vocals. Even if the vocalist looked like one of those toothless old hillbillies, I certainly wouldn’t care!

I hate Christmas carols. In fact, Christmas in general tends to bring out the bah humbug in me: I think the gaudiness of the commercial side of it offends my design sensibilities. But when you pair an original Christmas tune with some rockin’ rock, then you can’t really say no to that! Particularly when the Eels are involved.

Anyway, since this is Christmas Day, from Hugh and I here at either/or, have yourself a Merry Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza/Festivus/All of the Above!

Everyone loves some gorgeous, country-flavoured folk sung with a spectacular voice, right? I humbly submit that you suck if that’s not the case! This is heavenly and tender-sweet, and with just the right amount of flair and individuality to pull it out of the more pure country doldrums. What’s more, it’s sung by a very pretty lady: I’d sure like to run away with her!

I was sorting through my music and went “hey, this song is pretty dang super.” I’ve heard it before, but now that the lyrics loosely apply to me, it’s like, whoa! I would not recommend listening to this song after a break-up, but if you just broke up with someone, you’d probably have better things to do than read this tripe! It is a great unrequited love song, which is kind of like my genre, maaaaaan.