Year In Review

Exclaim!'s Best Albums of 2012:

Top 50 Albums of the Year

PUBLISHED Dec 21, 2012

Throughout the month of December, Exclaim! has been rolling out our coverage of the best albums of the year, divided into seven different g...

Exclaim's Most Unappreciated Albums of 2012

PUBLISHED Dec 20, 2012

A lot of great music comes out in a year, and not all of it gets the attention it deserves. Some get a fair bit of credit, but not enough;...

Top Non-Rap Freeleases of 2012

PUBLISHED Dec 20, 2012

Between major-player stop-gap freebies from dudes like Rick Ross and Big Sean, career-building collections from Joey Bada$$ and Chief Keef,...

Hip-Hop 2012: Inside Lamar's Black Hippy Crew

PUBLISHED Dec 20, 2012

Flipping the Wu-Tang Clan's model for success, the four-headed beast that is South Central L.A.'s Black Hippy wants to establish each of it...

Hip-Hop 2012: New Era Hip-Hop

PUBLISHED Dec 20, 2012

Overall, 2012 was good to hip-hop: the artists that had the greatest successes proved that the genre has matured beyond a binary old school...

Exclaim!'s Best Albums of 2012:

Hip-Hop

PUBLISHED Dec 19, 2012

Assuming you already picked up our 2012 year-end issue, you already know our number one album here, not that Kendrick Lamar's poignant debu...

Pop and Rock 2012: It's Getting Loud

PUBLISHED Dec 19, 2012

Separated by musical backgrounds and international borders, a phalanx of young bucks were united in 2012 by a common purpose: the hard and...

Pop and Rock 2012: Breakout Label - Arbutus

PUBLISHED Dec 19, 2012

One of 2012's undeniable breakout stars was Montreal's Grimes (pictured above) and her Polaris-nominated album, Visions. The label behind h...