2012 has been a fairly decent year for music. Quite a number excellent albums have been released. However, there isn't one single album that stands out in my mind as the best album released. The new Muse album was the album that surprised me the most of how good it was, but it certainly a case beating low expectations. The new Hot Chip and New Build albums are both fantastic additions to any collection, but I don't immediately think of them when someone says, best albums of 2012.

Dead Sara, Mother Mother, and Jukebox The Ghost are all bands that I discovered this year and have solid releases that are on the list of albums that I recommend to people looking for new bands to listen to. Yet none of them qualify as the best album of 2012. David Byrne and St. Vincent's collaboration album Love This Giant comes closest to mark of Best Album of the Year.

The efforts of The Shins, Ben Folds, Green Day, Grizzly Bear and The Killers all fall short of their previous albums and just don't move the needle toward the high mark. Fang Island's album was pretty good, but not great. Noel Gallagher's solo album demos were released as 'Faster Than the Speed of Magic' and while the stripped down, raw versions of the songs exceed the previous edition of the release, but it's neither his best work nor the best album of the year. The Smashing Pumpkins album Oceania is pretty awesome, but it's more of an album that grows on you.

So if there wasn't one immediate standout album, what really matters? It's the albums that we actually listen to the most that probably deserve to be at the top of the list. Here is my last.fm chart for most-listened to albums for the past 12 months:

1. New Build – Yesterday Was Lived and Lost [2012]
2. Mother Mother – The Sticks [2012]
3. The Beatles – Revolver [1966]
4. Radiohead – In Rainbows [2007]
5. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [1969]
6. Dead Sara – Dead Sara [2012]
7. Muse – The 2nd Law [2012]
8. The Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania [2012]
9. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds – Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds [2011]
10. Hot Chip – In Our Heads [2012]

Here is the top 10 most active albums on the download charts released in the past 12 months:
1. The xx - Coexist [2012]
2. The Black Keys - El Camino [2011]
3. Mumford & Sons - Babel [2012]
4. Passion Pit - Gossamer [2012]
5. Muse - The 2nd Law [2012]
6. Jack White - Blunderbuss [2012]
7. Grizzly Bear - Shields [2012]
8. Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city [2012]
9. The Shins - Port of Morrow [2012]
10. Tame Impala - Lonerism [2012]

Below are a number of selected songs from albums released this year.