The Top 5 Albums of 2012 From Bands That Start with M

Like everyone and their mother, I wanted to do a “Best Albums of 2012” list. When I sat down and looked at everything I got last year, I noticed that I bought a disproportionate amount of albums from bands that start with the letter “M.” I jumped for joy, because now I have a gimmick and will stand out from every music journalist with a blogger account by unveiling my

Top 5 Albums of 2012 from M Bands!!!

5. Masked Intruder Masked Intruder 

Silly, borderline-stalker-y, pop punk love songs from a band of anonymous punkers. Probably the most accurate representation of punk love, nerdy guy too scared to talk to girls and invents imaginary romances with them. Despite the somewhat sinister tone of the songs, they are infectiously bouncy and you will be singing the chorus to “Heart Shaped Guitar” out loud, even though the “hero” of that song is about to end up tased in the back of a squad car. All the songs have an Ergs feel to them. Guess that’s why Jaded Punk put Mikey Erg as one of their top suspects in their list of possible Intruders.

4. Mean Jeans On Mars

Another catchy as hell band, this one more Ramonesque. The Mean Jeans don’t do anything different from their previous work, but considering what they play, you don’t want them to. The perfect soundtrack for grilling and chilling.

3. The Mind Spiders Meltdown

Rocking a M in both the band name and the album name, the Mind Spiders also benefit from a singer that starts with an M (Mark) and a chunk of its members are also from a band that that stars with an M (the glorious Marked Men!!!). The Mind Spiders are both like and not like the Marked Men. They’re more organ-y but still awesome-y garage-y. The Mind Spiders RAWK.

2. The Manix Neighborhood Wildlife

The Manix play a style of punk that me and my homies call “Beard Rock.” A bunch songs about how life sucks so lets make tonight kick ass. My life sucks. This band makes it more tolerable.

1. Mixtapes Even on the Worst Nights

Mixtapes play inspiring pop punk. Like makes you want to quit your job and ride a bicycle all day and photocopy zines to leave in Anarchist bookstores and record shops kind of pop punk. When I play them at work, they turn my cubicle into a houseshow with cheap beers and good friends. I heart you, Mixtapes.

Marceline and the Scream Queens rekindles my love for the comic book medium.

Adventure Time is probably one of the best cartoons currently running. It is cute, offbeat, and super funny. And its a runaway success for Cartoon Network. It is a merchandizing juggernaut and comic books feature a big part in this cash cow.

I read comic books up until high school. All punks are nerds. We may lie about it but no one seeks out an alternative if they are doing pretty well in the mainstream. Comic books fell off my radar as I ran around being punk. Sort of. Because I devoted a good amount of time reading punk rock comics like Ben Snakepit Snakepit and Mitch Clem's Nothing Nice To Say and Liz Prince's autobiographical comic.

One of the coolest characters in a show dominated by cool characters is Marceline the Vampire Queen. She is a vampire that is not all whiny and mopey and teenaged-angsty like those sparkly vampires. And she plays a battle-ax bass. And she's waaaayyyy cooler than Princess Bubblegum. And that's not just my opinion. She's awesome enough to get her own comic book series.

The TV show uses a bunch of indie comic book artists and the comic books are no different. The Marceline series is written and drawn by Meredith Gran of Octopus Pie. But what alerted me to this series was that Liz Prince did the back up story in issue 3!

Hugs to anyone who noticed that both the backup story and Liz's own comic are Minor Threat references.

I had to get it for my Liz Prince collection. It would be wasteful to not read the main story, so I did and I was hooked. I'm still missing issue one but otherwise. I have all the available issues. And now I have to go back and get the Adventure Time comics as well. Its just like being a kid again, having to collect all the one-offs and team-ups and cross-overs. Only my allowance is bigger now.

If you love the Adventure Time, you definitely need to get the Marceline and the Scream Queens limited run. Its call all the perks of the tv show in a convenient handheld carrying case. Plus comic books don't fill up your dvr. And if that doesn't convince you, I present to you the single greatest panel ever. Featuring a line so perfect, I'm stealing it.