Magazine/website/record store BEST OF 2011 end-of-year list pile-up

They're starting to dribble out already so let's round them up here.

Paste magazine, I am lolling @ u

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2011/11/the-50-best-albums-of-2011.html

50. Frank Turner – England Keep My Bones
49. Mates of State – Mountaintops
48. Drake – Take Care
47. Real Estate – Days
46. Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!
45. Those Darlins – Screws Get Loose
44. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
43. The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar
42. Wild Flag – Wild Flag
41. James Blake – James Blake

40. Portugal. The Man – In The Mountain, In The Cloud
39. Foster the People – Torches
38. Over the Rhine – The Long Surrender
37. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient
36. Mister Heavenly – Out Of Love
35. Childish Gambino – Camp
34. Seryn – This Is Where We Are
33. The Head and the Heart – The Head and the Heart
32. Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
31. Telekinesis – 12 Desperate Straight Lines

30. Tom Waits – Bad As Me
29. Feist – Metals
28. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes
27. Black Lips – Arabia Mountain
26. The Low Anthem – Smart Flesh
25. The Antlers – Burst Apart
24. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light
23. The Belle Brigade – The Belle Brigade
22. The Black Keys – El Camino
21. Charles Bradley – No Time For Dreaming

20. Beirut – The Rip Tide
19. Cults – Cults
18. Wye Oak – Civilian
17. The Civil Wars – Barton Hollow
16. Yuck – Yuck
15. Deer Tick – Divine Providence
14. Adele – 21
13. Radiohead – The King of Limbs
12. Iron & Wine – Kiss Each Other Clean
11. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

10. The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
9. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
8. Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong
7. Wilco – The Whole Love
6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – It’s A Corporate World
5. Middle Brother – Middle Brother
4. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
3. My Morning Jacket – Circuital
2. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

The fact mag countdown has started:

http://www.factmag.com/2011/11/28/50-best-albums-of-2011-50-41/

god help paste magazine if they really haven't heard any albums better than those 50

Yep, totally dismal

Songlines top ten albums

http://www.songlines.co.uk/world-music-news/2011/11/best-albums-of-2011/

Abigail Washburn - City of Refuge
Aurelio - Laru Beya
Carminho - Fado
Blind Note - Blind Note
Boban & Marko Markovic & Fanfare Ciocarlia - Balkan Brass Battle
Cecil Sharp Project - Cecil Sharp Project
Söndörgő - Tamburising
Dawda Jobarteh - Northern Light Gambian Night
Anda Union - The Wind Horse
Anoushka Shankar - Traveller

Rough Trade shop - top 100 albums

1 josh t pearson - last of the country gentlemen
2 nicolas jaar - space is only noise
3 kurt vile - smoke ring for my halo
4 gillian welch - the harrow and the harvest
5 pj harvey - let england shake
6 veronica falls - veronica falls
7 zomby - dedication
8 john maus - we must become the pitiless censors of ourselves
9 the head and the heart - the head and the heart
10 white hills - h-p1

11 sbtrkt - sbtrkt
12 lykke li - wounded rhymes
13 metronomy - the english riviera
14 calvi anna - anna calvi
15 bon iver - bon iver
16 pollyn - living in patterns
17 beirut - the rip tide
18 ema - past life martyred saints
19 cults - cults
20 balam acab - wander / wonder

21 ghostpoet - peanut butter blues and melancholy jam
22 lanterns on the lake - gracious tide take me home
23 drive by truckers - go-go boots
24 tom the lion - the adventures of tom the lion
25 civil wars - barton hollow
26 emmy the great - virtue
27 the low anthem - smart flesh
28 black lips - arabia mountain
29 seahawks - invisible sunrise
30 villalobos ricardo and max loderbauer - re: ecm

31 jeb loy - the jeb loy nichols special
32 wild beasts - smother
33 wild flag - wild flag
34 yuck - yuck
35 cook hollie - hollie cook
36 wooden shjips - west
37 waits tom - bad as me
38 tucek sarabeth - get well soon
39 still corners - creatures of an hour
40 dum dum girls - only in dreams

41 arctic monkeys - suck it and see
42 wilco - the whole love
43 the stepkids - the stepkids
44 washed out - within and without
45 the leisure society - into the murky water
46 carlyle mara - floreat
47 iceage - new brigade
48 dawes - nothing is wrong
49 blake james - james blake
50 the vaccines - what do you expect from the vaccines

51 peaking lights - 936
52 radiohead - king of limbs
53 azari and iii - azari and iii
54 danger mouse and daniele luppi - rome
55 male bonding - endless now
56 cashier no 9 - to the death of fun
57 the war on drugs - slave ambient
58 unknown mortal orchestra - unknown mortal orchestra
59 bjork - bibliophilia
60 cat's eyes - cat's eyes

61 moore thurston - demolished thoughts
62 little dragon - ritual union
63 king creosote and jon hopkins - diamond mine
64 the field - looping state of mind
65 fucked up - david comes to life
66 the decemberists - the king is dead
67 martyn - ghost people
68 flashman - to the victor - the spoils
69 wu lyf - go tell fire to the mountain
70 other lives - tamer animals

71 explosions in the sky - take care take care take care
72 cornershop ft. bubbley kaur - cornershop and the double 'o' groove
73 the felice brothers - celebration florida
74 dirty beaches - badlands
75 real estate - days
76 richmond fontaine - the high country
77 dury baxter - happy soup
78 she keeps bees - dig on
79 dark dark dark - wild go
80 planningtorock - w

81 pete and the pirates - one thousand pictures
82 kitty daisy and lewis - smoking in heaven
83 fleet foxes - helplessness blues
84 the horrors - skying
85 moon duo - mazes
86 big deal - lights out
87 locussolus - locussolus
88 new look - new look
89 kode 9 and the spaceape - black sun
90 beastie boys - hot sauce committee part two

91 woods - sun and shade
92 love inks - esp
93 summer camp - welcome to condale
94 jehst - the dragon of an ordinary family
95 i break horses - hearts
96 shabazz palaces - black up
97 big troubles - romantic comedy
98 neon indian - era extrana
99 tune-yards - whokill
100 tyler the creator - goblin

an improvement on the paste list but still way too much boring indie

also, a top 100 - who can even take that all in?

not me for a kick off.

The bottom 50 of a top 100 usually tends to be a lot more interesting to me than the top.

Because, if it's caused by voting listmaking, it means that at least 2 people have ~really~ loved something which was either ignored or loathed by everyone else. Which is the sign of a marmitey album that I might love more than the dull boring critical consensus ones.

it's true! someone needs to develop some sort of app for filtering out the dull consensus picks

just noticed that they mistitled the bjork album at 59 :)

i do not have the brain for this kind of list-making, but the frank ocean & colin stetson lps are on neither, & are interesting lps. i know that's picky but that they're reasonably highly thought of inside their non-indie-genres seems illuminating.

i'm fucking livid at that paste list

35. Childish Gambino – Camp

35. Childish Gambino

Childish Gambino

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_B5kcJAvats/Taxg8ZzfmdI/AAAAAAAAADo/sagE9rMLt50/s1600/childish-gambino.jpg

dealwithit.gif

DECIBEL EOY List:

1. Tombs - Path of Totality
2. Opeth- Heritage
3. Mastodon - The Hunter
4. In Solitude - The World. The Flesh. The Devil.
5. Brutal Truth- End Time
6. Hate Eternal - Phoenix Amongst the Ashes
7. YOB - Atma
8. 40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room
9. Inquisition - Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual.......
10. Junius - Reports From The Threshold of Death
11. Graveyard - Hisingen Blues
12. Primordial - Redemption at the Puritan's Hand
13. Exhumed - All Guts, No glory
14. False - False
15. Autopsy - Macabre Eternal
16. Revocation - Chaos of Forms
17. Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
18. Obscura - Omnivium
19. Drugs of Faith - Corroded
20. Subrosa - No Help for the Mighty Ones
21. Ulcerate - The Destroyers of All
22. Fucked Up - David Comes to Life
23. Atriarch - Forever the End
24. Disma - Towards the Megalith
25. Moab - Ab Ovo
26. Gridlink - Orphan
27. Skeletonwitch - Forever Abomination
28. Vallenfyre - A Fragile King
29. Crowbar - Sever the Wicked Hand
30. Mournful Congregation - The Book of Kings
31. Machine Head - Unto the Locust
32. ABSU - Abzu
33. Negative Plane - Stained Glass Revelations
34. Origin - Entity
35. Darkest Era - The Last Caress of Light
36. Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
37. Hammers of Misfortune - 17th Street
38. Krallice - Diotima
39. Rwake - Rest
40. Graf Orlock - Doom Box

i'm fucking livid at that paste list

I can only assume you've never seen a Paste list before, since this is par for the shitty course.

THE FLY

01 - BURST APART - THE ANTLERS
02 - THE ENGLISH RIVIERA - METRONOMY
03 - SKYING - THE HORRORS
04 - DYE IT BLONDE - SMITH WESTERNS
05 - A DIFFERENT KIND OF FIX - BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB
06 - LET ENGLAND SHAKE - PJ HARVEY
07 - SMOTHER - WILD BEASTS
08 - FATHER, SON, HOLY GHOST - GIRLS
09 - WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FROM THE VACCINES _ THE VACCINES
10 - GLOSS DROP - BATTLES
11 - SMOKE RING FOR MY HALO - KURT VILE
12 - THE KING OF LIMBS - RADIOHEAD
13 - YUCK - YUCK
14 - PALA - FRIENDLY FIRES
15 - ANNA CALVI - ANNA CALVI
16 - WITHIN AND WITHOUT - WASHED OUT
17 - BON IVER - BON IVER
18 - JAMES BLAKE - JAMES BLAKE
19 - VERONICA FALLS - VERONICA FALLS
20 - CEREMONIALS - FLORENCE & THE MACHINE
21 - UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA - UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
22 - DAYS - REAL ESTATE
23 - ARABIA MOUNTAIN - BLACK LIPS
24 - A CREATURE I DON´T KNOW - LAURA MARLING
25 - D - WHITE DENIM
26 - HAPPY SOUP - BAXTER DURY
27 - HELPLESSNESS BLUES - FLEET FOXES
28 - GO TELL FIRE TO THE MOUNTAIN - WU LYF
29 - NATIVE SPEAKER - BRAIDS
30 - GARDENS & VILLA - GARDENS & VILLA
31 - A THOUSAND HEYS - MAZES
32 - CADENZA - DUTCH UNCLES
33 - LAST NIGHT ON EARTH - NOAH & THE WHALE
34 - HOTEL SHAMPOO - GRUFF RHYS
35 - STRANGE MERCY - ST. VINCENT
36 - SUCK IT AND SEE - ARCTIC MONKEYS
37 - PAST-LIFE MARTYRED SAINTS - EMA
38 - WOUNDED RHYMES - LYKKE LI
39 - MIRROR TRAFFIC - STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS
40 - SBTRKT - SBTRKT
41 - SLAVE AMBIENT - THE WAR ON DRUGS
42 - MYLO XYLOTO - COLDPLAY
43 - BLACK UP - SHABAZZ PALACES
44 - CEREBRAL BALLZY - CEREBRAL BALLZY
45 - BUILD A ROCKET BOYS! - ELBOW
46 - ANGLES - THE STROKES
47 - PARADISE - SLOW CLUB
48 - VALHALLA DANCEHALL - BRITISH SEA POWER
49 - PASSIVE ME, AGRESSIVE YOU - THE NAKED AND THE FAMOUS
50 - THE BIG ROAR - THE JOY FORMIDABLE

Sonic (Swedish magazine) Albums

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2. Gillian Welch - The Harrow & the Harvest
3. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
4. Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What
5. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
6. James Blake - James Blake
7. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
8. Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire
9. Tinariwen - Tassili
10. Feist - Metals
11. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
12. The Weeknd - House of Baloons
13. Shabazz Palace - Black Up
14. Wilco - The Whole Love
15. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra
16. A. A. Bondy - Believers
17. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
18. Adele - 21
19. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
20. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin
21. Deportees - Islands & Shores
22. Zomby - Dedication
23. Ison & Fille - För evigt
24. Holy Ghost! - Holy Ghost!
25. Jonathan Johansson - Klagomuren

Blitz from Portugal.

50) The Dodos: No Color
49) Mastodon: The Hunter
48) Bill Callahan: Apocalypse
47) Zomby: Dedication
46) Wild Flag: Wild Flag
45) TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light
44) Toro Y Moi: Underneath the Pine
43) Patrick Wolf: Lupercalia
42) David Sylvian: Died In Wool
41) SBTRKT: SBTRKT
40) Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tell Me
39) Radiohead: The King of Limbs
38) Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact
37) The Weeknd: House of Balloons
36) Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde
35) Friendly Fires: Pala
34) Florence and the Machine: Ceremonials
33) The Field: Looping State Of Mind
32) tUnE-yArDs: w h o k i l l
31) Tinariwen: Tassili
30) Justice: Audio, Video, Disco
29) Metronomy: The English Riviera
28) Afrocubism: Afrocubism
27) Trap Them: Darker Handcarft
26) Coldplay: Mylo Xyloto
25) Chico Buarque: Chico
24) Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes
23) Feist: Metals
22) Wild Beasts: Smother
21) Low: C'mon
20) Jamie Won: Mirrorwriting
19) Diddy Dirty Money: Last Train To Paris
18) Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit
17) Britney Spears: Femme Fatale
16) Beyoncé: 4
15) Tyler, the Creator: Goblin
14) Katy B: On a Mission
13) Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi
12) Destroyer: Kaputt
11) WU LYF: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
10) Adele: 21
09) Tom Waits: Bad As Me
08) Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know
07) Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo
06) Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks: Mirror Traffic
05) Bon Iver: Bon Iver
04) Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues
03) Nicolas Jaar: Space Is Only Noise
02) PJ Harvey: Let England Shake
01) James Blake: James Blake

Recordstore.co.uk

1. Connan Mockasin Forever Dolphin Love
2. Metronomy The English Riviera
3. The Horrors Skying
4. Kurt Vile Smoke Ring For My Halo
5. Azari & III Azari & III
6. Little Dragon Ritual Union
7. Cut Copy Zonoscope
8. Unknown Mortal Orchestra Unknown Mortal Orchestra
9. Smith Westerns Dye It Blonde
10. Shabazz Palaces Black Up
11. Cat's Eyes Cat's Eyes
12. Thurston Moore Demolished Thoughts
13. Radiohead The King Of Limbs
14. The Antlers Burst Apart
15. Baxter Dury Happy Soup
16. Bon Iver Bon Iver
17. Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost
18. Yuck Yuck
19. The War On Drugs Slave Ambient
20. Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes
21. Black Lips Arabia Mountain
22. EMA Past Life Martyred Saints
23. Dum Dum Girls Only In Dreams
24. Laura Marling A Creature I Don't Know
25. Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi Rome
26. Slow Club Paradise
27. Dutch Uncles Cadenza
28. Beastie Boys Hot Sauce Committee Part Two
29. Wooden Shjips West
30. Papercuts Fading Parade

Q's Top 50 Albums Of 2011

50. Justice - Audio Video Disco
49. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra
48. Noah & The Whale - Last Night On Earth
47. Mastodon - The Hunter
46. SBTRKT - SBTRKT
45. Miles Kane - Colour Of The Trap
44. Death In Vegas - Trans-Love Energies
43. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine
42. Josh T Pearson - Last Of The Country Gentlemen
41. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
40. Danger Mouse & Daniel Luppi - Rome
39. James Blake - James Blake
38. Feist - Metals
37. Washed Out - Within And Without
36. Katy B - On A Mission
35. Cass McCombs - Humor Risk
34. Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo
33. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L
32. Radiohead - King Of Limbs
31. Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part II
30. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
29. Kasabian - Velociraptor!
28. Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest
27. Ed Sheeran - +
26. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
25. Wild Beast - Smother
24. Real Estate - Days
23. Bjork - Biophilla
22. White Lies - Ritual
21. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
20. The Weeknd - Thursday
19. Cass McCombs - Wit's End
18. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
17. Metronomy - The English Riviera
16. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
15. Baxter Dury - Happy Soup
14. The Weeknd - House Of Balloons
13. Bombay Bicycle Club - A Different Kind Of Fix
12. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
11. The Horrors - Skying
10. Elbow - Build A Rocket Boys!
9. WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain
8. St Vincent - Strange Mercy
7. Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See
6. Jay-Z & Kanye West - Watch The Throne
5. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
4. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
3. Adele - 21
2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
1. Florence + The Machine - Ceremonials

1. Connan Mockasin Forever Dolphin Love

waht is this?

i'm fucking livid at that paste list

― dealwithit.gif, Tuesday, November 29, 2011 8:48 AM (1 hour ago)

they had drake ; )

Connan Mockasin album is decent psych-pop, but is also a 2010 album rereleased in 2011 under a different title (was previously Please Turn Me Into The Snat, so you can see how a change helped).

glad he had a rethink on the snat before the wish anus turned up

How do you think the wish anus came to be?

that truly is the riddle of the sphincs

the fact that the decemberists placed so much farther ahead of some of my favorite records in that paste list just blows my mind

xp hahaha

o_O at Florence #1 in Q.

My God at that Q list.

where is kate bush band???

1. Tombs - Path of Totality

haha are there really 2 metal albums named path of totality this year?

No – my god at that Paste list.

are there any good lists, anywhere

Piccadilly Records Albums of the Year

Not going to type out all 100, these are the top 20:

1. Peaking Lights - 936 (yay!)
2. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
3. The Phoenix Foundation - Buffalo
4. Maria Minerva - Cabaret Cixous
5. Metronomy - The English Riviera
6. Wooden Shjips - West
7. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
8. The Kills - Blood Pressures
9. Black Lips - Arabia Mountain
10. Widowspeak - Widowspeak
11. Shimmering Stars - Violent Hearts
12. Dum Dum Girls - Only In Dreams
13. Pure X - Pleasure
14. Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit
15. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
16. Harvey Presents Locussolus - Locussolus
17. Vetiver - The Errant Charm
18. J Mascis - Several Shades of Why
19. Real Estate - Days
20. Washed Out - Within and Without

Only one list so far has featured Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.

Funny how everyone scans over the metal list as "oh, well, they just cover metal so of course they're gonna have a list full of metal albums" yet every time something that just covers shitty indie has a list made up of shitty indie people are LIVID.

haha are there really 2 metal albums named path of totality this year?

lolyes

xp but it's not even good indie :(

I'd say Q at least pretends to cover more than shitty indie? I guess they do include Jay-Z and Kanye to demonstrate they know about the rapping too.

Rounder Records (Brighton) top 50:

1.THE HORRORS - "Skying" (XL)
2.SUUNS - "Zeroes QC" (Secretly Canadian)
3.THE WAR ON DRUGS - "Slave Ambient" (Secretly Canadian)
4.PJ HARVEY - "Let England Shake" (Island)
5.HYETAL - "Broadcast" (Special Branch)
6.FORD & LOPATIN - "Channel Pressure" (Software)
7.NEON INDIAN - "Era Extrana" (Transgressive)
8.JOHN MAUS - "We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves" (Upset The Rhythm)
9.MOON DUO - "Mazes" (Souterrain Transmissions)
10.PEAKING LIGHTS - "936" (Weird World)
11.THURSTON MOORE - "Demolished Thoughts" (Matador)
12.SBTRKT - "SBTRKT" (Young Turks)
13.METRONOMY - "The English Riviera" (Because)
14.YUCK - "Yuck" (Mercury)
15.MAYER HAWTHORNE - "How Do You Do" (Universal Republic)
16.CAT'S EYES - "Cat's Eyes" (Polydor)
17.BOOKER T JONES - "The Road From Memphis" (Epitaph)
18.THE FIELD - "Looping State Of Mind" (Kompakt)
19.STEPHEN MALKMUS - "Mirror Traffic" (Domino)
20.VERONICA FALLS - "Veronica Falls" (Bella Union)
21.WILD FLAG - “Wild Flag” (Wichita)
22.JOHN TEJADA - "Parabolas" (Kompakt)
23.JUSTICE - "Audio, Video, Disco" (Edbanger)
24.BEASTIE BOYS - "Hot Sauce Committee Part Two" (Capitol)
25.JAMIE WOON - "Mirrorwriting" (Interscope)
26.MEMORY TAPES - "Player Piano" (Something In Construction)
27.LOCUSSOLUS - "Locussolus" (International Feel)
28.NO JOY - "Ghost Blonde" (Mexican Summer)
29.GUI BORATTO - "III" (Kompakt)
30.WIDOWSPEAK - "Widowspeak" (Captured Tracks)
31.MOGWAI - "Hardcore Will Never Die But You Will" (Rock Action)
32.MARTYN - "Ghost People" (Brainfeeder)
33.ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER - "Last Summer" (City Slang)
34.J.MASCIS - "Several Shades Of Why" (Sub Pop)
35.TORO Y MOI - "Underneath The Pine" (Carpark)
36.THE KILLS - "Blood Pressures" (Domino)
37.WASHED OUT - "Within & Without" (Weird World)
38.RINGO DEATHSTARR - "Colour Trip" (Club AC30)
39.DENNIS COFFEY - "Dennis Coffey" (Strut)
40.EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY - "Take Care Take Care Take Care" (Bella Union)
41.GRUFF RHYS - "Hotel Shampoo" (Ovni)
42.TOM WAITS - "Bad As Me" (Anti)
43.MODESELEKTOR - "Monkeytown" (Monkeytown)
44.HOLY GHOST - "Holy Ghost" (DFA)
45.RUSTIE - “Glass Swords” (Warp)
46.KITTY, DAISY & LEWIS - "Smoking In Heaven" (Sunday Best)
47.WOODEN SHJIPS - "West" (Thrill Jockey)
48.BALAM ACAB - "Wander/Wonder" (Triangle)
49.ST. VINCENT - "Strange Mercy" (4AD)
50.BLOOD ORANGE - “Coastal Grooves” (Domino)

^^^ decent list

I'd say Q at least pretends to cover more than shitty indie?

Q doesn't even cover very much shitty indie. They cover old man rock music.

I want to check out the Suuns record from that list, it sounds pretty interesting.

SBTRKT album is coming up a lot - any good?

emil.y: http://www.myspace.com/suuns_

btw the Blanck Mass album over in FACT is really good

container album on the fact list is excellent too. check out the track 'dissolve' cos that is a banger

Also the Haxan Cloak album, though I do need to listen to it a bit more.

btw the Blanck Mass album over in FACT is really good

truth

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. – It’s A Corporate World

this... this is a real album?

FACT list looks cool, though I've only heard two albums so far. But to be fair, I've only heard 5-10% on most of these lists...

i need to hear that Haxan Cloak album, actually

it's okay but not all that great - the roly porter record makes a better fist of the strings plus menacing ambience thing imo

Ooh, I haven't heard that.

ha, well even that one gets a bit boring too

Holy cow JEHST made a record? In 2011? That made a list? I was just assuming he was working at an twenty four hour petrol station being annoyed at the kids these days.

Or to sum it up, lol.

SBTRKT album is coming up a lot - any good?

Yes.

I want to check out the Suuns record from that list, it sounds pretty interesting.

The pre-album EP was really good, but the album doesn't hang together so well.

ha maybe my next poll will be Suuns vs. Death Grips

35: JON BROOKS - MUSIC FOR THOMAS CARNACKI VOL. 1

This sounds like total emil.y bait:

This remarkable, digital-only album by Jon Brooks – best known for his work as The Advisory Circle on Ghost Box – might just be the last word in hauntology. Under a title that nods to the supernaturally-attuned detective of William Hope Hodgson’s pre-war fantasy fiction, Brooks presents 27 perfectly-formed miniatures of occult ambience, queer-pitched radiophonics and pseudo-classical whimsy. An absolute delight.

Yes! I was surprised that I hadn't actually heard that this year. Unless the mister has surreptitiously played it - he's at least as big a Ghost Box fan as me, if not even more.

That Suun album actually came out back in 2010 in the States, its hit or miss tbh. Some really great tracks, but a lot of filler iirc.

what is moon duo like

Fucking awesome. Its a side project of a Wooden Shjips dude, but more emphasis on keyboards. Some fucking jams on that new album.

i'm fucking livid at that paste list

~shrugs~

Looks like a Paste list.

CKotm

Oh, I see that's been covered.

Yeah, I really like the Moon Duo record. Don't dig the Doors-isms of Wooden Shjips, but MD are groovy synthy shiz.

Meh, I liked the WS album this year more than the MD album

I liked them both, but I felt like the Shjips record was them on cruise control - fine, but nothing they hadn't done already. The Moon Duo record was a leap from the previous stuff though, but he best thing they did this year was "Sickener" on the Horror Tour thing.

Jon Brooks – best known for his work as The Advisory Circle on Ghost Box

The guy's been busy this year. As the Crow Flies is also quite nice.

haha are there really 2 metal albums named path of totality this year?

If you wanna call Korn & Skrillex "metal" that is. But to be a pedant, Tombs is Path of Totality while Korn added The to the front of it.

what are the consensus hip hop and rnb albums this year?

Childish Gambino

haha

LIVID

Camp

Childish Gambino

Uncut magazine:

50 Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
49 Arbouretum – The Gathering
48 Cornershop Featuring Bubbley Kaur – Cornershop And The Double-O Groove Of
47 The Caretaker – An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
46 Iceage – New Brigade
45 Mikal Cronin – Mikal Cronin
44 tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
43 St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
42 Jenny Hval – Viscera
41 Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’

40 Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow
39 Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong
38 His Golden Messenger – From Country Hai East Cotton
37 Little Dragon – Ritual Union
36 Jonny – Jonny
35 My Morning Jacket – Circuital
34 Fatoumata Diawara – Fatou
33 Low – C’Mon
32 Gil Scott Heron & Jamie XX – We’re New Here
31 Destroyer – Kaputt

30 Tim Hecker – Ravendeath, 1972
29 Paul Simon – So Beautiful Or So What
28 King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine
27 Björk – Biophilia
26 The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
25 Bill Callahan – Apocolypse
24 Real Estate – Days
23 Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts
22 Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact
21 James Blake – James Blake

20 Ry Cooder – Pull Up Some Dust And Sit Down
19 Drive-By Truckers – Go-Go Boots
18 Tinariwen – Tassili
17 Feist – Metals
16 Jonathan Wilson – Gentle Spirit
15 Wilco – The Whole Love
14 Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
13 Tom Waits – Bad As Me
12 Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
11 Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

10 The War On Drugs – Slave Ambient
09 Bon Iver – Bon Iver
08 Wild Beasts – Smother
07 Radiohead – The King Of Limbs
06 The Horrors – Skying
05 Josh T. Pearson – Last Of The Country Gentlemen
04 White Denim – D
03 Metronomy – The English Riviera
02 Gillian Welch – The Harrow & The Harvest
01 PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

not totally horrible

Ha ha, that decibel list explains why I was only assigned one blurb this year…

my problem with paste has always been not that their taste is incredibly boring and lame (which it is of course) but that the writing generally never got past "college freshman kicking it around in the arts section of the school paper" level. i mean, interesting things can be said about tons of artists that paste loves (well maybe not she & him and m. ward and shit) but i don't think paste has ever really employed those ppl.

tho i think putting iron & wine, the decemberists and wilco in your top 15 in 2011 means it's time for you to go to doggie heaven.

Ctrl-F Matana Roberts ...
:(

LJ swears up and down that the new Wilco is the best thing they've ever done

you mean the guy that made a chocolate & cheese sauce to serve with fish?

new wilco is actually really good if you're into wilco

that's a strangely lame list from piccadilly, considering all the hot shit they carry

glad that holy ghost isn't being forgotten

idolater

http://idolator.com/6092572/favorite-albums-2011-idolator

Foster The People, Torches
Lady Gaga, Born This Way
Beyonce, 4
Will Young, Echoes
Oh Land, Oh Land
Adele, 21
The Sound Of Arrows, Voyage
Patrick Stump, Soul Punk
Ben Folds, The Best Imitation Of Myself: A Retrospective
Britney Spears, Femme Fatale

lol at all these lists, tho my own would include a lot of "indie."

NO BON IVER THO that is gross.

The idea of anyone either praising or going out of their way to mock the Bon Iver is kind of funny to me, its such a bland, boring record that I can't see anyone inspired in either direction. And I actually liked the first one.

FACT list continues to be the most varied and interesting among year-end lists.

it's not an easy listen but i love that patten album! andy stott is great too but i probably ended up listening to his other 2011 record (we stay together) more

i think it's fair to combine both of stott's 2011 EPs into one album for year-end purposes.

yeah that FACT list is great. a lot of my year-end favorites are ending up there, and there's a lot to check out too...

That Villalobos ECM thing was a real snooze though

i think it's fair to combine both of stott's 2011 EPs into one album for year-end purposes.

December sees a 2*CD issue of them both together making this an ideologically pure thing to do as well.

i think it's fair to combine both of stott's 2011 EPs into one album for year-end purposes.

i was thinking the same thing as i was preparing my 2011 list draft

Last year's FACT list was a goldmine. Their site has been molasses slow for me for a few weeks now.

[CharlieNo4/Backround Zombie under a new name, btw!]

for a different perspective: http://www.virginmedia.com/music/awards/

Best album:

1. Lady Gaga - Born This Way
2. Adele - 21
3. Nicola Roberts - Cinderella's Eyes
4. Jessie J - Who You Are
5. Beyonce - 4
6. Kasabian - Velociraptor!
7. Professor Green - At Your Inconvenience
8. Katy B - On A Mission
9=. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
9=. Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know

Last year's FACT list was a goldmine. Their site has been molasses slow for me for a few weeks now.

Not just you, its awful. It seems to be all those flash ads they have.

pretty fucking wacky here too

Not sure there's an easy way to c&p this but here's excellent Brighton shop Resident's 2011 chart: http://www.resident-music.com/collection&path=599

Oh wait no, here it is:

1 war on drugs : slave ambient (secretly canadian)
2 peaking lights : 936 (domino)
3 kurt vile : smoke ring for my halo (matador)
4 bon iver : bon iver (4ad)
5 lanterns on the lake : gracious tide, take me home (bella union)
6 zomby : dedication (4ad)
7 low : c'mon (sub pop)
8 oneohtrix point never : replica (software)
9 ema : past life martyred saints (souterrain transmissions)
10 cloud control : bliss release (infectious)
11 josh t pearson : the last of the country gentlemen (mute)
12 radiohead : king of limbs (xl)
13 metronomy : the english riviera (because)
14 clams casino : instrumentals (type)
15 john maus : we must become the pitiless censors of ourselves (upset the rhythm)
16 motion sickness of time travel : luminaries & synastry (digitalis)
17 tom waits : bad as me (anti)
18 john foxx & the maths : interplay (metamatic)
19 kuedo : severant (planet mu)
20 nils frahm : felt (erased tapes)
21 panda bear : tomboy (paw tracks)
22 mark mcguire : get lost (editions mego)
23 p j harvey : let england shake (island)
24 walls : coracle (kompakt)
25 gang gang dance : eye contact (4ad)
26 elbow : build a rocket boys (fiction)
27 the haxan cloak : the haxan cloak (aurora borealis)
28 thurston moore : demolished thoughts (matador)
29 real estate : days (domino)
30 arbouretum : the gathering (thrill jockey)

(70 more on the site)

> 16 motion sickness of time travel : luminaries & synastry (digitalis)

^ good call, y'all. nils frahm album is wonderful too.

npr best 'outer sounds' albums of 2011

1. Nicholas Szczepanik, 'Please Stop Loving Me'
2. The Psychic Paramount, 'II'
3. Bill Orcutt, 'How The Things Sing'
4. Julia Holter, 'Tragedy'
5. Glenn Jones, 'The Wanting'
6. Julianna Barwick, 'The Magic Place'
7. Trouble Books & Mark McGuire, 'Trouble Books & Mark McGuire'
8. Indignant Senility, 'Consecration of the Whipstain' / Diamond Catalog, 'Magnified Palette'
9. Ellen Fullman, 'Through Glass Panes'
10. Ernst Karel, 'Swiss Mountain Transport Systems'
11. V/A, Not the Spaces You Know, But Between Them
12. Eli Keszler, Cold Pin
13. Pete Swanson, Man With Potential (stream)
14. Hubble, Hubble Drums (stream)
15. Charlatan, Triangles (stream)
16. Quiet Evenings, Intrepid Trips (stream)
17. Sean McCann, The Capital
18. Loren Connors, Red Mars
19. Jon Mueller, Alphabet of Movements (stream)
20. Jannick Schou, Act of Shimmering
21. Kyle Bobby Dunn, Ways of Meaning
22. Peaking Lights, 936
23. Rene Hell, The Terminal Symphony (stream)
24. Sun Araw, Ancient Romans
25. Jeremiah Cymerman, Fire Sign

oh that's nice! need to check up on some of that stuff...

sidenote i HATE the way music press write about bill orcutt:

No one is playing acoustic guitar like Bill Orcutt right now. No one.

make me sad cuz ive been developing my style of shattered folk blues and americana for a couple years now ):

is it really that hard to believe that NO ONE has EVER gotten totally baked and snapped the strings off their guitar while playing fragmented finger picking patterns? /end rant

talking of whacked-out blues, i was expecting to see charalimbides pop up on lists like that

i'm just parrotting deej here but the argument can easily be made that FACT's list and paste's list are the exact same thing except FACT covers hip dance music where as paste covers unhip starbucks rock -- there's just about the same amount of deviation from the expected norm

who is the frank turner of hip dance music?

cos that shit is just embarrassing

people are all up under FACT's nuts bcuz a lot of the shit they cover is obscure but if you don't care about white label techno just like you don't care about "middle brother", shit is equally as boring and insular

xp
I don't disagree with that idea or emil.y's metal list point and have no problem with Paste's list--it serves it demographic function. What I like about FACT's list is that things show up on it that I missed even as a reader of their site.

eh, a lot of stuff on the fact list feels like new sounds, whereas the paste stuff feels like records i've heard a million times before. but yeah, perspective perspective....

OMG XANDER HARRIS AND LEGOWELT, WHAT A DIVERSE & INFORMATIVE LIST *fart*

look i haven't heard xander harris or legowelt or 262 or damu or africa hitech or the haxan cloak but i'm pretty sure most of them aren't bringing that much new shit to their genres

not that there is anything wrong with what FACT does, i just bristle a bit at the reaction that the list gets every year. at least half of that stuff is just boring as shit.

true, but i guess that's why they're down at the bottom end of the list. expecting to see stuff like julia holter and pinch & shackleton in the top 20 and those are pretty innovative imo xp

and they won't get a mention elsewhere

damu and legowelt are good!

i thought v-shasty WAS deej?

white label techno is better than white indie rock, this is obv

(not that i'm particularly repping for the fact list but it's waaaaay preferable to paste)

maybe v-shasty IS deej

lex i probably agree with you but it doesn't make the list any less 'boring' from a distance

v-nasty g vastgarten more like

almost

the mysterious dave cool?

xp
I think it's the "distance" thing that I don't get or at least don't share. I don't need FACT to try to cover the immense terrain of all music in 2011. I just want them to remind me to listen to stuff I missed or skipped. Telling me what they like in their little microcosm is useful to me not boring. But I'm not a music critic, so these lists are better as tools--basically glorified playlists--rather than barometers of taste or what's "important" in music. But I guess I'm not sure what you're looking for in a year-end list. what makes a list not boring?

i like the fact list (this year and every year). i always forget to check their site the rest of the year, and so it's usually full of stuff i'm not familiar with. i end up disliking a good chunk of the music, but always find at least a handful of albums that are great.

i also like the FACT list. some of the stuff on it is boring -- that's true of every publication's aggregated list -- but much of it is fascinating and throws a light on underappreciated titles.

1. Nicholas Szczepanik, 'Please Stop Loving Me'
2. The Psychic Paramount, 'II'
3. Bill Orcutt, 'How The Things Sing'
4. Julia Holter, 'Tragedy'
5. Glenn Jones, 'The Wanting'

hm. i haven't even heard of four of these albums. i know of bill orcutt (he of the album cover with all the cool, multi-colored picks), but i haven't heard his solo stuff.

I don't need FACT to try to cover the immense terrain of all music in 2011. I just want them to remind me to listen to stuff I missed or skipped. Telling me what they like in their little microcosm is useful to me not boring.

i get this. my point is that paste does EXACTLY this as well, but for "uncool"/"bad" music, and it's been decried all over the internet (including by myself!).

the psychic paramount album is so good

that's the one from the top of that list that i have!

i like it, but the opening note/chord is so loud/abrasive that it sometimes is offputting.

(i am old)

the psychic paramount album is so good

Yep, this album is so great.

I'm with the Paste-defenders: I won't check out much on their list because it's far from my taste but at least it doesn't look like anyone else's offering. I much prefer seeing lists of albums I didn't know about than endlessly repeating examples of GAPDY syndrome (what's the 2011 equivalent?).

Yeah, Psychic Paramount is cool.

pp is my fave rock album this year, maybe fave period.

I'm with the Paste-defenders: I won't check out much on their list because it's far from my taste but at least it doesn't look like anyone else's offering. I much prefer seeing lists of albums I didn't know about than endlessly repeating examples of GAPDY syndrome (what's the 2011 equivalent?).

― sean doily, Wednesday, November 30, 2011 6:17 PM (5 minutes ago)

what? paste's list looks like every other indie lise

Yeah, they really went out on a limb with that Fleet Foxes-Bon Iver one two

yeah i wasn't coming out in favor of the paste list

huh on second glance you're right. I just remembered the Dale Earnhardt/Middle Brother combo (no idea who they are) and assumed there was lots more of that. Delete post.

This is not the first time deej has criticized FACT (if it is deej); I remember maybe last year comparing it to Pitchfork for Resident Advisor enthusiasts or something along those lines. Anyways, I like the FACT list bcz it has a bunch of albums on it I like and wanted to hear.

And the Psychic Paramount album is rad, though I might like the Cosmic Dead album more...

No one is playing acoustic guitar like Bill Orcutt right now. No one.

Eugene Chadbourne still playin shows iirc

1. Nicholas Szczepanik, 'Please Stop Loving Me'

this is a really good record, i think

the FACT list is p garbage btw

very controversial

veeeery controversial

why dont you childish my gambino

I've seen the light!

MOJO EOY 2011

1: PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2: The Horrors - Skying
3: Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
4: Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit
5: Kate Bush - 50 Words For Snow
6: White Denim - D
7: Josh T Pearson - Last Of The Country Gentlemen
8: Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
9: Tom Waits - Bad As Me
10: Wild Beasts - Smother
11: Laura Marling - A Creature I Dont Know
12: Kurt Vile - Smoke Rings For My Halo
13: Cat's Eyes - Cat's Eyes
14: King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine
15: Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What
16: Bon Iver - Bon Iver
17: Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's Getting Older
18: Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
19: James Blake - James Blake
20: My Morning Jacket - Circuital
21: The War On Drugs - Slave Ambient
22: Beirut - The Rip Tide
23: Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
24: EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
25: The Stepkids - The Stepkids
26: Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
27: Arbouretum - The Gathering
28: Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
29: Wilco - The Whole Love
30: Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
31: Nick Lowe - That Old Magic
32: Bjork - Biophilia
33: Glenn Jones - The Wanting
34: Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest
35: Tinariwen - Tassili
36: Shabazz Palaces - Black Up
37: Duane Eddy - Road Trip
38: The Sand Bag - All Through The Night
39: Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See
40: Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming
41: Destroyer - Kaputt
42: Booker T. Jones - The Road From Memphis
43: Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Scholss Elmau
44: Glen Campbell - Ghost On The Canvas
45: Tuneyards - Whokill
46: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
47: Radiohead: The King Of Limbs
48: Wire - Red Barked Tree
49: Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra
50: Joe Henry - Revere

people are really rating that Bjork album solely because it's Bjork IMO

i guess i'm the only one obsessed with the new Atlas Sound! :-/

eh, trying being obsessed with the new Lamb

bjork is top 20 in the guardian list

50-11 are here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/dec/01/best-albums-2011

I'll definitely top-10 the Lamb in our poll.

At least Idolator (and only Idolator) recognized the new Oh Land, though most of their list is well marketed money-pop.

I do not see at all what ppl are getting from GSH/Jamie XX; everything about that album just screams mediocrity to me

GSH/Jamie XX votes are post-mortem tribute, methinks.

lex will be disappointed he didn't manage to bump drake into the top 10 of that guardian poll

i'm thrilled that the pistol annies album got enough votes from people-other-than-me to make the top 50

i agree with OH NOES about björk and gil scott-xx

as for drake, i have said my piece, and now i shall just sit back and JUDGE anyone who lowers themselves to rep for him

Kind of OT, but less so here than elsewhere: Johnny F, J0rdan S and I have talked (very briefly) about running the ILM EOY again since it seemed to work well last year. We'll probably wait until the post-sandbox era to start nominations, assuming said era encroaches in the next week or two. Voting from the start of January, probably.

bigger run down (top 75?) pretty please?

yes! i have been looking fwd to it all year (not even a joke)

though every time i remember how much you lot love destroyer i stop looking forward to it

Last year we did a top 77!

Yes, please wait until the end of the year proper to run the poll. I know there won't be that many December albums that make it anyway, but I like to feel like the year is finished before I do an overview of it.

Top 77 is good for me.

Last year we did a top 77!

oh shiit yes. had 40 stuck in my brain.

xp Yeah nominations will definitely be open until the end of the year.

Yeah, 77 worked great. I'm looking forward to getting the ball rolling, but agree it's best to wait until we exit the sandbox. Historically, noms have started around mid-December.

I'll definitely top-10 the Lamb in our poll.

me too. Quite a comeback record.

I think I could get into that Tinariwen album based off of the song they did on Colbert

I def have to check that oune out

http://open.spotify.com/album/6MmvqMg8G3F41F7U1LWv8p

^^^ there it is

haven't heard the jamie/heron album, but "i'll take care of u" is amazing

I do not see at all what ppl are getting from GSH/Jamie XX; everything about that album just screams mediocrity to me

agree 100%, and i thought the original GSH disc was brilliant.

BTW, tinariwen are also brilliant. the new disc is so solid, and the song with nels cline -- where cline's drone guitar sounds like an alien ship landing in the desert (his v. accurate description) -- is a stunner.

really really digging the Tinariwen album

there you go. the prior two albums are even better.

death grips not on any of these lists? the fuck out

tinariwen sounded fine on colbert but the tvotr contributions were extremely o_O . love the older records tho

did we do filter?

http://filtermagazine.com/index.php/news/entry/filters_top_10_of_2011_staff_picks

1. M83 : Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
2. Bon Iver : Bon Iver
3. Fleet Foxes : Helplessness Blues
4. Mayer Hawthorne : How Do You Do?
5. The Weeknd : House of Balloons
6. Adele : 21
7. Elbow : Build a Rocket, Boys!
8. Black Lips : Arabia Mountain
9. Washed Out : Within and Without
10. A$AP Rocky : LIVELOVEA$AP

Honorable Mentions:

(11) James Blake, James Blake
(12) Ryan Adams, Ashes & Fire
(13) Lykke Li, Wounded Rhymes
(14) Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds
(15) Tom Waits, Bad As Me
(16) Little Dragon, Ritual Union
(17) Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
(18) Radiohead, The King of Limbs
(19) Fucked Up, David Comes To Life
(20) Justice, Audio, Video, Disco

so far theres been one decent list itt

funny that no one in the editorial side of FILTER voted for asap rocky, at least according to those indiv lists

???? xp

funny that no one in the editorial side of FILTER voted for asap rocky, at least according to those indiv lists

not sure which of the goon squad u r but what do u think the chances of spaceghostpurrp getting much eoy love??

very little

i havent really seen his name brought up that much this year outside of lumping him in w/ the general 'scene' -- i don't think his actual music has been a big galvanizing force of any sort tho

at least not yet

i downloaded that album but for some reason it doesn't play on my ipod

i think you downloaded a cassette

really really digging the Tinariwen album

Yeah, it's great. I'd only heard a stray track or two in the past, but I liked this immediately.

Once more, Mastodon plays the part of the requisite metal album in the indie lists, despite being a fairly middle-of-the-road release for them.

Spaceghostpurrp hasn't produced anything substantial yet. Certainly not the kind of thing that would show up on these lists

Yeah, it's great. I'd only heard a stray track or two in the past, but I liked this immediately.

glad you dig this. they're a special band.

The thing with the Mastodon album is that its easily the most accessible album they've done and I can totally see why this would be one that indie kids eat up. I was more surprised when the proggy-epic ones showed up.

Q Tracks

20 Beady Eye 'The Morning Sun'
19 Example 'Changed The Way You Kissed Me'
18 Cat's Eyes 'Best Person I Know'
17 Wretch 32 'Traktor'
16 Ghostpoet 'Cash and Carry Machine'
15 Florence + The Machine 'Shake It Out'
14 Fleet Foxes 'Helplessness Blues'
13 Rihanna 'Man Down'
12 Chase & Status 'Blind Faith'
11 Jack White 'Love Is Blindness'
10 Lykke Li 'Get Some'
9 The Strokes 'Under The Cover of Darkness'
8 Tyler The Creator 'Yonkers'
7 Aloe Blacc 'I Need A Dollar'
6 The Vaccines 'If You Wanna'
5 Lady Gaga 'The Edge of Glory'
4 Foster The People 'Pumped Up Kicks'
3 KREAYSHAWN 'GUCCI GUCCI'
2 Lana Del Rey 'Video Games'
1 Adele 'Someone Like You'

Uncut Reissues / Comps / Boxsets

30 Suede - Suede
29 Nirvana - Nevermind
28 V/A - Delta Swamp Rock
27 Phil Spector - The Phillies Album Collection
26 Mercury Rev - Deseter's Songs
25 Richard Thompson - Live at The BBC
24 Donovan - Sunshine Superman
23 Caravan - In The Land of Grey and Pink
22 The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace
21 The Louvin Brothers - Satan Is Real / Handpicked Songs 1955-1962
20 U2 - Achtung Baby
19 Manic Street Preachers - National Treasures: The Complete Singles
18 Kate and Anna McGarrigle - Tell My Sister
17 The Kinks - Kinks Kontroversy
16 Neil Young and The International Harvesters - A Treasure
15 V/A - Our Lives Are Shaped By What We Love: Motown's Mowest Story 1971-1973
14 Kate Bush - Director's Cut
13 Mark McGuire - A Young Person's Guide
12 Michael Chapman - Fully Qualified Survivor
11 Roy Harper - Stormcock
10 Jim Ford - Harlan County
9 Can - Tago Mago
8 Primal Scream - Screamadelica
7 R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant
6 Disco Inferno - The 5 EPs
5 The Jesus and Mary Chain - Darklands
4 Marvin Gaye - What's Going On
3 The Smiths - Complete
2 Mickey Newbury - An American Trilogy
1 The Beach Boys - The Smile Sessions

no. 2's an interesting choice on that reissues list.

Funny how everyone scans over the metal list as "oh, well, they just cover metal so of course they're gonna have a list full of metal albums" yet every time something that just covers shitty indie has a list made up of shitty indie people are LIVID.

― Illia Rump (emil.y), Tuesday, 29 November 2011 16:00

^^^^^^&&&&

metal: the shitty indie it's OK to like

FACT mag 10-1
http://www.factmag.com/2011/11/30/50-best-albums-of-2011-50-41/5/

10: FRANK OCEAN - NOSTALGIA, ULTRA. (SELF-RELEASED)
09: LV & JOSHUA IDEHEN - ROUTES (KEYSOUND)
08: JULIANNA BARWICK - THE MAGIC PLACE (ASTHMATIC KITTY)
07: DRAKE - TAKE CARE (CASH MONEY / UNIVERSAL)
06: JAMES FERRARO - FAR SIDE VIRTUAL (HIPPOS IN TANKS)
05: ARAABMUZIK - ELECTRONIC DREAM (DUKE)
04: PRURIENT - BERMUDA DRAIN (HYDRA HEAD)
03: CLAMS CASINO - INSTRUMENTALS (SELF-RELEASED / TYPE)
02: RUSTIE - GLASS SWORDS (WARP)
01: THE WEEKND - HOUSE OF BALLOONS (SELF-RELEASED)

Ouch, that's a bad top ten

yeah, I'm not nuts about some of those

They really love the Drake/Weeknd axis over there

lol y'all got trolled by FACT

haha are FACT delibrately trolling ILX?

xp

i love that araabmuzik album though

Yeah that FACT list was super interesting until the top ten, then, ugh.

I <3 los kramupsinos! dn.

this Rustie album is... okay? not the second-best album of the year tho

why wouldn't you put 'the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot of R'n'B' at #1?? Lol.

Juliana Barwick album is nice though, so I can't complain...

Julianna Barwick and Clams Casino will be on my albums ballot...of the rest, 50% I haven't heard and 50% meh.

"This is AraabMUZIK’s electronic dream, and if you don’t like it then you’re quite frankly having a nightmare."

lol @ Drake and the Weeknd. Clammy Clams will be on my ballot, though. And the James Ferraro is pretty good (would need to hear it more before I decide whether it's good enough for a ballot place, though).

lol FACT, i still love you.

never got round to listening to the prurient what with horrible memories of the cold cave album still fresh in my head

This isn’t to say it’s an r’n'b album for indie kids

and yet the only other r&b album on the list is frank ocean lmao

i fuck with the top 10 of that Q tracks list, improbably

(i like most of that fact top 10 including the weeknd)

also the fact top 10 is, uh, okay

i like 'house of balloons', but not that much

despite lex's best protest in march, it was not a big year for r&b full lengths, so i'm not surprised that stuff like the weeknd and frank ocean have filled the void a bit

i get that fact likes to stay well within the tumblrverse but it is slightly weird putting frank ocean in your top 10 and not even giving a nod to like, beyonce (or did i miss this?)

but on other hand it means they don't cover kanye/jay which is nice.

FACT should be, like, way more into lloyd than they are tho imo

yah otm

not even on some lex AYO CHECK OUT MARSHA AMRBOSIOUS, THIS SHIT IS SO MUCH BETTER but i'm surprised that they aren't checking for fun party songs w/ good beats all done by a single producer

MBDTF was FACT's number two album of last year and they gave WTT a pretty good review iirc

for some reason i keep thinking MBDTF was released this year duh

I was thinking "jesus, every song on this Araabmuzik album sounds exactly the same", then I looked at Spotify; I'd made it to track 2

now I'm just bemused that FACT ranked what sounds like an overlong dubsteppy Junkie-XL album the 5th-best album of the year

OK, so v-shasty isn't Steve Shasta.

i like the araabmuzik a lot -- it's cool to vibe too, idk -- it's def pretty same-y but i like when he does the laser tag keyboard thing and a lot of the samples are p cool

4. Mayer Hawthorne : How Do You Do?

From the Filter list--is this more than just retro blue-eyed soul? Haven't heard it yet...

i like the araabmuzik a lot -- it's cool to vibe too, idk -- it's def pretty same-y but i like when he does the laser tag keyboard thing and a lot of the samples are p cool

it's not BAD (I like Junkie-XL!), it's just... not what I was expecting

yeah it's not his crazy MPC thing

from FACT, files this under "don't use wikipedia as a source"

The production values on Take Care really were staggering, and made even more impressive by the fact that whether it was Lex Luger, Just Blaze or Jamie xx

from FACT, file this under "people comparing 'take care' to the wrong kanye west album"

More than anything, this album was Drake’s College Dropout

From the Filter list--is this more than just retro blue-eyed soul? Haven't heard it yet...

No, but imho I think its really, really well done retro blue-eyed soul. I usually cringe at this shit, but my brother in law does some promo for Hawthorne and pushed the album on me and I found myself really liking it.

alright, i take back anything nice i ever said

Like Outkast’s Stankonia before it, House of Balloons also appears to have brought everyone together this year

despite lex's best protest in march, it was not a big year for r&b full lengths

yet three of my top 10 are r&b, plus a further five in my top 30?

and the anthony hamilton isn't out yet either

I'm sorry lex, I am still staring in shock at the quote v-nasty posted otherwise I'd ask which 3 R&B albums you're repping (I'm guessing Marsha is one of them? She was on the Soul Train Music Awards last weekend and sounded really, really sick ;_;)

poor love.

beyoncé, dawn richard, nikkiya, meshell ndegéocello, marsha ambrosius, goapele, raphael saadiq, diddy dirty money (r&b remix mixtape)

i'm not even that into the lloyd album compared with his past work (but it's still better than the weeknd/ocean OBV)

co-singing that goapele

i rep for trey songz anticipation 2

the musiq soulchild album was pretty good too, and the cherri v mixtape was excellent

and the anthony david album! this song is one of the best songs of the year full stop, amazing stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__khgIzMyaM

oh yeah Musiq Soulchild, I played that album maybe three times and then forgot I owned it

Sure, ‘NY is Killing Me’ became annoyingly inescapable,

i've never heard this

I love the Marsha Ambrosius record; it's held up well all year.

beyoncé, dawn richard, nikkiya, meshell ndegéocello, marsha ambrosius, goapele, raphael saadiq, diddy dirty money (r&b remix mixtape)

i'm not even that into the lloyd album compared with his past work (but it's still better than the weeknd/ocean OBV)

― lex pretend, Friday, December 2, 2011 9:53 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

this is what i'm talking about in terms of a 'big' year for r&b, beyonce aside. saadiq and maybe ambrosius are household names, but the rest of them are kinda the FACT list for r&b heads

yeah, i just came to the marsha album recently. 'far away'!!

of that FACT top 10, clams and araabmuzik will make my EOY list (the latter top ten, probably), still haven't listened to the rustie or prurient albums, FO and barwick didn't leave much of an impression on me, sort of avoiding weeknd/drake, haven't heard of the other two

i'm wending my way through that NPR 'other sounds' list - if you like gorgeous ambient drifty things, that nicholas szczepanik album is wonderful

lol @ Diddy Dirty Money being more obscure than homegirl from Floetry

well yeah. but the diddy dirty money remix mixtape is pretty far under the radar.

oh leave me my cheap lols, they're all I have

the real problem w/ the FACT list isnt the music they choose, which is w/e, but the aesthetic incoherency and the embarrassing way it seems to misunderstand/misevaluate its own constituency of tumblr whites

ClashMusic (UK) EOY 2011

http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/the-top-40-albums-of-2011

40. DANGER MOUSE / DANIELE LUPPI - ‘Rome’
39. WHEN SAINTS GO MACHINE - ‘Konkylie’
38. WOODEN SHJIPS - ‘West’
37. WAGON CHRIST - ‘Toomorrow’
36. RICHARD DONOSO - ‘Progress Chance’
35. RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS - ‘I’m With You’
34. WHITE DENIM - ‘D’
33. KASABIAN - ‘Velociraptor!’
32. JAY-Z AND KANYE WEST - ‘Watch The Throne’
31. LITTLE DRAGON - ‘Ritual Union’
30. RYAN ADAMS - ‘Ashes And Fire’
29. MATTHEW HERBERT - ‘One Pig’
28. FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE - ‘Ceremonials’
27. THE LOW ANTHEM - ‘Smart Flesh’
26. BON IVER - ‘Bon Iver’
25. EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY - ‘Take Care, Take Care, Take Care’
24. BIBIO - ‘Mind Bokeh’
23. WILCO - ‘The Whole Love’
22. M83 - ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’
21. ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER - ‘Replica’
20. DJ SHADOW - ‘The Less You Know The Better’
19. LYKKE LI - ‘Wounded Rhymes’
18. GRUFF RHYS - ‘Hotel Shampoo’
17. PLANNINGTOROCK - ‘W’
16. BEASTIE BOYS - ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’
15. WILD BEASTS - ‘Smother’
14. KING CREOSOTE AND JON HOPKINS - ‘Diamond Mine’
13. FLEET FOXES - ‘Helplessness Blues’
12. BJÖRK - ‘Biophilia’
11. BEIRUT - ‘The Rip Tide’
10. ZOMBY - ‘Dedication’
9. MY MORNING JACKET - ‘Circuital’
8. ADELE - ‘21’
7. THE KILLS - ‘Blood Pressures’
6. METRONOMY - ‘The English Riviera’
5. RADIOHEAD - ‘The King Of Limbs'
4. BATTLES - ‘Gloss Drop’
3. PJ HARVEY - 'Let England Shake'
2. THE HORRORS - ‘Skying’
1. MODESELEKTOR - ‘Monkeytown’

wagon christ is still a thing?

x-post

tumblr whites

my new band's name

it would be a good name for a laundry detergent

wagon christ is still a thing?

Yes, he's still going and he's become very, very boring.

I do like that Modeselektor album but it's not top ten material, let alone the best album of the year

best thom yorke record of 2011

wagon christ is still a thing?

This was exactly my reaction

saadiq and maybe ambrosius are household names

Whose households now?

BBC music writers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/2011/12/bbc_music_writers_top_25_album.html

25 - Bright Eyes - The People's Key
24 - Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
23 - Cold Cave - Cherish the Light Years
22 - Trap Them - Darker Handcraft
21 - The Decemberists - The King is Dead
20 - EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
19 - Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place
18 - Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
17 - Kate Bush - 50 Words for Snow
16 - Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
15 - Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx - We're New Here
14 - Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
13 - Katy B - On a Mission
12 - SBTRKT - SBTRKT
11 - Björk - Biophilia
10 - Iceage - New Brigade
9 - Bon Iver - Bon Iver
8 - Josh T Pearson - Last of the Country Gentlemen
7 - Beyoncé - 4
6 - Metronomy - The English Riviera
5 - Tom Waits - Bad as Me
4 - The Antlers - Burst Apart
3 - The Horrors - Skying
2 - Wild Beasts - Smother
1 - PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

Whose households now?

households that listen to R&B

Raphael Saddiq has been famous since Tony! Toni! Tone! and Floetry got a lot of exposure back in their day (not that I realized that's who Marsha was until this weekend).

man, that SBTRKT album is almost as overrated as that Bjork album

I really hate the SBTRKT album. Primarily cos of the vocals

i love "pharaohs" on the sbtrkt album but the rest of it, not really, and yeah mostly cuz of the vocals.

ambrosius got a #2 album in your country and two grammy nominations, that seems to indicate it's on a different level of success to eg the weeknd

households that listen to R&B

Oh, well, that's fair then. They're prominent R&B singers for sure. But I don't think of either of them as being crossover artists.

she might not be a household name to indie audiences but who cares about them

^^^^ otm

surely to be a household name all types of audiences (including those who pay no attention to music) have to know who they are?

in a culture where ppl claim to never have heard of Lady Gaga, you are basically saying that there is no such thing as a household name

love it when people snootily dismiss artists as "not crossover" as if that absolves them from having to care about them, as if "crossover" is some sort of pinnacle that all artists should aim for, and as if "pitchfork-approved r&b" isn't so much crossover as a very specific niche itself

by love i do not mean love

"Michael who? Johnson? Is he the one who did that song about the Corvette?"

lex I think you are arguing a different point than was being made. Nobody was really trying to bring "crossover" into this, just saying that a standard working definition of "household name" usually means appealing to a wider audience than just the cross-section that would typically be aware of such a figure.

Exactly.

I'm not dismissing Ambrosius or Saadiq at all! In fact, I probably should listen to those albums since I've heard good things.

I'm just saying they're not household names. Like, my parents would have no idea who either of them are.

oh god if we're going to the always-irrelevant "who have my parents heard of" argument, i don't think any pop star could be called a household name. i am fairly sure my parents have no idea who lady gaga is.

in a culture where ppl claim to never have heard of Lady Gaga, you are basically saying that there is no such thing as a household name

otm. this is pretty standard "death of the mononculture" stuff. my parents will only have heard of current music if it gets played on NPR, for example.

Well, I'm just using my parents as a stand-in for "reasonably well-informed people who aren't R&B fans."

I don't think "household name" implies recognition from 100% of the population, but it's got to be at least half. I think Lady Gaga and Beyonce have gotten to that point, but Ambrosius and Saadiq have not.

I think, from context, you can infer the scope in which "household name" is being used very easily and therefore there's no need to say "a person can only be a household name if ppl who don't give a shit about them know they exist"

Rise Record (UK) EOY 2011

http://www.rise-music.co.uk/browse.php?campaign=AOTW

50.Summer Camp : Welcome To Condale
49.The Decemberists : The King Is Dead
48.James Blake : James Blake
47.King Creosote & Jon Hopkins : Diamond Mine
46.Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact
45.Bill Callahan : Apocalypse
44.Wild Beasts : Smother
43.Zun Zun Egui : Katang
42.Planningtorock : W
41.Mastodon : The Hunter
40. Little Roy : Battle For Seattle
39.Deerhoof : Vs. Evil
38.Blood Orange : Coastal Grooves
37.Dutch Uncles : Cadenza
36.Cat's Eyes : S/T
35.Cults : S/T
34.Hyetal : Broadcast
33.E.M.A : Past Life Martyred Saints
32.Battles : Gloss Drop
31.Anna Calvi : Anna Calvi
30.Lanterns on the Lake : Gracious Tide, Take Me Home
29.Girls : Father, Son, Holy Ghost
28.Wilco : The Whole Love
27.Tom WaitsBad As Me
26.The Field : Looping State of Mind
25.Other Lives : Tamer Animals
24.Ryan Adams : Ashes & Fire
23.Fair Oh's: Everything Is Dancing
22.Ghostpoet: Peanut Butter Blues & Meloncholy Jam
21.White Denim : D
20.Wye OakCivilian
19.St. Vincent : Strange Mercy
18. Real Estate : Days
17.Lykke Li : Wounded Rhymes
16.Veronica Falls : Veronica Falls
15.Nicolas Jaar: Space Is Only Noise
14. Braids : Native Speaker
13.Wooden : ShjipsWest
12.Balam Acab : Wander / Wonder
11.Metronomy : The English Riviera
10. Shabazz : Palaces Black Up
9. Little Dragon : Ritual Union
8. Antlers : Burst Apart
7. P.J Harvey : Let England Shake
6. Kurt Vile : Smoke Ring For My Halo
5. Josh T. Pearson : Last Of The Country Gentlemen
4. Jonathan Wilson : Gentle Spirit
3. Walls : Coracle
2. Tune-Yards : w h o k i l l
1. War On Drugs : Slave Ambient

altered zones best albums

http://alteredzones.com/posts/2163/2011-albums/

Ash Borer: Ash Borer [Pesanta Urfolk]
Blues Control & Laraaji: FRKWYS Vol. 8 [RVNG Intl.]
The Caretaker: An Empty Bliss Beyond This World [Self-Released]
Death Grips: Exmilitary [Self-Released]
Future Shuttle: Water's Edge [Holy Mountain]
Holy Other: With U [Tri-Angle]
Iceage: New Brigade [Escho]
John Maus: We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of Ourselves [Ribbon]
Julia Holter: Tragedy [Leaving]
Julian Lynch: Terra [Underwater Peoples]
Jurgen Muller: Science of the Sea [Foxy Digitalis]
Laurel Halo: Hour Logic [Hippos In Tanks]
Liturgy: Aesthethica [Thrill Jockey]
Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica [Software]
Peaking Lights: 936 [Not Not Fun]
Pete Swanson: Man With Potential [Type]
Prince Rama: Trust Now [Paw Tracks]
Pure X: Pleasure [Acéphale]
Run DMT: Dreams [Culture Dealer]
Tim Hecker: Ravedeath, 1972 [Kranky]

08: JULIANNA BARWICK - THE MAGIC PLACE (ASTHMATIC KITTY)

heard this for the first time today, going through the FACT top 10, and the song "Prizewinning", near the end, absolutely floored me. i may be biased by the fact that i fell asleep with headphones and it woke me up out of an outstanding dream, but it's a beautiful song. the choral loops that characterize the album are complemented by a bit more rhythm than most of the other songs, via the repeating keyboard bass lines throughout and the addition of the snares that threaten to cave into themselves (nice subtle loopstation work) in the latter half of the song

i heard the song building up during my dream and honestly felt like i had finally died and there was a better place

haha, i kind of like the altered zones list.

some really good stuff in that list

z s you should give julia kent's new record a listen, i think youd really like it

the alty zoney list kinda hilights my problem with the FACT list. like im sure whiney will be along to say something suitably cutting abt the lack of korn on that list but at least its a statement

Death Grips: Exmilitary [Self-Released]

also this is p incredible, def hi up on my own list

the alty zoney list kinda hilights my problem with the FACT list. like im sure whiney will be along to say something suitably cutting abt the lack of korn on that list but at least its a statement

i think the statement is that korn sucks.

Julia Kent's Green and Grey? thanks lamp (you are a lamp, i think?), i'll check it out!

its certainly a FACT

xp

Julia Kent's Green and Grey? thanks lamp (you are a lamp, i think?), i'll check it out!

yeah thats the one although 'delay' has some good stuff on it too. (and yes, lol)

So what you're saying lamp is that the indie-ish stuff that the FACT list trumpets (John Maus/Peaking Lights/GGD) are all kinda safe-bet capitulations to consensus?

its more that theyre nods to... idk 'consensus' has the wrong connotations, it feels more like cool-hunting i guess, which is always a risky proposition. its like a list of things theyve heard of rather than listened to or s.thing

i dont even really have a problem with a mag basically listing what they think are the hippest records of the year, it certainly has more merit than the whole faux humble 'these are just some records we really liked, guys!' thing which feels disingenuous w/anything but a single person's list. its more that i think FACT lacks any kind of aesthetic or worldview when theyre talking abt these kind of albums & its just like 'oohh that labels cool, yeah, prurient!' i mean why is 'logic hour' better than 'antenna', yknow?

its like a list of things theyve heard of rather than listened to or s.thing

there's no way you can know that, tho. i mean, by its nature, "consensus" will push to the margins the more individual, idiosyncratic choices.

btw, the sample song on that rustie album -- fact's no. 2 of 2011 -- is . . . okay.

haha i wld bet real money that the FACT staff have actually listened to the records they voted for, my point was more that its not a list of 50 records that sits comfortably together in my eyes, and that the only real throughline is 'tumblr buzz' (sort of).

i don't normally read FACT mag., but i have liked their year-end lists. this one does feel different, especially the top 10. not yet sure why.

Z S otm, Prizewinning is such a good moment on that album--the drums!

i think i forgot to vote for death grips in the only thing i voted in this year u_u

Tbh FACT having five of my favorite albums of the year on their list made me feel a bit hip, but I might be a bit naïve if not oblivious as to the mechanics of tumblr buzz and other Internet-based realities

death grips bugs me because not liking their mixtape makes me feel old and uncool.

i tried listening to it about three times. each time i turned it off within about five minutes, and put on something like richard hawley instead.

don't sweat it i'm young and cool and don't like death grips that much, either ;-)

whew. great.

i like shannon and the clams, tho! they're cool.

don't sweat it i'm young and cool and don't like death grips that much, either ;-)

:((((

<q>the alty zoney list kinda hilights my problem with the FACT list. like im sure whiney will be along to say something suitably cutting abt the lack of korn on that list but at least its a statement</q>

i mean their list is whatever, but i'm deeply, sincerely embarrassed for anyone who honestly think john maus is better than korn. it's pretty much just admitting you believe everything you read.

hahaha

i like that john maus album a lot. i've returned to it on spotify about 10 times, maybe, and i really like the song cop killer.

i hate korn.

the band, not the yellow vegetable.

also, i don't believe everything i read.

i know, for instance, that that whole "bat-boy" story from the weekly world news isn't true.

I mean, I really can only laugh when someone accuses me of being a sucker because I don't like Korn.

Like, yeah, that massive internet conspiracy to fool me into thinking John Maus is better than a terrible nu-metal band grafting shitty brostep over their songs got me. Thanks Altered Zones!

No, I totally understand not liking Korn. I don't understand liking John Maus.

i showed deathgrips to a friend who spent all of highschool trying to get me into k0rn and he loved it

OMG GOOGLE KORN FIND WIL SMIF

The John Maus album is really just "okay", but even the worst track on their was miles ahead of the three Korn/Skrillex songs I heard.

rights for gays oh yeah

i mean their list is whatever, but i'm deeply, sincerely embarrassed for anyone who honestly think john maus is better than korn. it's pretty much just admitting you believe everything you read.

twitter is the masterpiece of the art of animal training, for it trains people for how they shall think

are you whiney dw/it.gif? do you like cities aviv??

Death Grips release is waaaay too harsh sounding, I can listen to like 1 song every other week or so.

trying again with the death grips mixtape now.

i think it hear a 50s sample in one of the songs? the mixtape song is spread eagle, i think; sample is link wray, maybe.

why does everyone think i'm whiney

VERY good question

People actually like that Beastie Boys lp huh?

Beastie Boys LP is dope

well, that mixtape is better than i first thought. got to be in the right mood for it, tho.

feel like i need to listen to the captain and tenille now.

maybe there should be a death-grips/captain-and-tenille collaboration.

OMG GOOGLE KORN FIND WIL SMIF

― v-shasty, Saturday, December 3, 2011 1:20 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

lol, isnt that how the bands name is spelled?

why does everyone think i'm whiney

well you have a similar posting style so i thought u might be

you can still tell me if you like cities aviv tho, im doing a survey

it's actually KoRn w/ a backwards R

cities aviv suck

i had always thought it was a backwards k... (xp)

i think it's supposed to be so that the K and R are facing each other

Korn (often stylized as KoЯn) is an American nu metal band from Bakersfield, California, formed in 1993.

Kohttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/3/0/c/30c28f76ef7517dbd19df4d4c683dbe6.png

I...like the first two Korn albums OK, and I think the John Maus album is amazing...?

where do I stand in the freethinking olympics?

hustla, u and whiney should totally hang out sometime

my point was more that its not a list of 50 records that sits comfortably together in my eyes, and that the only real throughline is 'tumblr buzz'

EOY lists are not meant to have any sort of "throughline"!

seriously...y'all know how every EOY list is made? it really is as simple as just balloting writers. no publication can be bothered to rig or fix the results, or craft a list that "espouses" a "hivemind" or "worldview". and nor should they. when an EOY list is shit, the thing to criticise is the shit taste of its contributors.

i mean unless you're still hung up on p4k's bizarro hivemind-brand obsession but that is not how music crit should work.

Quite. John Maus and Cold Cave are obscenely high in The Quietus list. This is really irritating not only because I fucking loathe the John Maus album and mildly dislike the Cold Cave one but because that apparently some people will naturally presume that I'm just dropping those names to be hip and may not even have heard them.

I don't know about other sites but tQ takes up so much of my time I don't have that much time to worry about what other sites are doing. Most of my information on other digital publications comes from ILM or Twitter. It's hard to build up any kind of convincing picture of what other sites consider core.

There are some posters here who will choose their albums of the year with one eye on how this will present them and their taste in music which is a good thing in some ways but I'm not convinced that any significant number of music journo/editorial types have that level of sophistication (or time) to present themselves in such a manner.

There are (what I take to be) obviously a few 'cool lists' out there every year but I wouldn't have the confidence to state definitively which they are. After all, I know my two colleagues love the John Maus album as we've had blazing rows about it. This is certainly not an affectation on their part so how can I level this criticism at others... no matter how irritating I find it.

If I were trying to construct a list that would have people take me more seriously btw, I wouldn't be repping for Obake and Cornershop I'd be repping for Beyonce and DJ Quik... it would be a lot easier for me to do this but I think the former are awesome and the latter merely good. But again that's only based on reading ILM not what other sites have to say.

john maus was amazing long before the press decided to get on board, i think at least one or two other ilxors also had 'love is real' on their 2007 ballots.

i am deeply, sincerely concerned for ppl on this board who have lost perspective to the extent that a korn/skrillex collaboration is eoty material

I thought that was just a running joke.

I mean, you have to work on that assumption, otherwise you're looking at some serious Mayan end tymes shit going on right here. Or maybe there's more to this Insane Clown Posse remixed by Bently Rhythm Ace shit that I'm initially hearing.

kmt at music journalists devoting attention to korn/skrillex either for the lulz (smh) or out of popularity-chasing desperation

good tactic for an irrelevant band like korn to gain some column inchezzz though

of all the criticisms I level at acts, "irrelevant" definitely makes me feel warmest inside

you loathe the John Maus album, Doran? that's slightly disheartening (considering that the Quietus half-year list is how I first heard of it)

okay, here comes the big one....

Total Guitar (UK) EOY 2011

01 Mastodon : The hunter
02 Foo Fighters : Wasting light
03 Japanese Voyeurs : Yok
04 Anna Calvi : Anna Calvi
05 Joe Bonamassa : Dust bowl
06 Rise Against : Endgame
07 Machine Head : Under the locust
08 Megadeth : Thirteen
09 Steve Cradock : Peace city west
10 Skindred : Urban black
11 Twin Atlantic : Free
12 Noel Gallaghers' High Flying Birds
13 Turbowolf : Turbowolf
14 Anthrax : Workshop music
15 Black Country Communion : II
16 Denis Coffey : Denis Coffey
17 Opeth : Heritage
18 Miles Kane : Colour of the trap
19 Funeral for a friend : Welcomme home Armagedon !
20 Tessercact : One
21 The Joy Formidable : The big roar
22 Sylesis : Edge of the earth
23 Vintage Trouble : The bomb shelter sessions
24 Trivium : In waves
25 Duane Eddy : Road trip
26 Alkaline trip : Damnesia
27 Death letter Circus : This is the warning
28 Dream Theater : A dramatic turns of events
29 Fleet Foxes : Helplessness blues
30 Johnathan Wilson : Gentle spirit
31 PJ Harvey : Let England shake
32 Social Distorsion : Hard Times & nursery rhymes
33 Elbow : Build a rocket boys !
34 Frankie & the Heartstrings : Tender
35 Evile : Five serpent's kiss
36 Pete Yorn : Pete Yorn
37 Rival Sons : Pressure & Tone
38 Russian Circles : Empros
39 White Denim : D
40 Amplifier : The octopus
41 Derek Sherinian : Oceana
42 The Answer : Revival
43 Gentlemans Pistols : At her majesty's pleasure
44 Letlive : Fake history
45 Mr Big : What if ...
46 Arch Enemy : Khaos Legions
47 Tedeshi Trucks Band : Revelator
48 The Dangerous Summer : War paint
49 We Are The Ocean : Go now and live
50 Philip Sayce : Ruby Electric

45 Mr Big : What if ...

lol we opened for these guys in August

totally disgusting that total guitar mag has only guitar music in their list

no publication can be bothered to rig or fix the results, or craft a list that "espouses" a "hivemind" or "worldview". and nor should they

yes they should. i mean maybe a generalist publication or daily paper can sorta get away with not having anything to say abt music except 'these X number of albums got made this year. we like them' but if yr publication isnt putting any thought into what yr eoy list says than maybe you dont need to make one

it is so depressing to me that anyone genuinely believs rigid, dogmatic bullshit like that

kind of like repping for an album is a political statement, as though what you're repping for are "values" or a "wider" "aesthetic" rather than the music - it doesn't acknowledge how consuming music is a messy and illogical affair, how stuff that moves you can come from any place or any aesthetic at any time, and that roping off an aesthetic is basically a mug's game

the music we talk abt on ilm/in these eoy lists is indivisible from the social/cultural/experiential context that envelops it. the 'values' (good word imo) that an album or song embody matter just as much as how a song sounds, really. pubs trying to front like all that matters are the formal qualities of ~~the music~~ are lying to themselves & their readers

anyway it doesnt make sense to me to divorce albums from context/taste and present them kinda sui generis or w/e

Henrietta: It kind of doesn't matter what I think about it personally (and I probably shouldn't have said anything on here) but the thing is, Luke, who I co-run the site with and Rory, our third member of staff, both love it. Personally I can see that there's an interesting story there and a decent debate to be had and I'm more than happy to have them on the site.

Loathe is perhaps too strong a word but I wanted to pick the most extreme example I could think of. I feel the same way about Gang Gang Dance and Ariel Pink and a few other American bands from the last couple of years but for the most part, we're all extremely happy about our top 50.

This poster ^^ above me is talking out of his/her hat. Having a list that reflects your tastes doesn't mean you don't have anything to say about music. I look at it as the one chance in the year that we get to talk about music in a much less involved way.

bullshit! that's entirely about pre-judging music based on a rigid "value system" that you're not prepared to admit is malleable or can be altered. that path is route one to eliminating all outliers and stuff that doesn't "fit" into your "value system"

xp obv

i mean that is basically how rock crit has functioned for years and years - privileging certain value systems over others - and it has not led to anywhere good.

also, it's like...it boxes you in as a critic as well. "oh no this album doesn't represent my ~values~ i can't vote for it." fuck off!

i mean lists of things are p fun to make i guess so w/e but i dont really see what possible value you two think your eoy lists have if they dont engage w/anything deeper

lol @ lex of all ppl fetting mad abt rigid value systems tho

and i mean the challenge isnt to discard albums you like from yr list because they dont fit but to engage w/ them so that you ~get~ why they fit w/ the system your already operating w/in

EOY lists don't "engage" with anything. they're lists. i "engage" with deeper things when i write words, hopefully. a list is just a list is just a list. in that great metaphor of a few weeks back, EOY lists are the glitter pens and unicorn stickers of music writing.

actually the EOY list is an opportunity to just throw my listening open and go "shorn of all the rhetoric i type over the year here's what i've actually been feeling and rinsing most"

and it's str8-up dishonest for an actual publication to game its results to fit some bullshit value system

Yeah, we spend all of the year writing about this shit. If you're only interested in what you can glean from the EOY lists and not the debate that's been taking place all year leading up to them, well, that's kind of your problem.

i dont think thats de facto true, that eoy lists just have to be lists, and some lists do a better job than others. but overall yr right of course

idk the mag i write for you do a ballot but theres some manipulation i think, which im fine w/ if it makes the list more thoughtful

seriously...y'all know how every EOY list is made? it really is as simple as just balloting writers. no publication can be bothered to rig or fix the results, or craft a list that "espouses" a "hivemind" or "worldview".

― lex pretend, Saturday, December 3, 2011 3:25 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

this is so cute^^

it strikes me that that's more about reinforcing the ~brand~ than pretending to engage with the deeper issues behind the music, otherwise why not engage with those issues explicitly? if you're gonna do that, be honest and write about why you've manipulated certain albums into your list, and certain albums out of it.

or y'know just do what every other publication does and don't game it because that's dumb.

would you really prefer say the ilm list to be manipulated to be more hivemindy? i really hope not

i remember a few years back accusations that the NME swapped the #1 and #2 around

XP: To be fair, we don't ballot our writers because we know just doing the tQ list between the three of us will be closer to what the site's about (whatever that is). So maybe I should just stfu.

Having talked to a lot of people about this over the years, I get the feeling that ballot fixing used to be a lot more widespread than it is now. But the reasons would be less high minded than the ones outlined above and more to do with second guessing what the readers wanted.

well isn't that why p4k (i assume this is the site our friend is talking about) "manipulates" its EOY list? to preserve its "brand" for its readership...

lex sorry but your eoy lists definitely espouse a worldview and brand

1) not consciously 2) i would be interested to know more about a worldview and brand that encompasses laura marling, meek mill and cher lloyd

I think there's a third way here. Taking this site as a prime example, our EoY is entirely democratic and I think that with as large and variegated a bunch of contributors that we have here, that there is any way that our list can be said to deliberately represent anything. And yet I absolutely believe that ILX's EoY lists reflect a very specific--almost idiosyncratic--set of 'values' that are constantly being scrutinized and often being modified from year to year.

I feel like Lamp's problem mostly is that the superficial inclusion of its token indie choices/blogsoul sit incongruously with what is usually a discernible deeper purpose within FACT, ...? But I've spent a lot of this thread misreading Lamp so

btw Doran: no problem. I just get the feeling that the John Maus record is going to be the trendy indie record that will be even more trendy to slag off. There's one or two of these every year; there's a few ppl in Outloud who really loved that record, and I finally gave in a few weeks ago and now it's one of my favorites...

think that would be redundant, i doubt anyone who's read your posts on ilm the past few years is really unclear on what that worldview is. there are people whose tastes seem genuinely less aesthetically cohesive, or more incidental, but i wouldn't say their lists are better for it. i imagine one of the many reason tim f's eoy track lists are so widely adored here is the way songs culled from so many disparate places form such a unique & appealing vision of pop

(xp to lex)

Henrietta: I should go back and try it again I guess. A lot of people who I admire and trust like it, so I see it as a failing on my part in some ways. To not 'get' it. Like Skrillex, Cheap Trick and Derek Bailey.

how does everyone know who people are? i thought i was arguing with deej not lamp

i guess everyone was listening to Peaking Lights all year and loving it, but i'm just now listening over the course of the last two days and this is shit is so rad. "Birds of Paradise dub version" might be my favorite song so far, but every song has merit. the distorted drums buried in the bg of "Summertime" are funky as hell if you concentrate on them.

yeah great album

lex you do realize that not every publication is general interest and lots of them have a slant towards specific genres or demographics? like TOTAL GUITAR magazine probably tells their writers "give us your top ten guitar albums of the year" the same way my paper in baltimore just had me tell them my top ten baltimore albums. that's not 'dishonest' or 'manipulative.'

obviously that becomes a little more complicated with something like pitchfork or the wire that kind of positions itself as being 'open-minded about the best music of any genre' or whatever but i think people reading their lists understand implicitly that there is a lot of conscious and unconscious branding going on

of course i get that, in explicit cases. but i would be interested to see a list of albums that would be considered unsuitable for the p4k or wire brands, and explicit reasoning why.

i imagine it's much milder and more ambiguous than that -- individual voters strategizing, editors looking at stuff with similar numbers of votes toward the bottom of the list and making judgment calls about what makes the cut and what doesn't.

I think the appeal of Pitiless Censors, musically, is the combination of echoey minor key vocals (which kind of remind me of some of the melodic content of late 60s garage rock and psychy with the specific synth arrangements

I feel like its the ascetic counterpart to the more libertine 1999

(xp to Doran)

I feel like Lamp's problem mostly is that the superficial inclusion of its token indie choices/blogsoul sit incongruously with what is usually a discernible deeper purpose within FACT, ...? But I've spent a lot of this thread misreading Lamp so

haha i just agree w/ you since your take always ends up more coherent :/

i guess my 'problem' with dorian and lex's take on the eoy list process is:

- we are all operating with an (unstated?) set of values that informs how we respond to music
- pop music is essentially experiential in nature
- for almost any publication their big eoy list will be one of the most viewed/widely talked abt pieces they run
- its intensely disingenuous to pretend this piece doesnt communicate something abt that underlying set of values, regardless of intent
- taking that into account why not knowingly craft a list that makes explicit these values and 'says something' abt what music is like in 2011 from yr pov
- to me 'branding' isnt really negative it helps the reader understand the context w/in which the music is generally being heard/understood

my problem with that is that any EOY list might communicate something about an individual's set of values - hopefully unconsciously! consciously doing it is nagl! - but publications can't unless they're REALLY EXPLICITLY genre-specific like kerrang or total guitar or whatever. because the value sets of all the individual critics are necessarily different.

in short - damned if you're going to extrapolate anything about MY value set from the guardian's EOY list.

Well the Guardian is a generalist publication

lex do you tend to prefer generalist music mags or specialist mags?

well p4k or the wire or w/e operates editorially w/in a sort of guiding set of values tho too which is greater than just the sum of their writers values. a newspaper is slightly different in that it exists for different reasons & in some ways for different readers but like, FACT certainly has an overarching set of aesthetic and cultural values

I feel like you could probably extrapolate something about Lex's values from the ILX EoY tbh

xp generalist

fwiw I feel like FACT has always done the indie tokenism thing and are p decent at separating wheat from chaff when it comes to buzz albums. Like I don't think Is this It? was the second-best album from the past decade or anything but the indie albums they tout are usually the ones I end up enjoying.

Of course that's purely subjective and hardly unbiased I mean, as one of ILX's few vocal proponents for the Weeknd surely Lamp you get what I'm saying...?

Some more EOY lists from around the world:

Rumore (Italia) EOY 2011

RUMORE TOP ALBUM 2011

1) James Blake - s/t
2) PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
3) Bon Iver - s/t
4) Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
5) Verdena - Wow
6) Radio Moscow - The Great Escape Of Leslie Magnafuzz
7) I Cani - Il Sorprendente Album D'esordio
8) The Rapture - In The Grace Of Your Love
9) Saviours - Death's Procession
10) Danava - Emisphere Of Shadows
11) Orchid - Capricorn
12) The Might Could - s/t
13) The Horrors - Skying
14) The Peoples Temple - Sons Of Stone
15) Paolo Benvegnù - Hermann
16) Obrero - Mortui Vivos Docent
17) tUnE-yArDs - Whokill
18) Devil - Time To Repent
19) Blood Ceremony - Living With The Ancients
20) Rival Sons - Pressure And Time

Fasterlouder (AUS) EOY 2011

http://www.fasterlouder.com.au/gallery/snapshot/25641/The-Best-Albums-of-2011

50 Radiohead - King of Limbs.
49 Wagons – Rumble, Tumble and Shake.
48 Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming.
47 The Kills – Blood Pressures.
46 The Strokes – Angles.
45 My Morning Jacket – Circuital.
44 The Vasco Era – The Vasco Era.
43 Eagle and the Worm – Good Times.
42 Foster The People. Torches.
41 EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints.
40 Wilco – The Whole Love.
39 The Grates - Secret Rituals.
38 Teeth and Tongue – Tambourine.
37 tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L.
36 Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean.
35 The Black Keys – El Camino.
34 Gotye – Making Mirrors.
33 Kimbra – Vows.
32 The Panics – Rain on the Humming Wire.
31 Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.
30 Arctic Monkeys – Suck It and See.
29 Dum Dum Girls – Only in Dreams.
28 Metronomy - The English Riviera.
27 Battles – Gloss Drop.
26 Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo.
25 Wild Beasts – Smother
24 Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues.
23 Gillian Welch – The Harrow and the Harvest.
22 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mirror Traffic.
21 Feist – Metals.
20 Cut Copy – Zonoscope.
19 Jay- Z And Kanye West – Watch The Throne.
18 Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know.
17 Liam Finn – FOMO.
16 Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
15 Lanie Lane – To the Horses.
14 SBTRKT – SBTRKT.
13 Wild Flag – Wild Flag.
12 Mastodon – The Hunter.
11 James Blake – James Blake.
10 TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light.
09 Royal Headache – Royal Headache.
08 Bon Iver – Bon Iver, Bon Iver.
07 Harmony – Harmony.
06 Yuck - Yuck.
05 Fucked Up – David Comes To Life.
04 Adalita – Adalita.
03 Tom Waits – Bad As Me.
02 Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
01 PJ Harvey - Let England Shake.

Blitz EOY 2011 (Portugal) albums

50 - The Dodos: No color
49 - Mastodon: The Hunter
48 - Bill Callahan: Apocalypse
47 - Zomby: Dedication
46 - Wild Flag: Wild Flag
45 - TV on the Radio: Nine Types of Light
44 - Toro Y Moi: Underneath the Pine
43 - Patrick Wolf: Lupercalia
42 - David Sylvian: Died In Wool
41 - SBTRKT: SBTRKT
40 - Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tell Me
39 - Radiohead: The King of Limbs
38 - Gang Gang Dance: Eye Contact
37 - The Weeknd: House of Balloons
36 - Smith Westerns: Dye It Blonde
35 - Friendly Fires: Pala
34 - Florence and the Machine: Ceremonials
33 - The Field: Looping State Of Mind
32 - tUnE-yArDs: w h o k i l l
31 - Tinariwen: Tassili
30 - Justice: Audio, Video, Disco
29 - Metronomy: The English Riviera
28 - Afrocubism: Afrocubism
27 - Trap Them: Darker Handcarft
26 - Coldplay: Mylo Xyloto
25 - Chico Buarque: Chico
24 - Lykke Li: Wounded Rhymes
23 - Feist: Metals
22 - Wild Beasts: Smother
21 - Low: C'mon
20 - Jamie Won: Mirrorwriting
19 - Diddy Dirty Money: Last Train To Paris
18 - Jonathan Wilson: Gentle Spirit
17 - Britney Spears: Femme Fatale
16 - Beyoncé: 4
15 - Tyler, the Creator: Goblin
14 - Katy B: On a Mission
13 - Anna Calvi: Anna Calvi
12 - Destroyer: Kaputt
11 - WU LYF: Go Tell Fire to the Mountain
10 - Adele: 21
9 - Tom Waits: Bad As Me
8 - Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know
7 - Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo
6 - Stephen Malkmus And The Jicks: Mirror Traffic
5 - Bon Iver: Bon Iver
4 - Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues
3 - Nicolas Jaar: Space Is Only Noise
2 - PJ Harvey: Let England Shake
1 - James Blake: James Blake

Sonic EOY 2011 (Sweden)

1. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
2. Gillian Welch - The Harrow & the Harvest
3. My Morning Jacket - Circuital
4. Paul Simon - So Beautiful or So What
5. Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
6. James Blake - James Blake
7. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
8. Ryan Adams - Ashes & Fire
9. Tinariwen - Tassili
10. Feist - Metals
11. Bon Iver - Bon Iver
12. The Weeknd - House of Baloons
13. Shabazz Palace - Black Up
14. Wilco - The Whole Love
15. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra
16. A. A. Bondy - Believers
17. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
18. Adele - 21
19. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
20. Tyler, The Creator - Goblin
21. Deportees - Islands & Shores
22. Zomby - Dedication
23. Ison & Fille - För evigt
24. Holy Ghost! - Holy Ghost!
25. Jonathan Johansson - Klagomuren

American Songwriter (USA) EOY 2011

American Songwriter

50 - Centro-matic: Candidate Waltz
49 - Beirut: The Rip Tide
48 - Abigail Washburn: City of Refuge
47 - Caitlin Rose: Own Side Now
46 - Loney Dear: Hall Music
45 - JEFF The Brotherhood: We Are The Champions
44 - Tristen: Charlatans At The Garden Gate
43 - Jonny Corndawg: Down On The Bikini Line
42 - Noel Gallagher: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
41 - Kurt Vile: Smoke Ring For My Halo
40 - Middle Brother: Middle Brother
39 - Those Darlins: Screws Get Loose
38 - Real Estate: Days
37 - Steve Earle: I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive
36 - Old 97′s: The Grand Theatre, Vol. 2
35 - KORT: Invariable Heartache
34 - Joe Henry - Reverie
33 - Honeyhoney: Billy Jack
32 - The Decemberists: The King Is Dead
31 - Robert Ellis: Photographs
30 - The Felice Brothers: Celebration, Florida
29 - A. A. Bondy: Believers
28 - St. Vincent: Strange Mercy
27 - Deer Tick: Divine Providence
26 - Pieta Brown: Mercury
25 - Sarah Jarosz: Follow Me Down
24 - The War On Drugs: Slave Ambient
23 - Civil Wars: Barton Hollow
22 - Bright Eyes: The People’s Key
21 - Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues
20 - Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know
19 - Radiohead: The King of Limbs
18 - Ryan Adams: Ashes & Fire
17 - Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tell Me
16 - Miranda Lambert: Four The Record
15 - Bon Iver: Bon Iver
14 - My Morning Jacket: Circuital
13 - Lucinda Williams: Blessed
12 - Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit: Here We Rest
11 - Tom Waits: Bad As Me
10 - Feist: Metals
9 - The Black Keys: El Camino
8 - Pistol Annies: Hell on Heels
7 - Paul Simon: So Beautiful or So What
6 - Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO
5 - Dawes: Nothing Is Wrong
4 - Drive-By Truckers: Go-Go Boots
3 - Adele: 21
2 - Gillian Welch: The Harrow And The Harvest
1 - Wilco: The Whole Love

lot of people like fleet foxes and bon iver huh

ugh, this Psychic Paramount is PAINFUL it's so good!

by "this" i just mean the song ("N5") that's streaming on the NPR list: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2011/11/30/142900901/the-best-outer-sound-albums-of-2011?sc=tw&cc=share

i'm gonna have to check the rest of this out.

put this on while you do your dishes and you will scrub the coffee mugs with an inappropriate level of unbridled passion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlV8GQWStSA

Awesome record.

Hey Z S since you already dig the J barwick and Peaking Lights album, you could probably do worse than to check out the Belong album from this year; its on Spotify. It's imo a really solid dreampop/drone album

oh, glad you reminded me of that! i actually had downloaded it earlier this year and loved it (certain tracks more than others, but i definitely had a few key favorites), and then when my computer melted down a few months ago, i lost everything and forgot to redownload it.

Yeah, that entire Psychic Paramount record is so great.

cltrl-F "hatchback" = :(

destroyer v v underrepresented thus far as well

there's always the ilm eoy poll. Maybe the first ever rock winner?

ugggh that Deer Tick record that has popped up a few times is such shit.

Some decent breakout lists from Exclaim (CA) EOY 2011

http://exclaim.ca/Features/YearInReview

Top Pop Rock
1. Bon Iver : Bon Iver, Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)
2. St. Vincent : Strange Mercy (4AD)
3. Feist : Metals (Arts and Crafts)
4. M83 : Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (Mute)
5. Destroyer : Kaputt (Merge)
6. Braids : Native Speaker (Flemish Eye)
7. Austra : Feel it Break (Domino)
8. PJ Harvey : Let England Shake (Island)
9. Timber Timbre : Creep On Creepin' On (Arts & Crafts)
10. Sandro Perri : Impossible Spaces (Constellation)
11. Wild Flag (Merge)
12. Shotgun Jimmie : Transistor Sister (You've Changed)
13. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart : Belong (Slumberland)
14. Beirut : The Rip Tide (Pompeii)
15. Girls : Father, Son, Holy Ghost (True Panther Sounds)
16. Bill Callahan : Apocalypse (Drag City)
17. Yuck (Fat Possum)
18. Rich Aucoin : We're All Dying To Live (Sonic)
19. Tom Waits : Bad As Me (Anti-)
20. Battles : Gloss Drop (Warp)
21. Ty Segall : Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
22. Lykke Li : Wounded Rhymes (LL)
23. Adele : 21 (Columbia)
24. Handsome Furs : Sound Kapital (Sub Pop)
25. Cults (Columbia)
26. EMA : Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions)
27. Dog Day : Deformer (Fun Dog)
28. Kurt Vile : Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)
29. Wilco The Whole Love (dbpm)
30. The Rural Alberta Advantage Departing (Paper Bag)

Top Metal
1. KEN : Mode Venerable (Profound Lore)
2. Mastodon : The Hunter (Reprise)
3. Fuck the Facts : Die Miserable (Relapse)
4. Wolves In The Throne : Room Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord)
5. Today is the Day : Pain is a Warning (Black Market Activities)
6. Liturgy : Aesthethica (Thrill Jockey)
7. Hammers of Misfortune : 17th Street (Metal Blade)
8. Opeth : Heritage (Roadrunner)
9. Imbroglio : Sleep Deprivation (The Path Less Traveled)
10. Brutal Truth : End Time (Relapse)
11. Graf Orlock : Doombox (Vitriol)
12. Black Tusk : Set the Dial (Relapse)
13. Helms Alee Weatherhead (Hydra Head)
14. Prurient : Bermuda Drain (Hydra Head)
15. The Atlas Moth An : Ache for the Distance (Profound Lore)
16. Flourishing : The Sum of All Fossils (The Path Less Traveled)
17. Retox : Ugly Animals (Ipecac)
18. Tombs : Path of Totality (Relapse)

Top Hip-Hop
1. Kanye West : My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Roc-A-Fella)
2. Jay-Z and Kanye West : Watch The Throne (Roc-A-Fella)
3. Shabazz Palaces : Black Up (Sub Pop)
4. D-Sisive Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye Bye (Urbnet)
5. Big K.R.I.T. : Return of 4eva (mixtape)
6. Kendrick Lamar : Section 80 (Top Dawg Entertainment)
7. Danny Brown XXX (Fools Gold)
8. Tyler, the Creator: Goblin (XL)
9. Talib Kweli :Gutter Rainbows (Blacksmith)
10. Phonte : Charity Starts at Home (The Foreign Exchange)
11. Lil B : I'm Gay (I'm Happy) (mixtape)
12. Childish Gambino : EP (mixtape)
13. ASAP Rocky : LiveLoveA$AP (mixtape)
14. Nicki Minaj : Pink Friday (Cash Money/Universal)
15. Stalley : Lincoln Way Nights (Intelligent Trunk Music)
16. G-Side The One…. Cohesive (mixtape)

Top Punk
1. Fucked Up : David Comes to Life (Matador)
2. OFF! : The First Four EPs (Vice)
3. Iceage : New Brigade (What's Your Rupture?)
4. Bomb The Music Industry! : Vacation (Quote Unquote)
5. Junior Battles : Idle Ages (Paper + Plastick)
6. B-Lines (Deranged)
7. Obits : Moody, Standard and Poor (Sub Pop)
8. The Wonder : Years Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing (No Sleep)
9. Cloud Nothings (Carpark)
10. Polar Bear Club : Clash Battle Guilt Pride (Bridge Nine)
11. Lemuria Pebble (Bridge Nine)
12. The Brains : Drunk Not Dead (Stomp)
13. Crusades : The Sun Is Down and the Night Is Riding In (It's Alive)
14. Bridge and Tunnel : Rebuilding Year (No Idea)

Top Folk-Country
1. The Decemberists : The King Is Dead (Capitol)
2. Dan Mangan : Oh Fortune (Arts & Crafts)
3. Laura Marling: A Creature I Don't Know (Domino)
4. One Hundred Dollars : Songs of Man (Outside)
5. Snailhouse : Sentimental Gentleman (White Whale)
6. Gillian Welch : The Harrow & the Harvest (Acony)
7. Richard Buckner : Our Blood (Merge)
8. The Deep Dark Woods : The Place I Left Behind (Six Shooter)
9. Daniel Romano : Sleep Beneath the Willow (You've Changed)
10. The Barr Brothers (Secret City)
11. Sunparlour Players : Us Little Devils (Outside)
12. Nick Lowe : The Old Magic (Yep Roc)
13. Ryan Adams : Ashes & Fire (Pax-Am)
14. The Jayhawks : Mockingbird Time (Rounder)
15. Hayes Carll: KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories) (Lost Highway)
16. Jenn Grant : Honeymoon Punch (Six Shooter)

Top World & Soul
1. The Weeknd : House of Balloons (OVO)
2. tUnE-yArDs : WhoKill (4AD)
3. Raphael Saadiq : Stone Rollin' (Columbia)
4. Frank Ocean : Nostalgia, ULTRA (Def Jam)
5. Charles Bradley : No Time For Dreaming (Dunham)
6. Toro Y Moi : Underneath the Pine (Carpark)
7. The Stepkids (Stones Throw)
8. Mayer Hawthorne : How Do You Do? (Universal Republic)
9. Cee Lo Green : The Lady Killer (Elektra)
10. Aline Morales : Flores Tambores E Amores (Independent)
11. Beyonce : 4 (Columbia)
12. Seun Kuti : From Africa with Fury: Rise (Knitting Factory)
13. Jill Scott : Light Of the Sun (Warner)
14. Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie XX : We're New Here (XL)
15. Jazzy Jeff & Ayah : Back For More (Independent)
16. Jahdan Blakkamoore : Babylon Nightmare (Lustre Kings)

Top Dance & Electronic
1. James Blake (Atlas)
2. Nicolas Jaar : Space Is Only Noise (Circus Company)
3. SBTRKT (Young Turks)
4. Oneohtrix Point Never : Replica (Software)
5. Rustie : Glass Swords (Warp)
6. Amon Tobin : Isam (Ninja Tune)
7. The Field : Looping State of Mind (Kompakt)
8. Little Dragon : Ritual Union (Peacefrog)
9. Gang Gang Dance : Eye Contact (4AD)
10. Africa Hitech : 93 Million Miles (Warp)
11. Katy B : On A Mission (Rinse)
12. Hudson Mohawke : Satin Panthers (Warp)
13. Junior Boys : It's All True (Domino)
14. Zomby : Dedication (4AD)
15. Babe Rainbow : Endless Path (Warp)
16. Ford & Lopatin : Channel Pressure (Software)
17. Jamie Woon : Mirrorwriting (Polydor)
18. Miracle Fortress : Was I The Wave? (Secret City)
19. Azari & III (Turbo)
20. Toddla T : Watch Me Dance (Ninja Tune)

most of those are garbage

i'm glad the weeknd is being singled out for the 'world & soul' album of the year

it's canadian so

also, is there an actual honest to goodness country album on "folk-country"

yeah those lists are pretty pathetic

4. D-Sisive Jonestown 2: Jimmy Go Bye Bye (Urbnet)

wtf is this

Kinda pissed that the Sunny Sweeney album didn't make it onto the American Songwriters list tbh.

Xp no idea lol

lol exclaim! is the absolute worst, despite being free i somehow always regret picking up a copy

lol at how you can tell the metal list was typed up by someone who has never heard of any of the bands or albums

Rumba (FI) EOY 2011

Finnish songs
1. Regina: Jos et sä soita
2. Rubik: Laws of Gravity
3. The New Tigers: Pocketful of Sand
4. Regina: Unessa
5. Regina: Haluan sinut
6. Mirel Wagner: No Death
7. Burning Hearts: Into the Wilderness
8. Rubik: World Around You
9. Sansa: Boys (Summertime Love)
10. Chisu: Kohtalon oma
11. Suvi Isotalo: Kaikki sanat
12. Matti Johannes Koivu: 80-luvun lapset
13. Yona: Toisen oma
14. Regina: Lepään aalloilla
15. Black Twig: Lake Song
16. 22-Pistepirkko: UFO Girl
17. Chisu: Sabotage
18. Stella: Kutsumattomat vieraat jääkää kotiin
19. Regina: Mustavalkeaa
20. Rubik: Storm in a Glass of Water
21. Freeman: Tuhatjalkainen
22. Supo: Se tulee olemaan helppoo
23. Shine 2009: So Free
24. Jätkäjätkät: Uusi moottoritie
25. Von Hertzen Brothers: Miracle

I've heard of one of those bands, go me

seriously...y'all know how every EOY list is made? it really is as simple as just balloting writers. no publication can be bothered to rig or fix the results, or craft a list that "espouses" a "hivemind" or "worldview".

― lex pretend, Saturday, December 3, 2011 3:25 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

this is so cute^^

― HUSTLA DA =:3 (dealwithit.gif), Saturday, December 3, 2011 6:49 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Permalink

the thing is that because of the vvv few 'notorious' (used relatively obv) examples of that kind of manipulation, you get rafts of messageboard blowhards thinking they have some sort of 'industry understanding' and that every single publication anywhere crafts its polls to reflect a personal brand

whereas in fact most of them don't even have enough of a defined brand to make it in anyway worthwhile, and even if they did what would flipping around two ho-hum indie records on a list of 40 or whatever actually tell anyone

That the magazine wants to 'keep in' with Noel rather than Liam?

Quietus list has gone up:

http://thequietus.com/articles/07520-quietus-albums-of-the-year-2011

Really need to hear the Cut Hands record.

GORILLA VS. BEAR | Albums of 2011

30 Nicolas Jaar | Space Is Only Noise
29 Andy Stott | Passed Me By
28 The Weeknd | House of Balloons
27 Clams Casino | Instrumentals
26 Schoolboy Q | Setbacks
25 Elite Gymnastics | Ruin 1 + 2
24 Run DMT | Dreaming
23 Burial | Street Halo
22 Mina Tindle | Mina Tindle
21 Young Galaxy | Shapeshifting
20 Toro y Moi | Freaking Out
19 Pure X | Pleasure
18 Ford & Lopatin | Channel Pressure
17 Washed Out | Within and Without
16 Darkside | Darkside
15 Holy Other | With U
14 The Caretaker | An Empty Bliss Beyond This World
13 Grouper | A I A
12 Sleep ∞ Over | Forever
11 The Sandwitches | Mrs. Jones’ Cookies
10 Puro Instinct | Headbangers in Ecstasy
09 Julianna Barwick | The Magic Place
08 Real Estate | Days
07 araabMUZIK | Electronic Dream
06 Korallreven | An Album By Korallreven
05 A$AP Rocky | LIVELOVEA$AP
04 White Denim | D
03 Panda Bear | Tomboy
02 Peaking Lights | 936
01 Shabazz Palaces | Black Up