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

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)