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

no erstwhiles = fail

that is just a c&p fail btw

those lists are A LOT better than their disappointing main one i think

Thanks for that! I award you the 2011 Don Quixote award for services to transcription.

wasn't me (for once)

Yeah, those lists make a lot more sense to me than the meta-list. Though the hip-hop one doesn't look that good to me - anyone who's actually more of a head about that stuff disagree? (I actually like a couple of things in it, it just looks... like they haven't dug that deep?)

not sure how iceage or the men are "avant rock" but all genre names are dumb so whatever

wire hip hop lists are usually just noz i think, it's a pretty decently representative list of things a lot of people liked, and one of the only kind of surprise picks (meek mill's "house party") is a song i love so i can't complain

Would like to hear these:

Korea: Jongmyo Jeryeak: Ritual Music For The Royal Ancestors Various (Ocora)
Wallahi Le Zein!!: Wezin, Jakwar, And Guitar Boogie From The Islamic Republic Of Mauritania Various (Latitude)

And maybe a couple of the others that look Korean to me. I know there's got to be some Korean music I would like but the recordings I've hear are either pop that I'm not into, too avant-garde, or some overly rarified court music. But I've heard some Korean melodies that were amazing. Also, I bet some less traditional Mauritanian music could hook me in, in a big way. (Dimi Mint Aba was great live partly because of the sheer power of her voice, but I find the recordings mostly inaccessible.)

Why does most avant-rock I check out have troubled angular rhythms?

theres some great, overlooked stuff in the outer limits list but that peterlicker tape was garbage

i didnt realize that noz did the hip hop list himself, i thought it was weird that they didnt go more of the cloud rap, wire-y hip hop released this year

i dunno if he did it entirely on his own but it seemed like the last year or two it was all or mostly him, i was just saying

hip hop's list is on point & is all noz

i am just not getting this James Ferraro stuff.

only posting this list because the no. 3 album -- Matana Roberts' Coin Coin Chapter One: Gens de Couleur Libres -- is really good. not for everyone, it can be skreechy and abrasive at times, but at its best, it is powerful, raw jazz.

actually the overall list looks interesting. i just haven't had enough exposure to many of the titles listed on it.

So many of the African albums on that Wire Global list are reissues. And I see they are still doing a dub reggae list but not a dancehall one...

wait guys i think i just figured out what curmudgeon's new display name is

ding ding ding! You win

Rudipherous: The Wallahi le Zain comp is decent. I would say for pure enjoyment's sake, there is no need for it to be 2 cds, it's bloated. On the anthropological tip maybe the 2 cds is necessary.

The music is decent, but a lot of the songs start sounding same-y even to someone familiar with the different styles, mostly because of the guitar tones. But it's not like there's a glut of Mauritanian music so any is appreciated. I would like to see more releases of haraatin music though.

Also it was kind of weird reading the liner notes, the compiler talked about how this music was party and wedding music and he discussed the community aspect of the dancing and stuff, which is cool and all but kind of puts the listener in a weird space because we are necessarily listening to the comp in absentia of the wedding parties. I don't think the vibe he was trying to capture by taping live instead of studio recordings really comes across.

james ferraro album rules but i had no idea critics would be into it at all

i know one who isnt

well he's certainly no skrillex

This is two days late, but that Wye Oak album ... I can understand calling it "generic," because in a lot of ways it's a very dead-center kind of indie-rock, especially for anyone who perhaps enjoyed indie-rock in the later 90s. It is EXTREMELY good at that, though (which is not exactly common right now), and extremely interesting in its way, too.

Also:

I just have to accept that Nabisco is not interested in some 2011 things that I am--charting rap and r'n'b; African, Caribbean (soca & dancehall) and Latin music; country, southern soul and Americana.

Parts of this are true, but it's a lot to assume from one year's top-10 list! I mean, ten is a small number. I liked a lot of charting rap and r&b (and pop, a country) this year, just nothing that stuck out to me in a top-10 way in album form. And I've have felt silly shoehorning a record in just to prove that I paid attention to some country, or whatever.

But yes, a lot of those areas, especially internationally, I just don't know much about, and they're not really part of my purview job-wise -- I mean, I enjoy modern African pop, but I don't presume to be much of a "critic" or well-informed follower of it, just an ordinary listener. (And I already have to listen to a bunch of other stuff for work, so it's a lot less often that I can explore something out of personal curiosity. I also get the feeling I am a "slow" listener, if that makes sense.)

Another ten tracks from FACT
http://www.factmag.com/2011/12/05/50-best-tracks-of-2011-50-41/4/

20: BLAWAN ‘GETTING ME DOWN’ (WHITE LABEL)
19: CHRIS BROWN feat. BUSTA RHYMES & LIL WAYNE ‘LOOK AT ME NOW’ (JIVE)
18: DISTAL ‘COKE BOTTLE’ (GRIZZLY)
17: PANGAEA ‘WON’T HURT’ (HESSLE AUDIO)
16: MASSIVE ATTACK vs. BURIAL ‘PARADISE CIRCUS’ (VINYL FACTORY)
15: INC. ‘MILLIONAIRESS’ (from 3 EP, 4AD)
14: OBJEKT ‘THE GOOSE THAT GOT AWAY’ (OBJEKT)
13: UNKNOWN ARTIST ‘SICKO CELL’ (SWAMP81)
12: XXXY ‘ORDINARY THINGS’ (TEN THOUSAND YEN)
11: LANA DEL RAY ‘VIDEO GAMES’ (INTERSCOPE)

yeah obviously one's top ten albums for the year inevitably become a postage stamp 'statement' about what you listen to and care about, but it really is a pretty small window into one's tastes that the absence of one thing or another really shouldn't be interpreted as a total lock of interest in that whole genre or anything (xpost)

DEL REY. DEL REY. IT'S FUCKING DEL REY NOT DEL RAY

/subeditor snap

as in the spanish for king

aaargh

20: BLAWAN ‘GETTING ME DOWN’ (WHITE LABEL)
^^^^yes!!!! banger
19: CHRIS BROWN feat. BUSTA RHYMES & LIL WAYNE ‘LOOK AT ME NOW’ (JIVE)
^^kmt, ok the beat is good but none of those three are notable at all. why not just rep for another version of it so you recognise the beat without having to give space to chris brown? like this one for instance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pDCcnrgP4c

17: PANGAEA ‘WON’T HURT’ (HESSLE AUDIO)
^^^uh what? this was one of those i haven't given a second's thought to since hearing it. Pangaea's "hex" was much better

14: OBJEKT ‘THE GOOSE THAT GOT AWAY’ (OBJEKT)
^^^weird, it was the flipside of this that i really loved! gorgeous stuff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xozMkGpiPrM

12: XXXY ‘ORDINARY THINGS’ (TEN THOUSAND YEN)
^^ok i guess, i can't hear why you'd particularly highlight it

The Rolling Stone list is actually more progressive than the Wire list.

But yes, a lot of those areas, especially internationally, I just don't know much about, and they're not really part of my purview job-wise

So New York Dominican band Aventura can play Madison Square Garden multiple nights and a New York City publication that covers a broad range of music, does not think that having any staffers or freelancers ever take note of that group, is part of their purview(the publication as opposed to you. No one writer is expected to cover everything) but all kinds of indie-rock is...

that's a x-post to nabiscothing

The Rolling Stone list is actually more progressive than the Wire list.

― OCCUPY DEPRESSION (Fotherington Thomas), Thursday, December 8, 2011 1:50 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

heh otm

What is the definition of 'progressive' that you are using here? (Not disagreeing, I just literally have no idea what criteria you are using to describe something as 'progressive' in this context.)

Progressive challops.

to suit their tastes presumably
xp

OTOH it might be the fact that the Rolling Stone list actually has some women on it.

or politics then

19: CHRIS BROWN feat. BUSTA RHYMES & LIL WAYNE ‘LOOK AT ME NOW’ (JIVE)
^^kmt, ok the beat is good but none of those three are notable at all. why not just rep for another version of it so you recognise the beat without having to give space to chris brown? like this one for instance

there are 80 million versions of that song but they're all pretty much the same song.

also "great job diplo but sorry busta rhymes you just don't cut the mustard" is some horseshit

I mean I don't really know who's in 'Wonderful Piss Fist' but I'm just guessing here...

do you want to?

Huh, that's funny, because as far as I can tell both lists have two female artists in the top 10.

xpost to Matt DC.

would be funny if it was an all female bubblegum group though
xp

emil.y check email btw for something you requested

I could totally see a band called 'Wonderful Piss Fist' being made up of women. You guys just don't go to the right gigs, clearly.

(not 'Wonderful Piss Fist')

(Though I do agree that the Wire needs to up its game in regard to coverage of female artists - they didn't even mention Vinyl Terror & Horror in the CooS review.)

btw it's Wonderfuls - Piss Fist

Three women in the Wire to ten: Eliane Radigue, Laurel Halo and half of Hype Williams iirc

http://www.ravemagazine.com.au/content/view/26498/181/

Not a single record I've bought has made it onto any of the EOY lists yet - and looking at the last installment of the FACT list it doesn't look like it will (one of the few where that might have happened)