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

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)

you know, I have said this about a bazillion times but really fuck Chris Brown forever

lol @ this Inc. track, is this 2011 or 1988?

i don't know, i think it's one of his better songs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMKX22BHeE (xpost)

hahaha

P.A.S.S.I.O.N. got him in a jam again

This Objekt track would be fantastic if the beat would commit to something

I don't know if this version of "Sicko Cell" on Spotify is the same one they picked but, if it is, GOOD JOB FACT, this gets really really creepy and tense once the beat drops out; it does a good job of making me want to hear the entire mix I pulled it out of.

This XXXY song is kind of generic but simply having a driving house beat puts it above most of the other tracks FACT picked, lol

did you like the blawan track dan?

Suburbanite: You might be overestimating the magazine's "wide range of coverage" -- it's mostly just me writing about pop records, someone else profiling local indie bands, and a classical critic. Aventura's probably "pop" enough to fall inside my purview (i.e., you could write about it as a pop thing, without any big background in Latin/Caribbean music), but I rarely feel like I have time to do that sort of thing justice; I'd want to take a while to really learn what I'm talking about! It'd be great if we had a regular freelancer with the background to cover that stuff quickly. (Also, I should get better at pitching.)

i felt sure the wire top ten would include the grouper recs

Blawan wasn't on Spotify so I haven't tracked it down yet.

Has anyone mentioned Anthony David as yet?

Bleep's top ten albums:

1. Byetone - SyMeta (raster-noton)
2. Rustie - Glass Swords (Warp)
3. John Maus - We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves (Upset The Rhythm)
4. patten - GLAQJO XAACSSO (No Pain In Pop)
5. Martyn - Ghost People (Brainfeeder)
6. Peaking Lights - 936 (WW / NNF)
7. Surgeon - Breaking The Frame (Dynamic Tension Records)
8. Roll The Dice - In Dust (The Leaf Label)
9. Nicolas Jaar - Space is Only Noise (Circus Company)
10. Roly Porter - Aftertime (Subtext)

http://bleep.com/?page=podcast&module=EOY
Buy

x-post to Nabisco--what's pop sometimes depends on how it is pitched and who is your editor I guess.

hmm this Blawan track is basically just a Brandy remix; it's good but not really killing me (tho headphones might be letting me down again)

again though, the presence of an actual beat elevates it above most of the other selections on the list

I have a top ten to write and I one have 9 records--AND I'm worried that one won't even count. Argh.

Sorry--"only have".

in my experience at different publications, writers have a much bigger hand in coverage than editors. yes, sometimes you're assigned a story, but much more often you make a strong case for something new's inclusion

That Bleep top ten is decent, would be interested to hear the record at #1.

Also Dan you'd better do this when the RA list turns up rather than wasting your 2011 dance listening on this FACT list.