most regrettable choice for album of the year, as chosen by THE WIRE

you should be! james ferraro is not a keyboard player!

(Also, how am I supposed to gather from the picture that he doesn't know how to play it? The fact that it's got writing on it? I've seen fucking loads of very talented players with keyboards w/ writing on, for various reasons.)

xpost - that still doesn't answer why you describe it as a "child's toy" (nor in fact why if it were a child's toy that would be an inherently bad thing)

emily, i've seen him, he can't play it

his show was literally like watching a 10 year old play his Casio for the first time in front of a crowd of paying adults. Atrocious.

Emily, if your keyboard friends are playing with more than two fingers, they're def far out of my crosshairs on this

No, I mean, it's fair enough if his live show is shitty shit shit. I like the album from this year, kind of boggled that it was #1, but I don't think it's a big problem if that was the consensus pick for Wire writers - the list as a whole was a bit strange to me.

My main problem with what you're saying is that the picture doesn't show that he's shit and worthless! At all. And you're not really backing up your claim by saying that you've seen him and thus know - what you were saying was that all we needed to do was look at the picture. Lies! Vicious lies.

(Also, you can be a good keyboard player and play with only one finger, you know. That's the difference between playing piano and playing synth.)

Saying that about the picture was a trolly joke, emily, sheesh!

I might still be drunk. Not saying this has anything to do with anything, but... just saying.

i saw the skaters live three times, and each time they were p amazing - totally made manifest a spooked, zoned out 'otherness' that was incredibly persuasive and exciting and p unique - technique, or o/wise, didn't come into it, didn't matter. ferraro's music since then hasn't been quite so interesting, to me, but this alb chosen by the wire is clever, quite skillfully made, and yes, some of the ideas behind it are interesting and worth exploring - there's certainly much more to it than retro nostalgia, ironic appropriation or whatevs. and the songtitles are great - i esp like 'condo pets'.

It's almost as if I don't really believe that about the photo, but it would be a funnier way of trying to prove my point! :P

wd probly vote for Thousand Leaves but i suppose i shd check this Ferraro dude

― Ban (Julie Lagger), Sunday, 11 December 2011 15:53 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

srsly ATL is the best thing on here by a lot

Voted Arrested Development.

I like the ferraro.

Voting A Thousand Leaves as well.

1992: Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months & 2 Days in the Life of... idk
1993: Bjork - Debut fair enough idk who cares
1994: Portishead - Dummy "
1995: Tricky - Maxinquaye "
1996: Tortoise - Millions Now Living Will Never Die a bad precedent
1997: Robert Wyatt - Shleep they do things differently there
1998: Sonic Youth - A Thousand Leaves ...
1999: Mouse On Mars - Niun Niggung fair enough
2000: Antipop Consortium - Tragic Epilogue probably one of the more defensible modish choices
2001: Björk - Vespertine idk couldnt they vote for confield or sthing just this once
2002: Sonic Youth - Murray Street controversial uptown outfit the youth will have been delighted
2003: Robert Wyatt - Cuckooland w/e
2004: Albert Ayler - Holy Ghost Box Set filial piety from the wireites
2005: The Books – Lost & Safe no, not this
2006: Burial - Burial u can see why but no
2007: Robert Wyatt - Comicopera oh christ
2008: The Bug - London Zoo tschhhh
2009: Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age lol
2010: Actress - Splazsh resposible for one of my most bile ridden aspiebait threads so good work
2011: James Ferraro - Far Side Virtual guessing this is pleasantly waste

that james ferraro album is hilarious

Oh I wish I could read that Actress thread now.

xp the Casio SK-1 has tiny keys and a low sample rate but I wouldn't call it a "child's toy". Monomes, Gameboys, Tenori-Ons, Ableton Live; those are toys.

maybe whiney doesnt realize it's a joke?

Damn I hope im not soundin like some headbanger mad at Tenacious D

If it's some joke then kudos, but actually liking it is lower than ca. 2010 "DIE ANTWOORD GOT CHOONS" revisionism

I entirely understand someone hating the Ferraro album but for better or worse it doesn't really sound like anything else so I don't see how it's going to embody any sort of collective attitude

btw best albums on this list are Bug, Ayler and Arrested Development real talk

lolling @ the wire is so fun

whiney please nominate your top five albums of "wire music" for 2011

The Ferraro record stands out as the least, uh, crafty of all these records, for sure.

i like those bjork records, portishead, the ayler i've never heard but i'm sure it's good

i'm listening to ferraro now oh wait i had to turn it off because i get the "joke" which just leaves unlistenable casio music

ATY over Comicopera.

whiney's jihad against neo-new-age is about 9 months past its sell-by imo sorry dude. if you can't hear the qualitative difference between ferraro & the altered zones shit you hate so much then you are doing some lazy listening imo

also, voted bjork because her music is & has always been horrible

not a big bjork fan, but vespertine is beautiful and bjork aside, the music on that is heaps more inventive than eg murray street

Vespertine, along with Tortoise, is the best, most ground-breaking record in terms of progressive sound on this list.

<3 vespertine, my 2nd favourite björk album

weirdly what stands out to me on glancing at this list is how uhhh mainstream the first 4 are! in the sense of their profile. tbh an equivalent list for most other publications would almost certainly be more embarrassing

I misread the title -- my two picks would be my favorites (and Vespertine).

weirdly what stands out to me on glancing at this list is how uhhh mainstream the first 4 are! in the sense of their profile. tbh an equivalent list for most other publications would almost certainly be more embarrassing
― degas-dirty monet (lex pretend),

Kerrang
1992 Alice In Chains - Dirt
1993 Pearl Jam - Vs
1994 Therapy? - Troublegum
1995 Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
1996 Screaming Trees - Dust

Troublegum!

The Face
1992 1. Arrested Development - Three Years, Five Months And Two Days In The LIfe Of...
1993 Bjork - Debut
1994 Portishead – Dummy
1995 Tricky - Maxinquaye
1996 Fugees- The Score

welp, lex otm

looks like there was pretty much a consensus in those years GAPDYXX fans

I do like it when The Wire go to bat for an artist, esp. a newish one, one who is such typical fodder for the magazine. i.e. a band that only The Wire would put at #1, like Ayler, The Books, Actress.

Sorry for confusing verbs + nouns when switching btw "artist" and "band" I don't know how you guys keep it together

whiney please nominate your top five albums of "wire music" for 2011

― los krampusinos! (pomplamau5), Sunday, December 11, 2011 12:59 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

Article coming at the end of Dec, actually!

A GAME OF HORSESHOES

lol

Hate that The Bug POS so much, worse than Burial

Giving Far Side Virtual #1 is admirable trolling, wtg WIRE

the bug album is awesome

A Thousand Leaves is my favourite of these, and Murray Street is my least favourite. I've only heard about half of them though. Haven't heard the Ferraro.

Tony Herrington's comments on the 2011 list are interesting:

Because when you look closely, the individual wills that gave rise to such an outcome (The Wire‘s contributors say James Ferraro’s Far Side Virtual is the best thing released this year) start to appear rather peculiar in relation to it, ie: out of an electorate of 60 voters, only seven actually voted for Far Side Virtual in their individual top tens – that’s less than 12 per cent of the total electorate; and none of those electors who did vote for it actually had it as their individual top release of the year.

PAZZ & JOP
1992 Arrested Development - 3 Years, 5 Months, And 2 Days In The Life Of...
1993 Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
1994 Hole - Live Through This
1995 PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
1996 Beck - Odelay

P&J no different to other lists

I think Murray Street is the last true great SY album. I couldn't care less for the patchy, mediocre ATL. Murray Street is just so gripping, from beginning to end.

sonic youth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y21VecIIdBI

after a lot of thought i think i'm voting for vespertine because ugh, but then that books record never announced itself as anything noteworthy to me either, and then i've never heard a robert wyatt record but i guess i trust his pedigree

feel like one day that burial record is going to shrug off the gross stigma that you all attach to it

also wtf @ anyone who denounced the last few years of picks, the broadcast and actress records are pretty great and i much prefer kind of modest list toppers that just happened to be liked by a lot of people than, um, attempts at pinning the musical accomplishments of a year on one album

which may not be an accurate reflection of how lists are made but that's kind of how they come off every year forever

yeah that Broadcast record rules school

this thread is a p effective advertisement for the qualities of that ferraro record atp

Robert Wyatt steady has the shittiest album titles of any legacy artist

this thread is a p effective advertisement for the qualities of that ferraro record atp

? ?(?_ ?)?, Tuesday, 13 December 2011 05:54 (8 hours ago) Permalink

net etiquette says you should not provide unsolicited negative feedback but

'far side virtual' is by far the most worthless thing on here.

? nuhnuhnuh, Monday, 12 December 2011 21:57 (Yesterday) Permalink

it's ugly, stupid, pretentious, and you can't even dance to it.

? nuhnuhnuh, Monday, 12 December 2011 21:58 (Yesterday) Permalink

maybe Ferraro is so bad that it will fade into obscurity and then get rediscovered by people who never grew up hearing the Microsoft Windows midi sound.

? skip, Monday, 12 December 2011 23:05 (Yesterday) Permalink

just FYI. I want to vote bjork twice but I can't.

counterpoint

this thread is a p effective advertisement for the qualities of that ferraro record atp

― є(٥_ ٥)э, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 5:54 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

otm. if JF makes our year end list it will be because of this thread. I'm still convinced that the reason four out of five GAPDY artists made the 09 albums top 10 was because of that damned acronym

OK, now I've actually heard the James Ferraro record, it is both hilarious and oddly compelling.

It is like a Steve Reich piece recorded by LOLcats.

And that Wire blog explaining how it came to be number one all written in maths, like "this album being number one is due to a glitch in statistical analysis" is one of the most brilliant pieces of writing I've read all year.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

tschh

Broadcast & The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age 2

I curse whoever these two posters are

Yeah that record is so good.

i listened to the first books record cuz of this thread & i think it still holds up p well

What's this hate for Arrested Development all about

they are lazy and terrible

There are a staggering number of lurkers btw. We've done 35gb of traffic in 10 days. They could crush you, if they weren't all hiding. listening to jeff buckley

The first two Books records are great, Lost & Safe is not. Odd choice really.

Best venue excuse I ever heard: "Sorry, we thought we'd get a good crowd tonight, but Arrested Development is playing down the street." Charlotte, NC circa 2005.

hey Lamp & mookie you seem to like Laika, you guys listen much to Moonshake? I was just playing Eva Luna and, man, I've had that album for about 15 years and it still just keeps getting better and better...

wow wrong thread

late robert wyatt is generally p bad but their affection for him is kind of touching. probably i would have voted mouse on mars because i mean come on

Come on what?

re: Ayler boxset. Knew of its existence but had no idea that he played w/Cecil and Graves...I've been asleep.

The early-to-mid 90s #1s are really gd. I guess people forget that Wire were staffed w/writers from both the Jazz AND the indie/pop end of the music press.

Not that I'll check but somehow doubt the latest crop of writers from the NME will get near so I wd guess (and I've only bought a cpl of issues in the last year) most of the writers come from the Merzbow end of the music paperless press.

That and K-Punk.

re: Ayler boxset. Knew of its existence but had no idea that he played w/Cecil and Graves...I've been asleep.

Graves was his go-to drummer for about a year and a half (he's on Love Cry). He didn't play much with Cecil: the snippet on the box may be the only time they played together. Supposedly, Jimmy Lyons (Cecil's alto saxophonist) wasn't a fan of Ayler's playing. But the Cecil-Ayler collaboration was long thought to be just a rumor before the box surfaced.