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

no yardbirds?

^agreed. It's an outrage.

luckily we have tuneyards

I don't normally like to bash P4K, but their list is less inspired than the NME's.

Who looks to these lists for inspiration?

this muthafucka

http://rlv.zcache.com/look_to_the_light_business_card-p240048209533610449yq46_400.jpg

Here's the tracks off of the RA list I could find on Spotify:

http://open.spotify.com/user/djperry1973/playlist/1hyXkhovMXjdch00K74y6B

fyi 15 seconds in and I already like this list much much more than the FACT list

Yeah it's pretty good. Already discovered a few keepers i wasn't familiar with

okay I am in LOVE with this Sneaker track, which is essentially one measure of music repeated for 12 minutes

What was the guardian number 1? pj harvey?

yarp

WateryTart

16 December 2011 1:27PM

Let England Shake – a genuinely great piece of war art – was made by a woman, too, though in 2011 we really should have moved beyond finding this unusual. ...

Female singer-songwriters are supposed to be winsome things who write about their feelings for guys. ...

Folk singer Linda Thompson, part of a panel of judges who voted Let England Shake Uncut magazine's album of the year (it won the Mercury prize, and was Mojo and NME's album of the year, too) put it like this: "I was impressed that a woman could go through a whole album and not mention some stupid bloke, except a stupid dead bloke."

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

"She's a girl but she writes about war and that's innovative and unusual for a girl, though we really shouldn't have to say that. But we will. Because she's a girl. And her album is full of deep stuff, not like what girls usually write about. It's good when girls don't write about what girls usually write about."

I must reiterate:

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

okay really?

yeah, i thought that was a pretty weak summation of why this is a good album. I'm still looking for an "in" to it, but being told "it's good because it's a girl singing about war" is not only plain sexist, but the least interesting thing about the record.

I love that album for several reasons:

- The totally different, delicate vocal color of PJ's singing voice, particularly the stunning floated headvoice used on "On Battleship Hill".
- The connected narrative running through the album.
- The music arrangement of the songs.

yeah dan, really
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/dec/16/pj-harvey-let-england-shake

Linda Thompson's summation is lame but Kitty Empire's is a lot more nuanced than that.

i can't really think of anything more to say about LES - having written about PJH a lot this year - but every time i see someone suggest that LES : UK :: Destroyer : USA (in that UK critics care way less about Destroyer than US critics, and US critics care way less about PJH than Destroyer), I am tremendously thankful to be on the right side of that

Let England Shake – a genuinely great piece of war art – was made by a woman, too, though in 2011 we really should have moved beyond finding this unusual.

Yes durr.

But Harvey's gender, and her upbringing on a Dorset farm, are both inherent to its greatness.

Also true.

I was more boggling at Linda Thompson

i also liked Kitty E's write-up

NY Times critics top 2011 picks

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/arts/music/from-retro-yuck-to-foodie-rap.html?ref=music Jon Caramanica

Likes Yuck, Action Bronson, Drake, Beyonce and more

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/arts/music/music-of-heartache-mortality-and-success.html?_r=1&ref=music Jon Pareles

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/arts/music/pistol-annies-yob-deaf-center-paul-simon.html?ref=music Ben Ratliff

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/arts/music/ambrose-akinmusire-drake-the-roots-st-vincent.html?ref=music Nate Chinen

guardian critics' lists:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/dec/16/albums-2011-critics-voted?intcmp=ILCMUSTXT9384

Harvey began writing lyrics for the album before setting the words to music. She has cited the poetry of Harold Pinter and T.S. Eliot as influences, as well as the artwork of Salvador Dalí and Francisco de Goya and music of The Doors, The Pogues, and The Velvet Underground.[7] She has also spoken of researching the history of conflict, including the Gallipoli campaign, and reading modern-day testimonies from civilians and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

this is very kinda 'ambitious sixth former'

well luckily her execution is way beyond "ambitious sixth former"

Diamond Mine has appeared 6 times ITT and always in the lower ranks. When Saints Go Machine appeared only twice, and just once in the higher echelons. And today I bought a scotch egg and there was no egg in it. Fuck this world!

on a related note why is so much conceptual ambition in art, esp that which involves actual research, always dismissed as "sixth former" or "undergraduate"? as if it's somehow juvenile?

if it is, the people responsible for slating it should be shot in front of their families (Etc).. Maybe this is some throwback to the punk-rock conceit that "concept albums are for nerdy art-fags who like classical music" or something?

and US critics care way less about PJH than Destroyer

I don't really see this though, PJH has seemed to show up ahead of Bejar on a lot of lists.

...from U.S. centric outlets, I meant to add.

Lolololololol at Reynolds putting Woebot's album in his top 10.

Also there's a Woebot album wtf?

idk this album but those all cohere into a particular sort of late-adolescent worldview

why is so much conceptual ambition in art, esp that which involves actual research, always dismissed as "sixth former" or "undergraduate"?

in this case i think it's partly to do with the listed influences being sort of obvious touchstones to young people just discovering literature/music and the idea of naive "anti-war" themes.

nb i've got no idea what the record's like i'm just explaining why that bit of review reads that way

woebot has been releasing for years!

nv gracious to the bleachers as ever

nb u cd just as easily make a list of trying-too-hard slightly more obscure references. it is the way that paragraph is written that gives off the vibe i think

on a related note why is so much conceptual ambition in art, esp that which involves actual research, always dismissed as "sixth former" or "undergraduate"? as if it's somehow juvenile?

Because Sixth Form was the last time in their lives that any of these people did any actual research or conceptual thinking, for pure intellectual curiosity, or any other reason.

The list of influences is kinda sixth-form actually But ambitious six-formers tend not to talk to soldiers back from Afghanistan and Iraq or do much research into Gallipoli, in fairness. Also yeah the execution.

they all do Gallipoli! it must be every GCSE History syllabub ever!

Because Sixth Form was the last time in their lives that any of these people did any actual research or conceptual thinking, for pure intellectual curiosity, or any other reason.

ha that's what i was gonna say but i couldn't get the sentence out right. when it comes to thirst for knowledge i'd take most 6th formers over most adults.

i never did gallipoli! before i reviewed LES i had to ring my dad to talk to him about WW1

and then i did my own internet research, like PJH before me

"WWI = tragic WWII = noble"

The list of influences is kinda sixth-form actually But ambitious six-formers tend not to talk to soldiers back from Afghanistan and Iraq or do much research into Gallipoli, in fairness. Also yeah the execution.

― Matt DC, Friday, 16 December 2011 15:54 (1 minute ago)

hah it's exactly the mix of entrylev highbrows and socially engaged extracurriculars that give it the school yearbook feel

how would an actual grown-up approach this kind of material in your opinion then?

Unless you're a child-genius autodidact you shouldn't be singing about anything other than cars and girls.

Tom Lamont

Albums

1) The Antlers – Burst Apart
2) The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
3) Noah and the Whale – Last Night on Earth
4) Bon Iver – Bon Iver
5) Laura Marling – A Creature I Don't Know
6) Owl City – All Things Bright and Beautiful
7) Papercuts – Fading Parade
8) Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
9) The Low Anthem – Smart Flesh
10) King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine

man I'm a nice guy but just looking at this is making me feel like Biffa Bacon to his Cedric

lex u ought to have noticed this is something quite specific! not the old nme reviewer staple of 'sixth form poetry'

insofar as polly j is successful it's cuz she preserves a sort of adolescent directness and vitriol very well

The album isn't particularly vitriolic though? There's a weird lack of overt commentary there given the subject matter.

man I'm a nice guy but just looking at this is making me feel like Biffa Bacon to his Cedric

I have no idea what this means but I'm going to assume from context that it involves disemboweling and vivisection