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

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

LES isn't vitriolic or particularly direct though! indeed what makes it very unadolescent is her commitment to an "objective stance" throughout - there's no polemic, no sloganeering, just...describing, and making human. it's very comparable to new amerykah pt 1 in that sense (and i guess if you reduced erykah badu to the themes she's concerned with you could call her a bit sixth form as well?)

what sort of influences do raiohead cite these days? courtney love? is billy corgan still writing and if so what is he reading

is there a good reason why Fleet Foxes shouldn't fill me with an almost irresistible urge to kill

lol king of limbs influences #1 result is sick mahfy

what sort of influences do raiohead cite these days?

Penderecki and ye old englische dubsteppe.

what makes it very unadolescent is her commitment to an "objective stance" throughout

I've seen random internet chuckleheads denounce it for both glorifying and criticising war, which kinda suggests she's done her job

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke told BBC that he has always been infatuated with the music of Neil Young and has even been told some of his music sounds like the legendary singer songwriter.

I really cannot get over how much better than the FACT list the RA list is; even the overlapping tracks sound better on the RA list.

is there a good reason why Fleet Foxes shouldn't fill me with an almost irresistible urge to kill

I don't even really want to open this can of worms, but I really like the new album. They've really expanded on what they did with their over-hyped first album and I think there are some really interesting moments. Some songs put me in the mind of the first Midlake album, while other hit on a CSNY vibe that works for me. I can totally see why this wouldn't be up most peoples alley, but otoh it kind of annoys me to see it so frequently lumped in (by both detractors and people that love them!!) with shit like Mumford or Noah and the Whale.

there is a reason why they get lumped in with shit like Mumford tho

I mean, I recognize that they are talented and I actually think they have very, very good singing voices; I just want to start punching until my fists are nubs whenever I hear their music

i guess one reason is that it's possible not to listen to them

what is the best way to convey how little indie music you have heard without seeming tuomish or otherwise obnoxious

oh dan, while you're here you may not have seen this in the knifelike thread, but fatima al qadiri's latest ep is currently blowing my mind, and i think you might be into it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpgtuWQ2vUc

http://soundcloud.com/fatima-al-qadiri/sets/genre-specific-xperieince

there is a reason why they get lumped in with shit like Mumford tho

I mean, I recognize that they are talented and I actually think they have very, very good singing voices; I just want to start punching until my fists are nubs whenever I hear their music

― OH NOES, Friday, December 16, 2011

good grief, man. fleet foxes are not supposed to inspire rage; they are supposed to make you think of golden voices carried along gentle breezes, which make you recognize the vast univ . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

there is a reason why they get lumped in with shit like Mumford tho

I don't know, I think this betrays how little you've actually heard. The thing is, the singles that get all the buzz are actually usually my LEAST favorite of their songs. I think they actually have very little in common with Mumford.

I mean, whatever, this is a losing battle here and I don't really care enough to invest more time in it - but the kneejerk comparisons to Mumford & Sons are lazy and wrong.

from the little i've heard of each, M&S seem very british and fleet foxes seem very american

appropos of nothing, but one of my law partners loves mumford & sons, or whatever their name is.

Fleet Foxes are annoying due to excessive mimsiness whereas the Mumfords are annoying due to clumpy pig-on-a-string beery idiocy.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke told BBC that he has always been infatuated with the music of Neil Young and has even been told some of his music sounds like the legendary singer songwriter.

Watching him go from saying stuff like this, to rubbing up against Massive Attack at OccupyLSX, TY just strikes me as one of those dudes who spends his entire life trying to get the Sixth Form boys to really ~really~ like him, whether those Sixth Form Boys are Aphex Twin or Fleet Foxes. It's kinda pathetic but also quite quite endearing. And makes me quite glad that he has the band he has, who make sure that "Penderecki and ye old englische dubsteppe" overwhelm tendencies that would otherwise turn him into Primal Scream, basically.

^^^^^^massive amounts of projection may have gone into the making of this post.