forgot death cab even put out an album this year
i wouldnt go that far dog latin.
I think there are now plenty of indie/rock kids out there who are ready and willing to diversify and explore other styles, but for whom diving straight into the deep end of r’n’b is just a little outside their comfort zones. When an artist is presented in the way of Frank Ocean, it doesn’t feel like such a leap and hopefully this will lead to further exploration: “Well I can deal with Frank Ocean, how about The-Dream” and onwards...
way late to this but sort of can’t believe this kind of strawmanning still goes on. people are not genre partisans anymore, by and large. (except maybe rap and metalheads I guess lol)
it’s really more that there are people who are genre partisans and people who aren’t, regardless of genre
there are people who like to think they’re not genre partisans (and genre isn’t quite the right word tbh)
what is the right word
“aesthetic”? idk i’m multitasking right now
challops partisans
EVERYONE is an aesthetic partisan* though
Oh, I’m probably an aesthetic partisan—not that I like solely a single aesthetic, but that I can quite clearly partition ‘my’ aesthetics and ‘not-my’ aesthetics. But that has nothing to do with genre at all.
^ likes pizza aesthetics
Yeah, emil.y makes complete sense—that I think most ppl do have overt or otherwise aesthetic preferences which slot into distinct patterns, though whether that dovetails neatly with “genre” is another kettle of fish.
Fotherington T what did you mean by
This is where JR and I have ~differences~ but I am really uncomfortable with the way that “Metal” has been raised to that position of automatic rockist privilege that “Indie” used to occupy 20 years ago, now that “Indie” has become completely mainstream.
?
^ likes pizza aesthetics
― Minga Frump (Jimmy Riddle), Thursday, December 15, 2011 4:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
aesthetic paisan
aesthetic parmesan
agree with the whole “aesthetics” thing, but really:
way late to this but sort of can’t believe this kind of strawmanning still goes on. people are not genre partisans anymore, by and large. (except maybe rap and metalheads I guess lol)
― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 15 December 2011 16:26 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
you’re seriously telling me you never meet people any more who say they hate “all rap” or glorify rock music because “it’s more real” or whatever? this is diminishing, which is what i was saying upthread, but it hasn’t gone away.
I don’t really want to get into it, JR, because this is not the place, and I probably shouldn’t have brought it up if it was a challop I was not prepared to get into an argument of. But a lot of the dialogues that I see happening around “Metal” these days just remind me uncomfortably of the discussions around “Alternative” and “Punk” and whathaveyou back in the late 80s and early 90s, in terms of insider/outsider positioning and authenticity narratives.
But I am running on way too little sleep at the moment to pad it out into any cogent argument, so I’d really rather not.
ou’re seriously telling me you never meet people any more who say they hate “all rap”
More common for me to meet people who like “all music except country.”
you’re seriously telling me you never meet people any more who say they hate “all rap” or glorify rock music because “it’s more real” or whatever? this is diminishing, which is what i was saying upthread, but it hasn’t gone away.
I literally cannot remember the last time anyone said this kind of thing to me. maybe in the 90s in lol college. certainly none of the kids I know talk this way.
you’re seriously telling me you never meet people any more who say they hate “all rap” or glorify rock music because “it’s more real” or whatever? this is diminishing, which is what i was saying upthread, but it hasn’t gone away.
The ‘i like everything except rap/metal/country/reggae/rave shite/opera/punk/modern rnb that isnt like the yardbirds’ brigade have not gone away. They exist and sadly get younger every year.
modern rnb that isnt like the yardbirds
lol
the late 90s was really bad in the uk for “real music” type shite. dont forget ‘classic songwriting’ either. *shudders*
shakey you have no idea how many people still say “ proper rnb is like 60s bands like the yardbirds or the who and not this modern shite”
Ha, I used to spout that kind of nonsense once upon a time, back in the mists of time. And then I grew up, phew, that was easy.
okay no one says “proper RnB sounds like The Who”, at least not in the US
and funnily enough Dan I’m not in the US!
(Though TBH I’d have been more likely to say that R&B was stuff like The Supremes and the Ronettes and not that modern stuff they play on the radio. It’s like talking to an alien, sometimes, the stuff I believed when I was younger.)
They exist and sadly get younger every year.
plural of anecdote is not data etc. but no one in the under 25-brigade that I know (which is maybe a dozen people or so) def don’t espouse these attitudes. music is just EVERYWHERE to them, and as such they may have favorite artists but they don’t have super-strong genre opinions—firm aesthetic divisions don’t exist for them, there’s just too much music around for them to even bother taking the time to establish personal aesthetic politics. I can play them whatever and they just think “eh yeah that’s allright.” they’re more blase than anything else.
xp
Maybe you guys have a boogie rock equivalent?
xps
shakey you have no idea how many people still say “ proper rnb is like 60s bands like the yardbirds or the who and not this modern shite”
this literally does not happen in the US. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who believe this and they are both 45+ old hipster geezers that are not representative of anything, they are total oddballs and they know it.
also yeah lol at calling the Who or the Yardbirds rnb gtfo
Though TBH I’d have been more likely to say that R&B was stuff like The Supremes and the Ronettes and not that modern stuff they play on the radio.
it’s more likely/common that people would say they like that “classic” r&b stuff like Adele and not that weirdass obscure-o shit like the Dream!
but no one in the under 25-brigade that I know (which is maybe a dozen people or so) def don’t espouses these attitudes.
urgh double negatives. fixed.
i think it’s easy to get a warped sense of perspective, when speaking to relatively open-minded people on ILM, that the majority of people are very much open to pop, hip-hop, metal, dance and modern r’n’b that isn’t the Yardbirds—but I think really you don’t need to go too far outside the confines of this board to meet plenty of people who talk about “proper rock” and things. Just look at that Guardian Comments section for a start.
that guardian comments section is horrible , dog latin. PilkingtonsMagpie seems a not very nice guy for a start.
The comments ive read the past few days in that section have been race obsessed. Is it always like that? (yeah yeah welcome to the internet)
internet comments sections? really?
I’m talking about actual living breathing people I know and see on a regular basis, who don’t know anything about ILM and tend not to have strong opinions about music. which is the vast majority of the music-listening and purchasing public.
xp
i dont like katy b but i approve of its placing just to annoy these people tbh
xp
fwiw one of my fave R&B albums of 2011 sometimes kinda sounds like ’60s Who and Yardbirds:
^^^ I was gonna say
had no idea he even had a new album out—interested!
plural of anecdote is not data etc. but no one in the under 25-brigade that I know (which is maybe a dozen people or so) def don’t espouse these attitudes. music is just EVERYWHERE to them, and as such they may have favorite artists but they don’t have super-strong genre opinions—firm aesthetic divisions don’t exist for them, there’s just too much music around for them to even bother taking the time to establish personal aesthetic politics. I can play them whatever and they just think “eh yeah that’s allright.” they’re more blase than anything else.
xp
― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 15 December 2011 16:56 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
although I do agree with this, it’s only really something that started happening 2000-onwards and has much more recently becoming the norm in my experience. Before electro-revivalism, before mash-ups and other cross-genre/cross-aesthetic movements the tribal signifiers were much more clear cut. Yeah you had the Prodigy, but they kind of jumped from “rave music that ravers like” to “rave music that indie kids like” over the course of a year. Indie kids dabbled with dance, but they had a particular plot mapped out for them that included Orbital, Chems, Prodge and Big Beat but didn’t really include going to clubs and watching DJs. If you were a rock kid listening to dance, it had to have that auteurist “band” context (cue lots of terrible attempts to fuse metal guitars with drum’n’bass).
internet comments sections? really?
I’m talking about actual living breathing people I know and see on a regular basis, who don’t know anything about ILM and tend not to have strong opinions about music. which is the vast majority of the music-listening and purchasing public.
xp
― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 15 December 2011 17:05 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
you must live a very privileged life if this is the case. But again, I agree that rabid genre affiliation is on the decline.
I only like proper r’n’b like Johnny Otis and not any of that the Who shite tbh.
I sadly only like music that sounds like the Yardbirds
rhythm’n’birds
It would be nice if we are moving towards a genre-less utopia in which people listen to a wide variety of music and don’t have narrow tastes. I’m not convinced this has totally happened though. It’s especially annoying when people don’t seem to recognize their own genre blinders. I think most of us have a particular type of music which is like comfort food for us, we almost effortlessly enjoy it—maybe it’s the music we grew up with. It’s easier for us to enjoy and recognize quality in new music of that type. When we dismiss music that’s not of that type, we have to be very careful that we’re judging it fairly and not just speaking from our prejudices.
good words to remember as we go into our own EoY
i think people consciously and deliberately rejecting whole genres is on the decline but surely the flipside of that, for better or worse, is a rise in tokenism or dilettantism, or people who only accept a type of music in very narrow or conservative terms. plus, i’m not sure if a generation of teenagers getting passionate about rap or dance through Mac Miller or Skrillex is any kind of net win for anybody.
i’m not sure if a generation of teenagers getting passionate about punk through Nirvana is any kind of net win for anybody.
It would be nice if we are moving towards a genre-less utopia in which people listen to a wide variety of music and don’t have narrow tastes.
I think we have definitely been moving in that direction in the last decade. dunno if I agree that it’s inherently preferable (genre partisans produced great music, rules can be useful, etc.) but it is what it is.
xp
i’m not sure if a generation of teenagers getting passionate about punk through Nirvana is any kind of net win for anybody.
it wasn’t :(
I think the idea of a genre-less utopia is worth interrogating. what would be so great about it?
I wouldn’t mind if a generation of teenagers got passionate about the Who through Raphael Saadiq.
I got passionate about twee Scottish indiepop through Nirvana, is that any better? (Don’t answer this, lex.)
like, why is it preferable to have everybody enjoying everything
xp
i’m not really one to beat anyone over the head with the canon but if your go-to parallel for Skrillex and Mac Miller is Nirvana i can’t even
Nirvana was way better than Skrillex tho
lol xpost
people who only accept a type of music in very narrow or conservative terms
yeah this is what i was getting at earlier—it’s like, maybe even narrower than the word “aesthetic” implies, it seems like it’s more about social class. not in terms of actual specifically economic class but class in the koganesque sense—the kind of person we perceive ourselves to be. more & more i see music dismissed with the kind of formulation, “but that’s music for [x]”, where x = “chavs” or “hipsters” or “mondeo drivers” or “boring office workers” or whatever
(Would love to see a thread about “the oddest pathway by which you discovered a genre/aesthetic of music you now love” but that might have to wait for real ILM to return)
lol all roads lead from the Fall
more & more i see music dismissed with the kind of formulation, “but that’s music for [x]”, where x = “chavs” or “hipsters” or “mondeo drivers” or “boring office workers” or whatever
lol you do this all the fucking time
i think people consciously and deliberately rejecting whole genres is on the decline but surely the flipside of that, for better or worse, is a rise in tokenism or dilettantism, or people who only accept a type of music in very narrow or conservative terms. plus, i’m not sure if a generation of teenagers getting passionate about rap or dance through Mac Miller or Skrillex is any kind of net win for anybody.
― some dude (Mr. Stevenson #2), Thursday, 15 December 2011 17:21 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink
true, true. maybe we are entering a new age of “genre-hopping” where bands will do a token track in a given style all through an album. But it doesn’t have to. At least Skrillex isn’t doing this—like it or not, he has a trademark sound that isn’t really derivative of anything else (the nu-metal/dubstep/trance comparisons are overplayed). I like to think of Katy B as a positive example—she’s equally credible to the dance underground as she is to the pop mainstream and she achieves this not by awkwardly cutting and shutting dubstep with pop—it’s a very consistent, fluid, natural mix.
Katy B the innovator in brastep
maybe we are entering a new age of “genre-hopping” where bands will do a token track in a given style all through an album
you mean like the Beatles or Primal Scream
I think the idea of a genre-less utopia is worth interrogating. what would be so great about it?
to expand on this a little—one of the things I like about (the increasingly rare) genre partisans is that their dedication often results in a treasure trove of a music collection, highly specialized knowledge, a more finely nuanced grasp of the genre, etc. When I come across someone whose got some huge country or jazz collection or whatever, I am deeply grateful that these people don’t have broad collections, that they opted to specialize. Cuz y’know who else would take the time to digitize Waylon Jennings’ entire (and largely out of print) discography.
Drowned In Sound—Albums 2011
http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4144253-drowned-in-sounds-albums-of-the-year--5-1
20: Destroyer Kaputt
19: The Field Looping State Of Mind
18: Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells Everything’s Getting Older
17: Wild Beasts Smother
16: A Winged Victory For The Sullen A Winged Victory For The Sullen
15: EMA Past Life Martyred Saints
14: Low C’mon
13: Tom Waits Bad as Me
12: Bon Iver Bon Iver
11: St. Vincent Strange Mercy
10: Metronomy The English Rivera
9: Beirut The Rip Tide
8: Bright Eyes The People’s Key
7: Nils Frahm Felt
6: When Saints Go Machine Konkylie
5: Kate Bush—50 Words for Snow
4: SBTRKT—SBTRKT
3: PJ Harvey—Let England Shake
2: Tim Hecker—Ravedeath, 1972
1: The Antlers—Burst Apart
yeah honestly i have pretty much zero problem with people who have a very rich and nuanced appreciation of some particular musical niche to the point of total disinterest in anything else — so long as they can talk about what they love without ranting about what they don’t listen to and why every 5 minutes (xpost)
Is there a word for the sort of desperate bending over backwards people do to consider people like Skrillex because, despite not really liking them they’re terrified of suddenly seeming old/missing out on the new Nirvana?
it’s called a “reverse Tebow”
lol
ban dog latin
skrillex is pretty much the music i’ve been waiting for all my life, it just came 16 years too late. i don’t think he’s the next nirvana, but i don’t not like it. really, “skrillex” is a shorthand for that filthstep sound in general, and i’m kind of tired of having to make analytical excuses for liking it. because, fuck it, it’s fun and dirty and daft, and in that way, yeah it brings the teenager out in me.
ban away, if that’s a problem.
PS KILL PEOPLE, BURN SHIT, FUCK SCHOOL
tbh i’m not hating on anyone who genuinely likes skrillex music, just engaging in “kids like it, it’s the new nirvana” type bullshit whether facetiously or sincerely is nagl
also “it’s a THING so we HAVE to make ourselves like it”
lex yr transformation from wide eyed poptimist to grumpy old man has been a wonder to behold
so tired of every lex post being immediately followed by urgent reports about whether they square w/ other people’s idea of who the lex is
Should’ve stopped after first six words there
there are people around here i’m more sick of than lex
Guess I set myself up for that one
Pitchfork Top Albums of 2011: 20–1
20. Nicolas Jaar – Space Is Only Noise
19. Danny Brown – XXX
18. Atlas Sound – Parallax
17. Clams Casino – Instrumentals
16. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo
15. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
14. Shabazz Palaces – Black Up
13. EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints
12. James Blake – James Blake
11. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy
10. The Weeknd – House of Balloons
9. Real Estate – Days
8. Drake – Take Care
7. tUnE-yArDs – w h o k i l l
6. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
5. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
4. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
3. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
2. Destroyer – Kaputt
1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
For the record, my comparison was not Nirvana to Skrillex. My comparison was ‘kids these days’ to the generation directly preceding it...
looking at all of these in one place is so numbing
LWE 5–1
05. Steffi ft. Virgina, “Yours”
04. Kassem Mosse, “Untitled-A”
03. SCB, “Loss”
02. Tin Man, “Nonneo”
01. Omar-S, “Here’s Your Trance, Now Dance!!”
looking at all of these in one place is so numbing
yah srsly
lol p4k tho
Liked quite a few things on the LWE list but none that would make my own EOY list. None of my 2011 picks have appeared on any list yet (with RA still to come)—I have just bought that Citizens Band record from the lwe list but not really had a chance to listen to it properly yet
Would happily listen to 10 of the Pfrk top twenty. The only one I had a strongly adverse reaction to out of the other ten is Destroyer.
i find focusing on pj harvey is a somewhat effective method of retaining my zen when looking at these lists
i have always been a grumpy side-eyeing poptimist, shakey
i mean my formative years were the heyday of britpop, obviously i learned how to be disdainful then
oh man this might be the best yet
Glovidge
15 December 2011 7:15PM
Is this the Guardian music writers M-People moment?
YES! yes it is
I’m guessing it’ll be more like that year when Let England Shake won the Mercury prize, Glovidge ya big douche.
5. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost
4. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
3. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
2. Destroyer – Kaputt
1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Oh you fucking clowns, Pitchfork.
4/5ths utterly indefensible. why are those people allowed to be tastemakers again?
despite the preponderance of tumblr&b in the grau list, i am s0 proud to be part of an organisation that has katy b, beyoncé and rustie in its top 10 instead
Several XPs: I’m guessing Jimmy Riddle is Nate Carson? I prefer Hammer for the writing even if the music in Terrorizer and R-A-R is more to my tastes generally speaking.
I understand everyone’s problems with Frank Ocean bar the thing about him not being able to sing. This is just nonsense. Also, I like what I’ve heard by Goalpele but I don’t think her songs are as strong (and no, I wouldn’t want to hear her singing over Take Me To The Limit or Yellow). The problem is one of taste though, she’s simply slightly too slick/sophisticated for me. If there’s one RnB singer who I would have voted for personally this year if I’d heard him earlier it would have been B Bravo. As for FO, I think he’s more complex than just ‘sensitive’, for example I don’t think Bon Iver would start a song with a rumination on how much he’d like to fuck Emma in the garden. Also, this talk of ‘indie’ is a red herring; Frank Ocean isn’t Gayngs.
I just can’t subscribe to this narrow view of what should or shouldn’t be allowed in certain genres though. If it works it works. It’s not for me to say if Frank Ocean is great pop/rnb in general as I don’t know enough about the genre. The idea that this is the only RnB I can cope with is a bit daft. I’ve listened to plenty of other albums/tracks that have been recommended here and most of them are—to my tastes—too insipid or too urbane. I really like Nostalgia/Ultra though, and that’s good enough for me. I’m sure it’s not double standards however as I like Liturgy as well. I’m not going to not listen to them just because they wear V neck sweaters, look like Vampire Weekend and live in Williamsburg.
Sorry to state the obvious but the only important thing to me is that they don’t sound like Vampire Weekend.
I think Lex’s point about free albums might be right however. It seems like it’s worth mentioning to me that so many of my choices this year have been free downloads but I guess this is old news elsewhere.
jimmy riddle = kerr/algerian goalie/pfunkboy etc
RA
50. Moodymanc—Black Paint (Larry Heard’s After Dark Mix)
49. Gesloten Cirkel—Yamagic
48. Sneaker—You Think You Think
47. L.I.E.S.—Comeback Dust (Max D’s Big Top Dustheads Mix)
46. Maurice Donovan—Babeh
45. Legowelt—Sark Island Acid
44. Clockwork—It’s You Again
43. Zomby—Natalia’s Song
42. Miguel Campbell—Something Special
41. M83—Midnight City
40. Morphosis—Too Far
39. Cassius—The Sound Of Violence (Franco Cinelli Remix)
38. SBTRKT—Ready Set Loop
37. WhoMadeWho—Every Minute Alone (Tale Of Us Remix)
36. Tropic of Cancer—A Color [Blackest Ever Black]
35. Floating Points—Myrtle Avenue
34. Eats Everything—Entrance Song
33. Genius of Time—Houston We Have a Problem
32. Dan Andrei—Trebuie Da, Prima Incercare
31. Storm Queen—It Goes On
30. Tiger & Woods—Gin Nation
29. Oliver $—Doin’ Ya Thang
28. Maceo Plex—Can’t Leave You
27. Danny Daze feat. Louisahhh—Your Everything
26. Mathew Jonson—Learning to Fly
25. Kassem Mosse—Untitled A1
24. Osunlade—Envision (Ame Remix)
23. Four Tet—Pyramid
22. Peverelist—Dance Til the Police Come
21. Session Victim—Good Intentions
20. Objekt—CLK Recovery
19. Scuba—Adrenalin
18. Benoit & Sergio—Principles
17. Pangaea—Hex
16. Mosca—Bax
15. Burial—Street Halo
14. Daphni—Ye Ye
13. Virgo Four—It’s a Crime (Caribou Remix)
12. Benoit & Sergio—Walk & Talk
11. Noir & Haze—Around (Solomon Vox Mix)
10. Unknown Artist—Sicko Cell
09. Levon Vincent—Man Or Mistress
08. Martyn—Masks
07. SCB—Loss
06. Steffi feat. Virginia—Yours
05. Todd Terje—Ragysh
04. Todd Terje—Snooze 4 Love
03. Julio Bashmore—Battle For Middle You
02. Omar-S—Here’s Your Trance, Now Dance!!
01. Blawan—Getting Me Down
32. Dan Andrei—Trebuie Da, Prima Incercare
21. Session Victim—Good Intentions
would both be in mine
11. Noir & Haze—Around (Solomon Vox Mix)
expected this to be a lot higher!
(esp in a year where jamie jones and troxler take the top 2 in the dj poll)