haven't you been on the internet long enough to know where to go for good year-end shingo ringo countdowns and the like? there must be a list for everything these days.
― scott seward, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:15 (sixteen years ago) link
Not really and not really. (Anyway, that's just one person, smark alek. I'm keeping that typo.)
― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:18 (sixteen years ago) link
FROOTS MAGAZINE POLL
http://www.frootsmag.com/content/critpoll/
― scott seward, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:24 (sixteen years ago) link
see i'm already curious about that tinariwen album.
― scott seward, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:25 (sixteen years ago) link
Artists' top ten lists from Billboard (including J. Darnielle, G. Dulli, etc.):
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2007/artists/index.html
"Readers' Choice" top ten from Billboard:
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/yearend/2007/readers/index.html
― xhuxk, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:33 (sixteen years ago) link
i like lists like these:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/babarm87/top_50_post_rock_albums_of_2007
i've heard maybe two of the albums and heard OF, like, five or six of the artists. haven't a clue about any of the rest.
― scott seward, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:41 (sixteen years ago) link
Okay, I have to admit to liking some of these NPR tracks more than expected (although not in a must-have-that-album way).
― Rockist Scientist, Monday, 17 December 2007 23:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Artists' top ten lists from Billboard (including J. Darnielle, G. Dulli, etc.)
LOL at Tom DeLonge's list
― Simon H., Tuesday, 18 December 2007 00:06 (sixteen years ago) link
There's a kid who looks like Urkel who was dressed up as Run-DMC for Halloween. It was really cool and different.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 00:29 (sixteen years ago) link
I think one interesting thing about "indie" as a self-identifying marker is that, for all that I tend to disapprove of it, it covers a lot of music that doesn't necessarily sound similar - to the extent that M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem are "indie" anyway. The stuff that does well in these sorts of polls often strikes me as stuff which is being taken to heart in different ways by different audiences with different tastes - as Matos was noting upthread, LCD Soundsystem are effectively halfway down a traderoute where indie aesthetic impulses and dance aesthetic impulses meet and swap ideas, and they're received differently depending on which end of the route the trader calls home (which implies that, say, all dance music fans hear LCD Soundsystem the same way, or that people are always plotted on a continuum between indie and dance, or such a continuum is the only way to approach LCD Soundsystem - but lets leave these problems aside for a moment).
I guess one big reason why more obviously "genre" based music (be it dirty south rap or instrumental dance music or different stripes of "world music") is the tyranny of the genre marker itself. It's much harder for these musics to detach themselves from the genre to which they belong and participate in the kind of indie trade fair that treats James Murphy or M.I.A. so well because recognising the genre to which they belong is part of the point. It's much harder to say "I don't hear Daddy Yankee as reggaeton, I hear him as pop" than it is to say the same of M.I.A. vis a vis... well... the fact that it's not clear what would replace "reggaeton" in that phrase w/r/t M.I.A. is part of the point.
Certainly for all the non-guitar-rock stuff that does well within the collective indie critical mindset, it seems a certain aesthetic and stylistic rootlessness and malleability is quite a plus - precisely because it's hard to place M.I.A. or The Knife or the LCD Soundystem or Panda Bear within a milieux, they're much more easily absorbed into indie's self-proclaimed "international language of good music". But, crucially, it's the very vagueness of what this "international language" is or how it works that works in their favour here: you see different critics praising M.I.A. because she's political, because she has inventive "world" influenced beats, because she collaborates with Bun-B, because she's honest, because she's being ironic... Everyone's picking up on different things (some of them, I would argue from my own position, the wrong things) but the result is a consensus "this album is the best album of 2007" statement which seems much less interesting or incoherent.
Whereas when you do get what I'll call "milieux" music breaking through, the critical consensus around it (with regard to why it is good, why it deserves to be listed) always seems much more unanimous. There is a consensus as to the reasons for its quality as opposed to just as to its quality.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 01:57 (sixteen years ago) link
Pop Matters This has perhaps the largest number of unique entries of any list, at least until The Wire comes out. It's refreshing to see Kweli, Monch and El-P get attention rather than Lil Wayne and UGK. However most of the unusual choices inspire doubt rather than excitement that I've discovered something new. An exception might be Alcest - Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde. I'll have to give The Good, the Bad & the Queen a relisten, however, as Reynolds also wrote an interesting take on it. I have to say I've been having much more fun absorbing his top ten than any other list so far (Moon Wiring Club, Focus Group, Sally Shapiro, Black Moth Super Rainbow).
01 Radiohead - In Rainbows 02 Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 03 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver 04 Kanye West - Graduation 05 Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 06 Lyle Lovett and His Large Band - It's Not Big, It's Large 07 The National - Boxer 08 Amy Winehouse - Back to Black 09 The Fratellis - Costello Music 10 M.I.A. - Kala 11 Mavis Staples - We'll Never Turn Back 12 Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests 13 Mike Farris - Salvation in Lights 14 The Good, the Bad & the Queen 15 Ha Ha Tonka - Buckle in the Bible Belt 16 Talib Kweli - Ear Drum 17 The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism 18 Rahsaan Patterson - Wines and Spirits 19 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 20 Meshell Ndegeocello - The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams 21 Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destoyer? 22 Pharoahe Monch - Desire 23 Patty Griffin - Children Running Through 24 Dwight Yoakam - Dwight Sings Buck 25 SoCalled - Ghettoblaster 26 Feist - The Reminder 27 Bettye LaVette - The Scene of the Crime 28 Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala 29 Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position 30 The Field - From Here We Go Sublime 31 Shantel - Disko Partizani 32 Panda Bear - Person Pitch 33 Wilco - Sky Blue Sky 34 Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam 35 Caribou - Andorra 36 El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead 37 Terence Blanchard - A Tale of God’s Will (A Requiem for Katrina) 38 Battles - Mirrored 39 Okkerfil River - The Stage Names 40 Columbiafrica - The Mystic Orchestra - Voodoo Love Inna Champeta Land 41 Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted 42 Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha 43 Jay-Z - American Gangster 44 The New Pornographers - Challengers 45 The Shins - Wincing the Night Away 46 Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank 47 PJ Harvey - White Chalk 48 Alcest - Souvenirs D'Un Autre Monde 49 Manic Street Preachers - Send Away the Tigers 50 Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation 51 The Pipettes - We Are the Pipettes 52 Liars 53 Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger 54 St. Vincent - Marry Me 55 New Young Pony Club - Fantastic Playroom 56 Blu & Exile - Below the Heavens 57 Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog 58 Beirut - The Flying Club Cup 59 Eluvium - Copia 60 Gui Boratto - Chromophobia
― Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 02:32 (sixteen years ago) link
Wow. Socalled Ghettoblaster? I'm surprised anyone had actually heard this.
― Mordechai Shinefield, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 02:38 (sixteen years ago) link
yeah, who the fuck are all those bands?!
― Jordan, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 02:47 (sixteen years ago) link
amazing album covers too.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 02:56 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm gonna look them all up.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 02:57 (sixteen years ago) link
haha awesome.
― Jordan, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:01 (sixteen years ago) link
I like Omega Massif's slogan: "we would not play faster if we could."
― Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:01 (sixteen years ago) link
i've been looking stuff up on youtube. some really pretty stuff. spacey stuff. the *Slow Six* video is very cool. the live *PG Lost* stuff is cool.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:04 (sixteen years ago) link
by the end of the year i am saying "stuff" a lot.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:05 (sixteen years ago) link
lol at jessica simpson dropping "Hvarf/Heim" on her list
― Mark Clemente, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:05 (sixteen years ago) link
meanwhile, here is some of the indie rock i would be digging if i were paying attention. on some random rateyourmusic list i found by accident.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:06 (sixteen years ago) link
some of the godspeed-ish stuff isn't that hot. i like the sad pretty minimal stuff the best.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:17 (sixteen years ago) link
tim f. dropping some pretty interesting points
― Mark Clemente, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:19 (sixteen years ago) link
he's like that.
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:21 (sixteen years ago) link
scott, here is my friends' post-rock band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y54ZJp5pq9Y
― Jordan, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:29 (sixteen years ago) link
somehow i got led to the shout out louds impossible remix and i am digging it a bunch
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kM69iMNdR60
― scott seward, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:33 (sixteen years ago) link
and i like the original too:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NPQco3-7u5I
(Popmatters) has perhaps the largest number of unique entries of any list
This always seems to be the case. Sometimes, tho, I think they're horribly wrong on their selections. Still, it's nice to see a Year-End list that holds out hope of discovering something new and great.
Great disc.
I think one interesting thing about "indie" as a self-identifying marker is that, for all that I tend to disapprove of it, it covers a lot of music that doesn't necessarily sound similar - to the extent that M.I.A. and LCD Soundsystem are "indie" anyway.
Yeah. I think of "indie" as an aesthetic or approach to art, not a genre. If it's a genre, I can't imagine how it all fits into one tent.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 18 December 2007 03:42 (sixteen years ago) link
i like lists like these: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/babarm87/top_50_post_rock_albums_of_2007 i've heard maybe two of the albums and heard OF, like, five or six of the artists. haven't a clue about any of the rest.
Definitely a humbling list. I think I've heard a lot of music, then this. I'll start from the top:
01 Caspian - The Four Trees 02 Scraps of Tape - This Is a Copy, Is This a Copy? 03 The World on Higher Downs - Land Patterns 04 The Six Parts Seven - Casually Smashed to Pieces 05 Grails - Burning Off Impurities 06 Tulsa Drone - Songs from a Mean Season 07 Efterklang - Under Giant Trees EP 08 65daysofstatic - The Destruction of Small Ideas 09 Immánu El - They'll Come, They Come 10 Johnnytwentythree - JXXIII 11 Ours to Alibi - Beacons 12 Joy Wants Eternity - You Who Pretend to Sleep 13 Stars of the Lid - Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline 14 Cue - Wedding Song 15 Holy Fuck - LP 16 Giants - They, The Undeserving 17 Do Make Say Think - You, You're a History in Rust 18 Eluvium - Copia 19 Battles - Mirrored 20 Balmorhea
Nice to see 65daysofstatic come out ahead of Battles for once.
― Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 04:02 (sixteen years ago) link
"Yeah. I think of "indie" as an aesthetic or approach to art, not a genre. If it's a genre, I can't imagine how it all fits into one tent."
Is it even coherent enough to be an "aesthetic or approach to art" in a singular fashion?
In the sense that "indie" can apply to M.I.A., does it systematically stand for much more now than the claim "it has transcended genre"? (Thinking back momentarily to the M.I.A. wars, the anti-M.I.A. position was based in the (correct) anticipation that she would be embraced as transcending genre)
This is the interesting part about the term, which is its contradictory nature: it is a claim against genre which nonetheless contains a genre as its most pure expression (certain strains of guitar rock) (it is in this sense that indie as an organising principle is rockism par excellence).
― Tim F, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:07 (sixteen years ago) link
despite its Southall-prompted production I found the 65dos album deadly boring
also, sotl = post-rock? I don't think so.
― Simon H., Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:10 (sixteen years ago) link
I still haven't figured out what the hell "post-rock" means.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:15 (sixteen years ago) link
post-rock is the rock that's happened since older rockers stopped paying attention and don't like it anymore. The line varies. Post-rock probably started in 1968 when Richard Meltzer started getting antsy but usually is meant for post-Sex Pistols / Clash stuff, since they, too , were the only bands that mattered...and then it goes from there...I think.
It's rock that doesn't want to associate with other rock because other rock has been mean to it...or thinks it wiil be mean to it if it meets.
― smurfherder, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:19 (sixteen years ago) link
Ummm....thanks, I think...
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:21 (sixteen years ago) link
In the sense that "indie" can apply to M.I.A., does it systematically stand for much more now than the claim "it has transcended genre"?
i think it references a certain kind of self-awareness in the production and presentation. not that other music isn't self-aware, lots of pop is hugely self-aware, but indie self-awareness is sort of considered and abstracted (if also often callow and naive and not infrequently grating in its belief that it has discovered something new and important about how things work). the difference e.g. between indie hip-hop and mainstream hip-hop is not only in skills, slickness or subject matter, but in its self-conscious appropriation of the form for what it perceives to be some ends different than the ones associated with commercial strains. there's a sort of earnest effort at subversion of form, which often misses the point that earnestness tends to work against subversion.
(i know, is indie rock really subverting any forms? i think it perceives itself to be, starting with the whole business side of the enterprise, the small labels and self-production and so forth. which is all admirable in a lot of ways, i think, but also too often gives off an air of self-satisfaction and treefort insularity -- and, more to the point, tends to mire the music in hackneyed notions of transcendence that fail to appreciate or at least fail to replicate the actual transcendence you get from a good rihanna single. OR they distrust the idea of pop-song transcendence enough, and/or their own abilities to deliver it, that they come up to it only sideways, and knowingly. otoh it is obviously possible to have actually transcendent indie music, the joy of which is that what it is transcending is its own doubts about transcendence. you can put your favorite candidates here, but e.g. i'd say the best of pavement, sleater-kinney and belle & sebastian, for a start.)
― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:53 (sixteen years ago) link
and also i know "earnestness" is maybe a weird word to use about a form stereotyped as "ironic," but i don't think those things are really at odds. i think indie irony is a symptom of its earnestness. or can be.
― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 07:54 (sixteen years ago) link
and m.i.a. is clearly indie in exactly that self-aware sense of her place as an appropriator of multiple forms, and her abstracted distance from the forms themselves (which i guess is maybe why arbiters of form like reynolds and ethan don't like her, that her use of the forms is symbolic and synthetic, opportunistic).
― tipsy mothra, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 08:01 (sixteen years ago) link
The new Wire is out. Their top ten is pretty much the same as every other top ten this year. I can't say what is in it tho' coz I only flicked through it whilst paying for some stuff in Sister Ray yesterday and can't remember exactly.
― Raw Patrick, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 09:17 (sixteen years ago) link
siiiiiiigh...
It's Panda Bear.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 10:25 (sixteen years ago) link
The Wire
01 Robert Wyatt - Comicopera (Domino) 02 Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub) 03 Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks) 04 OM - Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) 05 LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (DFA/EMI) 06 Von Südenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino) 07 Pram - The Moving Frontier (Domino) 08 MIA - Kala (XL) 09 Battles - Mirrored (Warp) 10 Ricardo Villalobos - Fabric 36 (Fabric)
― krakow, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 10:41 (sixteen years ago) link
They give a whole top 50 along with top 10's for each of their review genres, but I can't be bothered typing those right now...
― krakow, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 10:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Just glanced at P4K's. Has metal safely returned to the underground? Pig D didn't make the top 50!
― fukasaku tollbooth, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 11:19 (sixteen years ago) link
pitchfork's:
01: Panda Bear - Person Pitch 02: LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver 03: M.I.A. - Kala 04: Radiohead - In Rainbows 05: Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? 06: Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam 07: Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 08: Battles - Mirrored 09: The Field - From Here We Go Sublime 10: Burial - Untrue 11: Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala 12: No Age - Weirdo Rippers 13: Jay-Z - American Gangster 14: Deerhunter - Cryptograms / Fluorescent Grey EP 15: Justice - † 16: Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3 17: The National - Boxer 18: Kanye West - Graduation 19: Feist - The Reminder 20: Liars - Liars 21: Dirty Projectors - Rise Above 22: Okkervil River - The Stage Names 23: Studio - Yearbook 1 24: Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings 25: The Tough Alliance - A New Chance / New Waves EP 26: Various Artists - After Dark 27: Arcade Fire - Neon Bible 28: Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond 29: Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago 30: Caribou - Andorra 31: Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity 32: Sally Shapiro - Disco Romance 33: King Khan & the Shrines - What Is?! 34: James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing 35: Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil 36: Iron and Wine - The Shepherd's Dog 37: Grizzly Bear - Friend EP 38: Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams 39: The White Stripes - Icky Thump 40: Beirut - The Flying Club Cup / Lon Gisland EP 41: Life Without Buildings - Live at the Annandale Hotel 42: Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab 43: Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline 44: Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends 45: Ricardo Villalobos - Fabric 36 46: Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water 47: Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals 48: Robert Wyatt - Comicopera 49: Dizzee Rascal - Maths + English 50: Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water Is Life
― Bee OK, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 11:53 (sixteen years ago) link
WOW, no Wilco.
Shocking.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 11:55 (sixteen years ago) link
at least Of Montreal finally gets some love, my album of the year.
― Bee OK, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 12:07 (sixteen years ago) link
True dat.
― The Reverend, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 12:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Sarcasm, I assume. They panned Sky Blue Sky. It got lots of love elsewhere, tho, and is doing well in Year-End polls, I think.
― Daniel, Esq., Tuesday, 18 December 2007 12:13 (sixteen years ago) link
Given its frequent referencing of the band, wow no Menomena.
Finally, however, some reader input, Pitchfork Readers Poll.
― dblcheeksneek, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 12:31 (sixteen years ago) link
wow, those are seriously the only options for favorite albums on that poll? i mean the options are limited as is but still include albums that barely anybody liked (i.e. Smashing Pumpkins).
― Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, 18 December 2007 13:56 (sixteen years ago) link