Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

I used to like abrasive, conceptual techno but now there is literally no other type of dance music being made or talked about, I'm starting to regret my tastes

Annual subscription to the Wire is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned: it's about the only magazine in print that covers the stuff I like. Much as I enjoy sites like The Quietus, the internet in general is not conducive to reading large banks of text.

Nick - Most of it doesn't feel right at all: plenty of labels aren't just contemporary or retro, plenty of people are working to turn their talents (or lack ofs) into something/anything, and you can always go somewhere for a conversation.

I think that bit is referring to how music is treated by PR and the press/music websites. They're arguing that those sorts of binaries are only helpful as marketing devices and that - like you say - there's an enormous amount of diversity within experimental and underground music (and yes, the live improv circuit or whatever) that you can neither apply that logic to or wants to be part of that system in the first place.

as if pr is a new thing. the problem with any of these narratives of woe is that presumably the writer is excluding themselves, or excluding some people, not everyone is a blind follower, in which case how did the ones who escape manage to outwit the pernicious system? music writers moulding neg pieces out of paycheck ennui and lack of ideas is prob a newer phenomenon than anything he describe.

Agreed.

Some writers do come across more like the puree of all end of year lists than others do, but for the most part the music critic industry resembles puree because the opinions/contributions of individual writers themselves are then being aggregated.

Everyone is their own special snowflake viewed close up.

I feel like these ideas about consensus have been badly hashed out for years, like 6/7 years ago I can remember people having this exact kind of conversation. You'd need to make a proper data-based theory to really argue it, it's all just shooting in the dark.

At the same time as things float to the top, or buzz builds more quickly, there's also more freedom than ever for people to buy, stream, or steal literally any record they want.

The idea that they aren't is ridiculous, of course they are. Just nobody is commissioning pieces about somebody who found a great record from 1962 on Spotify.

It's real echo chamber stuff to act like the web isn't silently serving as an incredible window into the world for those who choose to use it as such. Perhaps the problem is just that "news" can't reflect this.

Nick - Britt is recommending "ignorance is bliss". I wouldn't pay any attention to this. xp

the internet in general is not conducive to reading large banks of text

This outlook really needs to change.

I know what BB is saying – the alternative becomes its own mainstream straitjacket, everything reduced to some quasi-utopian bland Shoreditch broth – but in that case why contribute to its non-flow?

going back to records, that connan mockasin album, which featured in some list way upthread, is really good.

the internet in general is not conducive to reading large banks of text
This outlook really needs to change.

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Thursday, December 12, 2013 11:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There was a really good article a while back about this and about how sites like the Quietus should do a digestible monthly eBook for use on Kindles/iPads etc. I don't have a reader, and I find reading websites quite distracting sometimes - there's always a banner or a link to another article trying to claim my attention. There's a lot of tl;dr going on. Call me a cranky old vinyl fetishising so and so, but I think part of the reason I decided to subscribe to Wire is because it's the only mag-format publication that says anything about my interests.

I think the whole 'booohoo everybody likes the same popular things' argument is bullshit btw.

There was a really good article a while back about this and about how sites like the Quietus should do a digestible monthly eBook for use on Kindles/iPads etc.

― a beef supreme (dog latin)

This was the piece: http://mrtrick.net/2013/09/26/could-music-journalism-be-more-profitable-away-from-the-web/

cheers

But this is where the problem lies: for me, that whole environment is by design working against allowing someone to just sit and read, which in turn makes it utterly at odds with the core purpose of the website.

cue Wire subscription.

For all the talk of PR, consensus, etc, I've got a list as long as my arm of wildly divergent albums to investigate from these lists. You notice the names that come up repeatedly so it feels like "oh them again" but every publication has its eccentricities and pet favourites. There are so many albums that are Top 10 in one list and completely absent from the next so if your tastes are broad and you read a lot I don't see that there's an overall problem, just different ones in different silos of taste.

Kelela #7 in the Guardian, presuming that was the other out-and-out surprise:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/dec/12/best-albums-2013-kelela-number-7

I always underestimate how Guide-dominated the Guardian poll is. There's not really a strong voting bloc for rock so I suspect albums I thought were obvious contenders, like Nick Cave, Arcade Fire and QOTSA, won't place in the top 40. Six to come and five must be Daft Punk, Vampire Weekend, John Grant, Kanye and Haim. Which means no James Blake, Goldfrapp, Holden, Boards of Canada or MIA in the Top 40, unless one of them takes the last slot.

Oh, and Disclosure.

i definitely didn't expect goldfrapp or holden in the first place (i like both albums but they missed my top 10). m.i.a. might have come out a bit late, i know many who just didn't bother with it because of how underwhelming the last one was. didn't really see much enthusiasm at the guardian for blake compared with other outlets. boards of canada, probably, though i successfully ignored that album and 100% of the talk about it

kelela is on so many lists, why couldn't this have happened back when i was on the night slugs wagon, obviously everyone getting on just when i've decided to get off ;_;

xp oh it'll be disclosure then, no question

I know I'm not the one who has to tally the votes but I wish they asked for 20 instead of 10 because there are so many albums - Goldfrapp, MIA, Holden, Blake and Boards for me - that fall in that zone and deserve better than to miss out entirely. I love the ILX poll for allowing longer ballots.

yeah - plus, most years i have a rock solid top 5-6 and then about 15-20 that are all around the same place in my estimation, and hard to rank against each other. every top 10 i've submitted this year has had a different 8/9/10

Ha, same here. First Julia Holter pushed out Run the Jewels, now Ka has ousted Holter. Even my top 5 has moved about a bit from publication to publication.

with tracks it's even more pronounced, i have like two immovables at 1 and 2 and then about 50 interchangeable and equally amazing contenders

my 8-10 albums is basically a revolving door between creep, 2 chainz, holden, amel larrieux, floorplan, ciara, quadron and sky ferreira, idk how to get eight albums into three spare spots

I've got a list as long as my arm of wildly divergent albums to investigate from these lists.

Yeah, the echo-chamber idea is old news, but I'm not sure the answer is databased theory (whatever that is).

Maybe this is somewhat specific to my own experience of the web over the past 18 months as well, I've found myself continuously binging on RSS feeds and bouncing across different sites, then seeing the same records covered across different locations unfolding almost in real time. Is this how traders feel when they're following the market or something? It's a fairly bad experience for sustained reading, for sure - since it easily lends itself to continual partial awareness and scanning.

Anyway, I think it's time to cut back my info-consumption for a New Years' resolution. Change my habits, go on a diet. I've gotten back into buying the Wire in print actually, and have mostly been enjoying that format.

Here's the Crack list:

http://crackmagazine.net/music/albums-of-the-year-10-1/

We've gone for...KURT VILE at AOTY.

MikoMcha, you might enjoy Clay Johnson's book. It recommends exactly that.

Yeah, have seen that around. I don't know if I can bring myself to read a self-help guide published by O'Reilly! Is there more to it than what's on the cover?

finally listened to that Daniel Avery album properly and it didn't convince me it was offering much, even from a unabashedly nostalgic pov. kinda felt like a late 90s Glastonbury dance tent act, Salt Tank or The Drum Club or some second division stuff like that

There's not really a strong voting bloc for rock so I suspect albums I thought were obvious contenders, like Nick Cave, Arcade Fire and QOTSA, won't place in the top 40.

These are all total 'middling nth album' type picks, the sort of thing that's bound to be flushed out if you have a diverse and committed set of voters. I mean Yeezus is one of those as well but it's one with a bit of personality to go with its ridiculous peaks and troughs.

Yeah, the echo-chamber idea is old news, but I'm not sure the answer is databased theory (whatever that is)

I think he means it's impossible to tell whether these lists really are getting any more or less PR-driven or uniform without actually looking at the data and seeing if it supports that. My guess = yes, mildly, but only because there are WAY more lists than there used to be and the internet has knocked down a lot of the geographical boundaries and biases that used to exist in critical spheres (a mid-90s US rock mag list would have looked VERY different to a UK one).

kinda felt like a late 90s Glastonbury dance tent act

This is an excellent way of putting it.

Oh snap I should've voted for something from Timberlake

Is there more to it than what's on the cover?

xpost to DL - Haim was No 12.

. . . the overdiscussed dance music revival finally codified itself into a new conformity: abrasive, conceptual techno

I'm not remotely an expert, but pretty much none of the dance music I've been listening to from this year sounds like that.

yeah i mean this exists, but if you choose to ignore all other kinds of dance music of course it's going to feel like that. i get the feeling this whole Britt argument stems from having a very selective worldview anyway.

complicating factor re: consensus: music writers are inherently biased toward listening to albums they think they can get paid for.

http://www.afribizcharts.com/top100.php

Stuff on this list is not marketed much to American music crits (or others)

That's a flawed (leaves out sales in numerous countries) biz sales chart but it includes some interesting songs

Last Rites posted their top 25 metal albums:

http://lastrit.es/articles/654/the-last-rites-top-25

The Guardian wont ever do that EZ. Their writers and readers look down on it.

hmm?

except for Dom Lawson obviously

Pimp themselves? Is that it? Because let me tell you, my ballot did not effect much on that list.

Nice to see Summoning on that list!

no no no, Im jusy saying that you will never see a metal list on the guardian. You wont even see it represented in their eoy poll. Places like that usually have a token entry at best. They're as bad as every other site for ignoring certain genres.

I can't deny that and I'm as guilty as anyone apart from Dom. I find metal utterly alienating, sorry.

xp

Well my mind doesn't grade music numerically so lists are a waste of time and space as a rule, filed away next to games of "Babe or Minger", but it is nice to see "oh cool we listen to a lot of the same records"
― fear of zing failure

This misses the point. If you only focus on the top 3-10 on the lists you'd get the illusion that people listen to the same stuff, but it's just not true. Despite ballots being limited to a measly 10, Pazz & Jop for example usually has a couple thousand albums. If the ballot were expanded, it would probably get near 10,000, with more varied results near the top too. I always thought these lists were an opportunity to check out stuff you didn't discover yourself previously. I guess some people just aren't interested in that.

xxp I agree it would be great to have a weekly digest of the best articles, think pieces, reviews and interviews from music sites for Kindle. I have cheap Kindle subscriptions to Pop Matters and The Onion, but lately they've been excluding the music pieces, argh!