Year-End Critics' Polls '07

gotta appeal to all bases

BURIAL NEEDS TO CHANGE ITS NAME

PEOPLE ASSUME THINGS, YKNOW

burial makes me yawwwwn

I hear Burial's next album is a collaboration with Sammy Hagar.

The first Burial album is quite yawnsome. I like the new one, though.

Hey, it's like the Postal Service meets a Michael Andrews score!

Whatdayaknow?!

And they call this 'dubstep'?

Yes, they do, although the way I understand it, Burial is peripheral to the scene.

My prediction still stands. A lot of critics are listening to dubstep. But not enough to get it in the top 10.

Fair 'nuff.

it won't even crack the top 20.

jackin pop (or w/e) it might but def not p&j

We should probably take this particular line here: Oh No, Pass the Lord and Praise the Ammunition--It’s Time for the 2007 P&J / Jackin’ Pop Prognostication Thread!

The Wire : 2007 Rewind 50 Records Of The Year

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)

11 Grinderman - Grinderman (Mute)
12 Kassin+2 - Futurismo (Luaka Bop)
13 Matthew Dear - Asa Breed (Ghostly)
14 Strategy - Future Rock (Kranky)
15 Laub - Deinetwegen (AGF Producktion)
16 Björk - Volta (One Little Indian)
17 Pole - Steingarten (~scape)
18 Harmonia - Live 1974 (Grönland)
19 John Butcher - The Geometry Of Sentiment (Emanem)
20 Akio Suzuki - K7 Box (ALM)

21 Deerhunter - Cryptograms (Kranky)
22 Lil' Wayne - Da Drought 3 (Mixtape) (No Label)
23 Peter Evans Quartet - Peter Evans Quartet (Firehouse 12)
24 James Blackshaw - The Cloud Of Unknowing (Tompkins Square)
25 Kemialliset Ystävät - Kemialliset Ystävät (Fonal)
26 Pandit Pran Nath - Raga Cycle (SRI Moonshine)
27 Flower-Corsano Duo - The Radiant Mirror (Textile)
28 Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls (Too Pure)
29 Zeitkratzer & Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music (Asphodel)
30 Gudrun Gut - I Put A Record On (Monika Enterprise)

31 Marnie Stern - In Advance Of The Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)
32 Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: The Endless Not (Mute)
33 Rhys Chatham - The Crimson Grail (Table Of The Elements)
34 Radiohead - In Rainbows (www.inrainbows.com/XL)
35 The Focus Group - We Are All Pan's People (Ghost Box)
36 The Terminals - Last Days Of The Sun (Last Visible Dog)
37 Sightings - Through The Panama (Load)
38 Anthony Braxton - 9 Compositions Iridium 2006 (Firehouse 12)
39 Steve Jansen - Slope (Samadhisound)
40 Haswell & Hecker - Blackest Ever Black (Warner Classics)

41 Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses (Leaf)
42 Dial - 168K (Cede)
43 Wooden Shjips - Wooden Shjips (Holy Mountain)
44 fORCH - Spin Networks (PSI)
45 PJ Harvey - White Chalk (Island)
46 Hanne Hukkelberg - Rykestrasse 68 (Nettwerk)
47 Susan Howe & David Grubbs - Souls Of The Labadie Tract (Blue Chopsticks)
48 Lichens - Omns (Kranky)
49 Low - Drums And Guns (Sub Pop)
50 Frank Bretschneider - Rhythm (Raster-Norton)

people voting for studio in this years idolator poll, are you voting for west coast or yearbook 1?

^^i was gonna ask this question in the studio thread but didn't bother. seeing yearbook 1 on the pfork list got me confused though. right now i have west coast even though i like yearbook 1 better. would like an answer to this.

west coast was "technically" 2006 right? not that i really care about being date-anal but this is a great record both ways and id love to see these guys place sorta high.

I still haven't gotten around to hearing the Studio at all.

oy i thought yearbook 1 was technically 06 but studio 07. or at least was released in the US in 07. like max i don't care about the release date as much as bumping the album up on the list.

Walter Benjamin (Sterling Clover?) OTM! (As is tipsy, duh--no surprise there.)

massive catching-up-with-ILM-in-da-morning x-post

It's impossible to search for the Studio on youtube, is there any specific song I should be looking for?

The first Burial album is quite yawnsome. I like the new one, though.

I never heard the first one, but the new one sounded to me like early Faithless with all the songs taken out, which seemed vaguely pleasant, though I still got bored with it pretty quick. (And I still don't get at all why people consider them so amazing.)

Two albums I'm surprised not to be seeing on any lists (which is okay, since people had totally overrating both of them, but it's still kind of sad):

1. The Stooges
2. Mary Weiss

Also, this:

From Here We Go Sublime by the Field - Will make top 20 and maybe sneak in at 9 or 10

is almost as funny as this:

Untrue by Burial - Will make top 20 (more critics seem to be listening to metal, but i don't think enough to get it in the top 10)

But I still can't tell if they're funny on purpose or not.

The Reverend, they have a nifty little promotional video on youtube here.

Also, fwiw, I thought this was (intentionally) funny too:

Let's Stay Friends by Les Savy Fav - Not that cool with the old people, right? 25-30, probably

But, from Robert Christgau's end-of-year-so-far list in Slate:

13. Les Savy Fav: Let's Stay Friends (Frenchkiss)

http://www.slate.com/id/2179977/entry/2180085

KERRANG Album Of The Year 2007 (BIFFY CLYRO WTF???)

i like the wire list. i haven't received my copy yet so i don't know the genre top 10s. but it's great that i can see that wire list and know that i'll have a lot of stuff to look into during the next few months. most other lists have virtually no surprises, though that's maybe because i read more reviews this year.

and yea, i totally forgot that bjork came out with an album this year!

i need to hear the robert wyatt album, too.

okay, time to ask the crowd: including an unreleased album from '06 that I first heard in '07 (and hardly anyone else has heard it and no one else will vote for it) on my top ten list because it is one of the best albums I have ever heard: awesome or stupid?

Awesome and stoopid!

Regarding Studio -- I'm voting for West Coast.

xp

Neither awesome nor stupid, though perfectly okay. (Bomshel, who completely fit that definiton, had a {long }shot at my list, though they won't make it. And Ashley Monroe -- who, at one point anyway, I think Frank Kogan said he was considering, at least for his Nashville Scene ballot -- is in that category too, right?)

Okay -- I have decided that for all the time and $$ I have spent trying to hear all the best stuff in the universe this year, my list should be the greatest one in history. I think having Fefe Dobson at #1 would pretty much ice that forever.

Why?

Because in 2006 she made the greatest teenpop album in history and it got deleted at the last second by her record company because the songs were angry and sexual and hilarious and it will never be released now and someone here got hold of a leak this year and emailed it to me and I almost didn't put it on my list because I was trying to be "correct" or something. Haha screw that.

Yeah I dunno dude, I'll rep for relatively unknown or barely released records all the time, but at least as far as polls like P&J, I tend to stick with stuff that's widely available, whether or not anyone else is going to vote for it.

I'm going to put Panda Bear as my #1 and then post a big PSYCHE on the Panda Bear forum here.

Haha, I totally thought Burial was metal, too, until a couple months ago.

Yeah I dunno dude, I'll rep for relatively unknown or barely released records all the time, but at least as far as polls like P&J, I tend to stick with stuff that's widely available, whether or not anyone else is going to vote for it.

I vote for my favorite records of the year.

I dunno dude, I'll rep for relatively unknown or barely released records all the time, but at least as far as polls like P&J, I tend to stick with stuff that's widely available, whether or not anyone else is going to vote for it.

Why, though? Prince's The Black Album made the list before, and so did some unreleased Pavement album, I think (that wound out coming out, maybe in slightly different form, a year later.) And those might not be the only ones. Christgau himself put a unreleased, who-knows-how-many-generatiton Pulnoc tape at #1 on his list sometime in the mid/late '80s. And people vote for bootlegs by, say, Lil Wayne or whoever all the time. And the initial mashup albums and singles that placed had never been officially released either, right? I don't see how Matt voting for Fefe Dobson is any different. (The fact that it won't get any other votes should never be a consideration. Or do people disagree about that, too? If so, it makes me sad.)

i wanna hear this Dobson thing now

i understand al but I'm rolling with xhuxk and jaymc on this one. of course, my list includes an indian soundtrack, a big band jazz album, reggaeton and houston rap and metal and south african pop and indie illinois rock as well as two pfork faves, so I guess I don't really care much about things being available.

although one of the pfork things might get thrown over for an emo double album or an awesome banda record or maybe ethiopian pop. we'll see when I finally submit the ballot.

emo double album = thrice alchemy index?

Why, though? Prince's The Black Album made the list before, and so did some unreleased Pavement album, I think (that wound out coming out, maybe in slightly different form, a year later.) And those might not be the only ones. Christgau himself put a unreleased, who-knows-how-many-generatiton Pulnoc tape at #1 on his list sometime in the mid/late '80s. And people vote for bootlegs by, say, Lil Wayne or whoever all the time. And the initial mashup albums and singles that placed had never been officially released either, right? I don't see how Matt voting for Fefe Dobson is any different. (The fact that it won't get any other votes should never be a consideration. Or do people disagree about that, too? If so, it makes me sad.)

(xpost I'm assuming he means Say Anything)
-- xhuxk, Wednesday, December 19, 2007 11:15 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Um, because that's how I roll? And also, because it's so hard putting together a top 10 with all the possible options and combinations that any decent external reason for disqualification makes it easier to narrow the field, for me. I didn't say everyone else should follow suit, but Matt had a dilemma and I just told him what my method is.

(uh obviously that xpost was meant to be at the bottom of my post, not added to the cut-and-paste of xhuxk's post)

naw -- i liked their last one okay, but they're more christian metal than emo aren't they? i'm talking about say anything's in defense of the genre, which is so brilliant that it might just beat out battles, who probably don't need any help from me this year.

Say Anything? (double-emo xxpost)

haha...