Year-End Critics' Polls '07

I think he means that mentioning the genre is not the same as knowing anything about it.

xpost to Steve: next fall! The countdown has begun!

In other news: JAZZ!

Just to add a little more to the Journey discussion, "Don't Stop Believin" was the unofficial theme song for the White Sox during and after their World Series run. So it got a lot of play in Chicago, well before the Sopranos episode.

And Blues! I just discovered Mississippi's Jimmy Duck Holmes-"Done Got Tired of Tryin'" on Geoff Himes' Baltimore City Paper ballot. I wonder if Himes does a different ballot for that Nashville weekly country thing he coordinates?

(Matt, my son was bar mitzvahed this past spring. Everything worked out great--Good luck)

I'd never even heard "Don't Stop Believin'" until it was used in Monster, when Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci dance to it at the roller rink. That movie came out soon after I stopped worrying about guilty pleasures and whether I could like things ironically or whatever, so I heard it as a fantastic song, just as I did with the Darkness's "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," which was released around the same time.

XP -- I don't know if some of these lists were printed or linked upthread, but I'd really like to read about the best jazz, blues and classical albums of the year. I know James Blood Ulmer released a good blues disc this year, but that's all I know about this year's crop of jazz, blues and classical releases.

And my daughter has 7 long years to go before her Bat Mitzvah!

ok jaymc that's pretty weird.

What part?

the not hearing that song until the movie Monster part.

And liking a song by The Darkness.

Oh. I have lots of blind spots, esp. when it comes to classic rock. Like the only reason I know "Carry on My Wayward Son" is because it's on the Girl Talk album.

^me too

Man. I mean, I would've figured you'd at least heard it through Anchorman.

Monster came out in 2003. Anchorman was 2004.

About the closest I've come to listening to a classic-rock radio station is WXRT, which is nominally AAA but plays older stuff, too. Except it's usually just canon fodder like the Beatles and Zeppelin and the Eagles and Tom Petty, nothing too prog or metal or dated-sounding arena-rock.

xpost Oh wait, do you mean Kansas or Journey? I don't remember what was in Anchorman.

Weird thing about "Tiny Dancer" for me is that I'm totally in the "demographic" for it (grew up loving Elton songs on the radio--AM radoio), but barely knew that song at all until Almost Famous--it did totally reach me through that movie, and continues to sound good.

As for Journey (this may relate to jaymc's experience), I was a highly opinionated Journey-hater in high school, but I never once actually listened to their music, and was not exposed to it much through the radio because by that time I wasn't listening to radio. I think the only way they could possibly reach me now is through some movie or TV show, but I didn't see the Sopranos.

I'll get back to you about dubstep--in, say, 15 years? (Actually, I do kind of like Burial.)

I was a highly opinionated Journey-hater in high school

Except I had no reason to hate Journey because very few suburban Chicago high schoolers in the early '90s were actually listening to Journey.

Burial's undoubtedly connected to dubstep, but it's hardly representative of the sound/scene in general -- in no small part because dubstep is much more club-oriented than Burial, whose music far better suits a home-listening environment. I realize that opposition is well worn and often really specious, but in this case I think it holds up. In any case, you can't really write about dubstep, as a genre and a scene, unless you are familiar with its history, its phases, its divergent tendencies, its dead ends, and I've seen few critics able to engage with it on those terms. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't write about Burial without a grounding in the history of dubstep -- hardly! But writing about Burial, referencing dubstep, and writing about dubstep are different things.

Artrocker
I mentioned the mag in a piece I wrote last year and they've kindly sent me issue ever since. In November it changed from a bi-weekly ("fortnightly") paper to a monthly glossy. A good 70% of the writing is godawful. I would have thought they'd have improved, since they've been publishing since 2001. Perhaps there's a high turnover of young writers who move on, perhaps to finish school. Their scope is narrow to a fault, but their focus is intentional. It's a sort of evangelical dedication to the UK scene of young emerging pop and rock bands. I agree that The Maccabees and Good Shoes put out great albums, and hopefully they'll get more exposure from this. The Editors album, however, was way better than Interpol's.

01. The Maccabees - Colour It In
02. Good Shoes - Think Before You Speak
03. Art Brut - It's A Bit Complicated
04. The Horrors - Strange House
05. Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
06. Shitdisco - Kingdom of Fear
07. Tiny Masters of Today - Bang Bang Boom Cake
08. Jakobinarina - The First Crusade
09. The Hives - The Black and White Album
10. Future of the Left - Curses
11. Liars
12. Acoustic Ladyland - Skinny Grin
13. Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
14. Interpol - Our Love to Admire
15. The Violets - The Lost Pages
16. Mothers and the Addicts - Science Fiction Illustrated
17. Chow Chow - Colours and Lines
18. The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever
19. Untitled Musical Project
20. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City

Best of the Rest
Kubichek - Not Enoughnight
Die! Die! Die!
The Young Knives - Are Dead...And Some
Poppy and the Jezebels - Follow Me Down
Dirty Projectors - Rise Above
Bearsuit - Oh:IO
The Scare - Chivalry

I think we can save the trouble of having this exchange about Burial and dubstep if we put a filter on all archived threads changing "Dizzee Rascal" to "Burial" and "grime" to "dubstep."

I used to listen to my older brother's copy of Madman Across the Water a lot in the 70s, so I knew all about "Tiny Dancer."

Burial, whose music far better suits a home-listening environment

Makes sense. I don't go to clubs, but I love Untrue in headphones.

Other dubstep clubbier? I guess I don't know the genre well enough to say. Would you say Skull Disco's Soundboy Punishments, which was also released in 2007, is clubbier than Untrue? I love both discs, BTW.

Hey Alex, thanks for the condescension. Please note that I'm not trying to make proscriptive *or* prescriptive arguments about dubstep. And even if Burial were the dubsteppiest of all the dubsteppers, there's still a difference between talking about one artist's work and being able to speak intelligently on a broader scene, trend, or sound.

I haven't been to a dubstep night since i went to FWD>> back in 2004 or so, but my general impression is that most dubstep is indeed clubbier (take that as you will).

...Panda Bear's disc sounds to me like everything is on one flat plane...I often can't hear what Nick is talking about in terms of a disc or song's over-compression...

I'd say you just about nailed it even if you maybe don't think you did. The album doesn't have much space, at all, and does sound flat, like a wall, of noise (albeit, well-intentioned, noise). And I, too, love me some contemporary psychedelia. But this just sounds dynamically opaque.

xp How much do you need to know about dubstep to understand what's supposed to make Burial distinctive? I had the thing in my CD changer, playing in the background for a week, and it was totally beyond me. Some parts reminded me of Kate Bush I guess. (Maybe she's sampled?) But mostly, like I said above, the parts I liked okay reminded me of the gothy background music on that first Faithless album. Which is not an insult -- I like the first Faithless album a lot, though I get the idea serious dance critics dismiss it as cheese in retrospect. Anyway, even though I really missed Faithless's *songs,* the Burial thing was pleasant, when the tracks were alternating with other tracks off other albums; when I tried to play the album from start to end, I got bored quick. I got the idea it required some kind of microscope to look at it through that I don't own. But if people who *aren't* dubstep experts get it (and apparently lots of them do), maybe I just have a blind spot.

I think you're right about the absence of "songs". If only the sonics were enough to compensate for that lack on their own. For me, they're not.

I think you're right about the absence of "songs". If only the sonics were enough to compensate for that lack on their own. For me, they're not.

Is it bad that I feel this applies equally to Untrue and Person Pitch?

I guess the question is whether you want to know what distinguishes Burial from *other* dubstep or simply makes him distinctive on his own terms. Most (let's call it) genre-based dubstep is more stark, less lush. Some of it's better, some of it's worse than Burial -- I'm definitely not making any value judgments based on what I see as Burial's deviation from the generic dubstep template. I don't think "getting" Burial requires any sort of microscope; I'd guess that his approach towards sonics simply doesn't resonate with you, Chuck. If I recall correctly you weren't a fan of Radiohead's ambientish forays, right? Not saying Burial = Radiohead, but I can see how someone who wasn't swayed by Kid A wouldn't be swayed by Untrue either. I quite like Burial's music, but for better or for worse I have a real soft spot for mood music.

I actually thought Kid A was marginally less boring than most of the other Radiohead albums from the past few years (more rhythmic and Kraut-rocky, or something.) But yeah, I'm obviously not an atmospheric mood muzik (or Radiohead) fan in general, so maybe I'm just not the right demographic for this stuff. (If anything, to be honest, I kind of hoped Burial were dubbier!)

Kid A also had some, er, content. Or, at least the sonics were good/catchy/weird/interesting enough to provide an alternative for the lack of same.

If you want dubbier Burial, check its first, s/t disc (which I still prefer to its latest, more UK garage/speed garage leanings).

For dubbier, I'd check Soul Jazz's two <I>Box of Dub</i> compilations, which have a much rootsier feel. You also might like the Skull Disco compilation, <I>Soundboy Punishments</i> (which is really 90% Shackleton productions), recently reissued in the U.S. by Rough Trade.

dubsteppier, I mean(t).

whoops, sorry for that poor formatting.

Plus, I have this weird idea that albums are meant to be lived with, a little; sometimes it takes more than a few months (and maybe a couple hit singles) to figure out how good an album is.

Yeah, I noticed that of my top ten albums of the year (still subject to change), eight came out in the first the first half, and none came out later than September, and I got the feeling I wasn't quite comfortable including newer albums that I haven't had as much time to digest, even if I might end up valuing them more later on.

still always subject to change

I love that Soundboy Punishments disc. Is that, in your view, more dubsteppier than Burial?

BTW, while I'm not crazy about Soul Jazz's Box of Dub, Vol. I and II, Vol. I did contain one of Burial's best songs, Unite.

possibly both dubbier and dubsteppier.

Yeah, the first Burial album is DUBstep, whereas the second is dubSTEP.

If I'm voting for "I'm a Flirt (Shoreline)" how do I credit the artist? R. Kelly vs. Broken Social Scene? The Hood Internet? ABX?

Precedent created by votes for Freelance Hellraiser in 2002?

Is The Hood Internet the person who did the mashup? If so, I'd go with that. (I'd never heard of him/her until you mentioned it... I know the track thru youtube, where it's uncredited, at least the version I bookmarked is.)

Anyway, it seems like the person who did the mashup would be the logical 'artist,' no?

Just the man I was looking to talk to!

The Hood Internet is the mash-up project of two guys, ABX and DJ STV SLV. They're put up on the website www.thehoodinternet.com, but the link that you click to download the song mentions the individual mash-upper. Also the title of the post is ARTIST VS. ARTIST. Confusing.

ilx rap clique will definitely want to know about the hip-hop list at indie surfer:

15. Timbaland - Presents Shock Value
14. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
13. Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
12. Freeway - Free At Last
11. Cunninlynguists - Dirty Acres
10. El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
09. Talib Kweli - Eardrum
08. Pharoahe Monch - Desire
07. Common - Finding Forever
06. Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
05. Ghostface Killah - The Big Doe Rehab
04. Lil Wayne - Da Drought 3
03. Jay-Z - American Gangster
02. Kanye West - Graduation
01. M.I.A. - Kala

For what it's worth, I know nothing about dubstep and I really liked the album. I think some of my enjoyment came from listening for the vocals on Archangel (like a lot of the reviews referenced) and while I was appreciating that, the music grew on me. I still can't talk about it in any meaningful way outside of my own personal reflections.

Also, what is up with Mona Lisa and Mad Hatter never being a hit? I LOVED that song.

(My little sister's bat mitzvah is next year!)

I'll post altpress/punknews/amp magazine lists when they come out.

Other than the most obvious thing about putting someone who is questionably rap at number one on a list of best rap albums, there's nothing particularly wonky about that list, which isn't to say all the albums are great. If you took M.I.A. out, there would be nothing that screamed "rap list by indie dudes".

14. Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass
13. Brother Ali - The Undisputed Truth
11. Cunninlynguists - Dirty Acres
10. El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
09. Talib Kweli - Eardrum

Lots of backpack dudes who don't listen to indie like those people.

i thot "indie dudes" meant dudes who listened to indie rap