2015 was a really, really bad year for music

How many albums did you hear this year that you would call "amazing"

I count maybe 2 or 3.

tbf that's about the number I usually arrive at

i heard some really amazing albums this year -- some totally kick-ass sonatas and partitas by Bach.

in which case this year is no different (I don't hear as much new music as a lot of you other guys do tho)

xp

some reissued stuff by Mars and Inflatable Boy Clams

there's a TON of 2015 albums i want to hear but haven't gotten around to yet

music is great. I love music.

I got so much music that I always got something new and generally interesting to listen to. For me, Finding new bands and recently released records is kind of a random chance thing, especially with so much more being documented now.

Finding new bands and recently released records is kind of a random chance thing, especially with so much more being documented now.

^^^ I care less and less about *when* something came out these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBMds9cP6Y

the comic-book-bold emphasis fantano puts on literally all his cliches is the weirdest post-post-post version of scare quotes

I heard at least 12 albums this year that I would call amazing (as in, totally didn't expect them to sound the way they did or be as good as they were, and expect to continue listening to them for pleasure for years to come). One of those was a Sonny Rollins box set recorded in 1962, but even that was 90 percent previously unreleased material, and all the others were brand-new.

more amazing albums than usual for me

it's never a bad year for music, c'mon

tbf that's about the number I usually arrive at

like M.E.S.H., milo, Kid Smpl, Vince Staples, Percussions, and a bunch of records i just really like. and there are a bunch more that i'm interested in but haven't had a chance to hear yet.

xp previous two posts otm

feeling Whiney on this tbh

Whiney what was yr favorite year for music

i dunno seems pretty dece

idk how u can figure this out. is it this year's best album v last year's best album? this year's top 10 or top 50 v last year's top 10 or top 50? just a general sense of disappointment?

besides Jazmine Sullivan, Sleater-Kinney, fka twigs, Kelela, Grimes, Godspeed, Waxahatchee, Kendrick, Jlin, Dan Deacon, Bjork, Viet Cong, Panda Bear, Boof, Jamie XX, Shamir, Screaming Feemales, Marvin & Guy, and Carly Rae Jepsen, NOTHING great came out this year, ugh!

i'll admit that the 1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music are too clever & sophisticated for me

God, I am SO done with [current year]! can't wait for the new year!!

my "amazing" might be your "boring" and vice versa, but here are 10 2015 albums i thought were great
Joan Shelley – Over and Even
Blank Realm – Illegals in Heaven
Daniel Bachman – River
Meg Baird – Don’t Weigh Down The Light
Sir Richard Bishop – Tangiers Sessions
Tom Carter – Long Time Underground
Ryley Walker – Primrose Green
75 Dollar Bill – Wooden Bag
Chuck Johnson – Blood Moon Boulder
Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There

1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music

agree this is the most boring aesthetic going at the moment

like I get it you're scared and TECHNOLOGY also irony! I'm bored now.

I find myself listening to cheatahs and oddisee a lot, and I dig the new lone record, and that julien baker album that there's the thread on, and oh yeah, the internet record is the jammmm I think it def qualifies as c'amazing'

oh yeah, forgot about Kelela. and Shamir and Jamie Woon, sure.

1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music

i can't really listen to 0PN, but that's probably the most high-profile digital nightmare music of the year and he's old.

Felt the opposite. Impossible to parse down my list. Beautiful treasures everywhere this year. This is where I ended up with my rankings...

Tier 1
1. Jim O’Rourke - Simple Songs
2. Royal Headache - High
3. Destroyer - Poison Season
4. U.S. Girls - Half Free
5. Helen - The Original Faces
6. Palmbonen II - Palmbonen II

Tier 2
7. Little Wings - Explains
8. Franz Ferdinand Sparks - FFS
9. Sir Richard Bishop - Tangier Sessions*
10. Pile - You’re Better Than This
11. Raica - Dose
12. Auscultation - L'étreinte Imaginaire

Tier 3
13. Dungen - Allas Sak
14. Blank Realm - Illegals In Heaven
15. Mammatus - Sparkling Waters
16. Ryley Walker - Primrose Green
17. Chastity Belt - Time To Go Home
18. Rizan Said - King of Keyboard

This was my long list which is v. sloppy and has like 100 records on it (and reissues) and there are more I should add honestly (for instance, just starting to feel the Ian William Craig LP...)

http://pastebin.com/KH7kfJ2y

Whiney what was yr favorite year for music

― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 2:50 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1988 duh

So, MFB, you have three different tiers that all mean "amazing"?

Because, I heard a lot of "great" stuff this year, for sure. But amazing?

Like I refuse to believe you were simply AMAZED by a Pile record

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

It was still a lot better than last year.

I don't know what a melodic motif is. Good album.

One persons amazing, etc.

Like "This is only a good year if there were 20 amazing albums" seems to be a silly way to face music, especially in the current overwhelming/access to everything climate.

huh, yeah, i mean i don't know if i could hum a riff from that SRB thing, but i really enjoy listening to it...
i guess we'll have to define terms here -- "amazing" = ... what? like something that is "new" or "progressive" or "important"? I don't even know if I believe in those words mannnn.

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

this is otm total snoresville

What albums amazed you this year Whiney?

http://crushed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/katy-hepburn.png

xxp lol well see my caveat - my "amazing" might be your "boring" and vice versa

Concept of "If you can't recall a melodic motif from this album, you definitely didn't dig it." is just plainly LOL to me.

I'd say around 10 but they're probably just boring really

"This year really sucked for music" is probably the most boring and pointless opinion one can hold - measuring the quality of a year by how many albums (out of the .1% of music released that year that you've actually heard) that you would give some arbitrary distinction to seems like aimless whining, or just wanting to kick shit up at the very least

BTW there probably 10 or so records this year I would say are at least "great" and many more I have yet to hear so I dunno, it's been pretty good to me

What albums amazed you this year Whiney?

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 3:35 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kendrick, Kamasi and Death Grips

2015 was a good year for music imo, maybe not a good year for whiney music? iirc your eoy lists are usually noise, metal, retail hip hop albums, and a bit of critically discussed pop & indie rock. this year was good for retail hip hop w ds2, summertime 06, kendrick (although you said compton ost as your fav so) but maybe not as good for noise or metal.

i was thinking what a good metric of "was [x] a good year for music" would be and came up with

- did critically acclaimed artists' follow-ups meet or exceed expectations? it seems by this measure the answer is 'yes.' just quickly looking thru p4k BNM and bjork, grimes, dre, aphex twin, sleater kinney, etc etc all passed the test
- did the year produce any new artists of acclaim? i think by this measure, the answer is 'no.' i didn't see any debuts scanning the p4k BNMs, and off the top of my head can't think of any new artists i hadn't heard of before 2015 that i fell in love with.

Concept of "If you can't recall a melodic motif from this album, you definitely didn't dig it." is just plainly LOL to me.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB)

considering that the entire album is literally somebody playing musical notes on a single guitar, I think it's a pretty valid metric to judge it with.

YMMV, obviously

Kendrick, Kamasi, Father John Misty = that's all I got

. . .

Four releases I really like from local bands here in Vancouver. Feels like a bit of a renaissance in the local scene. All great live bands and I even bought physical copies of all of these and don't regret a cent. Indie-shmindey warning but whatever. Supermoon-Comet Lovejoy, Thee Ahs-Names, TV Ugly-UCLA Yankee Cola and Fake Tears-Nightshifting.

Sadly no Japandroids :(

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

― sleeve, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 3:17 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Really late on this but congrats for apparently proving Tangier Sessions is a shit pop record?
I can't recall any melodic motifs of plenty of experimental records but I enjoy them, too!

Young Thug and Jute Gyte locked in an escalating arms race of who can release the most in one year. They should work together.

They have nothing on this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckethead_discography#Studio_albums

Look at that discography! You can almost pinpoint the exact moment he came out of rehab* and realised he had a lot of time to fill.

(*This is a joke, in case Mssrs Grabbe, Sue & Runne are reading.)

i can't help but wonder how r. stevie moore feels about this

wait, buckethead has released over a hundred albums this year?

he was putting out about one a day. but they are basically half hour guitar solos. so, you know...

even more impressive, he has made like 10 albums with viggo mortensen that nobody has ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0EwWq5FRss

Buckethead. Has made like 10 albums. With Viggo Mortensen. That nobody has ever heard.

Was that somehow ported into our reality from the most interesting pieces of pop music trivia that you know (that are 100% false) thread?

didn't viggo used to be married to exene cervenka?

Check out his top three! You two should collaborate or something!

https://youtu.be/X0UtPI9Jp2Y

Is that guy Whiney then?

Shit the Kamasi album on vinyl is pre-selling at $36! Anyone knows why so expensive? Is it a special edition? Can I find it cheaper elsewhere? I loved it and would buy it in a heartbeat but not with that price tag.

it's a triple album! that is a totally reasonable price.

I got mine several months ago. is this a repress?

initial run might've sold out? and yeah, in this wacky vinyl world, $36 for a three-LP set is not bad. if we were talking about a three-LP neil young thing, it'd be at least $150.

its worth the money if its any consolation moka

Sheesh ok ok I'll pay for it. And yes, apparently it's a repress. Comes out in a few days in amazon. No idea if this one will have the same posters and custom artwork.

Meanwhile:

Okay, is it just me who listened to this album and thought "if I want a not-really-metal record that is influenced by kraut and psych and folk, I'd just go back to Sylvester Anfang"?

― emil.y, Monday, November 30, 2015 8:19 PM (1 month ago)

emil.y I suspect that the Alameda 5 album might be more your thing...? It's the same guy that did Stara Tzeka, but another one of his projecrs. No sign of an acoustic guitar anywhere, nothing but drifting, mutating soundscapes

https://alamedacountydeathcult.bandcamp.com/album/duch-tornada-instant-classic-milieu-lacephale-2015

No sign of an acoustic guitar anywhere

Ok dont listen to Farmakopea

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2015316/rs_1024x759-150416095706-1024-john-krasinski-lip-sync.ls.41615.jpg

i was looking for the thead about if music was starting to suck compared to the past. i think in any other decade people would think Lip Sync Battle is a joke.

i'm pretty sure that it IS a joke?

i was looking for the thead about if music was starting to suck compared to the past.
you already started that thread. it's really good.

i apologize, looks like that was someone called "The Once-ler."

there are dozens of us. dozens.

How we doin'?

probably the best year for music ever

I don't think it's been particularly good or bad. I always find plenty of stuff to enjoy and even love, there's been some nice surprises and a lot of mediocre crap I've tried to avoid. Business as usual.

last year was great, which meant I was expecting this year to be a let down. It has far and away exceeded my expectations, fantastic year for music!

just normal.

then again, i find about a quarter of the stuff i like from any given year, i discover at the time of EOY, so looking forward to that.

It didn't top 2013.

Better than 2014 and 2015, though.

it's been a pretty decent year for music but it's been such a weird year in terms of my own consumption of the music - almost constantly against this backdrop of cumulatively fatiguing political anxiety. which makes the usual EOY ranking games a bit harder to do

Possibly stupid question but I'm newish to ilxor - are people posting their individual lists at some point or just in the 2016 voting thread? 2016 was definitely best year since 2014 I think.

2016 was a p good year for albums and a terrible year for singles

Ross - personal lists can go here (if you want)

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2016

i pretty much listen to new house music singles (12") and a mix of all sorts of old music (CD reissues)

feel like i've personally reached a point of fatigue / saturation w/r/t reissues of old music. i'm still buying reissues but fewer and fewer every month.

as far as house music goes i have pretty traditional tastes (i like classic 80s / 90s stuff from chicago / detroit / new york) and the past few years have been really really excellent in terms of a lot of new music in that tradition and a lot of great reissues but it seemed like this year was a bit of a slowdown from previous years in terms of really essential stuff

Thanks Jeff :)

fantastic year for electronic music

I've barely been keeping up on electronic music this year, what's good?

(other than Marfox)

some things that I liked (out there but heavy on rhythm, for the most part):

SHALT - Acheron EP
M.E.S.H. - Damaged Merc EP
Air Max ‘97 - HPE EP
TSVI, Sacred Drums EP
LOFT - Turbulent Dynamics EP
Kid Smpl - Privacy
Ash Koosha - I AKA I
Arca - Entranas
Eaves - Verloren
Second Woman - s/t
Kablam - Furiosa

probably the best year for music ever
― imago, Friday, December 16, 2016 8:58 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark

just lol'd at this pretty hard. i liked 2013-2015 a lot better i guess bc i'm more singles-minded. i agree with 2016 being a decent albums year but not so great for singles.

Ross, after the ILM end of year countdown everyone tends to post their ballots

Thanks Moodles, good to know :)

I feel like a lot of the big music celebrities that I usually roll my eues at did a pretty good job of releasing singles that I didn't hate, so there's that