Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

is whiney doing his leftfield/noisy shit list this year y/n?

ty segall name always makes me want to start a woozy britronica group called SEAGULL I THANK YOU.

cuz those kinds of names are popular these days.

xpost y

good man!

new sad borad description:

"Feeling kinda bad for Animal Collective."

xp Do I need to spell it out? The career paths are not the same but the situation of following a big-selling, widely acclaimed, NPR-wooing indie album with a muted, poorly received one three years later is similar. I'm not going to waste time arguing about what does and doesn't count as a breakthrough.

... Coexist wasn't poorly received, unless you are just looking at a small subset of the critical reaction?

You apparently had to spell it ot because I had no idea that you meant that. Neither one of those records was especially "poorly recieved" though

I mean, Coexist is currently rating a 79 on Metacritic, how does that translate to "poorly received"?

MPP reached a lot of people who were never going to be into Centipede Hz, I doubt anyone expected it to sell as well. What I find interesting is the critical abandonment as shown in these EOY lists.

because we have Grimes now...

<b>GRIMES</b>

i def got the impression that coexist had a lukewarm reception (not just here but among UK critics) but perhaps not

it had a lukewarm reception on ilx iirc

lol yeah, and then everyone else gave it an 8

That Spin list is pretty good. It's just occurred to me I have no idea what Japandroids sound like at all.

The strongest songs on that Santigold album were great but the record as an entirety was kind of an uninspiring 6/10 and I'm surprised enough people rated it highly enough to vote it into the top 10 in any list. I can't imagine it inspiring sufficient love or hate really.

I pretty much adore the entire Santigold album and don't get why people hate any of the songs on it.

It's not hate (as least not in my case). It's just..."oh, that's nice". Matt DC otm with uninspiring.

i don't get the (muted) enthusiasm for japandroids (there and elsewhere i've seen), i haven't been able to get into that album. i think it's retroactive praise for people who missed praising their first album.

every song being "oh that's nice" as opposed to controversial or hot --> long term critical success

Any Irish polls been announced yet? Be interesting to see how Frank O'Shane has gone down in the old country with his collection of loyalist ballads.

I had high expectations for the Japandroids LP. I'm psyched that people are into it because I think they deserve their success, but IMO the energy on the 2010 singles and the 2009 full-length seemed a lot more genuine.

or more natural, and less labored...

no one is liking the new titus andronicus album? did it get any chatter on ilx?

xp Like seandalai says: "I doubt anyone expected it to sell as well. What I find interesting is the critical abandonment as shown in these EOY lists." MPP was a P&J-winning album that got rave reviews across the board - CHz, without being an obvious dud, is hardly registering a mention. Something similar happened to TVOTR last year and I see it happening to a lesser extent with the xx. Metacritic doesn't tell you much because there are a lot of over-generous critics out there and if you're a certain kind of band you have to deliver a real turkey to get less than 70.

IMO CHz is way better than Dear Science.

SPIN has a section called "Worst New Music."

no, 'nine kinds of light' (?) would be the analogue.

Yes, exactly. Using P&J as a very rough measure of EOY consensus, Dear Science was #1 and Nine Types was #43.

Yeah I didn't really care about Dear Science or Nine Kinds of Light. I especially don't understand Dear Science getting P&J/SPIN "album of the year" back in the day.. While "Centipede Hz" I think is simply getting forgotten for being less-than-outstanding even though it's full of well executed ideas.

Any noteworthy singles/tracks lists floating around?

Popmatters started their 'best songs of 2012' list today.

Any noteworthy singles/tracks lists floating around?

Ours will be next month, and I firmly believe it's the best list of its kind on the internets.

(Albums, too...maybe, but especially tracks.)

The ILX list? Yeah, of course, but in the meantime I'm looking for some stuff to fill up my personal one.

I just gave the Popmatters list a looksee. I appreciate the effort, I guess, but there's a ton of "blah" on there.

Also, Popmatters didn't rank "212" last year I guess? And then shoved it in at #65 this year?

Yeah, Popmatters list isn't anything to get excited about, but I thought I'd throw it out there as an option. They typically play it a little too indie-centric for my tastes, but they have a handful of great metal writers that make it worth my visit. I'm far more interested in their genre lists.

Any noteworthy singles/tracks lists floating around?

Ours will be next month, and I firmly believe it's the best list of its kind on the internets.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, December 3, 2012 8:55 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last year's was so amazing. once more: http://imgur.com/a/gCkic

anyone gonna have starkey's orbits on their lists? top 10 album for me

When does the ILX EOY nom process start?

Haven't set a date yet; I guess next week?

I'll probably kick the thread off a week from Friday (that will be the 14th).

roger that

anyone gonna have starkey's orbits on their lists? top 10 album for me

― childish bambino (rennavate), Monday, December 3, 2012 4:14 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not the usual suspects here (lots of jazz/fusion/classical/folk/etc):

http://tedgioia.com/bestalbumsof2012.html

kudos for santigold too, no 10 seems high but it's been weirdly overlooked elsewhere considering how strong the strongest cuts on it are

― #YOLO ONO (lex pretend)

Agree with this, listened to it the other day and enjoyed it so much more than I remembered. The Keepers, Disparate Youth, This Isn't Our Parade and The Riot's Gone are some of the best songs of the year.

I'm pretty gutted iamamiwhoami's Kin has only made the RYM list so far, guess it's going to be this years ignored masterpiece like When Saints Go Machine was last year. Hopefully it can squeeze into the ILM list like that did. I think it has stronger tunes than Grimes, less filler than The Chromatics and more variety than Purity Ring. I like those albums but Kin blew them away.

Possibly on my tracks list

http://m.soundcloud.com/opponents/lucid-dreams

iirc The Wire gave both the Laurel Halo album and the Sun Araw/M Geddes Gengras/Congos album negative reviews when they came out, so it's interesting that they (reportedly) top their year-end list.

speaking of Sun Araw, I think his better album from this year was The Inner Treaty, which could be his best yet

I'm not even going to comment...

Best Of 2012: Indie Roots
http://www.magnetmagazine.com/2012/12/03/best-of-2012-indie-roots/

MAGNET’s Devon Leger picks the best indie-roots releases of the year.

1 Mumford & Sons - Daytrotter Stopover Sessions (Daytrotter)
2 Old Crow Medicine Show - Carry Me Back (ATO)
3 Lake Street Dive - Fun Machine (Signature Sounds)
4 Various Artists - The Hunger Games: Songs From District 12 And Beyond (Universal Republic)
5 The Lumineers - The Lumineers (Dualtone)
6 Black Prairie - A Tear In The Eye Is A Wound In The Heart (Sugar Hill)
7 Rayna Gellert - Old Light (Story Sound)
8 J.P. Harris & The Tough Choices - I’ll Keep Calling (Cow Island)
9 Jay William Henderson - The Sun Will Burn Our Eyes (self-released)
10 Joan Shelley - Ginko (Ol Kentuck)