//////////////shawty got poll poll poll poll poll poll poll (part I: 2008 TRAX)\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

donk was my #1 fyi

please everyone, hold your comments about goldfrapp!

Considering A&E kinda snuck on to the end of my tracks list, I'm delighted to see it get some love. I still can't make up my mind about Goldfrapp in general, but there's something about that last album -- or at least a couple of tracks on it -- that really gets to me.

I'd never heard that Kelley Polar song before (or indeed anything by him) and it's excellent. Thanks ILM.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 19:06 (Yesterday)

for real? i'm amazed you've managed to somehow avoid him all this time

I've just never bothered to seek any out and it's not exactly ubiquitous in day-to-day life.

Apart from Me & U, Cassie's appeal for me at least is how she seems situated in the Venn intersection between fembot and teen-movie character. It reminds me of something Tim F said about Person Pitch on another thread, its less of a lack of depth, more a glistening variety of surfaces. Its an aesthetic that's all about surface and their impenetrability. Its a seductive mirage of a song, better without Wayne because its more compact, wonderfully free of spontaneity (replaced instead with the thrill of how everything just clicks together so satisfyingly). I'll admit I'm a sucker for really minimal pop music and so this is out the door, round the corner for me.

I've just never bothered to seek any out and it's not exactly ubiquitous in day-to-day life.

― Holy Suffering Gobi Desert Clit Nun (Matt DC), Wednesday, February 4, 2009 11:54 AM (1 hour ago)

I highly recommend you seek out his mental Italo cover of Magic Dance (from the Labyrinth OST) in Italian. Good way to get into him I think. Also really addictive.

http://hypem.com/track/567577/Kelley+Polar-Magic+Dance

damn, "closer" is a great song, but i'd definitely take "single" or "mad" over it.

― k3vin k., Wednesday, February 4, 2009 4:14 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^yes, for sure.

nothing else on the kelley polar album grabbed me as much as 'entropy reigns'...it wasn't bad, but that song overshadows the rest somewhat.

i find it really weird that a lindstrom track placed. it seems to miss the point somewhat.

this is awesome, thanks musically

i will never understand what y'all see in "Mad."

i will never understand how anyone could prefer anything else on YOTG to "Closer."

oh, btw, Musically, you are a goddess amongst mere mortals here.

first line of "minimal" is i think "these people don't dance, people don't dance" - at least that's how i've always heard it. and i don't care if the koze version "misses the point," i'd still rather listen to it than the og

??? The Koze version bores the shit out of me, I love the original

The Koze version is good in a sort of fake Alan Braxe & Fred Falke way but the original has all that awesome percussion and swanee whistle noises and so forth, it's so much more kinetic.

Kinda sounds like he's saying "clubber don't dance," especially the second time around.

Yeah, that's what I've always heard.

all the lyrics for it I sing in my head are totally wrong: "scooby don't dance scooby don't dance, cos that music got no blues, got no balls only acid pumpin' pumpin' pumpin'"

thanks everyone for the kind words. glad to see people are enjoying this!

30 - Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened
101.5 points, 10 votes
59 in P&J, 6 in p4k

only song from that album that i really dug.

29 - Gang Gang Dance - House Jam
102.5 points, 8 votes
195 in P&J, 24 in p4k

I'll be fucked if "House Jam" isn't the best song I heard all of last year.
-ilxor

shit i must have missed the voting thread for this completely! i've been looking like once a week and never saw it

28 - Fleet Foxes - White Winter Hymnal
106 points, 8 votes
10 in P&J, 2 in p4k

A friend of mine pointed out how much this song sounds like something Ron Burgandy and friends might sing in three-part-harmony in an Anchorman scene. I already enjoyed the song but now I can't unsee Will Ferrell lip-syncing this, which made it even better in its surreal way.
-cunga

i've been avoiding fleet foxes knowing that they'd bore me but i didn't think it would be that bad. it's just so... pointless and dull. i know i've listen to my share of boring indie music and if i'd heard that a couple years ago i might have loved it though.

"white winter hymnal" is really the song that justifies them

a chilling thought

^imo

alex you might like the sheek louch remix

i agree it's their best song by a really wide margin but i really hate them. i can't even talk rationally about it really

xpost

"really really really" etc *rolls eyes*

ya dude y u hate them so much - they are pretty inoffensive sonically and morally and there are plenty of other bands who're just as hyped as them

i think they have moral issues, claiming they'd never sign with a subsidiary with a major when they already have and all.

yeah true but i chalk that up to "lol young naievety" more than anything

i think "inoffensive" is the problem, tbh. i'm still really young and this past year my tastes shifted significantly, and i think i'm going to look back on it and be really glad it happened. this band represents the bland indie rock that i've grown to loathe, especially when they're grouped with other, infinitely more talented artists in their 'genre', which gives those guys a bad name by comparison to non-indie bros. it's like, how am i supposed to convince people that of montreal are worth listening to when their ambition and talent is subverted and rejected in favor of this stuff in the media.
also, i tried listening to the album again about a month ago and it gave me this uncomfortable feeling, i have no idea what it was or why but i didnt like it and had to stop.

xposts

no he lied to the public, he should burn at the stake

xpost

and yeah that major label thing didnt exactly endear them to me, though i wasnt too surprised and it was more eyerolly like j0rdan said rather than "ugh i hate u u r so dumb"

yeah j/k i don't give a fuc

Will have to dig back through the vid links when I have time...

As for the Ting Tings, I guess I say it all in the blip up there... I can see why it wouldn't be some people's thing but it seems weirdly self-evident to me why it would be some other people's. I mean it is just stupidly rich with hooks: the main guitar thing, the "ame, ame, ame" bit, the way she pops back out to declare "They call me HELL," plus obviously "STAY-CEEEE" which is great. And yeah, the forest of stuff in the last minute. This is turning into Tom Ewing's review of "Sugar Sugar" sort of, but it's one of those kind of songs, two and a half minutes about nothing at all that just keeps layering it on higher and higher. I would put "Stand and Deliver" in this lineage as well. The Ting Tings are no Ants but it's a great single.

idk kev, fleet foxes to me operate as "indie rock" only in the way that the term has shifted in this decade. they certainly aren't indie rock like deerhunter is indie rock or jay reatard is indie rock or even mgmt is indie rock. the album leaves me a little bit cold - but oftentimes so does much acoustic folk - but i certainly wouldn't call them bland. they are musically sparse and their ideas are immediately graspable. just because skeletal lamping has crazy musical shifts and lyrics about being a tranny doesn't make it any more or less "bland" - it's just an aesthetic choice. if anything i think their reliance on open spaces and vocal harmonies makes them quite interesting - and their music, in this day, almost daring - even if i think the songs sometimes fall flat.

i'm not sure i directly disagree with anything you just said, jordan, but i think my main problem with them is that they are so aesthetically driven rather than song-driven. that's the thing that pisses me off, actually, for me they're all style no substance. it's the same feeling i get for some "lol we're lo-fi!" band that cops the cool aesthetic technique of the moment but forgets to write songs. i can totally see why some people might like them, and the dudes have fine voices for sure, but it's just not something i'm able to engage with at all.

and yeah about skeletal lamping, that rec means more to me than any album in a long time, and the reason i like it is a lot more than the just zany structures (not that that's what you were implying, just saying). hopefully it'll place in the album poll; maybe i'll write musically a blurb.

but ANYWAY, sorry to hijack this guys, great job musically keep it coming :)

hey, that's why i am posting the results here and not on another website.

for me they're all style no substance

i can totally see why some people might like them, and the dudes have fine voices for sure, but it's just not something i'm able to engage with at all.

i basically agree completely w/ u here, i'm just trying to get to the bottom of why - even though we seem to be on the same wavelength re their music - i find them "pleasant" and you find them completely detestable. also i wasn't breaking your <3 for skeletal lamping and your hate for FF down solely to the structure of the music, i just thought that you might be conflating the respective structures with blandness and non-blandness.

it's fine to dislike f. foxes (and i have the same issue with them that you do re: songwriting) but i don't think repping of montreal instead is some kind of paradigm shift.

or put another way, i think of montreal are incredibly boring but i don't tell everyone this whenever they are mentioned on a thread. ppl are pretty aware of your dislike of f. foxes, k3v. i'm not sure you want to be copping the lex's ILM posting style in this regard.

27 - Alphabeat - Fascination
111 points, 7 votes, 2 #1 votes
52 in P&J, 47 in p4k

Is it wrong of me to love "Fascination"? Their schtick would annoy if the hooks weren't so strong. The way the chorus lifts into the "Wo-ah Wo-oh-ah" bit is pretty magical.
― Tim F

i just saw the Fascination video. hated it (and them) for the first 30 seconds but was completely won over by the end! the band's puppy-dog sincerity would make them very punchable if the music didn't follow-through with its complete lack of irony - pretty rare for such an obvious 80s throwback. the groove is undeniable and the build-up during the 'say the word' bit is absolutely glorious. great song!
― jabba hands

to be fair lex has like 3 years of anti-indie trolling history, whereas kevin's hating of fleet foxes has occurred in like two threads over the course of a few months

The Fleet Foxes song reminds me most of the sixties revival bands that occasionally come out of Liverpool. It's a bit better than straight Merseybeat, I can hear that the folk, Appalachian, gospel or whatever influences are there, and there are some nice moments - but it's been done before, doesn't amount to more than the sum of its parts, and so is too close to pastiche to be worth my time (xp obviously)

xpost i feel like it's more than two threads but this is true--i guess i just don't get why one would use this message board to neg something more than like once or twice.