Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

Yesterday the NME Twitter was promoting a band called "Cerebral Ballzy".

If there was a window in my office when I read that I'd have looked out.

They've been around for years, more in hardcore/punk focussed mags than NME themselves though. From the worst band name thread:

cerebral ballzy

― livin' next door to phallus (electricsound), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:06 (43 seconds ago)

that's a neat deconstruction of the alt/bro, apollonian/dionysian schism of ROCK, and not without paranomastic elan

― calpolaris (nakhchivan), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:11 PM (3 years ago)

Shit, I'm not up on my offensive band names.

no worse a name than 'Arctic Monkeys' when you get down to it and imho

while typing that I looked out of the window too conspicuously and my neighbour's mother waved at me cheerfully

Peeping Tom.

arctic monkeys is one of the most embarrassing band names ever

dunno, arctic monkeys isn't really offensive in the same way as cerebral ballzy. not that it's particularly great.

arctic monkeys is wacky student "humour" of the most basic sort

cerebral ballzy is a nadir of a different kind i guess

you listen to pavement
^ Future AC song title.

It's just a name. Jamie, the guitarist, came up with it at school before we were in a band. He just always wanted to be in a band called Arctic Monkeys.

he did it!

it seems a strange choice for them, like they're not "wacky" in what they do musically.

What's then name of those monkeys that live in the snow and hang out in hot spas and are total dicks to the monkeys that they force to stand out in the cold? I'm pushing for more taxonomic accuracy in band-naming here.

Japanese macaques

i can't bring myself to get upset or offended by a punk band who call themselves cerebral ballzy, sorry.

Japanese Macaques would probably be a worse band name than Arctic Monkeys, in fairness.

Sinospheric Simians

Isn't Japanese Macaques a Spoon song?

Also a worse band name than the Arctic Monkeys. And Cerebral Ballzy.

It SHOULD be a Spoon song if it isn't

NME Best Albums of 2012
http://www.nme.com/photos/nme-s-50-best-albums-of-2013/326689/1/1

1. Arctic Monkeys - 'AM'
2. Kanye West - 'Yeezus'
3. Queens of the Stone Age - '…Like Clockwork'
4. Foals - 'Holy Fire'
5. Savages - 'Silence Yourself'
6. Daft Punk - 'Random Access Memories'
7. Arcade Fire - 'Reflektor'
8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'Push This Guy Away'
9. Laura Marling - 'Once I Was An Eagle'
10. David Bowie - 'The Next Day'

11. Jon Hopkins - 'Immunity'
12. MIA - 'Matangi'
13. Drenge - 'Drenge'
14. Vampire Weekend - 'Modern Vampires Of The City'
15. Peace - 'In Love'
16. Jagwar Ma - 'Howlin’'
17. Waxahatchee - 'Cerulean Salt'
18. Hookworms - 'Pearl Mystic'
19. Disclosure - 'Settle'
20. The National - 'Trouble Will Find Me'

21. Iceage - 'You’re Nothing'
22. Deerhunter - 'Monomania'
23. Chvrches - 'The Bones Of What You Believe'
24. Parquet Courts - 'Light Up Gold'
25. Haim - 'Days Are Gone'
26. Factory Floor - 'Factory Floor'
27. Earl Sweatshirt - 'Doris'
28. These New Puritans - 'Field Of Reeds'
29. My Bloody Valentine - 'm b v'
30. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 'Mosquito'

31. Merchandise - 'Totale Nite'
32. Parma Violets - '180'
33. Tegan And Sara - 'Heartthrob'
34. Janelle Monae - 'The Electric Lady'
35. Bill Callahan - 'Dream River'
36. Deap Vally - 'Sistrionix'
37. Kurt Vile - ‘Wakin On A Pretty Daze’
38. Courtney Barnett - 'The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas'
39. The Julie Ruin - 'Run Fast'
40. Fuck Buttons - 'Slow Focus'

41. The Strokes - 'Comedown Machine'
42. Cate Le Bon - 'Mug Museum'
43. The Knife - 'Shaking The Habitual'
44. Speedy Ortiz - 'Major Arcana'
45. Future Of The Left - 'How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident'
46. Primal Scream - 'More Light'
47. King Krule - '6 Feet Beneath The Moon'
48. Pusha T - 'My Name Is My Name'
49. Daughter - 'If You Leave'
50. James Blake - 'Overgrown'

what is drenge it sounds gr8

1. Arctic Monkeys - 'AM'
2. Kanye West - 'Yeezus'
3. Queens of the Stone Age - '…Like Clockwork'

Glad to see NME has caught up with the hot artists of 2005.

Drenge are just-okay nu-grunge stuff except the USP is they're from Scotland or Cumbria or something IIRC. Like Yuck but more drengey.

Drenge are chiefly noted for having been namechecked in Tom Watson's resignation letter to Ed Miliband. I wasn't aware that anyone other than a few Staggers-reading wonks actually bothered to listen to them.

Bar the usual sins of omission and a largely ropey top 10 that NME list doesn't strike me as particularly objectionable but that's maybe because it looks like the list of a publication and a scene that's accepted its reduced standing the world.

Glad to see NME has caught up with the hot artists of 2005.

as much as I'm personally indifferent to all those albums this doesn't really work as a zing

8. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - 'Push This Guy Away'

I wish I could see in that QOTSA album what the NME can. They lost it with Era Vulgaris and I don't see how this one's a significant recovery, much though I'd like to.

boy Britshes love Arctic Monkeys!

NME's list overall is surprisingly old. Only one debut, only three artists under 30.

QOTSA guy sings on the AM record and the AM guy sings on the QOTSA record, is that right?

Does the NME still do the in-it-for-a-minute most-important-new-buzz-band-of-this-week thing anymore?

Roll-out of the Guardian list has started:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/dec/04/best-albums-2013-40-31

oh how disappointing, had been hoping for bangerz to go top 10 and for the subsequent nuclear outrage BTL to bring down the entire internet

damp squibz

it's sort of weird that in terms of pop, miley was the ONLY big star to bring it on record (unless ariana grande counts as a big star)

QOTSA is the "oh yeah, did they have an album this year?" band that seems to be on all of these lists in '13

boy Britshes love Arctic Monkeys!

objection

The Miley album is kind of 60% limp and 40% terrific fun but I'm hoping it's just a warm-up for the next record when she gets onto all the really banging cultural appropriation.

no way can you justify classing that percentage as limp unless you're just a ballad hater

i like "Adore You" but beyond that the whole project is just too obnoxious for me to handle.

Seeing The National on a lot of lists. Trying to get into it now. Not very successful as of yet.

Nah her ballads are largely just not good and a few of her bangers misfire as well. Let's stop pretending "ballads" are just a monolithic mass that one either likes or hates. Also one of the most fun tracks here, FU, is a ballad albeit a ludicrous theatrical one.

Adore You is shit though.

It's better than The National though.

Ha.

Dutch music mag OOR made their yearly round along journalists, bloggers, radio dj's etc.

1. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away (MUTE/PIAS)
2. Kanye West - Yeezus (DEF JAM/UNIVERSAL)
3. Arcade Fire - Reflektor (MERGE/UNIVERSAL)
4. Arctic Monkeys - AM (DOMINO/V2)
5. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (COLUMBIA/SONY)
6. Jacco Gardner - Cabinet Of Curiosities (EXCELSIOR)
7. Atoms For Peace - Amok (XL/BEGGARS)
8. Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (WHAT’S YOUR RUPTURE/PIAS)
9. The National - Trouble Will Find Me (4AD/BEGGARS)
10. Kurt Vile - Wakin On A Pretty Daze (MATADOR/BEGGARS)

11. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II (JAGJAGUWAR/KONKURRENT)
12. Holden - The Inheritors (BORDER COMMUNITY/NEWS)
13. Moderat - II (MONKEYTOWN/NEWS)
14. Mikal Cronin – MCII (MERGE/KONKURRENT)
15. Disclosure - Settle (PMR/UNIVERSAL)
16. Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action (DOMINO/V2)
17. Bill Callahan – Dream River (DRAG CITY/V2)
18. Jagwar Ma - Howlin (MARATHON/PIAS)
19. Laura Marling - Once I Was An Eagle (VIRGIN/V2)
20. Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires Of The City (XL/BEGGARS)

21. Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp/V2)
22. Phosphorescent - Muchacho (Dead Oceans/Konkurrent)
23. Gregory Porter - Liquid Spirit (Blue Note/Universal)
24. Queens Of The Stone Age - …Like Clockwork (Rekords/Matador/Beggars)
25. Janelle Monáe - The Electric Lady (Bad Boy/Warner)
26. Torre Florim & Roos Rebergen - De Tweede Speeldoos (Excelsior)
27. Deerhunter - Monomania (4AD/Beggars)
28. Ásgeir - In The Silence (One Little Indian/Konkurrent)
29. Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare (Bella Union/PIAS)
30. Savages - Silence Yourself (Matador/Beggars)

Franz Ferdinand! I remember them!

it sure seemed in the first half of the year that Savages were some kind of huge critical breakthrough band that was gonna dominate these lists

i mean WAS there a 'more indie than Haim' buzz band that really broke big in 2013? usually there seems like at least 2 or 3 that are a lock to do really well on Pazz & Jop, this year it seems like all pretty established acts.

Savages seem to be doing pretty well on these lists but they and Haim were pretty much the only indieish buzz bands at the start of the year, outside of shit like Palma Violets who nobody really expected to be good in the first place.