Thread for all 2016 albums of the year lists

a paen to solange as supposed tranquilising oatmeal balm cocoon

lmao

PLEASE

What happened to Dusted magazine? They had one of the beat eoy lists.

Dusted has moved to Tumblr

http://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com

the fader list crashed my browser so i have nothing to say about it

(this has been true of many links itt; my computer is old and creaky but not unusually so i thought)

a lot of these lists feature godawful, browser-destroying design

^^ yes. Fact has some fancy video thing playing atop of their list that crashed my iPad. It's so unnecessary when everyone clicking on it just wants to see the list.

(Having to click 'next' every five or so titles also does my head in)

would also like to cop to a sense of embarrassing gratitude towards fader's inclusion of 'too much sauce' cos that cursed song was floating around in my head to an unwelcome degree literally all fuckin year

I dont understand those color wheels. It makes it seem like if you mix those colors you get white and as a child I mixed them all and I didn't get white, I got black instead.

You were mixing pigments (subtractive color). The colors above represent mixing light (additive color).

Monorail (mostly zzzz but it does have The Hardy Tree LP so redeems itself for that):
http://www.monorailmusic.com/news.html?cmsnews_method=view&cmsnews_id=781f7069-c1f4-11e6-9ba4-22000b2080a0

Hunger magazine (note Radiohead as token something or other AGANE):
http://www.hungertv.com/feature/the-23-best-albums-of-2016/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1481623065

-_-so fkn sorry everyone, my girlfriend went thru this thread and pointed out all the ways i've been bad & racist, and she was right of course. been feeling a total wretch all evening and maybe accepting that i had no right to speak as i've done itt (in general - it's been observed that the thread is cordial and pleasant when i'm not around) is the first step to some sort of reconciliation. any deficiencies i've perceived with these lists have been the perceptions of someone who doesn't rly get it. so hereon and in the eoy threads i will basically stick to boosting music i like and criticising individual songs i don't. lists & trends are not my expertise. there is no narrative i can apply which edifies anyone. fader can list whoever the hell it likes and write however it wants. i otoh should read more & write less. really sorry if i've ruined anyone's evening.

well my evening was ruined by your comments and no apology can fix it

pure, wet denunciation

give your girlfriend a high five from me. having someone who can call you on your shit is pretty awesome.

imago, you didn't ruin my evening since dogpiling is very enjoyable to me

the fader list crashed my browser so i have nothing to say about it

(this has been true of many links itt; my computer is old and creaky but not unusually so i thought)

― lex pretend, Wednesday, December 14, 2016 7:58 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

replacing hard drive worked for me fwiw

I just pretend the whole thing was in fact a burn at Bon Iver.

Tbh I was taken aback by yr comments imago. Also because it seems this sort of shit is creeping into *everything* where heretofore (or pre-trump/2016/whatever) it would not (a thread for all 2016 top lists...), at least not as 'casually', or from someone unsuspected. You are a good man iirc and your girlfriend is too, your apology is sincere and it's water under the bridge.
What bums me out though is not understanding the thought process behind your criticism of Fader's list, what it was exactly that irked you and got you so worked up. How that literally worked in yr brain. I've no clue, and you're no "alt-right pepe" imho but I've seen so many people I've never expected it from saying stuff like this, seemingly out of nowhere. Blatant, in my face racism, in bars/transport/shops, just bcz my girlfriend isn't white and doesn't "look" "western". It's getting worse, way worse, and at a staggering pace lately. Which is not on you, but it is a "trend". And it scares the hell out of me.

You'll do fine lj. Listen to a wise man who once wrote "You saw the poster, now see the film." ;)

Anyway, sorry for venting. Don't want to derail by further derailing. Back on topic: is there just one medium out there with a decent top 10 of black metal albums? Tried to find it but could not find any.

the indigested vomit of Holland has spoken again,sadly.

bon iver is white?

idk maybe he just spent too long in that cabin

Sad that you hold on to your hatred towards me like grim death, Calzino. There are ways you know: killfile me, or simply ignore me if I offend you that much.

attempting to fish a conversation thread out of the undrained swamp:

to be more precise I don't mean merely commenting on what's popular (though Bieber was surely on all these lists last year; Sia maybe too), I mean the writers who compile these lists engage in music socially. like part of why I am into "Work" or Lemonade are because my friends are too and they were part of conversations/life, and this is also true of writers.

god this is banal and obvs but it makes more sense than trying to uncover the office and identity politics at work behind every list

― rob, Wednesday, December 14, 2016 2:25 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's impossible to separate social listening from office politics, is the thing. for people in notably incestuous fields like music journalism, they are often one and the same. (The example that always comes to mind is "Classic Man" making more lists than its midlist-airplay corniness otherwise might have merited because of an inside joke that I think happened around Pitchfork Music Festival that year.)

that song was always good though. it got a belated boost from ppl who were initially like "hmm not trap enough" & ignored

but yeah i disagree w/ rob's point, a critic does not owe an audience deference to what their social experience was, if anything my exp has been ppl want to be told how to like things & when labels/writers/whoever are too reactive ("oh this has a lot of views") it ends up peaking early & forgotten one year later

the number of times i listened to critics & industry ppl theorize that desiigner was some kind of musical savant bc everyone liked hearing panda in teh club .... lolz

http://www.stereogum.com/1914718/the-40-best-metal-albums-of-2016/franchises/2016-in-review/

Kinda amusing that everyone on this thread (and on facebook in general) are bemoaning the same acts appearing in all the lists but this metal writer is complaining that the metal lists have no consensus and how lists/genres need consensus

I could go either way on this one, but I think I’m primarily sort of dispirited by the fact that nobody in metal appears to be having the same conversation as anybody else. (Incidentally, by my count, 10 titles from Decibel’s list are included on our own top 40 below.) I think music benefits from having ubiquitous figures inspiring universal debate. I think prominent artists push forward the entire art form. I think metal today lacks standard-bearers — and maybe even standards — and as such, it fails to meaningfully engage with the culture at large. Right now, it barely seems to understand how to substantively connect with its most-devoted community members. You can be a serious metal enthusiast and probably not give a shit about a single one of the 40 albums on Decibel’s list — or our list, for that matter. And while I understand how we got here, I think that’s ultimately probably not a great development for metal.

Stereogum’s own Tom Breihan summed it up pretty damn well in his late-November review of Worm Ouroboros’ What Graceless Dawn, saying:

Underground metal is a funny thing. These days, it feels less like a genre and more like a loose constellation of vaguely connected mini-scenes … Seriously: Sometimes I think metal is less a kind of music and more a design sensibility.

It’s hard to argue with that, except perhaps to say that even the design aspect is pretty inconsistent at this point. Notably, a number of metal bands enjoyed brief periods of commercial success in 2016. Anthrax’s For All Kings debuted at #9 on the Billboard 200. Both Korn’s The Serenity Of Suffering and Volbeat’s Seal The Deal & Let’s Boogie debuted at #4. Megadeth’s Dystopia debuted at #3. Deftones’ Gore debuted at #2.

In a different world, that would mean something — those albums would be central to our collective understanding of this music. But in this world? Nah. None of those albums were included on Decibel’s list. None of them are included on our list. But, like, then you see that two of them were included on Rolling Stone’s list. So, I mean, I dunno. I’m not trying to single anybody out here. I’m pretty egalitarian in my view. Nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong, but mostly, my point is, nobody’s talking about the same music.

also

To get an idea of how decentralized metal became in 2016, you need look no further than Decibel’s list of the year’s 40 best albums. I think it goes without saying at this point that Decibel is the most respected and vital metal-specific publication in the world right now (as it has been for about a decade),

If the world only includes North America.

Do you happen to know a good top X of 2016 black metal albums, from some medium or website I'm unaware of?

Nope, not aware of any black metal only albums of the year

but you could try rate your music

http://tinyurl.com/RYM-BlackMetal-2016

The first twenty of that list are all worthwhile I'd say, in particular ColdWorld, Urfaust, Anaal Nathrakh, Furia, Moonsorrow, Deströyer 666.

Michael Nelson is such a good writer

Thanks Siegbran 'n Kerr. My fave this year was Spectral Lore's Gnosis, but always find it very hard to find a good place recommending me stuff.

This site has served me well, still waiting for the EOY list though.

You need to have a listen to Mesarthim - Isolate btw. Its like Summoning IN SPACE

would like to import my opinion from the metal thread here and say that michael nelson is a horrible writer

"So, I mean, I dunno."

do you think that sentence is colloquial by mistake or design

do u think the giant paragraphs manage to say absolutely nothing about their subject by mistake or design

thanks for explaining blogging though niels

lol np

anyway I'm more interested in the thoughts expressed than his style, and I find his thoughts on metal inspiring - this is a genre I'm not too familiar with though, so perhaps if I was more knowledgeable I'd be more annoyed

find his writing on pop and the music industry pretty darn good too

generally speaking trying to come up with a Grand Statement about a global umbrella "genre" is not a good starting point for anything that might come into striking distance of a point

"I think music benefits from having ubiquitous figures inspiring universal debate" is an interesting idea, I dunno if he uses too many paragraphs to explore it, but I'd like to hear your thoughts

It is true that icons like Beyoncé, Drake and Rihanna "help" frame the discourse on R&B/pop?

then again, it's also good to disrupt stylistic hegemony and though fx some jazz musicians may be nostalgic for a time when jazz superstars were a central part of musical discourse I imagine few want to roll back the developments that made contemporary jazz possible

I know next to nothing about metal but that Stereogum article is great. I rarely visit Stereogum do they have a metal section and is Michael Nelson the main writer?

"I think music benefits from having ubiquitous figures inspiring universal debate" is an interesting idea,

well most people in this thread really dislike that as they all appear in the lists yet many of them will talk about 'event albums' and 'iconic stars' so the truth may just simply be they agree with you niels as long as it's music they like?

I do not like the idea of a definite consensus but a little bit is helpful specially for outsiders. There's two reasons I can't get into metal: 1) It doesn't quite match the aesthetics I want in music but I'm sure there is at least a dozen metal albums I'd love but 2) there's seriously no consensus, the few metal fans I know all recommend me very different subgenres and when they do agree on a subgenre none of the albums match. This is somewhat exciting for me but at the same time I don't want to spend my time listening to 20,000 records of a genre which is difficult for me to see which one sticks and expand from there... consensus records help in this regard.

tbh when quoting what i did i wasnt doing it to talk metal because the quote could be applied to all music

Moka are you saying you prefer consensus on niche/specialist lists but not on all-encompassing general end of year lists?

Yes that's it!

Per example I complained about how dissapointing the ResidentAdvisor one was this year for having artists like Radiohead in there. I know it's a great album but I don't care about having it on RA. I want residentadvisor to show me the consensus albums on the house/techno scene that they usually review since I don't have time to listen to every album on every genre and that's what I want in every EOY list. Niche consensus not every list with Frank Ocean and Beyonce unless that's the sort of music you usually write about.