***What's that coming over the hill? It's the 2006 ILX ALBUMS POLL RESULTS***

23. Boris - Pink
(84.5 points, 6 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/pink.jpg

2006 was a banner year for Boris. Adding majestic shoegaze to the doom and deceivingly intricate riff-rock the band had mastered years ago, Pink was one of the most consistently-cited examples of 06's upward trend for so-called hipster metal. Yet it was as outside of this movement as part of it--too unironic and too essentially foreign, Pink is simply a joyous homage to the many forms that rocking the fuck out has taken over the years. Free of agenda and refusing to acknowledge conventional wisdom's line between smart and stupid, Pink was certainly one of 2006's most immediate releases, and may well be its most timeless.
-Call All Destroyer

Destroyer's Rubies = 24, not 23

22. Scott Walker - The Drift
(84.5 points, 7 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/thedrift.jpg

Other ILXors said...

A lot of people get hung up on the " abstraction" of the post- nite flites work, don't you think?. But sadly forget the emotional simplicity of what he does, as he always states he's "pairing" the text down to a feeling.. Just as they do in the French chanson or German leider tradition, were words and enunciation articulate unsaid expeiences. Walker sings through the feelings of others as if they were inside him, exorcising all the horrors he's watched and read. He conveys the souls of the unspoken victims through his compositions ... people who are victims of poltical/state control. Take for example the ironically titled Patriot 91...

He conflates the narratives of the Nazis third Reich and the fourth reich of the good old USA. The " highway of Death" with incinerated bodies ... "shock and awe"... christ you can hear him close to tears when hes sings "Aryanuary"... Scott Walker knows the score of what is politically going on right now on in front of our very eyes. How our planet is being turned into a global corporate fascist state, and how this very state is trying to destroy the human spirit.

Walker is fighting against that horror with this music, and reflects the mirror of our cruelty back to our faces whether in Treblinka or in Iraq. He is touch with the violence and the 'sublime' just as Goya or Picasso were, or in cinematic terms as Passolini, who was exploring the same idea of corporations/fascism in Salo.

He is one of the most vital as well as humble artists working today and should not be ignored.

Christ, I went on rant there. But it would nice if people focussed on the work, rather than lazily quip it's "Inacessible".
-PaulBaran

And finally,

21. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
(85 points, 7 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/fox.jpg

<b>Other ILXors said...</b>

i think it's her strongest set of original songs, even though there are a few in the later stretch that run into her problem of melodic and lyrical vagueness. the first 8 or so tracks are all pretty strong, and i love the last one ("the needle has landed"). i like that it's less self-consciously twangy, more noir-pop. i don't think you can really call it a country or alt-country album at all. the gospel song is great. she and kelly hogan really need to do a gospel album.
-gypsy mothra

Thoughts?

why does the cloven-hoofed woman have a huge, asymmetric afro?

20. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
(86.5 points, 8 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/drums.jpg

Other ILXors said...

Yes, this album makes the statement "Yay! drums and feedback exist" and that is a big part of its appeal. I think they switch it up a little.. they play on the notion of "inspiration" (in fact, that's what the whole album's about if you listen!) and kind of twist it around into an ambivalent mess, but it's such a thoughtful mess that it seems more like a conversation.
-snnhy

19. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
(93.5 points, 8 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/yellow.jpg

Other ILXors said...

"What a dream of an album Yellow House is. Summery, shimmering, light as air, yet grounded enough in solid song-craft that it never floats off into the ether. Which is the problem with most alt/lo-fi/fractured Americana/folk/psych groups and artists who worship at the altar of Wilson/Parks or whatever forgotten author of teenage symphonies to God knows what is being touted and resurrected this week. They sound pretty and create aching wisps of reverential fluff, but they go in one ear and out the other. Grizzly Bear's melodies stick with you. Now a four-piece ? Grizzly Bear?s 2004 debut Horn Of Plenty being recorded by the duo of Christopher Bear and Edward Droste ? the band makes drifting sand-pop (the album was mostly recorded in, yes, a yellow house off of Cape Cod) where sound and instruments waft in and out of the room like ghosts. There is guitar, a brush on a drum, banjo, strings, horns, and pianos that reverberate or tinkle or act as percussion. There are gorgeous side-two-of-Abbey Road vocal harmonies and there are lone voices lost in the weeds. There is a lot to take in ? the ambient live noise and various fx adding to the mix ? and yet Yellow House never feels crowded or messy. It?s hypnotic and intimate but never cloying in its intimacy. You never feel the hot breath of desperation. Only the cool breeze of delight in invention. The album makes you wish that more indie acts would take the time to learn how to make their songs breathe -to live with and inhabit their songs until they are sturdy and can stand on their own without crumbling- instead of just trying to turn their record collections into gold."
-scott seward

18. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
(96.5 points, 7 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/iamnot.jpg

17. Cat Power - The Greatest
(98 points, 9 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/thegreatest.jpg

16. T.I. - King
(99.5 points, 7 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/king.jpg

15. Joanna Newsom - Ys
(106.5 points, 8 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/ys.jpg

Look at the 17 minute "Only Skin" (which is I think is the climax of the album): I cannot think of one other artist who has treaded the ambitious grounds of this song, the twisting and turning of the lyrical cycle, the slow evolutions from crescendo to naked statement, and made it fit so perfectly in one piece without disintegrating...as far as extreme rock music goes, this goes far behind something like Gogol Bordello, Black Dice or even the No New York scene, becuase its able to hold to together enough to make it timeless (those bands are admired because of their similar ambition, but its ambition that self-destructs on purpose)..YS such an honest projection of her longing and worries that is scares people, like Joni Mitchell's Blue probably scared people at first with its nakedness....the closest I can think from the female perspective is Kate Bush (going back to Joni Mitchell) but this is much less flawed...I think if you sit with it long enough even the certain lines that might of made you cringe are now endearing...it wasn't like this on the first album, some stories just didn't work, some melodies were annoying over time...but the machine is running flawless this time
-Space Is the Place

14. Peter, Bjorn & John - Writer's Block
(109 points, 9 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/writers.jpg

Other ILXors said...

The lyrics on this album are often really painfully generic (to be fair, they're not singing or writing words in their native tongue), but there are so many incredibly rich melodies on this album. Still, it's quintessential indie, which means it's not going to be terribly ILM-friendly. Not as bad as the average Belle & Sebastian mimic; not as good as something similarly Nordic like Herman Dune, which is a bit more adventurous.

But "The Chills," "Paris 2004," "Amsterdam," "Up Against the Wall," "Young Folks," and "Let's Call it Off" are jam packed with hooks - the verses are as catchy as the choruses, which is one of the things I love about the New Pornographers. From a purely pop perspective, they are incredibly talented. Hearing the Concretes-singer verses on "Young Folks," you wonder how they would do writing songs for other people, too.
-Tiki Theater Xymposium

I keep trying to like Ys (I'm a big fan of Milk-Eyed Mender), but it really is rather awful. Bloated, tuneless... the only song I like is "Cosmia"...

13. Girl Talk - Night Ripper
(112 points, 9 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/night.jpg

The future of music - rip it up and steal all the good parts. People complain that downloaders gut albums for singles. Girl Talk guts singles for the 3-5 seconds that make pop music worthwhile.
-Mordechai Shinefield

12. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
(114 points, 10 votes)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/rather.jpg

And finally...

11. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
(121.5 points, 10 votes, 1 number one)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/returnto.jpg

Other ILXors said...

When I first heard the album, it sounded refreshingly linear to me -- the songs seemed to be refusing to come back around in identifiable patterns. On further listen, I think that impression maybe wasn't accurate... it's more elliptical, I guess. In any case, it was nice to be surprised, to listen to this album without having any idea where it was going, fully convinced that the band knew where it was going. Now that I know the album much better, it continues to be very gratifying -- I'm still hearing things that I missed before. Also nice to have lyrics that don't actively prevent me from enjoying an album -- that's been a real deal breaker for me lately.
-belle haleine

oh ilm how did you come to this

lindstrøm - AMAZING

MORE AMAZING if it had Breakfast in Heaven, but I couldn't find much of the stuff on CD previous to the compilation. Glad Night Ripper hung around, as that actually hasn't worn for me at all. It's become something more than spot-the-sample.

I had forgotten a lot of this stuff. Come to think of it, outside of JT, I can't recall what came out in 2006. Thank the Maker for lists.

There is no justice if Furtado makes it and Paris Hilton doesn't.

Woohoo! Neither TV on the Radio nor Ys are number 1! Go ILX! (Of course, this invariably means that bloody Hold Steady album is gonna be #1. Bummer.)

^Bummer indeed.

Just because you said that, I'll do one more...

10. Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
(123 points, 8 votes, 2 number ones)

http://ilx2006music.googlepages.com/boysandgirls.jpg

THANK GOD.

barf city. boner city.
oh ilm how did you come to this
OTM

It's not just ILM. The marketplace is too fractured, which means that the critical consensus is weaker now than ever in the last five years. It's not that there isn't great music; it's that none of us can agree on what it is (thanks, popism!)

So, what album(s) are you gripers actually rooting for?

http://www.undercover.com.au/pics/countingcrows4_040303.jpg
#10? ILM, how ccoouuulld youuuuuu??

Boo @ Google's bandwidth cap. No more pretty pictures, at least for a few days :(

And now they are back! Okay, from now on don't click on this thread unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

Was there a 2005 album poll? I can't find it on the search anywhere - anyone care to provide the link?

musically, you can also get album cover images from rateyourmusic.com with BBCode that works on Ilxor

I'm surprised Furtado came in ahead of Beyonce.

Still to come....

Ghostface
Timberlake
Clipse
The Knife
Hot Chip
LCD?
Belle & Sebastian?
CSS?

Help me out here. I'm lost.

lily allen?

booka shade?

Okay, I will finish this tomorrow; I really wanted to finish it today but I am swamped!

Junior Boys?

Here we go...

9. Lily Allen - Alright, Still
(129 points, 12 votes)

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z56/ilx2006poll/albums/alright.jpg

Thoughts?

8. Belle & Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
(141 points, 14 votes, 2 number ones)

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z56/ilx2006poll/albums/thelife.jpg

[quote]The Life Pursuit is their best in a long time. Consistently catchy songs.
-Matt Olken

the album is a majestic and ironically muscular masterpiece.
-Algy Watts[/quote

I'm wondering if you shouldn't finish this on Monday as there will be more people around.

You know what sucks? BBCode. I can do HTML in my sleep but this nonsense makes me weep tears of blood.

THOUGHTS:

10. YUCK
9. YUCK
8. YUCK

ok throw 11-14 in there is YUCK too

ilm you depress me with your awful taste

I still don't get the Hold Steady. The songs are generic, the vocals are really shitty and it tries way too hard to be hip.

Lex, you don't like Girl Talk?!

I was thinking about that, but if you look at the posts about 99% of the posts made by others come after I post all the results for the day. Between 20-11 there was only one comment made, so I figure I'll just post them now and people can just reflect on the results later, which is what seems have been going on so far.

the singles list is much much much better than this despite my gripes - i think the majority of it is at least ok. there are only a handful of decent albums on this list at all!

xp NO I HATE GIRL TALK THEY MASH LOVELY AALIYAH UP WITH HORRID INDIE

7. LCD Soundsystem - 45:33
(149 points, 12 votes)

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z56/ilx2006poll/albums/4533.jpg

This should be higher on the list but it's physically impossible for me to run longer than thirty minutes.
-The Macallan 18 Year

my orig reaction to the girl talk album is on http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=54101

it was "i think i need to go and vomit a little now"

There's no Aaliyah in Girl Talk, and not really that much indie.