The 2009 Magazine Albums Of The Year Thread For Posting Lists and Discussion.

Personally I'm conflicted about all this. MPP is a good album, but then I think AC have been churning out great stuff since at least Sung Tongs, and I'm puzzled why it's only with this album that they've broken into such widespread acclaim. So while I'm pleased they're getting the recognition they deserve, I'm bewildered at why this album, which in fairness isn't a huge departure from Strawberry Jam or even Feels, is suddenly topping all the lists.

I may be wrong but I remember, going into MPP, we knew that they had toned down the inaccessible shrieking monkey shit that was on the previous albums, and so new, potential fans that liked Panda Bear's album and enjoyed its sunshine pop moments were looking for more of that and were jumping on board for MPP. The stars were aligning for it to be a hit imo and iirc.

xpost

MPP is a good album, but then I think AC have been churning out great stuff since at least Sung Tongs, and I'm puzzled why it's only with this album that they've broken into such widespread acclaim.

I don't like them at all, myself, but this isn't so weird to me. There have always been indie bands (Sonic Youth, Pixies, TV on the Radio, etc.) whose critical rep has snowballed over the years, as they've picked up, say, more or more mainstream newspaper critics in mid-America or whatever. Obviously that might not affect voters on individual indie websites, but it affects the overall consensus. The phenomenon's nothing new. And in a lot of cases, the bands don't seem to lose many old early-adopter supporters as they pick up new voters (at least until they peak, then their support starts whittling away).

yeah its probably no more samey than usual, i was probably expecting more variation because people keep going on about the fragmentation of pop music generally xposts

I may be wrong but I remember, going into MPP, we knew that they had toned down the inaccessible shrieking monkey shit that was on the previous albums, and so new, potential fans that liked Panda Bear's album and enjoyed its sunshine pop moments were looking for more of that and were jumping on board for MPP. The stars were aligning for it to be a hit imo and iirc.

that is kinda how it is for me tho i liked a couple of things off their older albums just never gave them much time before Person Pitch (and i only like half of that anyway)

i dunno, i much prefer their older stuff myself, i neither love or hate the recent stuff.
xp to chuck

What's new is that all these lists/polls come out so fucking EARLY now. It's ridiculous! To get really old-man on you, year-end polls used to come out, wait for it, in January! After the year had ended! Consarn all the consarn-nation! [shakes cane]

Seriously: more outlets promulgating year-end lists + longer period of time the lists come out (November through January, when P&J hits) = greater irritation/exhaustion factor. Especially when the same handful of albums top so many of the polls. Which they always did, but not in such dense numbers or for so prolonged a period.

There's a really tedious uniformity to this year that I can't remember being replicated to *quite* this extent in the past.

LJ - the critics faves tend to occupy 20-8 in the ILX poll and then the big ILX faves to kick in. I fully expect The Dream and Electrik Red to place higher than Grizzly Bear and the Dirty Projectors and possibly even Animal Collective in the ILX poll.

I need to give those ILX faves a real go! I also think The xx will be in the top 3, but I'm not so keen on them.

Also Lindstrom & Prins Thomas.

xp And I think there's also a sort of "story" that snowballs through the year, so by December websites and magazines feel like they'll look like they're being perverse if they don't jump on the bandwagon and, say, put AC or Grizzly Bear or whatever random record near the top of their list. And individual critics who don't hear many records (and also ones who've heard so many that they're hard to sort through) have heard those names so much that, by December, they don't want to look like they're out of it, either. Doesn't affect every critic, but enough to make a consensus. With the Internet, the effect is amplified even more. It's idiotic; always has been. But again, it's nothing new.

now that think about it I remember that "Brothersport" leaked and it sounded more like something from Person Pitch and like -- as someone else put it -- a poppy parody of Animal Collective. So everybody was waiting or hoping for an AC album that would crossover and be more mainstream and they delivered on that promise, and internet high-fives were in order and we were all happy for a week talking about it until we moved on to the next big thing. At least that's how I remember January 2009.

xpost

the reason the mags bring lists out so early is so they get theirs out FIRST before the novelty wears off and people get fed with with EOY lists.
Also in the NME's case they get 2 big issues in december rather than just the xmas issue. I would rather buy an xmas issue with the list in it. Now the only time in a year i buy the nme is the EOY issue(its a tradition i was going to break this year but ended up buying it in the co-op! Havent bought the xmas issue since the switch.

gotta respect Stylus for holding off til Jan i guess (apart from the general respect...i take all this back if Dirty Bear-Phoenix Collective are in their top 5 tho)

more outlets promulgating year-end lists + longer period of time the lists come out (November through January, when P&J hits) = greater irritation/exhaustion factor. Especially when the same handful of albums top so many of the polls.

Yeah, I've been saying this for years, too. And what sucks, from a P&J perspective, is that all the lists people have seen have to in turn affect the Pazz & Jop ballots, too, for exactly the reason I explained in my last post. Used to be, when you filled out your own ballot, you hadn't seen many other lists. Now that's impossible. And lots of critics, I think, value being a part of some perceived zeitgeist, or they're too timid to challenge it, or whatever (maybe kinda like people here being afraid of being accused of "challopsing". Or more likely, the critics are just afraid of looking wrong.)

xhuxk, is right about stories being constructed. The other thing is that there are countless bands and records that were good, but they don't help construct a narrative or help argue that there was a zeitgeist, or at least they don't do this easily, and so they lose out to music that helps paint a comprehensible picture of the year in music.

xpost

The Wire and Terrorizer both wait til January too.

As an unabashed AC fan, I'm still also at odds as to what made Person Pitch the crossover record for a lot of people -- the only thing on it that I really liked was Ponytail, and that's not even the one people rep for.

wondering whether i would've been as annoyed if Silent Shout had topped as many lists in 06 as MPP has done this year. almost certainly not, but its just too weird to imagine. plus, unlike Kid A, MPP neither appears on the lists having sold a lot nor does it seem likely to experience a signif sales boost from all this. that's not necessarily relevant but probably the most interesting thing about the extent of its popularity.

And lots of critics, I think, value being a part of some perceived zeitgeist, or they're too timid to challenge it, or whatever

i find this pretty sad

MPP seems to be a much bigger deal in the US? few UK critics i know really care about it

This lists here would appear to disagree with you, Lex.

Given the high placing of the Fever Ray record pretty much across the board, and the high placing of Silent Shout in 00s lists, I'd say Karin's critical rep has grown massively over the past few years. She's quietly gone from ILM/internet fave to critical touchstone over that time.

re: MPP seems to be a much bigger deal in the US? few UK critics i know really care about it

Reminder: MPP album of the year in both Mojo and Uncut

Topped Clash and appeared high on NME list too

xp BTW, I'm not saying that I think critics or magazine editors name records that they don't actually like. I'm sure everybody who votes for the Animal Collective album actually (inexplicably to my ears, but who cares) likes that record a lot. I'm just saying that I think, for lots of critics, given the choice between that one and say some no-name indie band whose album they gave a good review to in June but nobody else noticed, they'll go for AC. And in the end, enough of them will make that choice against various no-names to make a difference.

(I'm not even immune to this myself, by the way! More than likely Death and Brad Paisley will make my P&J ballot, and they're both probably borderline choices, but I can't pretend that the fact they've both got some attention from other critics, and might have a chance to place in the poll, might not a least be one determining factor for me. I want to help those records out, for one thing.)

lol i don't read those publications

there isn't the conversation about it that US critics seem to have been having though - not one UK critic i know has ever mentioned AC to me in any conversation, apart from a few saying they agreed with my jukebox tirade.

xp

Maybe because they don't want to hear another tirade in person.

The tirades are much funnier in person.

The overlooking of the Death album in these polls is a fucking travesty. What's the point of sitting in a loft for 35 years gathering dust and mystique if even the most trad critics won't champion it?

its v rare for an American record to be a bigger deal in the UK than its homeland. its not like they're France.

^ some examples tho: Is This It (almost entirely just the NME tho), maybe White Blood Cells...uh, Seasick Steve?

Kelis, dude.

Also the Killers. And Kings of Leon. There have been loads of them this decade.

Not necessarily - there is a long-standing history of US bands breaking big in England while losing sales at home. The only example I can think of is Pet Sounds, but it's late and I'm too tired to come up with anything much more modern.

xpoosts

fun lovin criminals

ah there you go.

Pixies and Throwing Muses were both picked up earlier in the UK, than USA. maybe because they were on 4ad and Britain had 3 weekly music mags (Sounds, Melody Maker and NME) whilst America only had monthlies like Spin and Alternative Press.

OK maybe it only applies to records that don't have obvious commercial appeal like MPP xpost

Also Blackout by Britney. And possibly the new Rihanna.

kelly rowland's entire post-DC career

blueski now has to defend himself from the onslaught of exceptions to the rule (Scott Walker, Sparks).

i did mean a bigger deal with the indie-centric press, which rules several of these out (idk how many lists Kings Of Leon get on here)

what is this Death reissue people keep ref'ing to...? not very google-able

I was wondering about the Death thing myself. can't be left out now.

oh its this: http://therisingstorm.net/death-for-the-whole-world-to-see/

# of Spin’s Top 40 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 7
# of the Onion AV Club’s Top 25 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 4
# of Stereogum’s Top 50 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 4
# of Decibel’s Top 40 Albums of 2009 I’ve heard: 29

The inevitable result of that:
Bands with “major” 2009 releases whose music I have never heard (a partial list): Animal Collective, The Antlers, Arctic Monkeys, Art Brut, Bat For Lashes, Andrew Bird, Bill Callahan, Neko Case, Dan Deacon, The Dead Weather, The Decemberists, Dirty Projectors, Fever Ray, Fuck Buttons, Future Of The Left, Girls, Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, Japandroids, Lucero (the band, not the Mexican singer – her, I’ve heard), Metric, Monsters Of Folk, The Mountain Goats, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Passion Pit, Phoenix, St. Vincent, Sunset Rubdown, The Thermals, White Rabbits, The xx

unfortunately KoL were backed by NME and Q this decade - although both mags have hardly any credibility.

In particular NME had KoL on the front cover for the first album, and i lead the laughter on the worst NME covers thread.

ok i totally missed or forgot that MPP made a pretty reasonable #26 in the UK album chart (on release - not sure where it is now), so it doesn't seem to have done too badly really

how are you defining "major releases" - stuff on those four lists? i'd hardly call any of those major releases.

xps

the japandroids album is actually quite good fwiw

is it possible...

no-it can't be.

i appears to be so: they've created THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME!

"major releases" in critics circles not commercial sales terms down the supermarket.