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

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/arts/music/20caramanica.html Caramanica's got the New Boyz, Raekwon, Paramore, and more

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/arts/music/20ratliff.html

Woa, Ratliff's got Rudi's(the poster formerly known as RS) salsa fave Bannakumbi on his singles list. Wonder if Ratliff's been lurking on the Afro-Latin Salsa, Reggaeton thread?

I don't know that the Wire list is just 'the same old names' - I'd say that about half those acts haven't appeared in the Wire end-of-year lists before, and there really isn't all that much crossover with the other lists posted here. Sure, there's Sunn 0))) and Sylvian and O'Rourke and Basinski, but there plenty of other stuff besides.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/arts/music/20chinen.html

Chinen like Ratliff brings the jazz. Plus he's got Rihanna, Brad Paisley and Mali's Oumou Sangare

Caramanica riding hard for Drake is probably the most I've felt disappointed in a critic I like this year

i'd really like to be friends with whoever runs rock-a-rolla magazine

― airin' brrr (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, November 25, 2009 7:12 PM (3 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

kinda cosigning with ship

god, okay, that Black to Comm album was sorely disappointing, imho. it just made me want to scream at him, "STICK WITH THE FUCKIN AWESOME DRONES DUDE AND FUCK THIS FORAY INTO 'MUSICALITY' BULLSHIT."

Review in the Wire made it sound ten times cooler than it actually sounds, but I'm going to stick with it for a while longer I think. Ben Frost album does not disappoint though, that thing is beautiful.

I thought this Tyondai Braxton was going to be Toni Braxton's little sister or something.

xpost I meant the same old names as in the same names that are always in the wire, no real problem with that. I have just got the Oneohtrix album after reading this and its absolutely amazing, definitely one of the best things ive heard this year. Ive got my work cut out taking it in so shortly after spending a full day with the Leyland Kirby

Haven't heard either, but they're both huge works yes?

x-post to forks and Ship/some dude

I gotta admit to liking Drake's "Best I ever had" song but I recognize that its syrupy, sugary pop qualities rub many the wrong way. Plus it got so much airplay that I can understand folks being sick of it. I have not heard the rest of his tape. Hasn't Caramanica always had a soft spot for poppy r'n'b/rap?

I was watching VH1's best videos of 2009 yesterday and I just can't get into the melodramatic powerballads of Daughtry or even Kings of Leon. For some reason I can deal with Drake's soft r'n'b pop but not the straining mainstream rocker dude ballads.

there's plenty of people who recognize that "best I ever had" succeeds in spite of drake's lack of personality or talent

Caramanica riding hard for Drake is probably the most I've felt disappointed in a critic I like this year

― some dude, Sunday, December 20, 2009 11:33 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah exactly, you werent on aim i was about to say "whatever our differences, at least we can agree that ..."

"... it's raining gucci, ohhhhhhh"

dude

some

I write for the Wire and I've only heard three of those albums (and only voted for one of 'em). But I've definitely seen those names in the mag this year.

animal collective at 30 feels a lil try-hard 2 me but then i never listen to them

I forget whether the Wire list has ever included reggae or dancehall that is popular in Jamaica or do they always just go for stuff like Bug produced Uk hybrid stuff like King Midas Sound which is at number 10(which I do want to get)?

xxp, i like the kells version of best i ever had but (and i'm sure i've said this a few times but it's pretty much the only thing i can think to say about dude) I am pretty confident that _I_ rap better than Drake. I'm sure he's much better now that he's been on the road for a year and maybe i'm missing something but he is such a spectacularly bland talkrap guy who runs solely on bad madlib(the game, not otis) punchlines and prebaked "realest in the game mackin on these chicks so icey so bad" schwaggerschtick that it's difficult to take him even a little seriously.
i will cop to not hearing the whole album so maybe i'm missing a gem.

the dude has no swag

dead serious: explain swag to me, in your own view.

it's short for "sealed with a goon"

I gotta admit to liking Drake's "Best I ever had" song but I recognize that its syrupy, sugary pop qualities rub many the wrong way. Plus it got so much airplay that I can understand folks being sick of it. I have not heard the rest of his tape. Hasn't Caramanica always had a soft spot for poppy r'n'b/rap?

I was watching VH1's best videos of 2009 yesterday and I just can't get into the melodramatic powerballads of Daughtry or even Kings of Leon. For some reason I can deal with Drake's soft r'n'b pop but not the straining mainstream rocker dude ballads.

― curmudgeon, Sunday, December 20, 2009 4:47 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, "Best" is on a lot of people's singles lists and I don't really raise an eyebrow at that, I'm not really into it but hey, a hook is a hook, and i'm not biased against pop rap or R&B. but calling his mixtape the #1 album of the year is a little more directly about taking him seriously as an artist, which i really just can't, everything he does is a mishmash of Wayne and Kanye and Trey Songz. i was talking to someone about this recently, but the only rap critics i know of who really really like Drake seem to be guys who are based in NYC and/or have a lot of access to labels and artists, which seems to line up with the fact that everyone in that town is very invested in him saving the industry and being rap's next superstar. not to say Caramanica's someone who just follows the industry party line, but he's in an environment where Drake is a big big deal, moreso than among most rap fans.

dead serious: explain swag to me, in your own view.

― fictional, homosexual, Baltimore hoodlum (forksclovetofu), Sunday, December 20, 2009 5:16 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

swagger? style? i dont get how ppl keep pretending that SWAG is some imaginary word or that its not just a new version of the same old 'Style Wars' type shit.

some dude 100% otm re: drake -- i like 'best i ever had' & 'successful'

& his name is dope fwiw

oy deej: i'm not "pretending" i don't know what swag is. I was asking what you saw it as in the context of "drake has no swag". Swag is referred to as "swagger" as per a specific prideful and confident attitude; "Swag" as in stuff, riches, jewels; "swagger" as indicative of a unique and trend-setting vision either in fashion or talent. Drake has lots of swagger by the first two definitions (though i suppose the second is more up to Wayne's discretion) but very little as per the latter.
personally, i fuckin hate the term; it's as broadly nondescript, lazy and overused as 'hater' is.

and i like successful a lot, but it's absolutely in spite of Drake not because.

I thought this Tyondai Braxton was going to be Toni Braxton's little sister or something.

― _Rudipherous_, Sunday, December 20, 2009 12:00 PM Bookmark

he's anthony braxton's son, if that gives you some context

he's also frontman of the band Battles

he's anthony braxton's son, if that gives you some context

!

I will have a second listen.

i fuckin hate the term; it's as broadly nondescript, lazy and overused as 'hater' is.

― fictional, homosexual, Baltimore hoodlum (forksclovetofu), Sunday, December 20, 2009 6:20 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i disagree w/ this. i think its just a modern way of saying 'style' which, u know, can always use explication but is a perfectly reasonable word

& drake has no swag. its not about 'confidence' dude is just a blank slate

xp: his solo record didn't do anything for me. I like the battles record a lot tho

"Style" is usually a pretty vague description when it comes to music too, fwiw. (Just about everybody has some style. What matters is whether it's a good style or not. So right, "can always use explication," since it means next to nothing on its own. Unless maybe you're talking clothes and haircuts.)

I liked that Caramancia put K'Jon's "On The Ocean" on his singles list (would've been in my Top 40 or so), and that Ratliff listed a Coati Mundi single ("No More Blues," though I came close to voting for the B-side, "Bundas Bom," on my Pazz & Jop ballot.)

I don't get why listing Animal Collective as a publication's 30th favorite album of the year would be "try hard" if, uh, they think it was the 30th best album of the year.

(I don't even know why I excepted clothes and haircuts. Just like with music, it wouldn't be very interesting to say whether somebody "has style" unless you get specific about what that style is.)

its try-hard because its an acclaimed record w/in an aesthetic that the wire is known to rep for & thats a fairly low-ball ranking -- it feels pretty responsive to the acclaim the record has garnered in 'other quarters'

or maybe they just admit other records are better than Animal Collective.

I mean, honestly, it's like #30 on my personal list, so i feel them

yeah but you & xhuxk are, like, all-genre alt weekly critics -- i mean i didnt vote for animal collective at all

MPP is prolly just too pop for those nerds

It is not #30 on my personal list, if anybody wonders.

MPP is prolly just too pop for those nerds

― the butthurt locker (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, December 20, 2009 8:13 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dirty projectors is top ten for them

it def feels to me like they are thinking they are 'making a statement'

if there's one thing deej & i can agree on it's that we're not gonna listen to merriweather post pavilion

now that's a club i'll happily join

"dude is just a blank slate"
you'll get no argument from me.

I think part of what we're saying when we say we want to see more diversity or imagination in these lists is: hip me to some new shit! I _know_ animalcollectivedirtyprojectorsyeahyeahyeahsphoenixgrizzlybear; I got that. What ELSE have you got? That's part of why my own list is an intentional mix of the hugely popular and the overtly personal (say, Tonetta777), even when that personal stuff is kinda flawed. It's not to be wacky or hipper-than-thou; it's to say that if you like The-Dream and Fuck Buttons, you should really check out Kutiman.
Not that anyone gives a shit what _I'm_ pushing, but that's the principle I play with.
Hand-in-hand with that is the fallacy that people who work as professional critics or in the music industry necessarily have greatly deeper and broader exposure to the nooks and crannies of music. One major critic discussed on this thread has told me that he feels he hasn't had much of a chance to listen to anything this year outside of what deadline demanded and i know at least one lead booking agent at a major venue who has confided to me that he couldn't name his favorite album of the year because he hasn't heard a full album all the way through. the people who, by and large, get to hear more music than anyone else are internet nerd aficionados who really really focus on this shit because they love it. god bless em.

i don't know if 'imagination' is the right word, you can't just pull a unique-looking year-end list out of your ass with the sheer power of creativity. ultimately i think it's about how you hear music and seek it out. about a third of my favorite albums of '09 is stuff i don't expect anyone here to have heard of unless they read a thread where i talked about it or something, mostly random little bands that happened to play somewhere in Baltimore the night i was seeing another band or semi-obscure favorites i've been following down rabbit holes to even more obscure offshoots and collaborators over years and years. because that's how i have fun discovering music, not blindly downloading pitchfork 'best new music' albums or even really taking recommendations from friends much, not to pat myself on the back or anything but i think a lot of people have forgotten how rewarding it is to just kind of amble down your own path instead of trying to keep up with everyone else.

i think a lot of people have forgotten how rewarding it is to just kind of amble down your own path instead of trying to keep up with everyone else.

There's truth in this. I used to "amble down my own road." I still try to. But I don't have the time I used to have, so some recommendation sources I trust are helpful. For me, the key is to have a few diverse sources (my short-list is P4K; RA; Dusted Magazine; eMusic; and sometimes AllAboutJazz) as a platform, and then explore outside that -- admittedly narrow -- framework when I have time.