(TOP 5 TODAY, MOFOS!) Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Albums Poll Results)

my problem with the rihanna album is that my favorite joints ("cold case love" aside) are the ones on the back half like "rude boy" & "te amo" & "photographs" which seem like they were not written specifically for this album -- i do dig the ballads tho

my least favorite song on the album is prob "rock star 101"

i guess how much you love the rihanna album might depend on how much you're into the "wait your turn"/"hard" opening one-two punch

(i HEART them both)

<3 "wait your turn"

my appreciation of the rihanna album is also reinforced by how much i enjoyed writing about it, and how much i enjoyed reading other people on it - it seemed to catalyse lots of people into good writing

hard is the only thing thats really jumped out at me from this album but i havent really got around to it yet

it will be interesting to see where she goes from here... i don't really feel like she can go back to "shut up & drive"/"please don't stop the music" type songs but idk if this hard-edged rock thing is gonna work out -- would def like to see her engage w/ more dubstep/dancehall stuff (but not in a perfunctory jr rotem "s.o.s." teen pop type way)

"Hard" is ok, but "Wait Your Turn" just feels sluggish to me.

would def like to see her engage w/ more dubstep/dancehall stuff (but not in a perfunctory jr rotem "s.o.s." teen pop type way)

this would make sense if you substituted "Pon di Replay" but I'm not sure what S.O.S. has to do with dancehall other than that Rihanna was vaguely associated with it at the time

yeah idk -- "pon di replay" is a fine example -- i always thought that song she did with sean paul was underrated in both their catalogs. i definitely think there are cool places that she could go & wants to go and could likely get away with but i'm pretty sure that they'll pull a clarkson on her and hope they can hit it with a "my life would suck without you", which would suck for us

"Break It Off" is awful

Re: St. Vincent

It was a good year for femme Art Pop, what with Bat for Lashes (whose yet to place), Florence (who won't), and Cortney Tidwell (also likely out of the running).

But Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) is the best of the lot, to my ears. For those fearing folky acoustic somnolence, don't. Clark is a noise/experimental guitarist that 30 years ago could have found a home in a number of no wave bands. The orchestrations are lush, the tone varied but sometimes aggressive. If I can recommend a live performance from the year, it would be St. Vincent playing Marrow on Letterman. It's not entirely reflective of the album, which only hits upbeat peaks three times, but she's no folky.

..other words, St. Vincent is more this decade's Arto Lindsay, than any artist on the Ectophiles' Guide.

OMG clip = great.

Gf hates it though.:(

only crossover artists w/the trax poll thus far:

gucci mane, lady gaga, röyksopp, lily allen

I expect probably 14 more and maybe an encore for Gucci Mane

really? i can't see any other Gucci releases placing this high.

not sure if the album will get more votes from peeps who don't really do mixtapes, but there's a reason that one was a "maybe"

fair enough.

one thing i love about ILX: our polls don't look like anyone else's polls

― Mordy, Friday, 12 February 2010

also it's pretty good seeing all the "dnp in p4k"s - in yr FACE, useless website.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend),

heh, only problem is that these results so far are as bad and boring.
I don't see the point in celebrating a poll just because it has different results from other polls when the results actually aren't any better, plus a lot of these albums are as predictable to ILM as those other albums are to pitchfork but different strokes etc.
Glad to see some people are enjoying the results though just like I did last year.
Hopefully there's loads of surprise high entries for lesser known music to come so we can all discover something great that we may have missed. Last year was great for that.

I don't think there will be anything like that though this year now. ILM seems to be heading towards to the mainstream this year more than previous years.

lol u really haven't found anything worth investigating in the results so far?

i'm pretty sure that when this list is done and we can compare it to previous ILM album polls "more mainstream" will not be the phrase that comes to anyone's mind.

Anything i like or vaguely like I had already heard I'm afraid.
xp

how sad for u

heh, only problem is that these results so far are as bad and boring.
I don't see the point in celebrating a poll just because it has different results from other polls when the results actually aren't any better, plus a lot of these albums are as predictable to ILM as those other albums are to pitchfork but different strokes etc.

I haven't found it predictable but then I've realised recently (thanks in part to the '70s/'80s polls) that I don't really have a handle on what consensus ILM taste might even be - I guess that might not be the case for the more regular posters.

Things I voted for so far: Baroness, Mountain Goats, Omar-S, Rihanna (maybe Mariah too, that was on the edge of my Top 20 and I can't find the scrap of paper I wrote my ballot down on...)
Things I plan on investigating: Gucci Mane, UGK, Meanderthals, Dam-Funk, Death

only crossover artists w/the trax poll thus far:

gucci mane, lady gaga, röyksopp, lily allen

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Saturday, February 13, 2010 10:14 AM (4 hours ago)

and future of the left

which is proof that the world is still a wonderful place

fsotl "arming eritrea" is so good; will def check out the album at some stage, maybe even just buy it unheard if they are some broke motherfuckers

Btw, I recommend "Throwing Bricks at Trains" off the FotL album for anyone who hasn't heard it.

dunno how i completely forgot abt the st vincent album; wouldve been somewhere btwn ~8-12 for me

Anything i like or vaguely like I had already heard I'm afraid.

"I know I won't like it, therefore I won't listen to it" seems like a funny position to take after slamming the results.

Except I didn't say "I know I won't like it, therefore I won't listen to it". So saying that I did seems like a stupid thing to say.

So you've heard just enough of each record to know it's not your bag?

I've heard plenty of the albums, and in the case of mariah, rihanna,girls ive heard the singles or seen several youtubes posted on them , so in their case, yes I've heard just enough of those acts to know I wont like the albums, if that is what you meant.

herman do you like any pop, rap, or r&b? maybe ilm polls arent for you

fwiw i'm as befuddled by these results as the next guy

kev you say that as if the top 20 is going to have more than a handful of rap/R&B records.

xp or maybe you could start your own poll in a genre you like so you could have enjoyable results to look forward to every year and....oh wait....

oh i forgot that I only listen to one genre of music. Nice of you to follow me around on ilx to keep me right, how would I manage without you.

ok let me level with you: complaining about poll results is just not really a mindset i understand or can really get behind.

wish a few of these were available on spotify.

well every year, every poll, there's people who don't like results of polls,last years I did like a lot in it, this year I don't. Other people have said they dislike the results so far.
Plenty of people who didn't like last years probably like this years, I'm not the only one who doesn't like the results so far. No doubt if pitchfork bands dominate the top 20 others will dislike that too. That's the internet for you. Would be very very boring if everyone agreed with one another.

Spotify doesn't have many of these albums?

I can't even access Spotify in the U.S. I guess there is a way to do using a proxy, but I'm not up on the specifics of it. I have been able to find a fair amount of the albums on Lala or Grooveshark though.

think i might filed fotl and lotp together somewhere and unfairly dismissed the former, how awful

Lord of the Pings?

late of the pier iirc

quite a few of them are on Spotify, but the ones I've not heard aren't. Specifically I'd like to hear Death.

Labias of the Pornstars

Most of Death's ...For the Whole World to See is on Grooveshark (one track, "Where Do We Go from Here" seems to be missing): http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/artist/Death/1098142.