Tim's overflowing bounty of 2010 pop riches extravaganza thread

^^^ holy shit

can someone post a zip when Tim's done? I always spend three months downloading every link, three months waiting to see if he'll post any more, and then a month later get around to taking the folder to work on a thumb drive to listen to.

i forgot abt that j stalin album too!

J Stalin album is far too long and almost anything with a male rnb chorus is a bit ropey, but there's still more than a normal album's worth of fantastic shit in there. Mostly it's the harder moments that do it for me, but Money On The Way is great but there are so many awesome tracks (Rock Day, D-Boy Blues, Don't Front, Self Made Millionaire all A++).

self made millionare has a sung male chorus tho? u don't bump birthday & red + blue lights? you're right that it seems too long tho, i almost never play this record all the way thru.

Yeah Self Made Millionaire is an exception, it's songs like Last Night and Get Off Me that I end up skipping.

u don't bump birthday & red + blue lights

Yeah these are both great.

This is the facebook group if you want links:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_168312249874081¬if_t=group_r2j

There's been much less talk about New Amerykah Part Two, but for me this explicitly soft, svelte, generous sounding album (well, in relative terms) is much more to my taste

cosign 100% -- "gone baby, don't be long" is one of the most beautiful things of the year

^^ YES

This is the facebook group if you want links:

yeah, but you have to have facebook to look at it

"out my mind, just in time" might be erykah's masterpiece

"desiccated" is kind of the last word i'd ever use re: part one though - it's so rich-sounding!

"rigorous consequentiality" - it only has this if you want it to. and why's it a bad thing anyway?

It's not a bad thing, I just don't like it as much personally. Different strokes. But something like "Hip Hop" just doesn't really appeal to me.

i guess you could say that it's just a mood thing -- 'rigorous conseqnetiality' vs the sensuality of part 2... but there's just something about part 2 that always appeals to me more

i don't want to say that it's "warmth" because i think part 1 has that too, but maybe it's more comforting? that sounds kinda twee tho

idk, it's "prettier"

i'm sort of fishing

yeah I'm happy to sub "comforting" and "pretty". I'm a superficial kinda listener in this regard (and most regards).

hah we had a big argument about this on the badu thread right? about how the 1st one is more critic friendly & what the differences between the two were

is that what happened?

i just remember getting pissed for some reason

all i know is that i identify with part 1 pretty much more than any other album i've ever heard. i feel like it's an album about me.

how do you argue against tho

i feel like you should recuse yourself

part 2 is lovely obv

the left brain/right brain characterisation of pt1/pt2 makes sense to a degree (and i know erykah peddled that line too) but i feel the separation between them is being way overstated - it's a bit reductive to imply that pt1 is the one about being Meaningful and Critic-Friendly and Consequential, and pt2 is the one about Soul and Warmth and Feeling - on both sides i think there's a degree to which those signifiers are being used as a priori reasons to prefer one or the other. but the music on both interweaves both sides really skilfully. if there's a reason for my preferring pt1 - and it's not by much, it's being no 1 of the year as opposed to top 5 of the year - it's because more of the songs are tighter, not because it's political or whatever.

I can only go on the fact that I returned to Pt 2 much more readily and try to extrapolate from there.

pt 2 is objectively better.

/obv troll

Wait, did you actually get some sleep?

well, i havent posted in like 7 hrs, so

obv not

anyway i prefer pt 2 also although i remember being surprised tim didnt talk much about 'honey' when that was a single ... it seemed like a great midpt between approaches

"Honey" is def. my favourite tune on pt 1.

post on ilx, eat, sleep, repeat

i like both new amerykah records relatively well (both in top 5-10 area for their given years). part 2's an easier listen, and i've thrown it on more readily. part 1 feels like a "challenging" sorta record that i dont wanna put on too often, but is then immensely rewarding when i do so (see also: the cure - prnogrphy, scott walker - the drift, there are lots of examples...)

i think 'that hump' is my fav off pt. 1

top to bottom

solder
the healer
that hump
me
after that, it's all kinda equal to me

i love "honey" but doesn't feel right to rank it against the other tunes here

soldier* obv.

ok theres a thread for this

^^ banging post imo

anyway, looking fwd to more of tim's favorites!

for those of you who loved the j stalin, ive come around to thinking that 'gas nation' might be the more consistent record ... so many incredible beats. its got less of a dark glossy 80s feel, a bit more of an open record on the whole, more diverse

it also has 'try again tomorrow' which is like alternate-universe popism smash

ok theres a thread for this

that whole sub-genre of post-Dilla scleroto-rap (and by extension scleroto-soul), whose aesthetic valorisation of queasiness is largely lost on my cloth ears.

aww

(i have no idea what you mean but "scleroto-rap" though?)

GIVE ME YAHZARAH OR GIVE ME DEATH TIM

just kidding, it'd be awesome if you love her song as much as I do but I love your selections and the blurbs so far.

"why dontcha call me no more" is still my #1 jam this year. i'm with you here, moka.

Lee Foss - U Got Me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rioaDZtTJYo

This year it felt a bit like the nu-disco moment finally passed into its autumnal phase, symbolised (and certainly assisted) by Aeroplane's catastrophically misguided album, and more generally a certain sense that everything this style can do now has been done, and exhaustively. I'm not ready for this shift though. My favourite moment dancing this year was to a Classixx DJ set a few months ago, on the first hot day of spring, as the sun was setting. Classixx are hardly disproving the suspicion that the strip-mining of the nu-disco aesthetic is completed; it's more like they simultaneously summarise and popularise a perfected aesthetic, seizing on its most unashamedly joyous qualities and then juicing them up further, until the sound is so ridiculously utopian that half the fun of being on the dancefloor is simply acknowledging that you're all participating in a somewhat cheesy reenactment of drug-enhanced bonding (which makes them sort of like the Moonbootica to Aeroplane's Get Physical).

I don't know if Classixx did or didn't play "U Got Me" that day, as I only discovered it about a month later, but it chimes in perfectly with Classixx's vibe of trapped-in-amber ecstatic lassitude: its round-bottomed R&B-disco strut and twinkling sparkle-melody imagining a world where no-one ever saw the point of moving beyond Evelyn King's "Love Come Down" (similarly, the highlight of the Classixx set was a still unknown to me edit of Madonna's "Lucky Star" that seemed to stretch on forever). Ironically,"U Got Me" samples Keith Sweat's "Twisted", which is nineties not eighties, but itself inhabited a pretty syncretic slow-jam soundworld - smoothness, the right kind of smoothness, never sounds out of time or place. As with Mark E's "R&B Drunkie" (whose sample source was similarly younger than it seemed) what "U Got Me" seems to admire in R&B is precisely its lack of concern about being revivalist or not being revivalist, which frees it up to achieve this kind of "the past is the present" endless summer vibe more easily than dance music per se.

This inherited lack of concern with timeliness ends up being a positive in my book, if only as a point of contrast: at a time of obsessive pointillist sound design and intricate vocal cut ups, it's refreshing and even charming to hear a tune so heavily invested in the densely smeared dazzle of French House: the yearning sampled vocals of "U Got Me" wrap around your ears like fairy floss, light as a feather but voluptuously thick as molasses. Moreover, the hint of R&B boogie in Foss' straight-jacketed slo-mo house groove provides such a useful short-cut to sexiness: whereas much otherwise very similar nu-disco can end up jetissonning sex in favour of pure loved up vibes, "U Got Me" treads the line perfectly, as happy to soundtrack a risque champagne-fuelled pool party as it a packed dancefloor in a field at sunset.

I'm into this ^

A+++++++++++++

and yeah classixx sense of like, revivalism should never be joyless & hidebound & generic & liberarianesque is exactly why they're so good. They handle music like pop DJs

also yeah 'love come down' is a really good exemplar of where this style is coming frmo!

criticising the tom trago album for lacklustre songwriting is kinda like criticising a basement jaxx album for bad lyrics

the deniz kurtel album is more green than grey in my mind. forest green.

kinda toying with finishing every sentence with "forest green". forest green.

i get what you meant with the pon de gaza reference but i' guess i'm saying i see some of his tunes (like 'summertime') as busy signalish one offs, self-contained, and others as those that shore up and layer over his public persona on a more intimate larval level

i wonder if this is where deej comes in

I'm not sure about 2010-11's strain of slightly ramshackle dance music with creepy old man vocals, all feels a bit of a slog somehow.

― Matt DC, Thursday, June 2, 2011 6:19 AM Bookmark

More than not sure about this. I basically hate this shit.

Does that even refer to anything other than Art Department?

Cause yeah, I can see how the first two tracks of their album could put anyone off this idea for life, but off the top of my head I can't think of anything else that fits (and not surprisingly the best parts of the AD album all backtrack from this vibe significantly).

Sub in "creepy old man" with "effete dude" and sure, it's a trend, but in that case you all are being hella inconsistent.

well, in a hole, but no one doesn't like that song

creepiest b&s vocals 2 me are on full grown man bc they sound like billy joel

It may actually just be Art Department and I am feeling like this trend is more prevalent than it actually is, but definitely yeah, Art Department.

What are the good tracks on the AD album then?

"What Does It Sound Like" and "I.C.U.", to a lesser extent "Vampire Nightclub" and "Are You Living The Life".

"What Does It Sound Like" is basically ace Classic Records bumping house. I can't really imagine anyone not loving it, though it doesn't get mentioned much because everyone gets stuck on creepy vocals as the album's key talking point.

The other three all feature male vocals but they draw them back into balance with that bumping house sound rather than turning them into a lugubrious, bloated raison d'etre like "Much Too Much" (spot on song title or what) or "Tell Me Why" do.

Whereas a lot of reviews of the album seem to think that (a) "Much Too Much" is the best track on there, perhaps because they also think that (b) "the Joy Division of vocal house" is a good idea.

Basically I stand by the following from my review:

"Unfortunately, as is often the case when tunes become big off the back of their point of difference, discussions of "Without You" tend to focus on that slightly off-center vocal and the murderous bassline, understating Art Department's impeccable arrangement skills and, in particular, exacting sense of timing. Possibly Art Department (a Toronto-based duo of Glasgow and Jonny White) have listened too keenly to their own hype, as their debut album, The Drawing Board, leads off with two long-ass tunes dominated by dolorous basslines and Glasgow's morose, out-of-tune vocals. In particular, the aptly titled 10-minute-plus opener "Much Too Much" gambles that a miserablist refusal of excitement and intensity or, you know, something happening, will end up seeming evocative and atmospheric rather than half-hearted and aimless. The gamble succeeds only in part: These tracks work, but more in the sense of the listener understanding the concept rather than feeling it in their guts and hearts.

If you're someone who wants dance music to mean something, then these tracks may be the drawcard here, representing a kind of alternate reality where house vocalists like Robert Owens and Romanthony were more obsessed with the hollowness of Scott Walker's Climate of Hunter than the giddiness of Prince's 1999. And it is a great idea, but ultimately Art Department don't strike me as ideas people-- let alone songwriters-- first and foremost. They are, however, consummate arrangers, and The Drawing Board becomes immensely more involving each time the suicide tone poems take a step back and the arrangements a step forward. In terms of sheer groove, the album's easy pinnacle is "What Does It Sound Like?", whose hypnotic jacking is reminiscent of the debut albums of Motorbass and Fuckpony, each carefully sculpted component interlocking with each other in a satisfying display that Art Department can do mindless release fully as well as pent-up morbidity."

Haha I didn't like Fuckpony that much either.

Does that even refer to anything other than Art Department?

Haha maybe not. Or maybe it's a sticking point with male vocal house at the moment (really want a dub version of Forward Motion) with less Ali Love, and yeah I'm not crazy about In A Hole either. "Effete" is better than "creepy old man" though, the SECT/Ben Westbeech track from those Soul Clap mixes is lush, and I'm sure part of that comes from having heard them in a better context.

I keep meaning to get around the Deniz Kurtel album, it kinda managed to fall into the crack of my internetless couple of months and it's been way down my catchup list. My favourite house albums of this year have been Steffi, Robag Wruhme and Frivolous and they're obviously looking in a different direction entirely to the Art Department etc.

Haha I didn't like Fuckpony that much either.

O_o

Children of Love is pretty amazing FYI.

My favourite house albums of this year have been Steffi, Robag Wruhme and Frivolous and they're obviously looking in a different direction entirely to the Art Department etc.

you can probably triangulate frivolous/nicolas jaar/art department if you squint - frivolous def way out in front there though. that and tom trago are the two house albums i think are real keepers this year, above stuff which is just very good (kurtel, wruhme, jaar, steffi, audiofly) and stuff which is not that good (art department)

If you squint very hard indeed.

Matt can you listen to this please:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-ke1Q0hnN0

Cheers Tal for the heads-up!

hey Tim! any chance of a zip of the dancehall tracks from yr column this week?

wait, waht column??? details/link please

link? it's in local freebie papers

I'll try to organise something.

Don't worry Paul I basically cribbed it from stuff i'd already written on here/facebook about my favourite dancehall tracks of this year.