2010 Magazine's Albums Of The Year Thread For Posting Lists and Discussion

I don't think I've ever seen Dusted review a Kanye album. They certainly lean heavily toward the indie and experimental side of music. The albums she listed are about as "popular" as they review.

Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack
Girl knows what's up
1. The Soft Pack - The Soft Pack

tbf
I’m still not sure why The Soft Pack’s self-titled elicited the instant “yes” that it did, or why the effect of what is essentially a very good guitar-rock record persisted for the whole year, but I’m guessing it says as much about me and where I was this year as about the album itself.

this is the main part I disagree with
Grinderman’s 2, which came up as well, was quite a good record, but in a solid, middle-of-the-pack kind of way. You can’t imagine waking up feeling different about the world the morning after you’d played it.

as opposed to the Soft Pack

eh I have trouble arguing with her list because she's straight-up saying it's not a best of the year, or even a favorite of the year, but "here are some albums that impacted me, for whatever reason, this year"

Whiney, don't you think your implicit labeling of her picks as "bad" underlines the entire point of her piece?

Edit: what n/a said.

We're all rock critics nhttp://26.media.tumblr.com/avatar_3f47ac2e601d_128.pngw

It's not the list, it's the preamble talking about the lack of critical unifying albums in 2010 (when clearly her critical sphere is claustrophobically small).

most critical spheres are rilly small. like, tiny.

You really think she hasn't heard the Kanye album?

Regardless, I think her second paragraph is OTM.

if i wanted to read the "this is my personal top 10" list from someone who clearly has little understanding/interest of anything besides the most loudly trumpeted indie rock and the occassional Wire favorite, I could visit ANYONE'S BLOG ON EARTH. The fact that this appears on Dusted instead of somerandombullshit.blogspot.com doesn't change anything

you should update the whineyzing 3000 & switch out "blogspot" w/ "tumblr" tbh

dusted dude who put the allesandro bosetti album on his list gets a big thumbs up from me. hardly anyone heard that album and it rules. its going on my pazz & jop thing.

most critical spheres are rilly small. like, tiny.

Yes in isolation I approve of this. It's when people patch together their critical worldview via a short-circuit between their tiny critical sphere and we are the world consensus that I start to think they have less than zero self-awareness.

i love going to my home town and having the record store clerk tell me they didn't even order one Animal Collective album and who the fuck is Janelle Monae

Grinderman’s 2, which came up as well, was quite a good record, but in a solid, middle-of-the-pack kind of way. You can’t imagine waking up feeling different about the world the morning after you’d played it.

i feel precisely the opposite way. i think g2 should eventually be considered a classic, "canonical" rock album.

"We all want a consensus, a sort of mythical community where everyone agrees with us."

is this really what people want? maybe they do. i mean, its nice when people you talk to like the same things as you, it makes conversation easier.

is this really what people want?

God help us if so.

You can’t imagine waking up feeling different about the world the morning after you’d played it.

maybe these records that will make a grown adult feel that way aren;t always going to be found in the 50-year-old art form of rock music?

"Yet, I think because music is such a social phenomenon, listening to great music, music that is 100 percent targeted to your taste, but listening in isolation, is ultimately unsatisfying."

and this just makes me feel like a loser. cuz i have almost always listened to music alone. and it has satisfied me plenty.

i always assume what you're quoting is one of the attractions of "popism," at least when popism is paired against underground/indie rock music.

It almost seems like a question of faith on her end. (In that some -- a lot? -- of her mindset strikes me as the equivalent to those who pay lip service to the idea of being strong in their personal spiritual/religious beliefs but in practice can only function in some sort of comfort social zone so they never have to put those beliefs to the test.)

is this really what people want?

Why else spend hours on blogs, messageboards, and music publications trying to convince others that what you're listening to is worthwhile? Why bother voting in a year-end poll?

She probably makes it out to be more black/white than it actually is, but I do think we're all ultimately competing to have our likes be more prevalent and our dislikes to disappear.

we're all ultimately competing to have our likes be more prevalent and our dislikes to disappear

What, all the time until the end of our days? Sounds horrifying.

you're glad Loveless is only this board's favourite album ever then? :]

It's nice that it is, wouldn't care if it wasn't. (As it stands I had completely forgotten about those polls until you mentioned it.)

we're all ultimately competing to have our likes be more prevalent and our dislikes to disappear

More truthfully: we're competing for validation of our own aesthetic preferences by

(a) having others agree with us; and

(b) having been seen to be a cause of (or contributor to) any emergent critical position w/r/t X piece of music.

Hence all the passive-aggressive (and i'm not immune) "yes, it's great that X has belatedly endorsed this, note that I loved it way back when" stuff.

i was making that argument in like 2004, btw

:P

i write about music and do the pazz & jop poll because its fun, and because i like (possibly) turning people on to stuff that i think is good (and that they may have overlooked or never heard of), and because i like the idea of documenting stuff that might very well go undocumented or under-documented unless i write about it. but i'm not really looking for consensus or validation. i don't think.

did you used to? i figure it's something you get over.

but i don't think i'm normal! and the idea that people want to embrace stuff that everyone is embracing is completely understandable and i love pop music so i get the whole social/we are the world THING, but, yeah, i guess that doesn't even begin to describe why i listen to music. just the idea that there is something unsatisfying in listening to music alone and not sharing it with a larger group...well, i've always hated larger groups, so i guess that's my problem right there.

because i like (possibly) turning people on to stuff that i think is good (and that they may have overlooked or never heard of)

this is my main motivation

we're all ultimately competing [for]... our dislikes to disappear

this too

"did you used to? i figure it's something you get over."

it was nice in high school when me and my friends would all fall for the same thing. we all bonded over madonna. and other stuff. i mean i like the one on one of friendship and shared likes.

i am definitely not seeking "validation" of my tastes lol. as for being seen to be FIRST!!! or whatever - i don't think it's a motivation, i'm pretty bad at even guessing what's likely to cross over (critically or commercially) and frankly don't get why it happens 90% of the time. but it's really nice when it does happen! (first british journalist to write about nicki minaj, never gonna stop bragging about that.)

i couldn't talk to ANYONE about TONS of stuff that i liked for years until i became friends with chuck! so, that was kinda cathartic, i guess. i do like talking about music with people. and i do it every day. so i'm not a shut-in or whatever.

and because i like (possibly) turning people on to stuff that i think is good (and that they may have overlooked or never heard of)

surely we all like doing this, but i'm pretty sure that that's down to the taste validation thing tim mentioned. NOT because we're worried people think we have bad taste tho (we aren't and we don't - how dare you etc.), just in the sense that we want other people to recognise that our taste and insight is as good as we think it is. without that why care at all what people (especially on the internet) like/dislike?

Yeah i think that it would be disingenuous to claim that there are absolutely no egotistical motives in being a critic, basically if you think that your taste is worth imposing on the wider world that's a bit of a d*ck move, and the task of good music crit is basically to justify that by being a good enough writer/thinker/tastemaker that you're ultimately on the plus side of the register.

Not trying to diss people: basically existing on the planet is a d*ck move that requires justification.

And obv there's more and less egotistical forms of writing IMO.

for me the problem is how she moves from "music is such a social phenomenon" into we all want "a sort of mythical community where everyone agrees with us" because that community would be inherently anti-social and movements towards that community have resulted in the fragmentation/individualization of taste that has occurred over the last howevermany years

and i would suggest that arguing over music is precisely what makes it social goes against any desire for a mythical community where everyone agrees with you

"what makes it social and contradicts any desire" is how that should read

basically existing on the planet is a d*ck move that requires justification.

uh what?

"Yeah i think that it would be disingenuous to claim that there are absolutely no egotistical motives in being a critic, basically if you think that your taste is worth imposing on the wider world that's a bit of a d*ck move, and the task of good music crit is basically to justify that by being a good enough writer/thinker/tastemaker that you're ultimately on the plus side of the register."

oh yeah i thought this was understood. i definitely think i'm really cool. and i have awesome taste. and when i say it's fun to write and be a part of the pazz & jop poll that just means its fun to blab about stuff that i think is great! which is totally egotistical. but i honestly don't feel as though i'm imposing anything on anybody. i make a case and let people judge for themselves. which is why i'm generally anti-poll. but pazz & jop is a good chance to vote for stuff that nobody would ever vote for that i love. and someone might read my ballot and be curious.

a+ attitude

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QqvfSFxx5rI/SiXGBw115EI/AAAAAAAANZg/eUq9WqzAPFk/s320/Image58ilikeyourstyle.jpg

It's very A+ -- also more generous than where I think I am these days as a writer, then again I feel I simply *listen* far differently than I used to, and that act of listening influencing how/where I choose to spend my time in terms of both listening and talking/writing about it. It's not willful isolation per se, but I do often feel quite contentedly disengaged from a lot of the macrolevel battles and discussion going on -- this verges a bit more into the piece I wrote as Pazz/Jop commentary, though, so I might say more then whenever I run the full thing on my blog.

it is strange that, with the thousands of albums released every year and freely-available via the internet, that there's anything approaching a concensus about the best albums of the year. i'd more likely expect that, of a hypothetical 1K critics, there'd be maybe 700 -- 850 different no. 1 album picks.

The albums that show up most often make a top ten list.

yeah, sure. but that's a bit beside the point.

Listening to High Violet now, and god is it as awful as expected, admittedly a predictable response on my part.