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

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.

respect to anyone listeing to hundreds of albums over the course of a year as ever - critics or not. even with spotify i'm only gonna manage about 100 and that's well above my norm.

word. i tried to listen to a lot of music this year & it sucked so i gave up

people who make enormous, 50+ album lists though, how many of those albums do they actually "connect" with or deeply love/would not rather just listen to their favourite couple songs off of

i only really deeply loved like, two or three albums this year. i think that's a good amount

i've "connected" with about 20 albums this year, i'd say? obv to varying degrees, but they're pretty much all keepers. then about another 20 that i'd say are definitely worth hearing. i lost track of how many albums i've heard this year a while back but i'd guess it's about 150.

that's about the same number of albums i usually "connect" with, definitely the year in which i've heard the most albums tho.

20 is unthinkable to me but it is your job i guess. beginning to feel it's such a rare feat when an album is consistently engaging throughout, or is really deeply engaging for at least many songs, & it removes from the pleasure of listening to music (especially new) to be constantly searching for that

i do a top 20 albums every year so am gonna say....

20

(but real answer is 10, and i still hate albums)

someone find me some good asian year-end lists. feel bad that half the world is excluded from this thread.

man, i love albums. i'm sick that way. i listen to thousands every year. never gets old.

Hot Tub

man, i love albums. i'm sick that way. i listen to thousands every year. never gets old.
--scott seward

Otm

Lol at aborted hot tub time machine joke still making an appearance in that post

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.

Too much choice = people retreat to old favorites. That's not a value judgment, either; I do it, everyone does it to some degree. But I don't think it's a coincidence that the more music there the less that gets covered.

"more music there IS"

For Scott, Top 100 Korean pop songs from Nov. '09 to Nov. '10: http://cassipeasworld.blogspot.com/2010/11/bugs-top-100-songs-for-2010.html

Also, Top 10 Anime Songs: http://www.lw-concepts.com/lw/?p=6422

Very interesting end-year chart (with sound illustration) at Pontone.

Here's the first part (50-34):
http://pontone.pl/tones-of-the-year-2010-best-50-albums-vol-1-50-34/

the next one should be out today

Pitchfork's Honorable Album Mentions:

Actress - Splazsh
Baths - Cerulean
ceo - White Magic
Curren$y - Pilot Talk / Pilot Talk II
DOM - Sun Bronzed Greek Gods EP
Dum Dum Girls - I Will Be
Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
Glasser - Ring
Gold Panda - Lucky Shiner
Grinderman - Grinderman 2
Guido - Anidea
Liars - Sisterworld
Male Bonding - Nothing Hurts
Mount Kimbie - Crooks & Lovers
Pantha du Prince - Black Noise
Perfume Genius - Learning
Sam Amidon - I See the Sign
Surfer Blood - Astro Coast
Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
Toro y Moi - Causers of This