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

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

ceo, pilot talk 1, charlotte gainsbourg, gold panda, liars, male bonding, pantha du prince, and surfer blood were all best new music, so a little surprising to see that none of them made the actual list

Based on the list of albums she then pimps I think it's more a case of her not knowing that non-indie exists.
― Tim F

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
― skrrr boi (Whiney G. Weingarten)

Of all the boring personal top tens, why does this particular one draw such contempt? I don't know if she writes much outside of Dusted, but skimming through her stuff (http://dustedmagazine.com/writers/kelly), Kelly is no ignorant hack. She just has a preference for indie, psych and post-punk. Her list is hardly random -- she pretty clearly stated that they're her favorites. Since when is specializing a crime? Should we start bludgeoning the hip-hop and r&b crits who neglect country? Or call the metal writers ignorant fucks because they clearly have little understanding/interest of dance-pop? If one wanted an update on Brazilian albums here, you're all useless.

The whole indie backlash thing is kind of funny, but ultimately comes off as peevish and pointless. The way I see it, anyone who bothers to dismiss an entire genre of music most likely couldn't be bothered to listen to much of it and is in a weak-ass position to judge. Hearing and hating the Arcade Fire and the National is understandable, but ridiculing a writer for a top 20 that you probably hadn't heard more than a third of? Now that's some bullshit.

The Soft Pack certainly has no pretentions of being 'important' but it does have 7 excellent songs on it, which is more than one can say about many of the others topping this year's lists.

the most loudly trumpeted indie rock and the occassional Wire favorite

Within the realm of trumpeted indie rock in 2010, her list is reasonably atypical. If anyone finds it completely humdrum content-wise (I'm talking about the specific albums chosen, not whether or not you personally find them any good), it's because you've probably heard as many or more records this year than she has. 8 of her 10 records aren't exactly commonplace in the blogspot circles.

My issue was with her preamble not her content. Why ask "where is this year's merriweather post pavilion to unite us all" if you're not even interested in anything that falls outside of a pretty narrow sphere. It's the implied borders around "what matters", rather than what she actually likes, which gives off a blinkered indie rock critic vibe.