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

the thing ppl seem to not get about Gaga is that she is both an amusing novelty AND the real deal

if robyn is smart, give me all of the sarah palins of pop

Kot's Monae blurb seared my eyelashes.

can anyone vouch for the besnard lakes album that graces both Kot and DeRogatis's lists? i liked the first one alright

I liked it well enough. A. Begrand's a fan too.

I would buy Robyn as a purveyor of big buoyant pop if Body Talk took more cues from "Dream On" and "With Every Heartbeat" and if Robyn had a bigger voice. Like, I didn't dig Body Talk Part One for any sense of grandness or unfettered joy; I liked it because it was all inward and nerdy, and (more crucially) I didn't actually like it enough to keep up with Parts Two and Three.

as much as i love what robyn's done this year its gotten to the point that i want her to stop appearing in these lists because these writers are killing me

Besnard Lakes: I guess you don't want my word for it but I love it to pieces. His voice is amazing and it's beautiful, considered use of shoegaze and classic rock, not just clinical copyism.

part two is better!

xxp

Robyn finally won me over on Pt. 3 cuz someone gave her a Tiffany 12" from 1988 and apparently liked it. Stick that in your pipe, Greg Kot.

I guess you don't want my word for it but

??

happy to hear yr opinion -- sounds like i need to check out the album

the thing ppl seem to not get about Gaga is that she is both an amusing novelty AND the real deal

like most good pop, I'd say.

Yeah, exactly!

i wonder what kot thinks of Robyn is Here

hahaha omg

It was sexy in a non-pandering way.

it's like in the cokemachineglow list entry:

All Robyn does is consistently pump out these unbelievable Erasure-style pop songs and continue to receive heaps of praise from snarky online publications like this one, and she’s yet to crack the American mainstream—at least post-Robyn is Here (1995)

the Robyn is Here mention is so tacked on, as if the writer submitted it and his editor reminded him that, oh ya, Show me Love was kind of big 15 years ago

not to mention that Erasure has never had a US top ten

<3 you Lex
From across the room

lol ditto

robyn is another example of someone being given a whole lot too much credit for acting a touch meta and saying she's smart

not to mention that Erasure has never had a US top ten

huh, I thought both "Chains of Love" and "A Little Respect" were bigger than they actually were

x-post

in the links for the NY Times critics above Ratliff was accidentally listed twice (under his own name and under Chinen). Here's Chinen's jazz heavy list. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/arts/music/19chinen.html

I figured Deej and other would be commenting on the NY Time's Caramanica listing Drake and Rick Ross and Kanye for albums and listing Earl Sweatshirt under songs

x-post Oh, come on. She's definitely smart enough to have navigated the transition from assembly line teen pop star to critical darling, and then to turn a five year gap between records - supporting the same record, btw, which wasn't even commercially available in the US for most of those years - to her advantage and know just what kind of sound to come back with. It wouldn't be such a big deal if she weren't so business-savvy as she is pop-savvy.

Now, if you're asking what about her music specifically makes her smart, I dunno. Especially since she does dumb pretty brilliantly, too.

I figured Deej and other would be commenting on the NY Time's Caramanica listing Drake and Rick Ross and Kanye for albums and listing Earl Sweatshirt under songs

― curmudgeon, Friday, December 17, 2010 12:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see: remixes thread

NY Times "popcast" on the EOY

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/16/popcast-top-10-albums-of-2010/?ref=music

there's already been a long of "oh why caramanica why are you on the drake bandwagon" handwringing on ILM this year

xpost to lex

by "a touch meta" are you referring to her newer version of show me love? because i think thats actually an example where being a touch meta works, and the song works as a really beautiful and original way of revisiting her past (kind of ironically, since most of her supporters these days would rather pretend that robyn didnt exist).

artists get too much credit for being a touch meta all the time (das racist? really?) but a reactionary, blanket aversion to anything that even flirts with meta is no good either

Self-awareness /= smart.

but self-awareness can be done in a smart way, no?

well, sure, but critics (inc. me) often assume self-awareness is one of the primal virtues.

the photos look great on that spread

― franz kaptcha (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, December 17, 2010 1:15 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Who knew Titus Andronicus was so good looking. complete opposite of how they sound

xp ya definitely. and thus there's a consensus forming that das racist made one of, if not the, best non Kanye/Big Boi rap albums of the year

I don't doubt Robyn's a smart cookie, but that hardly means she's making any better music than her less witty competitors.

robyn is another example of someone being given a whole lot too much credit for acting a touch meta and saying she's smart

― lex diamonds (lex pretend)

robyn is also an example of you giving someone too little credit, just because they can act a touch meta & smart at times

http://img.amazon.ca/images/I/412YK0X4PPL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

^^^^^music that's smart and danceable

I am going to go out on a limb and just assume that is terrible

From DeRo's list:

4. Salem, “King Night” (IAMSOUND)

The formerly Chicago, now Traverse City, Michigan-based trio polarizes audiences with its dense, difficult, sludgy, but sexy sound, simultaneously alienating and seductive, with elements of trip-hop, gothic darkwave, classical chorale music, Southern hip-hop, and electronic pop. Me, I can’t get enough of its dark pagan delights.

I think we've just discovered the target market that finds Salem's music "sexy".

http://www.wbez.org/blog/jim-derogatis/reasons-living-20-best-albums-2010

hahahaha O_O

^hard in da paint

http://www.stereogum.com/img/derogatis.jpg http://janeheller.mlblogs.com/heart_beating.gif http://consequenceofsound.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/salem-king-night-260x260.jpg

alright, enough

just realized pfork ranked all the james blake EPs together on the albums list, but didnt do the same w/r/t Zola Jesus (Stridulum, Velusia/Valusia/however it was spelled, Stridulum II)

Chris Richards of the Washington Post likes Drake, Choc Quib Town, Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, Kanye, Soft Pack and a few more

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/clicktrack/2010/12/lists_chris_richards_top_10_al.html

what band was that guy in again?

liked his beach house blurb

Me, I can’t get enough of its dark pagan delights.

I thought DeRo liked white women?

oh, jim, still the Dionysian.

unsound opinions

Trivia:

Jon Caramanica picked albums by two guys who have had hits called "Best I Ever Had" (though not this year).
Chris Richards picked albums by two guys who wrote "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" (though not this year).

what band was that guy in again?

liked his beach house blurb

― return of the nakh (J0rdan S.), Friday, December 17, 2010 2:46 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

he was in Q And Not U. hell of a nice guy, although when i talk to him we have to make an effort to avoid arguing about Drake.

i really want to hear a drake superfan explain to me what they like w/out it devolving into being about how his persona is so novel

one thing i'll give drake is that if you're really into his production aesthetic, it can be pretty novel at times for a "rap" album, but i still don't think it makes up for everything else