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

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

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

This seems perilously close to asking someone to explain why they like something without saying anything positive about it. Like, for any performer, the artistic persona they are putting forth, whether it's a theatrical "Character" (a la Janelle Monae) or a "serious musician" (a la... I don't know, YMMV on this but maybe Tori Amos? Scott Walker?) or whatever, is a large portion of why you are buying into them. "Persona" in this usage includes the genre the musician is operating in; if you are all about symphonies, you are likely not going to appreciate Speedy J's "Pullover" because the gulf between expected idiom and actual idiom is so large.

What Drake seems to be doing is carving out a specific idiom within hip-hop and R&B and a lot of people are going apeshit for it; I personally think it sounds like lazy garbage but that's kind of my default reaction to like 95% of hip-hop these days so I don't lose THAT much sleep over it.

dude's voice sounds like a front-door buzzer

hahaha

otm

I guess a lot of us underestimate most people's burning need to have a Stefan Urquelle in their lives

a Stefan who realized he could do better than Laura and now goes to strip clubs

smh at both those Robyn blurbs. Reminds me of some of the Janelle reviews that bugged Lex earlier this year - "This is like R&B but clever!"

damn, how much of a wreck was Laura if the girls from the strip club are a step UP

pussy refused to whisper the andy griffith theme

lol i mean whistle

wait'll you see my *SNORT*

the robyn thing makes less sense imo than the janelle ... janelle is an R&B artist incorporating other influences & going for different concepts (lol --- was she influenced by sun ra???) the diff between robyn & gaga in terms of 'content' is so narcissism of hipster differences i can barely see it

(lol --- was she influenced by sun ra???)

I know you're joking but the likely answer here is "yes".

i think what deej meant is that "drake's a major rap star and he's from canada! and light-skinned! and a child star! and he sings!" is a narrtive that his fans lean on to justify his importance even more than his detractors use to criticize him (why bother when we've got the monotonous flow, the grocery bag punchlines, the inane 'deep thoughts' to make fun of).

I get that; what I'm saying (which I realize is almost 180 degrees in the opposite direction of how I usually argue) is that clearly those things are important to the people championing dude otherwise they wouldn't keep mentioning them all the time, and as such it feels like deej is saying "tell me what you like about this dude without telling me about the things you like about this dude".

xpost Ha, yes, so plainly influenced by Sun Ra - she goes deep into the afrofuturist stuff.

There are significant differences between Robyn and Gaga, deej, but I think you're right about why certain critics will rave about the former and be snide about the latter.

which critics are praising him for his biography?

I mean, I get that he's praised for sounding so fucking strange but I don't get that the subtext of said complaints is, "lol well he's Canadian remember."

well at the very beginning it wasn't a subtext

There are significant differences between Robyn and Gaga, deej, but I think you're right about why certain critics will rave about the former and be snide about the latter.

robyn has weaker beats for one thing! not just a jab: you can't lose yourself in them physically, they're not "mindless" in the way the best club beats are ("mindless" not being mutually exclusive with "smart"). you get your detachment and your distance from "common" pop, basically. the same goes for her affectless, unmelismatic voice too.

idk if gaga is the comparison that best illustrates the odd doublethink going on in responses to robyn vis-à-vis other popstars, though - i like the one the alfred outlined here, to ciara: http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2261

the canadian thing was made a point by a lot of ppl who praised him for being an outsider