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

He didn't get a Grammy nomination, but at least he made the Silent Ballet Top 100 (top 20 even).

oh come on, a personal list's #34 being "i heard this too, it wasn't bad" is like some sort of failing?

― zvookster, Sunday, January 2, 2011 12:59 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Kind of implies dude should hear more records imo

― our man flint flo$$y (Whiney G. Weingarten), Sunday, January 2, 2011 1:18 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dunno man, what's your 34th favorite album of the year and would you say you love every minute of it? if it was met with a MBDTF level of acclaim would you think it was a bit overrated?

the idea that you need to cover some huge breadth of music to be a good music writer is 100% nonsense and has gotten more ridiculous than ever

^^^

I've heard probably less than 50 albums this year. Even that felt like too much, like it resulted in cursory attention to everything. I don't see how hearing more would make me a better writer.

"I don't see how hearing more would make me a better writer."

really?

i mean, the more you know, the more you know.

unless you write, like, zen music writing, i guess. and you just listen to the same song every day.

and you CAN study one drum beat or one bass line for days. i dig that.

i'm all for obsessiveness. and if you listen to too much you might get all mixed up. like me.

Hearing more albums = thinking less about each album I hear.

I think a lot of critics listen to a fantastic breadth of stuff but as a result don't really allow themselves a chance to develop a particularly nuanced take on much of the music they're listening to. Arguably one of the reasons so many critics' lists look the same is that critics are churning through so much music that it just saves time going into a listening experience applying whatever emergent critical consensus already exists as a kind of listening filter.

i think everyone's got a right to operate differently and figure out what works best for them. i could probably stand to hear more albums than i do, or from a wider range, but keeping tabs on the beats i already cover and the artists i already like and letting other stuff kind of fall in my lap semi-organically keeps me busy enough as it is.

i listen to a lot, but i also focus on one thing for a period of days sometimes. i can go either way. i get obsessed and interested about things and then i go deeper. but people DO have a natural built-in capacity for all kinds of things and you know when your tank is full. so, really, whatever works best for you. hearing many examples of one type of thing can be helpful to me. i think about how it all fits/doesn't fit/connects/doesn't connect/etc.

I've heard probably less than 50 albums this year.

Isn't this a little misleading given the number of individual tracks and DJ mixes you probably listen to? Like, it might sound like less listening than you actually do because of the type of material you focus on.

how red their faces must be!!!!

oh goodness

can you please descend back into yr circle of hell where people who enjoy "hey soul sister" are condemned to?

eh you may wanna just take that zing big guy

;_;

Tim F otm.

Isn't this a little misleading given the number of individual tracks and DJ mixes you probably listen to? Like, it might sound like less listening than you actually do because of the type of material you focus on.

I guess so, though a lot of the radio sets I listen to will be like 80% tracks I already know so it's hard to quantify this. My point was more that there seems to be this pernicious trend whereby critics now feel obliged to check out 200+ albums each year (and in particular albums that are getting hyped by other critics) simply because they can, and I don't know that it necessarily makes them better writers.

My listening to uk funky radio sets is effectively dead time in the above (omnivorus music critic) terms because no-one in the world cares - I may as well be listening to my old Joni Mitchell records for all that it contributes to a critical conversation about music in 2010. OTOH for the most part it develops my thoughts about music much more substantially than dutifully checking out x Best New Music album.

Brainwashed readers' poll results are up

#1 album starts with an "S" and ends with "WANS" ;)

http://brainwashed.com

probably agree more with tim here - if i listened to the amount of albums whiney does each year, there's no way i could get inside them enough to have more than a superficial opinion on any of them. also, it's perfectly possibly to get a grasp on an artist du jour without ever hearing the whole album. that said 50 does seem like a pretty small number - surely which 50 is even more dependent on luck/critical consensus?

Yeah 50 might be a slight exaggeration, if I really thought about it I might have heard 80 or so albums this year, but 30 or so only once and in those cases I don't even like to talk about them, I feel like my decision not to return to them comes with an acknowledgment that I have no business talking about them.

surely which 50 is even more dependent on luck/critical consensus?

well, I've only heard 8 of pitchfork's top 50 albums if that's any indication.

Listening to more records doesn't make you a better writer, it just makes you more aware of trends. Whether you write well about 20 albums or 200 albums is up to you.

Also not to spin this into yet another Pitchfork conversation, but I still maintain that people bestow the site with too much authority. If they give something a Best New Music then every critic becomes duty-bound to hear it and have an opinion on it. Nothing against Pitchfork - they like what they like - but the way they drive the conversation all year long, it's no surprise that everyone's EOY lists resemble theirs.

can anyone tell me about these records i haven't heard (& in many cases, even heard OF) from the Brainwashed top 100 ??

Cyclobe, "Wounded Galaxies Tap at The Window"
JG Thirlwell, "Manorexia: The Mesopelagic Waters"
Demdike Stare, "Liberation Through Hearing"
Demdike Stare , "Voices Of Dust "
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma , "Love is a Stream"
Foetus, "Hide"
Master Musicians Of Bukkake, "Totem 2"
Keith Fullerton Whitman, "Generator"
Baby Dee, "Book of Songs for Anne Marie"
The Fun Years, "God Was Like, No"
Demdike Stare, "Forest Of Evi"
Jana Winderen, "Energy Field"
Master Musicians Of Bukkake, "Visible Signs Of The Invisible"
TwinSisterMoon, "...Then Fell the Ashes"
Xela, "The Divine"
Anbb (Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld), "Mimikry"
Nurse With Wound & Larsen , "Erroneous: A Selection Of Errors"
BJ Nilsen, "The Invisible City"
The North Sea, "Bloodlines"
Xela, "The Sublime"
Charlemagne Palestine, "Strumming Music For Piano Harpsichord And Strings Ensemble"
BJ Nilsen & Stilluppsteypa, "Space Finale"
Ceremony, "Rocket Fire"
Jon Mueller, "The Whole"
Koen Holtkamp, "Gravity/Bees"
Nicholas Szczepanik, "Dear Dad"
Altar Eagle, "Mechanical Gardens"
Locrian, "The Crystal World"
Magic Lantern, "Platoon"
Natural Snow Buildings, "The Centauri Agent"
Eleh, "Radiant Intervals"
Organum, "Sorrow"
Svarte Greiner, "Penpals Forever And Ever"

Demdike Stare

if u page back once there's a youtube

thankx!

i think i remember contenderizer talking about magic lantern, & Lamp bj nilsen

It appears that more people are concerned with being good writers than good critics. It's understandable, good writing can lead to more/better opportunities, while good criticism isn't always even recognized by that large an audience. I've read plenty of good writing in poor reviews. Lovely metaphors and clever phrases that serve a writer's portfolio and ego more than the music. I can appreciate it briefly, but then it's quickly forgotten as I skim onward in search of good music. Even good writing that's also good criticism is going to be forgotten. It's never going to be literature (with perhaps a few exceptions from the likes of Bangs and Kent).

Good criticism isn't very flashy, and it takes an admirable suspension of ego to write efficiently in service of the music. And like the best writers, it involves plenty of research and preparation. I would not consider anyone who listens to only 4 new albums a month as having particularly deep knowledge of current music. Critics that can't be bothered to even hear at least 20 albums a month, let alone find more than 20 or 40 albums they truly like in a year are in the wrong damn field. Someone who really loves music should have no problem finding and hearing more than a couple hundred albums a year worth hearing. It's probably too much to ask of your average writer, certainly. But who wants average? I'm quite happy with the handful of crazy obsessives whose opinions I respect. I've always wished there was a way to add a filter to something like the Pazz & Jop based on the number of albums the writers heard that year. That list would be much more interesting. The rest can keep their polished reviews. Some of us just want to find the tunes.

funny post. do u do stand up?

it's like why didnt they just tweet reviews of the mona lisa fuck it save time

Deej, you listen to a ton of music. Why are you being such a champion of NOT listening to music?

i dont think quantity gives ppl perspective. acknowledging that music is huge & out of your control is more necessary for that perspective than listening to everything.

i mean, its a choice of depth vs breadth, i dont think tim f spends less time listening to music than whiney g

There's a difference between acknowledging you can't listen to "all" the music, or 30,000 albums in a year, and acknowledging that maybe more than 0.166% of it deserves some attention.

Tweeting about Mona Lisa. Funny. But in the art world, to be taken seriously as a critic, one has to demonstrate an incredibly deep knowledge of art history, and ideally credentials of a Ph.D. or at least Masters. You have to be able to accurately identify literally thousands of pieces by sight.

Pop music isn't regarded the same way, and obviously that's a good thing in many ways. But I don't think of it all as disposable product either. It is worth, for many, the time and effort of some serious deep listening, and it is possible to give focus and repeated listens to way more 50 albums a year, and still have time to listen to old favorites. I'm sure Whiney can confirm that while he heard a thousand new albums, he had time to hear many of them a few times, and still had time for his own collection.

I'm sure anyone in this thread could recognize 1,000s of pieces of music. And I'm sure there are art critics who specialize in Renaissance art, modern art, Japanese art, etc. Your analogy is not good.

Moreover, while art critics certainly know a great deal about art history and the evolution of art overtime, schools of art etc., it would be ludicrous to suggest that someone is incapable of talking or writing incisive and intelligent criticism about a piece of art due to the fact that they hadn't seen ALL (or even a lot) of the art produced in the same year.

The problem here perhaps is equating 'good criticism' with 'distilling all of the year's music into a representative, accurate and precise top 25/50/100/whatever'.

Like...I enjoy a good list as much as the next person, but we're arguing at cross-purposes perhaps? Some people seem to be saying that if critics listen to too few albums in a year, then they won't have sufficient breadth to be able to accurately identify the best how-ever-many albums of the year. Others are (rightfully) suggesting that breadth does not necessarily result in intelligent or nuanced analysis or discussion of records or songs.

I think there's probably a certain amount of listening that is desirable for critics to do in any given year, if only to have context for whatever genre they're discussing (or context for the generalist musical universe that they're situating albums in) - an awareness is key, to some extent.

But some kind of facile equation of more listening = better criticism is on some bullshit.

The problem here perhaps is equating 'good criticism' with 'distilling all of the year's music into a representative, accurate and precise top 25/50/100/whatever'.

― Alex in Montreal, Monday, January 3, 2011 12:25 AM Bookmark

Yes.

A long time ago I lived with a gf while she earned her art history Ph.D. Before she began her dissertation on her chosen specialty, she learned a huge amount of art, as did everyone in her program. The workload was jaw dropping, and even emotionally draining at times. But they certainly couldn't complain to their professors that their brains would only allow them to properly absorb only so much art per semester. But she could do it, and she did, because she was passionate about it. The same went for my wife in medical school. For a couple years I was listening to over a thousand new albums a year, and people around me who were casual music listeners/fans couldn't fathom that, and imagined it would be such a chore. But it wasn't. The analogy is just fine.

The more you do something, the better you get at it. You wouldn't say that listening a lot is gonna make you a worse critic, would you? "Accurate and precise" certainly has nothing to do with anything we're talking about. I'm just saying there's no reason anyone can't thoroughly absorb a lot of music. Whether they are a good writer or intelligent critic varies with the individual. But of course they can improve with more listening. How could you possibly say otherwise?

I've already acknowledged that a certain amount of knowledge of music and having heard a breadth of historical music knowledge/listening is important. I'm not arguing with that. I'm suggesting that perhaps there is a limit to "more listening = value accrued". At some point, diminishing marginal returns apply. If you are trying to listen to AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE (and that is the only criteria) reality with imposes constraints that limit your ability to engage with that which you are listening to on anything but a cursory level.

Nobody here is making the argument that complete ignorance of music history is recommended. No one is arguing that as little listening as possible MAKES you a good critic. But how can I say otherwise? Because...I don't see how someone who has listening to 500 records in 2010 is INHERENTLY more capable of critiquing any particular album than someone who has only listened to 300, presuming that these two people otherwise have a similar grasp of music, music history, genre, etc. Every extra album listened to from the current year only "enhances" your criticism if the goal of criticism is de facto to rate/rank/compare albums from this artificially imposed period of time.

"of course they can improve with more listening" <-- improve at what specifically? how? why does more listening cause this improvement? is there a limit? is there a trade-off? I'd agree that music criticism can't be done in a vacuum, but there's a one-to-one causal relationship you're implying here that doesn't ring true.

(Hell, we may as well throw in the genre-specialist vs. generalist argument here too, ffs.)

*reality will impose constraints

late night posting and grammar are not cooperating.

Soooo glad I'm not a critic - must ruin it for you all

It appears that more people are concerned with being good writers than good critics. It's understandable, good writing can lead to more/better opportunities, while good criticism isn't always even recognized by that large an audience. I've read plenty of good writing in poor reviews. Lovely metaphors and clever phrases that serve a writer's portfolio and ego more than the music. I can appreciate it briefly, but then it's quickly forgotten as I skim onward in search of good music. Even good writing that's also good criticism is going to be forgotten. It's never going to be literature (with perhaps a few exceptions from the likes of Bangs and Kent).

I don't get this distinction. Is the good criticism the reviews you agree with it? Obv. that's wrong. Is it that you think the writer captures the music accurately? As opposed to, say, a nicely phrased metaphor that's way off base?

In that case, well I agree, but then your dichotomy is a false one.

In my opinion good writing and good understanding of the material cannot be divorced or even thought of independently except as artificial abstractions. A metaphor that doesn't fit what it's trying to describe is a bad metaphor, a failure of communication, and hence bad writing. Writing that makes you think the writer is trying to impress you rather than convey something useful or important or meaningful or insightful is bad writing.

The more you do something, the better you get at it.

Sure, but what makes someone a better reviewer: listening to 200 albums four times each, and writing 200 reviews, or listening to four albums 200 times each, and thinking about every angle on the music they can spot before sitting down to write about it?

In each case the writer is doing music critic work of the same amount. The first critic might be in a better position to tell you which out of those 200 albums are the ones you really should buy (in their opinion, it goes without saying), and also, if you like x album, which three or four other albums of the same year might be considered similar, but on pretty much every other conceivable metric the second critic is going to be in a better position to put together a good review.

Of course, I myself am now setting up a false dichotomy: in a lot of ways breadth is depth (and vice versa). When I'm thinking about genre, listening to as many examples as possible of music in that genre, and also listening to music in similar but subtly different genres, is going to inform my thinking of how the genre works - by understanding what something is not I can better articulate what it is. But now we're in the realm of strategic listening, including as one of your listening-motivants a desire to work out particular critical notions you want to develop and then deploy.

One of the reasons I haven't listened to the Kanye album is that, not only do I not expect to like it much, but also I don't expect it's going to help me develop the ideas about music I'm interested in if I hear it - having read people like lex and al and deej talk about it I can't help but expect that my own critical reaction would simply stand in their shadow, redundant.

Tim yr crit is always remarkable for the level of detail in describing specific tracks and contextualising that detail. I'm pretty staggered at how little breadth wise you are saying you listen (in terms of albums at least) - where/ how do you listen?

Commuting and at the gym, always on crappy iPod earphones, and basically always formally or informally constructing reviews of whatever I'm listening to in my head.

Hah! Sounds like me...but specifically in terms of your strategy? How do you choose? And this might be revealing if others answered too...

How duz critics werk?

I don't expect it's going to help me develop the ideas about music I'm interested in if I hear it - having read people like lex and al and deej talk about it I can't help but expect that my own critical reaction would simply stand in their shadow, redundant.

i'm kind of the opposite - when i do listen to ~hyped~ records it's in order to join in whatever discussion's going on. i rarely read substantive criticism of anything before consuming it myself - once i have, then i go back and voraciously read other people's opinions. this rarely actually happens with albums i don't think i'll like, my primary motivation for seeking music out remains the pleasure principle (regardless of whether i think it'll help me "develop my ideas" or not)

dj history top 50 tracks of 2010 - http://www.djhistory.com/features/the-furtive-50-2010

can anyone tell me about these records i haven't heard (& in many cases, even heard OF) from the Brainwashed top 100 ??

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma , "Love is a Stream" - this is the guy from Tarentel and also The Alps (I think). It's post-MBV Fennesz-y guitar textures. Really well done, and some people have raved about it, but on first listen it all seemed kind of familiar to me.

Jon Mueller, "The Whole" - drums and chanting and stuff, with some dulcimer giving it an eastern vibe. This probably says more about my own field of reference, but it reminded me a bit of some of the Microphones stuff off Mount Eerie (you know the stuff with loads of drums on them?), but a bit less washed-out if that makes sense.

The Fun Years, "God Was Like, No" - good droney stuff, got a drifting Labradford-ish feel to it, guitar tones floating around in a fog of electronic crackles. Listening to it again now and it sounds pretty cool.

Altar Eagle, "Mechanical Gardens" - Maybe a bit like Cold Cave soundwise, but heavier on the electronic textural stuff. Cutesy boy/girl vocals make it sound very old school indie, but there are some decent songs.

BJ Nilsen, "The Invisible City" - Classic ambient Touch stuff, but drawing on more urban and industrial sounds than something like Biosphere.