ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

i personally felt it was a weak year for rap full lengths and sort of an awkward transitional year for rap music in general. while 2010 saw a lot of big debuts & breakouts (waka, lil b, odd fut), most of 2011 felt like a slog as those artists released a high rate of output with little or none of it at the level of quality of their breakout material. tragically, my favourite new rap artist of 2010 (nht boyz) barely released anything all year. many new artists within the more traditional goon aesthetic were met with a mixed reaction (trouble/alley boy, brick squad monopoly, future), while the most unifying new artists (kendrick lamar and schoolboy q) are coming from the opposite aesthetic

You R&B and Hip Hop "heads" should check out that album by "The Weekend", which takes both genres to dazzling new heights!

http://www.flashcreed.com/catalog/view/theme/flashcreed/image_flashcreed/stars/stars_4.png

next time i have to defend not giving a shit about kendrick lamar i will just cite flopson's "opposite of goon aesthetic" description

some goon purist

studyin at the gooniversity

forgot to rope riff-raff & tko capone into my goon narrative

▲TKÕ C∆PΘÑΣ▲✈

I have little hope for anything else I voted for, including Uncle Acid, but here's to me being wrong!!

Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - a really impressive rock album released in mysterious circumstances, has garnered a pretty big following in a fairly short amount of time.

― Sounds Of The Baskervilles (dog latin), Wednesday, February 1, 2012 5:07 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

still hoping this will show. did my part. but nah, long shot at best.

i agree that 2011 was largely a rebuilding year for solid goon raps. i found plenty of great full-lengths but found the overall narrative lacking,

with the exception of maybach music, which converted me by bringing back that 'actual rap' to the rap charts again

am i crazy to still be holding out hope for covert coup? love the shit out of that shit.

rich forever is already better than any of the maybach 2011 output tho xp

i agree that covert coup was a very good record considering curren$y's slide into same-iness it still stood apart xp

rich forever is already better than any of the maybach 2011 output tho xp

― flopson, Wednesday, February 1, 2012 9:26 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agreed but have any singles from that charted yet? I meant more in terms of loving 'tupacs back' 'ima boss' 'aston martin music' (carryover from the prev year but nonetheless) 'that way' & other big singles

except for lotus flower bomb. that sucked

I will be v surprised a & disappointed if Uncle Acid doesn't show; I remember predicting to Kerr that it would make top 10 but I'm scaling that back. I'm not ready to call it a day yet though, esp since so many voters have represented...

also: I totally need to check out that Schoolboy Q album. any relevant discussion on ILM?

Both the Schoolboy Q albums are v. good.

my top 20 predictions:

2562 - fever and spear
adele - 21
beastie boys - hot sauce committee part 2
blut aus nord - 777: Pun(s)
bon iver - s/t
don trip & carlito - stepbros.
driphouse - s/t
fleet foxes - hometown blues
gang gang dance - dont know what this is called
innergaze - shadow disco
lou reed & metallica - hulu
michael pisaro - poison, shadow and farewell
moritz von oswald trio - horizontal structures
SBTRKT - add it up
skrillex - collected ambient works
something from the bathetic records catalog
something on planet mu
terius nash - 1997
xander harris - memories of youth, dreams of old age
yuck - how it feels to be something on

"1997" was the exact point where i went from a chuckle to a lol

lol michael pisaro
for real though his asleep, street, pipes, tones was my favorite record of 2011!

yeah, the stuff he put out on gravity wave this year is uniformly great

pulling for ulcerate, destroyers of all. don't let me down ilm

stoked that sbtrkt has zero ilx stans apparently

so i have a pattern going, i went 0/17 first day, 2/20 second day and 4/20 third day. so i should still have eight more that show up

i'm moving over the next few days so i probably won't know the Top 20 until sometime next week

:-(

i think you mean 6

If Tropical 2 cracks top 20 I will be ridiculously pleased and smug.

I've got your back on this one. I'm sure this is going to make it.

Was hoping that Future Islands would feature somewhere as it was my #2, but no way will it make top 20.

i voted future islands

woohoo
great to see araabmuzik and britney place, two excellent records

i can't believe 'dreamchasers' hasn't placed. :'(

Just chiming in on Colin Stetson. I never enjoy music if it's simply presented to me like a sport, i.e. technical skill over music and feel. But this is some evocative stuff and fairly accessible. I even like the spoken word stuff.

I'd have liked to have seen Bangs & Works 2 place, but it won't happen.

I'd have liked to have seen Bangs & Works 2 place, but it won't happen.

― Sounds Of The Baskervilles (dog latin), Thursday, 2 February 2012 10:55 (52 minutes ago)

Yeah, I'm regretful about not including it. The Soul Jazz 'Invasion Of The Mysteron Killer Sounds' comps were pretty good too.

those (?? were there more than just one) were spectacular - set a sort of precedent for my listening throughout the year.

Two on vinyl. Totally caned 'Streetsweeper' (Steely & Clevie) and 'Yoga Riddim' (Team Shadetek) through the summer.

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Invasion-Of-The-Mysteron-Killer-Sounds-Vol1/release/2971428

Shamefully I am only just now hearing the Nguzunguzu. It is incredible! So happy right now.

Oh and I suppose I should 'fess up that I was the voter who had Frank Ocean as their #1. What can I say? It was the album I listened to most last year and it's high points ('songs for women', 'novacane', 'swim good') were among my favourite tracks of 2011. I also voted for the Girls record so I guess I don't like either 'real' indie OR 'real rnb' ;)

Don't you got some Jodeci?

They're highly unlikely to place now but I'm a little surprised and disappointed that Elzhi, Meek Mill, Young Bleed, and Los Campesinos! have all been shut out of the Top 77. On the other hand at least 20 records I've never heard of have made the list which gives me lots to listen to! :)

lol all these "rnb for people who dont like real rnb" and "indie for those who dont like real indie" arguments on this thread are exactly like dog latins "black metal for those who dont like tr00 black metal" posts upthread. Which is sadly like most metal boards on the internet.
I totally expect it from indie fans, its always existed in rock music, but rnb too????

I do like how Girls are too corny even for indie fuxx though.

where's the real messageboard?

yeah but are they too corny for corny indie fuxx?
xp

lol all these "rnb for people who dont like real rnb" and "indie for those who dont like real indie" arguments on this thread are exactly like dog latins "black metal for those who dont like tr00 black metal" posts upthread. Which is sadly like most metal boards on the internet.
I totally expect it from indie fans, its always existed in rock music, but rnb too????

― Armand Schaubroeck Ratfucker, Thursday, 2 February 2012 12:12 (40 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think my posts on this subject started getting lost in translation. There's nothing I hate more than the sort of snobbery and pedantry that Tr00 metal types bandy around ad nauseam. It was more an observation that because of the influence of Pitchfork (who are grounded in US-centric indie rock but go to some lengths to be perceived as eclectic), there's now a big central market territory for music that will make that crossover. So with Frank Ocean you have this guy who calls himself a singer-songwriter (not r'n'b, oh no no), who sings over Coldplay and Eagles songs and is associated with a controversial undie-rap crew: These are all points of reference which Pitchforky audiences can easily identify, regardless of whether his album is much better or worse than any other r'n'b artist. The problem here is that R'n'B fans are most likely sick of hearing "Oh I like R'n'B too - do you know Frank Ocean?" because it displays a limited palette and only a meek step outside the listener's initial comfort zone. So what's wrong with that? What's wrong with dipping one's toe in the water to see if you like it? Well nothing really, but it's also a bit of a cop-out. If you're going to check out a new style of music it could be argued that you have to accept the style warts'n'all. I think what initially attracted me to a lot of music I like is the sheer shock-of-the-new, the uncertainty, the mental acrobatics I had to perform to fit this new aesthetic into my worldview. Like, I didn't really enjoy Pantera or Metallica's Black album when I was played those as a teenager, but when I first heard, I dunno, Bal Sagoth it was like "This is hilarious and crazy and weird, and WTF???!".

Did anyone else dig the Kuedo record? I haven't seen much talk of it, but I thought it was beautiful--still lisetning to it a lot, actually.

It was okay, but it didn't excite me as much as the hype made out I would.

It seems like the middle stretch of this poll has gotten a bit samey. Too many hipster fetishist bands trying to recreate the same early-'80s post-punk-meets-disco moment. However, one nice thing is that my two best discoveries were both free downloads: Ngunguzungu and Death Grips.

undie-rap

Ha.

attn site mods: my flag post for dog latin was entirely in earnest please dont delete it

"Too many hipster fetishist bands trying to recreate the same early-'80s post-punk-meets-disco moment."

which ones are these?

passive-aggressive much, Lamp?