Year-End Critics' Polls 2012

Listen to the third song.

was disappointed there wasn't any fiddling on this after my last post

dying @ keyboard cat

TS Heatsick Steve vs Seasick Steve

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slIHk6QytcM

I love keyboard cat, I don't see what the problem is there...

which band were people comparing to the necks, amongst the above exchanges?

heaven forbid i listen to even a second of the wrong band and discover something i didn't intend to discover.

steve

i have to listen to stu and bernie's albums first but i'll try to check it out soon

loving this julia holter record btw... such a rich collection of sounds.

julia!

the holtmeister

that's what her friends call her

Yeah that Julia Holter album is great, I love how each track seems to end up in a totally different place from where it began without seeming meandering.

I've come round to the Frankie Rose album as well since the nights have been drawing in. Not sure I've seen that one anywhere.

Thought the Frankie Rose was insubstantial; only "Pair of Wings", corny as it is, held up to repeated play for me.

Julia Holter album is fantastic, of course.

Yeah that Julia Holter album is great, I love how each track seems to end up in a totally different place from where it began without seeming meandering.

i feel like there's loads of this sort of ethereal pop about but the level of detail in this really separates it, and the different tones, very easy to become dirgey with this kind of sound but as you say, it's pretty bold in terms of how it jumps from one mood to another. can tell it'll be one i listen to for a few weeks.

Sad to see the Marissa Nadler and Georgia Anne Muldrow albums pass under everyone's radar; both albums are career highlights for me.

I never got around to listening to Julia Holter; rectifying that now

i saw goody john misty with the devil

Yeah that Julia Holter album is great, I love how each track seems to end up in a totally different place from where it began without seeming meandering.

i feel like there's loads of this sort of ethereal pop about but the level of detail in this really separates it, and the different tones, very easy to become dirgey with this kind of sound but as you say, it's pretty bold in terms of how it jumps from one mood to another. can tell it'll be one i listen to for a few weeks.

― Heterocyclic ring ring (LocalGarda), Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:27 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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Love this as well, but after half a dozen listens those transitions start to feel forced, as if too over-conscious of the genre she's playing in. Sometimes I think the songs could've subsisted - and have been great - w/ just a small amount of consistency. "Marienbad" manages to avoid this, but I thought it was especially noticeable on songs like "In The Same Room" where songs would transmutate not out of necessity but a seeming desire to keep things from ever being overtly pop

still putting the record in my year-end top 5 tho, it's incredible

I thought goddess eyes I and II were so dominant that they made the rest of the album seem a little less alive. still a nice album, though...

Has Rick Rodd even made any other lists?

― Raymond Cummings, Wednesday, December 5, 2012 1:39 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one list w/ Rich Forever so far and have seen zero with God Forgives, nobody repping for that garbage

have to say it was a huge relief that people stopped pretending Ross was great this year

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/12/04/top-10-albums/

Time has come today

"rich forever" should be on more lists, i guess ppl just forgot about it because it was released in january and yeah because the album didn't have a huge impact. but it's still great, listened to it just the other day

it was in my top ten until a few weeks ago

rich for ten months

Lol

Honestly releasing an album in the first Q is like saying "fuck critical concensus" or "we so trill it hurts"

I'll let Animal Collective know.

Vampire Weekend too.

yeah or even, can you imagine, in december

i dont have a top ten but there weren't many other rap albums in 2012 that i enjoyed more

Yeah, that too

Not mad at Time's list

Diddy's the only one I can think of recently that was really hurt by the December release thing.

I'm not saying that dropping in Jan means no one will remember you in Dec guys

Just that the odds aren't great

true.

jon otm: Diddy and R. Kelly in Dec '10 most egregious examples.

T.I.'s record is dropping in a couple weeks, right? not that he needs critics necessarily, but i thought it was supposed to be his serious old man rapper album.

Last Train To Paris took more than a year to grow to its current critical stature, don't think it would've mattered that much if it dropped in June (although i voted for it at the time ha)

T.I. ain't gonna win with critics this time around either way

state vs radric davis was released dec 2009 iirc, i'd say it hurt gucci's hipster buzz. also, chief keef's album is coming out dec 18th

Last Train To Paris took more than a year to grow to its current critical stature, don't think it would've mattered that much if it dropped in June (although i voted for it at the time ha)

― RIP Gramp C (some dude), Wednesday, December 5, 2012 6:09 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

among who? what is its current critical stature? all i know is a bunch of ilxors love it, haven't heard much else. if anything it was hurt by being released same time as mbdtf

I listened to that Heatsick EP again on my way out tonight and I'd forgotten about the terrible sub-Calvin Harris singing on the second track. Still enjoyed it though. Steve!

There's singing? Somehow I blocked that out too...

lol it's true: loving Last Train to Paris has drawn more wtf reactions from non-ILX friends than any record I've championed in the last few years.

Unfortunately it's not sub-Clifford Harris singing.

xpost

i'm not saying LTTP's rep has grown tons -- but i think the Dawn Richard EP will appear (or maybe already has) on more lists this year than it ever did, and that speaks volumes

mmm yeah ok i feel you

If Last Train To Paris had been released earlier it would have been number 2 on my albums of 2010 list rather than number 3.

I dopn't know that its general critical stature has grown, maybe more a case of people who loved it at the time now shifting the dialogue towards it being a "lost" classic. That shift will definitely help its longterm rep.

What Dawn has done since definitely feeds into that, but has she appeared on any lists other than Guardian and Gorilla vs Bear?

Okay, let's do some of this thing:

Wire Magazine - Avant Rock A-Z

Aluk Todolo - Occult Rock
Oren Ambarchi - Raga Ooty/Nilgiri Plateau
Oren Ambarchi - Sagittarian Domain
Jessica Bailiff - At The Turned-Down Jagged Rim Of The Sky
Crazy Spirit - s/t
Richard Dawson - Magic Bridge
Fushitsusha - Mabushii Itazura Na Inori
Howling Hex - Wilson Semiconductors
the One Ensemble - Oriole
People of the North - Steep Formations
Swans - The Seer
Alexander Tucker - Third Mouth
Alexander Turnquist - Like Sunburned Snowflakes
Two Wings - Love's Spring
Richard Youngs - Amaranthine