ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Dirty Projectors: Kind of surprised this was so low on the list. This album really grew on me to where I can now say that it is quite a bit better than the last one, although it doesn't have that one catchy song like Stillness is the Move. The songs overall are more solid and enjoyable.

Cooly G: I wanted to like this album but her singing is just way too underwhelming. I wish she had focused more on the instrumental/production side of things.

Found Cooly G very cool if taken on a track-by-track basis. A whole album drags a bit though.

It was about the sustained whacked-out atmosphere for me

yeah it really worked as an album for me, such a languorous and sensual vibe

maybe i just need to be feeling it to feel it.. you could pretty easily fit Cooly's stuff into the same "austere dance" category as a lot of the dance records ITT, and for those you really have to be in the zone

Voted for Cooly G, definitely a grower.

she is the opposite of austere o_0

i should listen again then

my prediction for top 10:

Kendrick
Miguel
Dawn
Taylor
Jessie
Swans
Future
Frank
Grimes
I had a tenth one but I forgot who it was...?

Just catching up with the Spotify playlist - Twin Shadow is very good, but I've only just figured out that it's not Paul Young but Fergal Sharkey that he reminds me of.

swing lo magellan is very very good but i think people didn't like it as much because it was more subtle than bitte orca and didn't have a big pop song like "stillness is the move" on it.

haven't really heard any of this so far but the three I'm most eager to listen to are Vatican Shadow, Laurel Halo, and Shackleton

Loved the last album, didn't hear a single track from this. Same thing with Animal Collective. There definitely seems to be a massive fall from grace of these guys, which kind of makes me want to give them more of a fair shout, but there was too much other interesting stuff going on this year

^emil.y speaks for me here as well. Though w DP I have no excuse, since I loved "Gun Has No Trigger"

http://i.imgur.com/H7nE7cX.png

53. JAPANDROIDS Celebration Rock (290 Points, 11 Votes) Spotify

Starting to think I should've made the color ones b&w and the b&w ones color.

re: that cooly g cover of Trouble: most music is alright really or what? No more opinions necessary.

maybe i just need to be feeling it to feel it..

I love everything about this sentence

Japandroids are just so fucking functional. Even that album cover, I mean come on, can you get excited by that? Also, their name put me off listening them for a matter of years.

should've made the b&w ones w&b.

Prefer the first Japandroids record but this one grew on me as the year went.

any chance fiona apple places high? i was sad she didn't make it onto the singles list

how the fuck did I miss this Cooly G album

Pazz & Jop: #4?? christ that's high

but I find the drums a little flimsy and annoying, and the fact that he goes into long stretches of just those tinny beats is off-putting (NB: I am listening on shit computer speakers).

― emil.y, Tuesday, January 29, 2013 8:24 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sorry, going way back here, but: noooooo ;_; no one would like shackleton if they only listened to it on shit computer speakers. i mean, nothing wrong with getting a little preview like that, but you just have to hear it for real at some point if you're at all curious about it.

how the fuck did I miss this Cooly G album

― Bel-Air the Fresh Prince, sitting in a chair (DJP), Tuesday, January 29, 2013 10:38 AM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

probably because the artist's name was 'Cooly G'

Love that record

Okay! There's definitely enough from previewing it that way that I like, so I'll take your word that it'll come together more sonically if I listen properly, and will attempt to make that happen soon.

xpost to karlarkaralakarkrlaaaaa

I tried to work up a Coolio G joke but my brain isn't working. Carry on.

http://i.imgur.com/I0Q3N7l.png

52. CONVERGE All We Love We Leave Behind (296 Points, 10 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

converge is still making new music? wow!

Was this the metal poll winner?

yes

AG is probably posting on Facebook as we speak

Japandroids are just so fucking functional. Even that album cover, I mean come on, can you get excited by that?

They certainly don't look very celebratory.

Granted this is the first time I've heard Cooly G and I'm only four songs in but it seems like focusing on the singing on this is completely the wrong way to approach this music; the voice is another instrument being woven into the overall sound gestalt, not a primary component.

There's a level where this is also swanky lounge music like the stuff I was complaining about in the tracks poll but this would be playing at a place I'd go to every weekend. It constantly amazes me how even the slightest bit of rhythmic syncopation elevates my connection to a piece of music.

So I suspect we'll see a couple of the things from the metal poll that "aren't real metal" (or just factually aren't metal), but not much else of that ilk...

Yes! That was my #1!! Glad to see it place!

Keep meaning to hear this! How does it compare to their other stuff?

i don't get what's so weird about the name cooly g

dan, i basically agree with you that the singing isn't the focus, but i think people have talked it up because there's so much more of it than anyone was expecting/than there had been in cooly g's prior singles

yay converge

are converge in with a chance (havne't heard it yet, but it did top the metal poll)

xp I'd say its one of their best albums!

Ummmmmm, look up, dog latin!

i don't get what's so weird about the name cooly g

Sounds like an old school hiphop name, like Schooly D or LL Cool J or something... think it misleads people.

any chance fiona apple places high? i was sad she didn't make it onto the singles list

― says a future man to his crystal son (reddening), Tuesday, January 29, 2013 3:37 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hope and think so!

"hot knife" really would've been great on the trax list but i don't know how many people who didn't hear the album got to hear it. let's put it on em when the album comes up

xpost, oh shit, haha!

Algerian Goalie - I told ya!

CONVERGE!!

and yeah, i agree it's one of their best albums; their best, in my view, since Jane Doe.

I love this run of albums today, several were ones I voted for, incl my #1 Shackleton.

I liked the Drawback Organ side of that release, but it was Music for the Quiet Hour that really brought me in, and was the accompaniment to many long midnight drives I've been required to make by my job. It reminds me of nothing so much as Coil. It has that same mysterious patrolling-the-borderlands quality as Musick to Play in the Dark

Cooly G sounds like it should be the name of a late 80s/early 90s west coast gangster rap emcee, not the name of a Goldie-influenced house music producer/singer

xposts made this irrelevant but oh well

Yeah, just having read the name Cooly G on ilm and not anything else, I checked it out a while ago and was expecting some throwback hip-hop. That's not what this is.

the snippet of Converge I heard sounded a lot less rabid than the stuff on Jane Doe and the one after (the last time I listened to Converge). Have they changed much? I always thought the attraction with Converge was their ability to rip my face off with sound. There are few albums that have quite the effect as Jane Doe.