ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

"rest your head" is a major sleeper on the back half of the record, probably my 2nd fav track on it after "oh yeah".

4 more today?

http://i.imgur.com/G66aa92.png

44. BEAK> ">>" (332 Points, 13 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

>> @ 44

@< @< @<

great album

yarg, this is great! wish i would have listened to it in 2012!

not really feeling it but >> >>>>> > imo

Updated: http://imgur.com/a/HGHgu

okay lol seriously? All of my deep obsessions from 2012 are showing up here!

one of my biggest outrages from the tracks poll was discovering at voting time that no one had nominated "Wulfstan II"

2 tracks in and loving >>

this was #6 on my ballot and probably could have gone higher depending on my mood

also given where it placed I sort of wish the album had been named $$

i was a little underwhelmed by this. on paper they make exactly the kind of music i love. but in real life they just do not seem to be able to be interesting for more than the first minute of a track. then they just push the repeat button. the subdued vocals don't really help.

i'm a big fan of repetition so i dig it.

oh hey this is cool. krautish.

read that as "krautfish"

http://i.imgur.com/6273W2Q.png

43. ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI Mature Themes (334 Points, 12 Votes) Spotify

i loved Before Today but could not get into this one on the same level, too much novelty and not enough sincerity

there is some truly woeful shit on that record ("schnitzel boogie") but its not as bad as people make it out to be.

I think I heard about 2 minutes of something off that Ariel Pink album once?

"farewell american primitive" and "only in my dreams" are two of the best songs hes ever done

or maybe the problem is just the goofier songs on this one are even goofier and the juxtaposition is just too much

Yeah, too much goofy/gross humour on this one for me but I loved 'Only in My Dreams' and a couple of other tracks.

Someone that I've enjoyed enough in the past but didn't really need to hear any more of, sorry old toots

okay hahaha I think it was actually two minutes into this first song before I tapped out, mostly because I was led to believe this was going to be OUT THERE music and when I heard a bland 60s pop pastiche with a dude chanting "WHO SUNK MY BATTLESHIP" I stopped playing it and thought to myself "some ppl need to get out more, or at least listen to that Farrah Abraham album before extolling this on quirkiness/weirdness grounds"

second track started out weirder but now it's a 60s Men Without Hats song, only totally unappealing

sounds quite interesting in the beginning but gets boring after a while. does not sound very commercial, is that the indie of the 2010s?

tracks 3 and 4 are the only ones i really like

I actually really liked the title track. Classic Ariel Pink melodies.

ha I am on track 3 right now and I was about to make a They Might Be Giants crack

Beak>'s Wulfstan II, for those looking to dodge the Ariel Pink conversation.

^^^ that track is fucking great

fantastic album

i even like the silly songs, the only one i don't like is nastradamus & me

tmbg is not actually that off-base a comparison

with 'only in my dreams' being his 'she's an angel' i guess

I think that once I stop thinking about what I want this album to be and start paying attention to what it actually is, I'll be more kind to it

mature themes might not an album for your typical ilxor, but it's really fun and i jammed it p heavily for a few weeks. at its best it feels like post-punk zappa, if that makes sense. before today is good, too, but it's too studied, ppl flipped out at the time cause it was the right sound at just the right time but if you go back a lot if is pretty stiff

*crosses his fingers that something good might appear on this poll in the next couple of hours*

ap always has killer basslines, too

xp

haha

yeah zappa is an even better comp

i could never get into beak>>, but i tried

Mature Themes is great for shuffle, maybe not so great as a sequential album imo

i love "baby" off the ariel pink but otherwise i find it unlistenable

"baby" is unreal... so good

is 'baby' a cover or a pastiche i can't even tell

i kinda assumed it was a cover

it's a cover