ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Listening to this GY!BE right now and the me who would've loved this seems like someone I don't even know anymore. So not my bag now.

idgi, considering their music is really all over the map and each album has been pretty different. also i think 'only love can break your heart' is pretty overpraised, it's fine but a pretty tedious stomper relative to their other singles.

― christmas candy bar (al leong), Wednesday, 30 January 2013 11:03 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I also considered responding to alex but then remembered that he is suffering from a chronic case of opinions4u.

There were two Lindstrom albums. One was received well, one wasn't.

in that case i heard neither

is this a hint?

No hint. I'm just saying that if there's a Lindstrom album in the top 20, it will be Smalhans and not Six Cups of Rebel.

i should have just let that one go with at most a seinfeldhadenough.gif

love that godspeed is like a feel-good comeback story. the first track on that album is amazing.

I haven't seen a straight answer on whether this is a belated release of Lift-Up/Slow Riot outtakes or a new recording by a reformed GYBE.

Either way, I'd rcommend starting with the studio albums in chronilogical order, saving this for only if your appetitite isn't satiated.

77. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Centipede Hz (204 Points, 8 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
76. JEREMIH Late Nights With Jeremih (206 Points, 10 Votes)
75. BIGBANG Alive EP (210 Points, 6 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
74. DAPHNI Jiaolong (213 Points, 9 Votes)
73. TWIN SHADOW Confess (214 Points, 8 Votes)
72. VATICAN SHADOW Ghosts of Chechnya (216 Points, 7 Votes)
71. NITE JEWEL One Second of Love (216 Points, 8 Votes)
70. LONE Galaxy Garden (216 Points, 9 Votes)
69. NINA KRAVIZ Nina Kraviz (218 Points, 7 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
68. METZ Metz (219 Points, 10 Votes)
67. GUNPLAY Bogota Rich: The Prequel (220 Points, 9 Votes)
66. KATY B Danger EP (223 Points, 8 Votes)
65. LOWER DENS Nootropics (227 Points, 7 Votes)
64. ACTION BRONSON & PARTY SUPPLIES Blue Chips (230 Points, 7 Votes)
63. CHRISTIAN MISTRESS Possession (232 Points, 8 Votes)
62. GRIZZLY BEAR Shields (233 Points, 8 Votes)
61. LAUREL HALO Quarantine (246 Points, 8 Votes)

60. DIRTY PROJECTORS Swing Lo Magellan (254 Points, 8 Votes)
59. SHACKLETON Music for the Quiet Hour/The Drawbar Organ EPs (258 Points, 7 Votes, 3 First Place Votes)
58. CHIEF KEEF Finally Rich (262 Points, 10 Votes)
57. SILENT SERVANT Negative Fascination (277 Points, 11 Votes)
56. RICARDO VILLALOBOS Dependent and Happy (278 Points, 8 Votes)
55. ORBITAL Wonky (278 Points, 11 Votes)
54. COOLY G Playin' Me (282 Points, 11 Votes)
53. JAPANDROIDS Celebration Rock (290 Points, 11 Votes)
52. CONVERGE All We Love We Leave Behind (296 Points, 10 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
51. SUN ARAW & M. GEDDES GENGRAS MEET THE CONGOS Icon Give Thank (298 Points, 12 Votes)
50. NIKI & THE DOVE Instinct (306 Points, 9 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
49. DEATH GRIPS The Money Store (307 Points, 12 Votes)
48. CLOUD NOTHINGS Attack on Memory (314 Points, 13 Votes)
47. FRANKIE ROSE Interstellar (316 Points, 12 Votes)
46. PURITY RING Shrines (320 Points, 11 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
45. BAT FOR LASHES The Haunted Man (329 Points, 13 Votes)
44. BEAK> ">>" (332 Points, 13 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
43. ARIEL PINK'S HAUNTED GRAFFITI Mature Themes (334 Points, 12 Votes)
42. KILLER MIKE R.A.P. Music (345 Points, 14 Votes)
41. THE XX Coexist (352 Points, 14 Votes)

40. WILD NOTHING Nocturne (357 Points, 12 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
39. NICKI MINAJ Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded (362 Points, 13 Votes)
38. THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Transcendental Youth (368 Points, 13 Votes)
37. ANGEL HAZE Reservation (381 Points, 14 Votes)
36. CHAIRLIFT Something (382 Points, 14 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
35. LANA DEL REY Born to Die (392 Points, 11 Votes)
34. LE1F Dark York (396 Points, 12 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
33. NENEH CHERRY & THE THING The Cherry Thing (396 Points, 13 Votes)
32. VOICES FROM THE LAKE Voices From the Lake (419 Points, 17 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
31. SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS Ghostory (422 Points, 14 Votes)
30. TAME IMPALA Lonerism (426 Points, 15 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
29. MUNGOLIAN JETSET Mungodelics (428 Points, 15 Votes)
28. IAMAMIWHOAMI Kin (430 Points, 13 Votes, 2 First Place Votes)
27. SAINT ETIENNE Words & Music By Saint Etienne (434 Points, 12 Votes, 4 First Place Votes)
26. HOT CHIP In Our Heads (457 Points, 14 Votes)
25. BEACH HOUSE Bloom (470 Points, 20 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
24. ACTRESS R.I.P (473 Points, 17 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
23. BURIAL Kindred EP (479 Points, 16 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
22. JULIA HOLTER Ekstasis (503 Points, 18 Votes, 1 First Place Vote)
21. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! (510 Points, 19 Votes)

Laid out all together that's looking like a very ILM list IMO.

blood sausage quotient: perilously high

wow really liking julia holter

Angel Haze and Le1f are the two main things from this last batch that I really want to check out.

You're in luck. Both are free downloads!

Angel Haze made my own top ten. Heard "Gypsy Letters" twice today.

You're in luck. Both are free downloads!

That's definitely what I need to hear as this cruellest of months stubbornly refuses to end.

wtf this month was awesome

haze is in my top 10 and i fully expect her to deliver with her major label debut, provided jason mraz or train don't show up on the tracklisting

wtf this month was awesome

not for my bank account it wasn't

yeah gybe!

I do not get that Farrah Abraham record at all.

she can only put so much in a song

otm

I would love to see Farrah here, but there's no way that's gone top twenty, no way.

Depending on the voters, it would be a surprise if Farrah was lower than the top 20 IMO. The people who were into that album were REALLY into it.

yeah, pretty sure if, like, silent servant or whatever can crack this list then an album as talked about and as loved as MTDE will be on here

personally i don't see what all the fuss is about

What's the origin of the ILM-centric "blood sausage" usage? Was there a ILM singalong of "Le Boudin" I wasn't privy to?

For the Belgians, there's none left,
They're lazy shirkers.

i was confused about that GY!BE showing up on 2011's noms but it turns out i was confusing it with Mogwai ^_^

One is boring music from Canada and the other is boring music from Scotland.

GY!BE has samples to vaguely indicate political engagement.

new GYBE is really good

Feel like if Lindstrom is not in with a chance I just don't know ILX anymore

― Gukbe

Lindstrom seems to always do extremely well in these lists. I hope Smallhans will be in the top ten, it's probably my second favourite album of his after Where You Go I Go Too. If he hadn't put out a second album this year, I'm sure Six Cups of Rebel would have placed a bit lower down.

I cooled on Smalhans quite quickly. It's decent in a functional kind of way but it doesn't have the charm or the tunes of WYGIGT for me.

I love Smallhans and voted for it, but I can't help but wonder if people would have preferred an album of the Terje edits. I think I would.

I realised only yesterday that Where You Go is absolutely perfect after I listened to it a long train journey. Smallhans isn't in that same league but I just really love how those songs just build in a really odd way like he's testing you if you can't take it or something. Not sure if that makes sense. Maybe I won't go back to it as much in time but right now it's everything I'd want from an album by him. Especially as there doesn't seem to be an actual full length Todd Terje album any time soon.

i'm a pretty big lindstrom fan and never really got in to smallhans.

i mean talabot is nice enough but it's basically like listening to dance music's version of coldplay

― monotony, Wednesday, January 30, 2013 5:08 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this statement *might* have a shred of credibility if you weren't stanning for burial

are there any Terje edits on 12"s apart from the ones on the Rough Trade bonus CD or should I just go ahead and buy the latter

this statement *might* have a shred of credibility if you weren't stanning for burial

― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 31 January 2013 12:46 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha yeah I was gonna say that the enforced-emotional-breakthroughs of Chris Martin's vocals make Burial a much better candidate for "the Coldplay of dance music" than Talabot.

haha yeah I was gonna say that the enforced-emotional-breakthroughs of Chris Martin's vocals make Burial a much better candidate for "the Coldplay of dance music" than Talabot.

so this coldplay thing was just a flippant reference made while bored at work on a thursday morning but i'm struggling to relate "enforced-emotional-breakthrough" vocals to burial

Only a few of the Talabot album tracks have vocals though.

b/c burial is all about enforced-emotional-breakthroughs, sometimes though not always/entirely through vocals - he's just much more "stare out the window and learn how to ~feel~ again" than Talabot or basically any other dance music since Kompakt's heyday (FWIW a large chunk of Kompakt stuff could also be described as "the Coldplay of dance music" IMO).

So pleased to see the iamamiwhoami album place (so high too!!) - avoided it for ages, partly due to a seemingly relentless pr campaign directed at my inbox, but mostly because of the name which is the most stupid name in the existence of Knifey electro pop. But I caved after seeing it brought up on ILM (yeah so I use you lot as a barometer of good taste a bit more than I'd like to admit. WFAI?) and it grabbed me in a very similar way to Chairlift. Really, how did it place that high though? Magic things are at work. 'Goods' was a latecomer to my tracks of the year. I love her nasally tones.

Beach House - I like this album more than the idea of this album, if that mAkes sense. They're by far the best of this kind of music, if this kind of music is a thing... Whoever said it's comfort music is OTM

That Actress album, I dunno... splaszh seemed like such an original record whereas this just sounds too normal or something. It's like with Splaszh I had to work hard to hear the influences whereas this wears it's influences on it's sleeve. It sounds like a post-rave IDM album but lighter, skippier, which might be why people dig it, but I like him when he's fucking with something at the centre of my brain. I like Actress when he's grotesque, but this turned out to be blandly pleasant instead.

y'all are really into your grayscale dance music this year

This made me lol

b/c burial is all about enforced-emotional-breakthroughs, sometimes though not always/entirely through vocals - he's just much more "stare out the window and learn how to ~feel~ again" than Talabot or basically any other dance music since Kompakt's heyday (FWIW a large chunk of Kompakt stuff could also be described as "the Coldplay of dance music" IMO).

okay but as you mention the force of burial's emotional charge isn't always carried through vox (the climactic finale to 'ashtray wasp' is due just as much to the gliding piano-ey sounds as the pitch-shifted vocals. similarly, coldplay aren't a band that relies solely on chris martin to create a kind of emotional catharsis. i dunno if they're a sit inside and stare at the window band too much anymore either. talabot, for his part, makes much more extroverted music than burial but it's still aiming to elicit emotion. for me, it doesn't really, outside of maybe the opening track and bits of "soon will be now".

maybe a better argument for this coldplay of dance is something like james blake

wh00ps forgot to enclose my parentheses

and of course it's "so* will be now" grrrr

So pleased to see the iamamiwhoami album place (so high too!!) - avoided it for ages, partly due to a seemingly relentless pr campaign directed at my inbox, but mostly because of the name which is the most stupid name in the existence of Knifey electro pop. But I caved after seeing it brought up on ILM (yeah so I use you lot as a barometer of good taste a bit more than I'd like to admit. WFAI?) and it grabbed me in a very similar way to Chairlift. Really, how did it place that high though? Magic things are at work. 'Goods' was a latecomer to my tracks of the year. I love her nasally tones.

― dog latin

Good post. I thought there were only like five of us who really like the album that much. I had given up on it placing and was delighted to see it that high. That and Niki & The Dove were the nicest surprises so far. Hoping that Dexys or Sebaatien Tellier might make a shock entry in the top ten later on... I realise this won't happen by the way.

FYI Purity Ring is fantastic live