ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Like the remixes I've heard more than the album.

I like 'vibes' FWIW

the other thing about Frank Ocean discourse that annoys me is that I don't think it is a nu-Marvin Gaye album; I think it's a nu-Maxwell album

re jessie i should've said that all the great songs were released as singles BEFORE the album

You're not meant to do anything to a symphony.

frank is not exactly on that level though - like if there was more going on, maybe i could understand & get with the idea of letting this album wash over you and sinking into it...but it's just not that kind of album. it's music to zone out to, not zone into. like, doing nothing with your brain as well as body.

i guess i like to zone out tho

which is why i often start the miguel album at "do you..."

I don't really think of the Ocean album as R&B.

xxxpost

kind of feel there's been an epidemic of zoning out (often zoning out to the internet, though prob not in frank's case). it's fucking boring, people who base their aesthetic on it are fucking boring, be off with you all.

it's a Jackson Browne record

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/San_Andreas_Fault_Aerial_View.gif/170px-San_Andreas_Fault_Aerial_View.gif

i'd take Late for the Sky over Channel Orange 365 days of the year

the other thing about 'devotion' -- and i think i'm in the minority here -- is that i think it goes too heavy on the bombast. songs like "no to love" and "night life" and "taking in water" are just way... louder than i want her to be most of the time. my favorite joints on there besides the singles are "devotion" and "something inside"... i wish she would've gone for more tracks like that (or "sweet talk"). but then again the one thing that really got me tripping off her was "110%"

I dunno it obviously means a lot to a lot of people who must be getting something out of it, and there's nothing to dislike even if I don't find much to enjoy either. I am basically cool with people loving Frank and genuinely happy that he is a Big Pop Thing.

to be fair "Super Rich Kids" is awesome and it's the track I still play.

xp Can't it be both? Maxwell is not entirely dissimilar to Marvin Gaye

I like the fact you can zone out in places but songs like Pyramids or Bad Religion aren't exactly hanging around in the background trying not to be noticed.

I'm the opposite to Jordan, I think Jessie does bombast way better than she does intimacy.

I like this distinction between zoning out and zoning in. It's kind of important. You can have ambient/spacey/trippy music that engages you and then there's stuff that just drones on in the background doing nothing but fill up silence.

doesn't zoning in just mean concentrating? I don't think channel orange is a zone out album, but agree w/ J0rdan that it is dreamlike

Jessie Ware is the Coldplay of Alt-R&B.

j/k

bombast and bigness are jessie's THING though - this is why the sade comparisons were so off-base, sade used her subtle drift to disguise the depth of her emotions but jessie uses her overt power to inject even the most relatively mundane scenario with HUGE feeling

"110%" is the exception that proves the rule - it's a bit of a stylistic exercise rather than anything representative of her, though she does pull it off

I'm the opposite to Jordan, I think Jessie does bombast way better than she does intimacy.

OTM. And she doesn't sound like Sade to me – I never got that comparison. She reminds me of Shara Nelson, some kind of post-Shirley Bassey belter.

Lex what do you do to Sandwell District or Voices From The Lake or other hangover techno if not zoning out?

the thing is that i'm with lex when it comes to ~vibes~ music or whatever because it can definitely be used as a crutch for not doing anything interesting... but there's also a way to incorporate the idea of ~vibes~ into your music as a way to strengthen your songwriting or the cohesion of the album. maxwell is actually the perfect example imo, but then again 'embrya' was a pretty divisive album.

shara nelson is pretty spot-on, as well as the more obvious annie lennox one she keeps talking about

http://i.imgur.com/CehGlx1.png

If a song and performance are powerful, it gives off "vibes" already, no?

if i'm not unconscious by the end of your record then it was a failure

Lex what do you do to Sandwell District or Voices From The Lake or other hangover techno if not zoning out?

VFTL is very much zoning in, albeit vacantly

maxwell could write a fucking song and also sing it incredibly

well so can frank

Yeah, VFTL is relaxing, but still engaging on some level. It doesn't go by without you noticing it. Not saying it's not the same with Frank, but there are times when I put an album on and 50 minutes later I wonder if I was even listening to anything at all. That's zoning out.

to me it's ephemeral stuff with frank... the songs and all that shit are right at the forefront when you want them to be. but there's stuff like him weaving snippets of radio frequency into the album or the final minute of "sierra lone" or the beat to "pilot jones" that are a bit floating in and out of consciousness.

but then again i've spent a fair portion of my life dozing in and out of sleep in sunlight filtered through windows.

lol

http://i.imgur.com/cNK1Eg1.png

07. CHROMATICS Kill For Love (882 Points, 26 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

i think 'channel orange' compares really favorably to badu's albums, personally

bombast and bigness are jessie's THING though - this is why the sade comparisons were so off-base

the one thing that some of that jessie ware album reminded me of (esp. night light) was 'say i'm your number one' by princess cos that has that same bombast thing. i'm sure there are far better points of comparison than that though

appropriate placement for frank ocean

i think 'channel orange' compares really favorably to badu's albums, personally

TROLLING

like i like to "zone out" to "green eyes" or "gone baby, don't be long" or w/e, idk. it's a very comforting, loving feeling to me... just letting music totally taking you over in that fashion, literally just doing nothing but thinking & listening. that's a really powerful connection imo & it doesn't have a negative connotation to me.

xp All the Farrah Abraham commentary here is A+

I haven't heard that Chromatics album but I'm sure Channel Orange is better.

Chromatics is the first thing I voted for to show up in a long time...some great songs, also relevant to the "zoning out" discussion with all the long instrumentals that don't go anywhere. I guess I'm a bit of a zoner.

xp Jordan otm. And I like Channel Orange for many of the same reasons as New Amerykah Pt 1 but it has stronger songwriting imo. [sits back and waits for Lex's wrath]

I zoned out every time I tried to play Chromatics, and not in a good way.

the chromatics are cool for like 2 or 3 songs max and that album has like 20 joints or something, i have no idea how someone could listen to that entire thing all the way through

something like "gone baby, don't be long" is so enrapturing

the claim that frank isn't a good songwriter or singer is absurd to me, unless r&b has much much higher standards of quality than any other genre (it doesn't)

srsly

it shda been an EP

xp

you have to reach a higher level of zoning xxxxxp

Is this Chromatics album really that good?

Chromatics? Really? I never got into em.