ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

not in love with either of the two consensus grimes tracks, but adore the album - like oblivion and genesis just fine but aren't the best tracks by a wide margin.

personal favourites are Skin which is the one mostly comprehensible ballad and i have FEELINGS about it,

and Be a Body (侘寂) which was supposed to be a single and was going to have a video at some point but that never happened. anyway, this is the best 'dance'/upbeat number on visions

vowels is pretty great too.

― twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal), Thursday, January 24, 2013 9:57 PM (1 week ago)

the only good thing to come out of "sad beautiful tragic bore" is it made me realise even more how "last kiss" is the greatest thing in the universe

Grimes wasn't in my top 10 but happy w/it placing, meant a lot to many friends + will be a good time-capsule for 2012 re: general intersection of certain strands of fashion/art/music/~internets~.

the grimes album falls off something serious in the last 1/3 but it's still a pretty dope record

definitely a time capsule of 2012, for better or worse

"Infinite Love Without Fulfillment" is possibly the most annoying way to open an album I can think of

― Ima R.A.E.D. (DJP), Thursday, January 31, 2013 11:11 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

although, honestly, the earlier two grimes records are pretty ace too and anyone who loved this should double back? more collage-y especially the first one Geidi Primes but that has 'avi' and 'Rosa' which are two of my favourite tracks by her.

Halfaxa is good also, although i never fell in love with it. 'Heartbeat' off the European release of that got a killer Laurel Halo mix.

and if you haven't heard 'Vanessa' from that split 'Darkbloom' EP from 2011, you should get on that.

kinda wonder how much damage "infinite..." did with to first-time listeners

i think the next grimes record might well be amazing but this was pretty scattered

"Phone Sex" song she did with Blood Diamonds was near the top of my other ballot. Can not get into anything off this album.

i remember "vanessa" came up in the ilm knife-like thread - that was the first time i'd heard of grimes. was a bit baffled and disappointed by it at the time. album confirmed that she's just terrible.

I'm currently up to "Oblivion" and my overwhelming reaction is "I would like to go out and shake some children"

the only good thing to come out of "sad beautiful tragic bore" is it made me realise even more how "last kiss" is the greatest thing in the universe

― prolego, Thursday, January 31, 2013 2:14 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is so true.

I love Taylor's heartbreak waltzes, but 'Last Kiss' is the epitome of them? 6:08 of perfectly paced sadness without recrimination and without ever making me bored. culminating in that plan for a change in the weather and time / but i never planned on you changing your mind bit? /ugh/

and the whole 'not much for dancing part' and so many many many tiny remembered details. Sad Beautiful Tragic takes all the specificity out of it, and so I have nothing at stake in the song. so it just ends up being LONG.

ilx poster "etc" describing the Grimes moment as:

an uncanny convergence of artschool twinks and Tumblr pagans

so otm imo

It will be very interesting who she lines up (if any) to produce/mix the next album. The main flaw I hear in Visions is the thinness and clunky presets of the backing tracks.

Jesus Christ "Eight" is terrible

this entire album feels like an exercise in "let's make an album that DJP would love on paper, but arrange and record it in the most repellant, off-putting manner possible"

xp she's spoken on that before, she's going to keep producing her stuff

I've moved past shaking kids and now want to uppercut puppies

i mean? it's entirely possible she'll line up someone else to produce or mix the next album, but the thinning and presets seem to be to be part of the point of the project at this point? maybe not tho.

it's more polished up than early on, but on record that's always been her deal to varying extents (maybe less so on halfaxa?). live the tunes tend to BANG a lot more and maybe that's the direction she is going/wants to go, but it's just as likely to my ears that this was totally intentional.

i think she's good at production if this record is any indication

i love "last kiss", but i don't really consider it among speak now's best tracks - not compared to say "enchanted" or "back to december". my favourite bits of "sad beautiful tragic" are the acres of space around the central twanging guitar - it's basically taylor doing mazzy star - and the middle eight, the sudden soft rush of all those words falling out of the song. "kiss me / try to fix it / could you just / try to listen / hang up / give up / for the life of us we can't get back..."

feel like the "sad beautiful tragic" vs "last kiss" comparison exemplifies one way in which red is a progression on her past work: she really knows how to work the sonics, and sometimes concentrates on them above the actual words, in a way she never used to

https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/242774596212883457

This is the result of what she could do with an outside producer: http://youtu.be/FxmCvdY4NZQ

Dunno why she balks at the idea, because this song is awesome.

Frank Ocean vs Badu comparisons upthread are eye goggingly fucked up

what I've learned today is that I think an electro version of Sleigh Bells is one of the worst things in the world

she hits a great high note on "Circumambient", to say something positive; kind of a shame about everything else

I'm glad for the rise of the EP again, the 'album' has always felt like a cludgy format to me

― 乒乓, Thursday, January 31, 2013 7:32 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah there's only like tens of thousands of great albums, p dud format in retrospect

frank ocean got robbed, really surprised it didn't place higher. i came around to that album late but in a big way

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

04. DAWN RICHARD Armor On (1174 Points, 31 Votes, 3 First Place Votes) Spotify

now this rules

4 is very pleasingly high. my number one vote. the album she's just released is very likely to be my number one of 2013, too.

Thought I really loved this for about 2 weeks but got bored with it really fast. The new one bored me even quicker.

listening to that Grimes album felt like an incontinent chihuahua yapping around my ankles and playing Dawn's EP is like pulling back a foot and punting the annoying thing through a goalpost, so satisfying

lol

the "heaven" => "faith" => "scripture" section is hands down the finest bit of sequencing anywhere last year

I like the Grimes album well enough, but I don't think there's anything offensive in saying that it could benefit from better production.

i liked armor on when i listened to it, the new R&B dragons full length one didn't do it for me, so maybe dayo is right about albums!

I don't think there's anything offensive in saying that it could benefit from better production. ideas.

oh i look to him in reverence
oh i'm kneeling at his presence

<3

Like Dawn, not a fan of Grimes. Or at least I don't see the reason it should place so high at all.

This album ruled. My #7

armor on really rewards more and more with every listen

i like the production on visions a lot but i get why a typical ilxor would have problems with it. not sure ideas are really something i get a whole out of in music, but there definitely weren't any albums i heard this year with more dope hooks

I keep trying to get into this Dawn Richard record. Like, I think I get why you guys like it, but it isn't clicking for me. I don't find myself wanting to listen to it at all.

I'm watching Grimes' interview with Nardwuar on youtube and her lisp is adorable. Still think Visions is a mess, though.

05. GRIMES Visions (1057 Points, 33 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

¯(°_o)/¯

― Johnny Fever, Thursday, January 31, 2013 7:08 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, that just about sums up my feeling towards it too! :D

crucial to the Grimes myth:

http://pitchfork.com/news/45488-the-tale-of-grimes-insane-2009-houseboat-adventure-the-best-thing-youll-read-all-day/

I mean, there were quite a few electro/synth albums released last year... I couldn't for the life of me figure out why more folks were banging on about the Grimes record above some of the others.

at the end of the day i think dawn is a bit out there for me

you certainly can't doze off to dawn

hmmm, i'm not sure if that's true