Year-End Critics' Polls 2013

As usual I haven't heard half the list but the John Grant album is great.

Midlake backed him in 2010, monotony, but this tour has an Icelandic band.

always think that the rough trade list is going to be a lot more leftfield that it actually is, but this is based solely on me going there 20 years ago to buy borbetomagus albums

Jesus Christ why do people like Haim? I think I might kill myself during the EoY polls if this is consensus. FFS.

no self-haiming on my watch plz

Yeah the John Grant album is sort of flawed but also brilliant with it. Rough Trade's dance picks are almost comically indie-centric there though. Caitlin Rose is great as well.

I always assume the Rough Trade list is shaped by ahem commercial imperatives considering how early it comes out each year, but looking at it it could be genuinely representative of people who work at Rough Trade as well.

rough trade epitomises corporate indie though right? it's a shop.

i really wanted to like the john grant album given how much i loved his previous but despite trying very hard i never got over the clunkiness of the added electronics and ended up not going back to it ever.

god i almost want every other outlet to hurry up with their lists so we can discuss something other than this thuddingly safe & dull thing

i really can't get over choosing JON HOPKINS and MODERAT as your token electronic picks, i don't even hate either but it sums it up right there

I don't think commercial imperatives come into play but there are certain albums that the staff love and have pushed hard to customers this year, which explains the kind of low-key indie records that I haven't even heard of. That's not a "corporate" list in the top 15, although it suddenly becomes one when you get to the very dull London Grammar album and a handful of alt-rock heavyweights who aren't at their best.

I like the Jon Hopkins album OK but I share Lex's bemusement that it's become the consensus electronic pick when it's very similar to five-year-old Holden and Nathan Fake albums.

I think it's only really clunky on two tracks (and everyone seems united on what those are) but its high points are very high indeed. There's enough good stuff on this list that I'm at least vaguely interested in checking out the albums I don't know, despite how boring the Savages/QOTSA/Daughter records are.

Guys you forgot the Daniel Avery album, which has a couple of good tracks but mostly sounds like a 12 year old with no rhythmic sense producing My First Acid House Record.

london grammar definitely seem like this year's "guys the industry is really pushing this one" favourite repped only by our most PR arse-kissing colleagues

the funny thing about hopkins getting so much praise is that holden himself has actually released a genuinely brilliant album this year that does not sound like he did in 2005-07!

london grammar did top the album charts tho. am curious to learn how exactly but not enough to actually find out

rt list is obv a conflation of narrowing record pool and, like many ilx posters, narrowing taste as age takes its toll on the staff's mental faculties. never was much cop tbf but an increasingly pathetic sight all the same

My music teacher sister-in-law is very much into london grammar, probably about the only new thing she's bought all year?

Daniel Avery's not as bad as Matt makes out, but it is a bit weird picking that one above e.g. Factory Floor

yeah i feel like i missed where lg's in was this year - had assumed like an advert spot or some such but then the xx didnt have one either iirc

for something that gets characterised as unthinking the coffee table pull is deceptively puissant among the masses really

I've listened to it all the way through, it's not terrible but it's kind of dull and the vocalist has some dreadful stage school mannerisms. It's sort of splitting the difference between Jessie Ware (complete with appearance on the Disclosure album) and I dunno Anna Calvi or Florence's quieter moments or something. It's hit directly in the middle of a venn diagram so I'm not surprised it's doing well. I would say Dido but that's too loaded in this day and age.

I've heard maybe 5 albums on this list, only MBV is awesome, the others didn't make my own top 25.

Splice Today will have our own list once again, sometime in mid-December

feel like our american chums are missing out if we don't share a london grammar photo:

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/624x351/p01gb9nv.jpg

I went back and forth on voting for VW but won't/haven't in a top ten way (though it made my top 25 for MAGNET). It's a good album, a really good album, but not stellar on the level of what a bunch if other people got up to this year

This year I'm totally using the Wire list as a buying guide

I keep telling people I like London grammar because I keep thinking that London grammar are clean bandit

Sister Ray Staff end of year staff chart:
SAVAGES – SILENCE YOURSELF
NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS – PUSH THE SKY AWAY
HOOKWORMS – PEARL MYSTIC
ARCTIC MONKEYS – AM
ONEOHTRIX POISANT NEVER – R PLUS SEVEN
MOGWAI – LES REVENANTS
DANIEL AVERY – DRONE LOGIC
WIRE – CHANGE BECOMES US
FUZZ – FUZZ
TIM HECKER – VIRGINS
JOHNNY MARR – THE MESSENGER
FUCK BUTTONS – SLOW FOCUS
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA – II
SPECIAL REQUEST – SOUL MUSIC
SALVIA PLATH – BARDO STORY
POND – HOBO ROCKET
TY SEGALL – SLEEPER
LAUREL HALO – CHANCE OF RAIN
KURT VILE – WAKIN' ON A PRETTY DAZE
JON HOPKINS – IMMUNITY

xp that is an unfortunate blunder. but on the plus side it does kinda correctly exalt the latter in a way - like if awkward wite well-meaning uni poshos are going to get together and make music then why are only clean bandit bright and honest and capricious enough to sound like clean bandit?

strangely disappointed that london grammar arent the naff uk raphop group i'd instinctively assumed they'd be

― r|t|c, Tuesday, 30 April 2013 16:34 (6 months ago) Bookmark

this is still the sad case fwiw btw

they're not even from london iirc

wiki says nottingham, must be heady days there w/ those guys and jake bugg

if there's one thing i know from my record buying days it's that everyone associated with sister ray is a complete anus, fuck their opinions imo

wiki says nottingham, must be heady days there w/ those guys and jake bugg

― but my heart is full of woah (NickB), Tuesday, November 19, 2013 12:41 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

So fucking glad I left. Though I fear maybe it was the lack of my musical discipline that led them to this sorry state.

:)

does make me wonder why you're saving your last grenade for haim when you've got these folks living next door to your mum

Maybe because I now can't say 'home' in a Scottish accent without inadvertently referencing a shitty band. THIS CANNOT STAND.

feel like our american chums are missing out if we don't share a london grammar photo:

That hair is 'shopped, right

yeah you're just jealous

Revolver Magazine - Best Albums of 2013

1. Black Sabbath – 13
2. Deafheaven – Sunbather
3. Avenged Sevenfold – Hail to the King
4. Kvelertak – Meir
5. Nails – Abandon All Life
6. Carcass – Surgical Steel
7. Ghost – Infestissumam
8. Windhand – Soma
9. Alice in Chains – The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
10. Queens of the Stone Age – …Like Clockwork
11. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One of Us Is the Killer
12. Volbeat – Outlaw Gentlemen and Shady Ladies
13. Korn – The Paradigm Shift
14. Stone Sour – House of Gold and Bones pt. 2
15. Five Finger Death Punch – The Wrong Side of Heaven…
16. ASG – Blood Drive
17. Watain – The Wild Hunt
18. A Pale Horse Named Death – Lay My Soul to Waste
19. Rob Zombie – Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor
20. Gorguts – Colored Sand

huh

UltimateClassicRock.com - Best Albums of 2013
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-rock-albums-of-2013/

1. David Bowie - The Next Day
2. Bob Dylan - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971)
3. Paul McCartney - New
4. Elvis Costello and the Roots - Wise Up Ghost
5. Elton John - The Diving Board
6. Gov't Mule - Shout!
7. Motorhead - Aftershock
8. Jimi Hendrix - People, Hell & Angels
9. Various Artists - Sound City: Real to Reel
10. John Fogerty - Wrote a Song for Everyone

good stuff

TheBoot.com - Best Albums of 2013
http://theboot.com/best-albums-of-2013/

01 Keith Urban 'Fuse'
02 Kacey Musgraves 'Same Trailer Different Park'
03 Luke Bryan 'Crash My Party'
04 Brad Paisley 'Wheelhouse'
05 Ashley Monroe 'Like a Rose'
06 Patty Griffin 'Silver Bell'
07 Kenny Rogers 'You Can't Make Old Friends'
08 Sheryl Crow 'Feels Like Home'
09 Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell 'Old Yellow Moon'
10 Joe Nichols 'Crickets'

god i almost want every other outlet to hurry up with their lists so we can discuss something other than this thuddingly safe & dull thing

― lex pretend,

40. Batillus- Concrete Stain
Dark Tranquility - Construct
Corrections House - Last City Zero
Watain - The Wild Hunt
Aevangelist - Omen Ex Simulacra
Noctum - Final Sacrifice
Skeletonwitch - Serpents Unleashed
Cathedral - The Last Spire
Coliseum - Sister Faith
Portal - Vexovoid
Iron Reagan - Worse Than Dead
Craven Idol - Towards Eschaton
Anciients - Heart Of Oak
Ulcerate - Vermis
Oranssi Pazuzu - Valonielu
Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats - Mind Control
Exhumed -Necrocracy
Immolation - Kigdom of Conspiracy
Kylesa - Ultraviolet
Antigama - Meteor
The Ruins of Beverast - Blood Vaults: The Blazing Gospel of Heinrich Kramer
Ihsahn - Das Seelenbrechen
Lycus- Tempest
Purson - The Circle and the Blue Door
Secrets of the Sky - To Sail Black Waters
Autopsy - The Headless Ritual
Inter Arma - Sky Burial
Nails - Abandon AllLife
Toxic Holocaust - Chemistry Of Consciousness
Deafheaven - Sunbather
10. Tribulation - The Formulas of Death
9. Noisem - Agonies Defined
8. Darkthrone - The Underground Resistance
7. Melt-Banana - Fetch
6. Cult of Luna - Vertikal
5. Inquisition - Obscure Verses for the Multiverse
4. SubRosa - More Constant Than the Gods
3. Gorguts - Colored Sands
2. In Solitude - Sister
1. Carcass - Surgical Steel

^ Decibel Magazine end of year

Renowned For Sound - Best Albums of 2013
http://renownedforsound.com/index.php/best-albums-of-2013/

A Day to Remember - Common Courtesy
Alison Moyet - the minutes
AlunaGeorge - Body Music
Amos Lee - Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song
Arcade Fire - Reflektor
Arctic Monkeys - AM
Charli XCX - True Romance
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
David Bowie - The Next Day
Dido - Girl Who Got Away
Ellie Goulding - Halycon Days
Eminem - Marshall Mathers LP 2
Fall Out Boy - Save Rock and Roll
Forest Fire - Screens
Franz Ferdinand - Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action
Goldfrapp - Tales of Us
Haim - Days are Gone
Icona Pop - This is Icona Pop
Jimmy Eat World - Damage
John Newman - Tribute
Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience Part 2
Kanye West - Yeezus
Katy Perry - Prism
Lady Antebellum - Golden
Lady Gaga - ARTPOP
Laura Marling - Once I Was An Eagle
Lisa Loeb - No Fairy Tale
Little Scout - Are You Life
Lorde - Pure Heroine
Luscious Jackson - Magic Hour
Miley Cyrus - Bangerz
Moby - Innocents
Moderat - II
Neko Case - The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You
Newton Faulkner - Studio Zoo
Paul McCartney - New
Paula Cole - Raven
Phoenix - Bankrupt
Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork
Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines
Shane Filan - You and Me
St Lucia - When the Night
Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob
Texas - The Conversation
The Fratellis - We Need Medicine
Tina Arena - Reset
Tonight Alive - The Other Side
TRAAMS - Grin
Turin Brakes - We Were Here
VV Brown - Samson & Delilah

Dido ahoy!

what the fuck is reknowned for sound

if you're going to post parody lists at least use semiplausible publication names

Best of Rock
(Read the reviews)

NOTE: I haven't even started listening to 2013 albums. I'm still reviewing 2012. So the list below is wildly incomplete.

8/10
7.5/10
1 Haxan Cloak: Excavation (Tri Angle)
7/10

EPs and minis:

1 Pharmakon: Abandon (Sacred Bones), 7.5/10 (EP)

http://www.scaruffi.com/ratings/2013.html

You'd be really embarrassed not to get your album on that Renowned In Sound list. It's about as indiscriminate as humanly possible.

texas, paula cole and luscious jackson albums all life-changing antidotes to this year of morose 80s revivals

For some reason I thought Tina Arena was actually dead. Who am I thinking of?

UltimateClassicRock.com - Best Albums of 2013
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-rock-albums-of-2013/

― but my heart is full of woah (NickB), Tuesday, 19 November 2013 14:56 (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites, with a few welcome returns and at least one totally surprising comeback that nobody knew was coming. We also got another posthumous Jimi Hendrix album — but at least it’s a good one. From metal marathoners to cozy piano ballads, here are the Top Rock Albums of 2013.

This really is a collection of particularly uninteresting records and Haim

and caitlin rose!

decibel top three otm

As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites As far as classic-rock albums go, 2013 was all about familiar sounds by old favorites

in a complete turnaround from the classic rock albums of 2012

kudos

Haha

http://www.soulexpress.net/deep1_2014.htm

TOP-10 in 2013 *

(Full-length, new official releases)

1. Otis Clay: Truth Is
2. Latimore: Remembers Ray Charles
3. Johnny Rawls: Remembering O.V.
4. Jeffrey Osborne: A Time For Love
5. Charles Bradley: Victim Of Love
6. Vel Omarr: Cookin’ With Vel Omarr
7. Wendell B: Get To Kno’ Me
8. Will Downing: Silver
9. The Mighty Clouds Of Joy: All That I Am, Chapter 1
10. Lola: Cleaning House
© Heikki Suosalo

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/the-results/Content?oid=4034364

Christgau weighs in

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-Consensus-Has-Consequences/ba-p/12189 his essay

http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Rock-Roll/The-2013-Dean-s-List/ba-p/12191

85 albums with the following top 10 ones

1. Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City (XL)
2. The Uncluded: Hokey Fright (Rhymesayers)
3. The Julie Ruin: Run Fast (TJR)
4. Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel: Hey Hey It's...the Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel Band (self-released)
5. Live from Festival au Desert Timbuktu (Clermont Music)
6. Lady Gaga: Artpop (Streamline/Interscope)
7. Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP 2 (Deluxe Edition) (Aftermath)
8. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba: Jama Ko (Out Here)
9. Gogol Bordello: Pura Vida Conspiracy (ATO)
10. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual (Mute

Complained on xhuxk's wall that both the absence of a singles list and the squishy "It takes all kinds. And we're healthier as a culture when we agree on a bunch of them."

Boy does xgau love Gogol Bordello

Has there ever been a Peter Stampfel project he hasn't liked?

It felt that way to me but I see he says:

the 75-year-old Stampfel's best record since the even more cooperative Have Moicy! 38 years ago,

He expresses his unhappiness that Maura and others don't like the Lady Gaga as much as he does

No interest in ILM's in house poll? I find that puzzling.

I'm feeling guilty I didn't find the time to vote. But I did start looking at it and I saw this below which means I need to check out your ballot:

Rudipherous's ballot is awesome in both spirit and content

I'm so glad ppl voted for the selma oxor & neneh cherry tracks I nommed & then negged, I was feeling guilty

― chekhprivan (wins), Friday, January 24, 2014 1:40 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't even see that.

Oh I see it picked up a lot of posts since I looked at it before going to bed last night.

Well, I will have to see if Christgau fave African albums also have shown up on the ILM in-house poll

Albums haven't been rolled out yet.

Spotify playlist for the track winners (with some missing) here:

https://play.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/6aanFh0UkiNJlrvg3kZgmI

(If that doesn't open for your properly, try put it into the search box in Spotify.)

Or youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRHeAwiD-CsRG-9rOfi3PLC9Rcw2R06lC

There definitely are some good tunes missing from Spotify, notably Lulu James's "Closer."

Boy does xgau love Gogol Bordello

And Kimya Dawson. The Uncluded is her with a rapper I had never heard before named Aesop Rock. As a Dean acolyte I bought it. Love the stuff with Kimya but that guy's voice is not my cup of musical tea.

i would like to see a slatepitch about the lack of audience overlap between kimya dawson and aesop rock, because i can believe that i would be going to never believe how much there was

man kimya dawson plus aesop rock is some heavy 2001 shit

http://fuckyouhipsters.blogspot.fr/2014/01/fuck-you-hipsters-podsumowuja-dobre.html

Pretty good list of best polish records. Stara Rzeka is present obviosuly, along with his two other projects: T'ien Lai (http://tienlai.bandcamp.com/) and Alameda 3 (http://alamedacountydeathcult.bandcamp.com/).

Blurbs are in polish but you can find most of these on bandcamp/soundcloud/spotify easily. Some of them:
https://soundcloud.com/kirkkirk/sets/z-a-krew - kIRk 'Zla krew' (winner)
http://open.spotify.com/album/3ozjrP9lQG5MUBYn9QphFQ - Super Girl & Romantic Boys (number 2, super kitschy 80s electro)
http://open.spotify.com/album/4N3qM5HIHD8aqL3r44qd4R - Kixnare (number 3, electronic/instrumental hip-hop, "Gucci Dough" is the obvious hit song but all of it is worth a listen)
http://kaseciarz.bandcamp.com/ - Kaseciarz, "low budget rock and roll"
https://lxmp.bandcamp.com/ - LXMP, take on "Future Shock" by two of the best polish musicians, commisioned for the Unsound Festival.
http://open.spotify.com/album/4w6BLeGIfTvuc2XepFXUaI - RSS B0ys (great, dark techno)

Awesome. Thanks for posting that!