ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

too many clunkers for a relatively short album**

Barwick was #125 on Acclaimed, #38 NME, #3 Drowned in Sound.

Fall Out Boy was #483 on Acclaimed, #12 Onion A.V. club, #18 Kerrang.

Jordan and others are welcome to the Acclaimed poll roundup here (Excel format) if they can't be arsed to check those other polls.

i did not know there was a fallout boy album this year

I liked the FOB album but not enough to put it on my ballot (although I've started to regret leaving it off my year-end top 50 entirely). Considering their past stunt casting, it's amazing how perfect the Elton John and Courtney Love cameos are.

i did find it quite funny that julianna barwick, julia holter and julia kent all made albums that i loved to listen to in a certain mood last year. expect holter to place, kent wasn't even nominated though

Did you hear the Colleen album from this year Lex? That has similarities with all those three, though it is a bit wispier and delicate than any of them.

http://i.imgur.com/RhMIpEa.jpg?1

75 MELT-BANANA Fetch (272 points, 10 votes)

Spotify

no - i've heard (and liked) colleen in the past though. sort of assumed i didn't need another colleen album AND those three...

xp

#7 Decibel, its only placing elsewhere.

Too low!

ugh

what i've heard from Melt Banana's latest album is a lot more poppy than their earlier stuff.

#7 Decibel, its only placing elsewhere.

― disposable soma (Sanpaku), Monday, January 27, 2014 5:03 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not true! It was #8 in the ILM Metal Poll.

Oh yeah this was pretty good.

"The Hive" was excellent

feel free to post (not embed) youtubes of select cuts, fans. no idea where to start with melt-banana here or in general

All these things are getting loads of votes already

here, lex: http://youtu.be/BcqC8LSoBws

Record number of voters this year xp

Another "didn't vote for it, glad to see it on here anyways" album. It was on my long list but got pushed off my ballot.

Melt-Banana record is great, I voted for it. I do miss the live drumming a bit compared to previous records.

hmm it's just noise to me. guess i can admire the...energy? i do not know when in my life i would have cause to play this.

Energy is usually the first and only thing I respond to in most genres.

melt-banana have never been my thing and i don't see this swaying me

fair points, definitely not for everybody

http://i.imgur.com/Uu4VbfP.jpg?1
74 BILL CALLAHAN Dream River (273 points, 9 votes)

no spotify on that one

i do not know when in my life i would have cause to play this.

yknow just hangin out in the living room, in for the evening

Yayyy I voted for this ambrosia'd joyride, h8az I condemn thee to be plugged into Agata's fx board for eternityyyyy

xposts to M-B obvs, J bein' understandably quickfire w/ somethin' so noisy and punkish

Haven't kept track of Bill Callahan in a decade - would be keen to hear a selected song off this one.

had Dream River top 5, this feels like a poor showing for it actually. unreal good record

Never made my P&J ballot but I played it consistently through the fall. "Summer Painter" is a new high imo.

Oof now THAT'S too low, amazing album.

"The only words I've said today are 'Beer' and 'Thank you'"

Still haven't heard the Bill Callahan album, but I'm sure I'd like it very much.

here's a song, hope these dont embed still

http://youtu.be/jXae9Am_bJM

I'm still not sure who Matt Kinsey is or where he came from but he's the MVP of "Dream River," such great lead guitar work across the entire album.

i love bill but i could never find my time with this one—not prickly enough for me right now

I didn't hear, as the kids say, any of these so far. Except maybe bill callahan, I either heard this one or the one before. He has a pleasant voice but I got bored iirc

Have no strong interest in hearing Dream River, but I'm pretty interested in the just released dub version, Having Fun with God.

I'll give this a try at some point but I saw Smog around ten years ago and it is definitely not for me. I prefer texture to songcraft in general.

The dub version is pretty ok but I don't know how much sense it'll make if you haven't heard the album. It's more a curiosity than a necessity.

Julianna Barwick album is basically a wash of pretty that is making almost zero impact on me at the moment; I don't mind when people use guitars and keyboards to do this type of thing but the voice is a very versatile instrument my initial impression is that it's kind of a wasted opportunity going on here and I'd really rather listen to Medulla or the Pentatonix album or even tUnE-yArDs (which I didn't really like all that much to begin with)

As noted, the earlier Julianna Barwick albums are vocals-only so you might want to go back and check those out.

judging from the track cider posted, this is very textural indeed. Quite amazing.

xxxpost

Julianna Barwick was my number 1, found it way more consistent than her previous. And beautiful throughout. I spent a lot of time with it in 2013. Didn't catch her live though.

Ooh, two of my votes placed already. Glad to see MB there, especially as they were the only people I vote my 'hearing it in 2014 is too late to vote for it' rule for. I think.

http://i.imgur.com/Vm3dWWF.jpg?1

73 LORDE Pure Heroine (276 points, 11 votes)

Spotify

why is that album cover so boring

you guys are killing me

the cover does evoke the experience of listening to the album

she's playing a small club in april in nyc that I'm working; looking forward to it.