ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

i listened to a couple of cuts off the Gorguts album and that told me all i need to know about every one of these records

it's a little odd to see that onyeabor comp mixed in with all this new stuff.

Been meaning to check that out for a while. I'll do it now!

waxahatchee sounds a little like a toothless liz phair

I kinda agree with the Liz Phair part, not sure where the "toothless" is coming from though. I guess it depends on which parts of "Exile" you liked best. If you preferred the sarcastic smackdowns of hapless ex-es and wannabe scenesters, then I guess Waxahatchee might not be for you. But if you preferred the emotionally vulnerable dissections of failing relationships and breakups and such, you might like it.

Also, btw, I don't get all the people who say they would've voted for Parquet Courts but they considered it to be 2012. I could understand that if you voted for it in 2012, but I went back and checked the results spreadsheet and there was exactly one vote for "Light Up Gold" in 2012. One. So a lot of you are fronting, I think.

fronting? on ILM?

good thing we got o. nate to call it out

that most of those albums do not grab me has probably more to do with me than with the music. for quite a while i have had the feeling of being flooded with music. i am more into silence than music these days. just don't listen to my ramblings...

xp i preferred the sarcastic songs off exile, definitely.

Truly, truly, I tell you that one of you will betray Parquet Courts

loool

59 JOHN GRANT Pale Green Ghosts - CAD otm about this guy and Xiu Xiu, but in a deeper, id way. This guy is totally great but not my jam.

id is a v. good descriptor of what i mean here.

also bad drumming seems like an odd thing to call out re: parquet courts--drummer is v. snappy and economical imo!

Yeah, Parquet Courts can be faulted on many things, but I don't think the drummer is one. Much better than your average "slacker" band, that's for sure.

Retracted, then. I typed that with their Kimmel performance in mind but listening again yeah, drums are fine, omg at this "guitar solo" though

I could type for hours about my distaste for "busted living" and the romanticization of drug use + hunger + New York, throw out your copies of "Just Kids", people

kind of loving this William Onyerbike album right now. Very very groovy.

romanticization of drug use + hunger + New York

Its a funny kind of romanticization if that's what it is. They actually make being stoned & hungry sound kind of boring and pointless, or maybe I'm projecting. They seem pretty down to earth to me.

This last fact is a kind of icing on the cake for some, who have greeted O’Connor not just as the latest new pop star to appear freshly baked off the assembly line but as a kind of Trojan horse come to deliver us from the saccharine smiles and full-frontal sexual provocation clogging the charts. Lorde’s sharp narrative observations – on both the single, and her critically acclaimed follow-up album, Pure Heroine – have led to her being labelled the voice of her generation, and mentioned in the same breath as everyone from Joan of Arc to the heroic Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai.

just the other day I was talking to friends about Joan of Arc and suddenly we all couldn't shut up about burning Lorde at the stake

looool

What sort of person would compare a 15 year old girl writing a hit song to a young girl shot because she wanted to go to school?

A horrible, horrible person.

pedestals are embarrassing for everyone

http://www.teenvogue.com/my-life/2013-12/girl-year-in-review

#5 on teen vogue's top seven list of ways 2013 was a "Uniquely Awesome Year for Girls" (Just in case you were wondering who run the world):
A hilarious tampon ad goes viral.

juuuust edged out wendy davis

ew

dope. liking today's winners lots more than yesterday's.

i've set myself a helluva listening assignment, some artists are gonna have to get some short shrift

really the overall quality is high again tho

this William Onyeabor is great

Glad to see Yamantaka made it.

guys i'm really disappointed in you that your 48th favorite album of the year isn't a bold, risk-taking invention of a new genre, a new way of thinking about music

it sez 'top' right in the thread title, has the word lost all meaning

a child would kick a ball on the street

a guitar band would have guitars in it

My gripping summary of the day's events:

Voted for Donato Dozzy, Matmos
Happy to see Young Galaxy, William Onyeabor, Yamantaka//Sonic Titan, Laurel Halo, Jon Hopkins, Maya Jane Coles
Keen to give a proper listen to John Grant, DJ Sprinkles, Waxahatchee, Quadron

60 DONATO DOZZY Plays Bee Mask - voted for this, rad record
59 JOHN GRANT Pale Green Ghosts - havent heard
58 RHYE Woman - had never herd of rhye until these polls, no interest
57 YOUNG GALAXY Ultramarine - havent heard, but theyre nice people so im glad ilm is feelin this
56 KA The Night's Gambit - nah
55 DJ SPRINKLES Queerifications and Ruins: Collected Remixes by DJ Sprinkles - this collection meant a lot to me, played it everywhere, closing out a set with 'low point on high ground' one of the absolute best moments of 2013 for me. didnt vote for it because i thought it was 'ineligible', same reason i didnt vote for the 'i am the center' box even though both are amongst the best things i heard all year
54 NEKO CASE The Worse Things Get - 'fox confessor' is one of my bf's fave records so i bought this for him but it didnt get that much play
53 CARCASS Surgical Steel - havent heard
52 SAVAGES Silence Yourself - have heard this band a few times at parties and stuff, tried not to pay attn
51 ASHLEY MONROE Like a Rose - no idea what this is
50 WAXAHATCHEE Cerulean Salt - this is ok
49 WILLIAM ONYEABOR Who is William Onyeabor? - i cant shake feeling like some bourgeois failure in an acidic didion essay anytime i put this on but its still pretty great
48 YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN UZU - stoked on this
47 LAUREL HALO Chance of Rain - i like ms. halo but only gave this a cursory listen
46 QUADRON Avalanche - havent heard although i have a tentative bet with myself over with this is british or not
45 ARCADE FIRE Reflektor - so lame its probably almost cool again, maybe in like 3 years
44 MATMOS The Marriage of True Minds - another nice person in the limited interactions weve had, did not listen to this tho
43 JON HOPKINS Immunity - hadnt even heard of this
42 MAYA JANE COLES Comfort - havent heard
42 FUCK BUTTONS Slow Focus - genuinely pained by this garbage, no interest

correctly guessing where Quadron are from with no foreknowledge would be impressive

lamp lost his bet with himself i guess though

most detailed lamp list of all time

i cant shake feeling like some bourgeois failure in an acidic didion essay anytime i put this on but its still pretty great

lol otm

Voted Donato Dozzy, DJ Sprinkles, Young Galaxy, and John Grant. Surprised John Grant is so low. Good to see William Onyeabor too. Currently listening to Maya Jane Coles on Spotify which I never got round to listening before, think it's gonna get a lot more plays.

love this donato dozzy. voted for onyeabor he's so cool.

didnt vote for it because i thought it was 'ineligible', same reason i didnt vote for the 'i am the center' box even though both are amongst the best things i heard all year

I have seen this sentiment reiterated numerous times through these rollouts, wtf with people that seriously have problems voting for a collection of things that would have been insanely expensive or impossible to buy before the reissue, seriously do not get this at all. year of impact, right?

I mean, it seems like Lamp was just confused about the rules but I am genuinely baffled by this hard line "no reissues" policy, esp when some (many) of these aren't really "reissues" in any strict sense.

maybe I just buy/listen to a lot of reissues, I dunno.

wait, was that album a "reissue" or a mishmash "compilation"? i'm pretty sure it's the latter. not sure if that's what lamp thought disqualified it, but i can see the reasoning.

its a comp

it was a compilation - w/, to my ears, a much crisper, cleaned up sound from the previously available recordings (nb i don't know what, if anything, they did when they put it together)

I predict a Patrick Cowley top 20 finish this year, controversy ahoy!

just wait til the year compilations are released by
Annie
Junior Boys
B&S
New Order
Hot Chip

how undiplomatic! iirc previously unavailable reissued albums frequently place on the ilm metal album sister poll

Onyeabor comp is definitely eligible. I decided that one of my personal guidelines was to focus on albums that are "of the present", just like some people decide not to mix album and tracks artists, or decide to have just one track per artist, or w/e makes sense to them.