ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

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22 BRANDY CLARK 12 Stories (617 points, 18 votes, 1 first place vote)

Spotify

Disagree with almost all of you re: Julia Holter - I think Holter is moving further and further away from what I liked about her in the first place. I perfectly understand if you don't dig 'detachment' in vocals, but detachment often speaks to me a lot more than 'passionate' style vocals. HOWEVER, this is still really good, and in fact has grown on me quite a lot.

Ok this Holden song "The Caterpillar's Invention" is so great! It sounds like caterpillars marching/preparing for war against the grasshoppers or something. I like it a lot. Loooove when the horns come in!!

ariana grande beating fantasia is sadface
amel beating ariana is happyface

― PSY talks The Nut Job (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, 29 January 2014 19:40 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Anything you love coming in the Top 40 (Top 77, even) should be cause for happyface imo

this album is ranked where it should be

I feel like Julia Holter's music is becoming less strange but no less singular.

xxp thought you meant anything forks loves for a second there

brandy clark this high up is a great thing; everyone should give it a listen

this album is ranked where it should be

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 29, 2014 1:44 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

agreed

For me this Julia Holter is my least favourite of her albums (Ekstasis > Tragedy > LCS imo) - still great obv and I voted for it.

i find it interesting that i mesh with the ilx album hivemind far more than i do the ilx singles hivemind
this is some old person shit isn't it

xxp thought you meant anything forks loves for a second there

lol, sorry forks

only old people listen to albums

Huh. The Tim Hecker record placed. I haven't checked it out at all, but I'm always fascinated with albums that are named after their target audience.

zing!

wow, you wait months to FP somebody and then two come along in the same evening

ya good one :/

oh crap im a virgin!

I think I maybe like Loud City Song as much as Ekstasis, mainly because the best song on the latter is also on Tragedy (which is far and away my favourite).

insane

now I wish I'd never listened to Tim Hecker :(

BRANDY CLARK!

my #3 in the end - bumped it ahead of kacey at the last min. just absolutely incredible songwriting from start to finish, including a few that could reduce me to a total wreck. had been worried b/c ilm seemed not to pick up on this as much as kacey...i get why kacey is the more charismatic performer, the more commercial persona, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with brandy's journalistic insistence that none of what she documents is about her, she's telling other people's stories.

"just like him" is the gutpunch of an album closer. when i played it to my housemate, she had to leave the room in tears before it had finished, and then i heard her playing it on loop all evening
"what'll keep me out of heaven" is that country realness. (as in "...will take me there tonight".) (we never find out what she decides, brandy says she doesn't know either.)
"the day she got divorced" - so much quotidian detail in a day when nothing's different. "yeah two more lies, she didn't care" - so generous with her stories that she just casually tosses a subplot in at the end that lesser writers would string out across a whole song
"take a little pill" - the best and most sympathetic look at a rural america strung out on prescription pills since the pistol annies' debut album

i love this album so much

re-virgining complete

Voted for Hecker (I have never had sex) and Holter. Put me in the "Holter is getting more accessible and I like it" camp. It's not about the singing for me, it's about the arrangements and melodies. I liked her older albums fine but the new one was a standout.

every time i think about listening to hecker my children start growing dim and vanishing before my eyes

Haha

I still can't get past the production and Clark's voice – it's the same problem I have with Rosanne Cash's latest.

sarge did you skip #24?

Gave Brandy Clark a try based on the praise round these parts, but no matter how often/hard I try, the pop end of country is just not for me.

this is hardly pop! that's the problem!

oh and this fan video of the brandy clark single "stripes" set perfectly to scenes from orange is the new black is probably a lot better than the actual video

"hold my hand" is amazing too, she has this incredible gift for telling a narrative that happens in 10 seconds over 3 minutes

first time i heard this album it had me transcribing lyrics and everything

this is not at all a pop album. It's quite adult.

lol, sorry forks
― a man with legs made of sausages - that's not real! (seandalai)

Does me not really understanding Tim Hecker reconcile K3vin K's zing about slow jams up thread?

I listened to hecker but then I listened to miley, phew

Its strength is to trying to reckon with a life that hasn't worked as planned, or perhaps was screwed from the beginning.

xxxxpost

http://i.imgur.com/pAANjsl.jpg

21 THE 1975 The 1975 (623 points, 16 votes, 2 first place votes)

Spotify

Brad Nelson, come out come out it's here

ftr, my position on Miley Cyrus is still FUCK MILEY CILEY AND HER GODDAMNED MINSTREL SHOW

wow, I thought that was top ten for sure

I'm now worrying that Floorplan and Rashad Becker won't place. They're not gonna place are they? Fuck.

this is not at all a pop album. It's quite adult.

I mean in terms of the antiseptic vocals/production/arrangement, not like chart impact or what have you.

liked the 1975 mostly for about 36 hours, lost all interest, probly wd enjoy the odd track turning up in other contexts

wooooooooooooooo

can we take a minute here to praise shane mcanally, who co-wrote most of the kacey musgraves album, most of the brandy clark album and the best song on ashley monroe's (among other 2013 achievements)?

(he is not, however, credited on the best song on brandy's, "what'll keep me out of heaven.")

pouring one one out for Toro y Moi and Natasha Kmeto from my top ten

RIP Floorplan

it's realy sad, it was an album I voted for

sarge did you skip #24?

― k3vin k., Wednesday, 29 January 2014 19:53 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't see the problem with brandy clark's voice or arrangements, they're both the perfect way to frame the songwriting, which is front and centre

xp oh ugh the 1975, horrific band

can we take a minute here to praise shane mcanally, who co-wrote most of the kacey musgraves album, most of the brandy clark album and the best song on ashley monroe's (among other 2013 achievements)?

and Miranda Lambert for supplying them all with dough.