ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

nothing is certain in this world but i'm as close as i can be to 100% sure that culture made for family men will never be for me

haha

Kurt Vile is as boring as week-old piss.

http://i.imgur.com/6ka2xeZ.jpg

CHVRCHES The Bones of What You Believe (654 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)

Spotify

19 CHVRCHES The Bones of What You Believe (654 points, 21 votes, 1 first place vote)

19!

sorry i'm very hungover right now

I think I'd have found this transcendent or some shit when I was younger, but it doesn't do much (for me, or really of anything at all) - pretty guitar jamming is not what I'm looking for right now. I can see you summertime bozos lapping it up though (yes, it is January, which does not help this album)

oh bloody ban everyone

wow this one surprises me, even the fans of the single seemed to have consensus that the album didn't live up to it?

getting v worried about some of my votes given the whole "lots of dead certs for too few places" situation now :////

What is a summertime bozo and how do I get to be one?

cvriovs and cvriovser

you close your eyes in an outdoor place with headphones on, and it is summer, then u blog about it

i was very averse to this album until s1ocki praised it and i started listening to it at the gym and now i love it

I tried to listen to that once and don't think I got even halfway through before skipping through to see if the rest sounded just as bad?

Sounds like the life for me.

xxpost

CHVRCHES album is inferior to the Purity Ring album but still fun

ended up not voting for it but it was on my shortlist

it's a nice little logo they have though

ruh roh

Decent album but way too samey to be great. Still love a couple of the singles, but that's all I need by them.

Hey, those were my #2 and #1, respectively!

Kurt Vile and Chvrches, I mean. Good year for the letter V.

V. good

there was a time in my life
when they thought i was all talk
now i'm being stalked by God

CHVRCHES album is inferior to the Purity Ring album but still fun

I had an argument with a friend about CHVRCHES vs. Purity Ring, and I was arguing for CHVRCHES because they're harder-edged and crisper, not as gauzy, and she said that that's exactly why she preferred Purity Ring.

re: kurt vile, i REALLY enjoyed this album but given the strength of his previous two albums, it was ultimately my biggest disappointment of the year

Kurt Vile is rock game Nipsey Hussle, although I guess he's not bottom of the name barrel anymore now that there's a 'Joanna Greusome'

Like, "The Mother We Share" kind of reminds me of a Mike WiLL Made It production?

Kurt Vile is rock game Nipsey Hussle, although I guess he's not bottom of the name barrel anymore now that there's a 'Joanna Greusome'

Kurt Vile is his birth name!

kurt vile is real name iirc

philly repping

Whaaaaat my mind is blown

I had an argument with a friend about CHVRCHES vs. Purity Ring, and I was arguing for CHVRCHES because they're harder-edged and crisper, not as gauzy, and she said that that's exactly why she preferred Purity Ring.

― jaymc, Thursday, January 30, 2014 7:48 AM Bookmark

This post just put this hunch in my head that the reverbcore that felt so prominent in the past few years is kind of on its way out? Thank god.

Didn't vote, but KV woulda been Top 5 for me. It's kinda front-loaded (first 6 songs are the best) but the standouts are sweet.

Melodies on the Chvrches album are unstoppable, IMO. Also, Lauren Mayberry sings acidic barbs so sweetly: a successor to Jim O'Rourke's lush, major-key misanthropy.

CHVRCHES album is inferior to the Purity Ring album but still fun

I had an argument with a friend about CHVRCHES vs. Purity Ring, and I was arguing for CHVRCHES because they're harder-edged and crisper, not as gauzy, and she said that that's exactly why she preferred Purity Ring.

This is pretty much my thinking too. At first, I didn't like CHVRCHES very much, but when I realized that they are basically Purity Ring with all the mystery and decay replaced by a kind of upbeat gloss, it all clicked into place for me. In fact, I think if you applied the same heavy sidechain compression effect that's on every Purity Ring track to the CHVRCHES tracks, you would indeed have a new Purity Ring album.

I like Kurt Vile, but this one didn't connect with me as much as Smoke Ring. Could be a case of too much of a good thing.

haha "slowed down Dinosaur Jr" is so perfect. I like KV and dug the record a lot, more than Smoke Ring. my favorite is still Square Shells.

I thought I liked the Chavurches song from the tracks poll when the local alt-rock station started playing it recently but then I realized I was confusing it with the Phantogram single that is way better

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

18 JANELLE MONÁE The Electric Lady (666 points, 26 votes)

Spotify

chvrches love here and elsewhere kinda mystifying to me, seem like such an also-ran band to a moment that isn't even that interesting in the first place

666

after further household discussion of Ciara's "Body Party" from the previous results, I learned that L was referring to D'angelo from The Wire, as in that track being music that would soundtrack his life. she was not referring to the male recording artist, who I clearly know nothing about. apologies to Rev & Spottie.

ha, this makes way more sense

― raggett neds of your summer dress (The Reverend), Thursday, January 30, 2014 12:29 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha still mildly confused but nbd

i think that makes less sense actually

that janelle was a huge leap forward for her imo. she's nowhere near masterpiece territory yet but she's no longer 'a for effort' at least.

after "q.u.e.e.n." came out i was looking forward to clicking with janelle more generally but i still couldn't really sit through her album despite wanting to give it the thumbs up politically etc. at this point it's not her, it's me. i'm just allergic to musicals, that hyper manic broadway shuffling etc etc. she's a good thing for pop culture in 2014 unquestionably though

D'Angelo would have been into the Ka album surely?

I find her entire conceit enormously irritating, it's too self-consciously *performative* in a kind of undergrad drama student way.

that janelle was a huge leap forward for her imo. she's nowhere near masterpiece territory yet but she's no longer 'a for effort' at least.

― balls, Thursday, January 30, 2014 10:59 AM (20 seconds ago) Bookmark

totally agree with this. this starts to get fat right after "ghetto woman" but overall by far her best album, easy top ~15 of the year for me and def excited instead of mildly annoyed by her future prospects.

"what an experience" is still the jam too

Glad this is so high as it didn't seem to get anyway near the hype the first album did. Think it's a better record overall (if you just ignore the skits) Primetime is still my favourite on here but there's a bunch of highlights.

chvrches album enjoyable but waaaay too high. so uneven