ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

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

really came around to the janelle album over the past few months. j0rdan otm

i'm just allergic to musicals, that hyper manic broadway shuffling etc etc

I don't actually like musicals but I love that tendency in pop, whether it's Janelle or Nellie McKay. Though I think that aspect is overstated in discussion of Janelle and not relevant on a song like Primetime or What an Experience.

I thought the JM album was super patchy but maybe I should give it another go.

still think there isn't a song as good as "many moons" on either of her proper lps

yeah i voted for both 20 and 19!

kv album took a long time to sink in but it's up there with his best stuff. he's getting even better with these subtle little turns in the lyrics and music that make the songs special.

chvrches was just really hard to argue with for me, they had a thing they wanted to do and they nailed it and i think the album stays pretty strong throughout. i like a lot of their synth sounds--they're sparkly and hard-edged and really vivid imo.

Though I think that aspect is overstated in discussion of Janelle and not relevant on a song like Primetime or What an Experience.

it's more the cumulative effect on the album - i liked "primetime" as a single (though didn't return to it a quarter as much as "#beautiful") but in the album it got lost in all the overstuffed theatricality

idk, i liked nellie mckay a lot but i haven't listened to that album in basically a decade so...

I kind of feel like it was a bit frontloaded and the first half represented a distinct new direction that worked very well while the back half felt a bit redundant to The Archandroid, but the opening run was sooooooooooo gooooooooooooooood it didn't matter. And it was fun working through all the hidden messages (it's code, indeed).

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 makes zero sense to me, given that the biggest thing I like about Purity Ring is the hard popcorn reverb on the drums; CHVRCHES by contrast uses more diffuse reverb that flattens the drum hits out and makes them less punchy to me

also Janelle too low and everyone complaining about "theatricality" might as well be robot aliens to me

Never got why people here overrated "Many Moons", that's prob not even top 20 Janelle to me.

http://i.imgur.com/7XqRKdm.jpg

17 CHARLI XCX True Romance (680 points, 23 votes, 2 first place votes)

Spotify

wahoo my number #1
every track a corker

the hard-edged vs. gauzy thing makes sense to me but more with the non-drum sounds and rhythmic choices.