ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

Don't worry everyone, when we do the 2010-2014 poll next year she'll do an Erykah Badu and win it.

haha yup

god i forgot new amerykah only came FIFTH

this had the most #1 votes

Don't worry everyone, when we do the 2010-2014 poll next year she'll do an Erykah Badu and win it.

Gunning for Erykah Badu to do an Erykah Badu and win it.

Pleasantly surprised that Daft Punk will be top 3 considering how many regular posters hated it. With respect to MBV, a collection of old songs would make for an anticlimactic #1.

baffled... my number one.

mbv was not a 'collection of old songs' ??

Don't worry everyone, when we do the 2010-2014 poll next year she'll do an Erykah Badu and win it.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, January 30, 2014 1:04 PM Bookmark

Beyonce is a great album but it doesn't have that vibe for motherfuckers who are patient, who like to take their time.

actually my favorite part of the beyonce album is the clip of the french press going "beyonce! beyonce!"

i walk around my apt saying that in an exaggerated accent whenever i can

I'm vaguely annoyed and disgruntled that an MBV album is probably gonna be top 3?

What even *IS* my life, these days?

Part of what I like about the Sky Ferreira album is that even the most giddy songs like "Boys" come across as highly ambivalent with all their flat affect and hesitation. I don't think there's much self pity on that album, but definitely a bit of self loathing like she has a lot of regrets.

well ok I finally listened to Kacey Musgraves....took me a long time...been burned too many times by ILM and its weirdo fixation on pop country that i listen to and ends up being horrible digital shit but anyway...this is pretty damn charming, and the songs are good and she's got a good personality and the arrangements are really nice and not corny, good album

sorry kacey but i come from a place where ppl had serious discussions about big & rich, it's hard to explain if you weren't there

I don't like the Haim album as much as RAM but it would be nice to see a new act win

Terrible post upper

otm re: big and rich. Actually I just ordered the trio of kacey/ashley/brandy via amazon.

xp Not previously released ones but most of the songs date back years in some form afaik.

Haim should win

http://i.imgur.com/Q5NQL9q.jpg

3 MY BLOODY VALENTINE mbv (1,520 points, 47 votes, 2 first place votes)

oooh

awesome record, brilliant times, also I'm outta this thread

(after I have written of Kevin Shields and his genius!)

man see u

fuck xp

and i had hoped it would make #1!

Is MBV on Spotify?

Both #1 and #2 were in my top 5, so I can't really complain about whichever one ends up on top.

team record i actually voted for

go este, danielle, and alana!

And there it is! :D

awesome record, brilliant times, also I'm outta this thread

― in fact, do read if you hate me (imago), Thursday, January 30, 2014 9:11 PM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, stick around, I'd like to hear more of your thoughts on Haim.

I love the Daft Punk record and voted for it in my top 10 but it would feel lame for it to win.

j0rdy are you gonna do the last 2 at once

All on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBKjhgHGVZs&list=PLV5Dj2xlNnONJWlHRLnxoEDHp89rKoNpO

My bloody

My bloody

Wherever I go, heeee goes

Is MBV on Spotify?

― pandemic, Thursday, January 30, 2014 3:12 PM (34 seconds ago)

no but it came out a year ago

Cos the youtube's of he stuff that placed in the trax poll sounded terrible.

i didn't listen to this much because it's not on spotify and it kind of bothers me that that determines my listening habits these days but hey i like convenience

pretty solid comeback record though

Is MBV on Spotify?

― pandemic, Thursday, January 30, 2014 4:12 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

nah

there is only one other voter, who voted it #1? who are you my friend?

lol grady

find the WAV file downloads, serious

out of two remaining albums i don't really care about, team haim all the way

obviously so much more LIFE and vitality in the haim record even if it doesn't press my buttons personally, at least it's not an endless dad-dance snooze

Wouldn't have minded if Patrick Cowley's School Daze had placed instead of this; was about as timely tbh.

In honour of DJ Sprinkles "Lost Area" remix:
ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM, MAGGIE! YOU MADE IT!

My Facebook musings on Beyonce and m b v:

Leave it to Beyonce to ruin everyone's end-of-year album lists by releasing the best album of her career on a Thursday with little-to-no fanfare.

I resisted the album for several days, partially to avoid technical glitches and partially because I thought 4 was the definitive artistic statement I wanted from her. As I listened to the album, I felt entertained but not particularly invested. I wasn't sure why everyone was going completely bananas over it.

Then, I watched the videos.

I had approached the idea of this release as a "visual album" with a ready arsenal of eye rolls and snorts. After all, if the music is strong enough, the visuals shouldn't matter, right? Apparently I'm a judgmental idiot because most of the videos uncover layers of impact behind most of these songs, making them the most narratively-cohesive collection of songs Beyonce has ever released. Furthermore, the impact of "Pretty Hurts" is much easier to handwave when not watching post-purge Beyonce wiping her mouth or the full extent the question "what is your aspiration?" flusters her in the fictional pageant (honestly the best acting I've ever seen Beyonce do). The Shining-meets-Justify My Love imagery of "Haunted" amplifies the song's inherent eeriness. The bubblegum-on-Spanish fly eroticism behind the roller skating-heavy "Blow" amps an already sexual song up to 11. "***Flawless" should be linked to every online dictionary's definition of "Swagger" and I don't have the words to express the simple, humanizing joy behind the clips for "XO" and "Blue".

I've only watched the videos once but going back to the album after seeing them has been a revelation and delight. There's no direct link for me to post because, as far as I know, this album is still an iTunes exclusive. I strongly recommend checking it out. Once I get out of the RMV, I'll post a link to the "XO" video, which I still can't believe was filmed by Terry Richardson.

I'm a male with indie-leaning musical tastes in his early 40s, so it's not a surprise that I was excited by the news that My Bloody Valentine was FINALLY releasing their followup to Loveless. Where I differ from my peers is that, aside from "Soon", I wasn't anywhere near the band's bandwagon during their heyday. About the time that they were turning themselves into a legendary bastion of 90s alternative music, I was transitioning from industrial music to rave music and the descendants of early house and techno; all of my focus was on 808s and 909s and the few guitar bands I regularly followed were holdovers from high school. I really liked "Soon". I appreciated my friends' appreciation for My Bloody Valentine. I always chimed in with positive comments when the band came up in conversation but I never actually listened to them.

This changed over the summer of 1998. I was spending the summer working in DC, commuting back to Boston over the weekends; this meant that every week I was traveling to and from work in a company-sponsored rental car, often with a CD player. I took this travel opportunity to both explore new albums, which is one reason why I own about a bazillion terrible drum n bass compilations, and catch up on bands I felt I should know better. My first exposure to "Only Shallow" was driving back from Tower Records in Tysons Corner, windows rolled down blasting at top volume. I spent some time kicking myself for resting on name recognition and spent most of the rest of the summer luxuriating in feedback.

I write all of this to say that I come to MBV as more of a dilettante than a True Believer. I was excited by the prospect of a new album but I hadn't spent 22 years sitting on the edge of my seat, gobbling up hints of progress here or there or going bonkers over a Kevin Shields appearance on a Primal Scream album. (Granted, he helped them do their best work since "Slip Inside This House" but the degree to which Primal Scream is overrated is another post.) This was an album by a band I liked that had been on an indefinite hiatus and I was interested in checking it out.

So, with all of that prelude out of the way, let me say this; m b v melts my face. I love the feedback and I love that its main function is to muddy up pretty pop songs. I love that the album opens with a comforting droney piece that makes it seem like the past 22 years never happened, followed by "Only Tomorrow", a song that keeps one foot firmly in the shoegazing dream pop that made the band into cult icons while turning up the complexity in the songwriting. I have listened to the coda approximately a bazillion times and I don't think I'll ever get tired of it. The album builds from here; "Who Sees You" continues the fuzzy exploration of stately chord progression, followed by the static beauty of "Is This And Yes", followed by more mid-tempo melodic twistiness in "If I Am". The album spends most of its running time effortlessly showing off why so many people on the younger side of middle-aged became so obsessed with them, alternating between knowing pander and gentle prodding into an expanded vision of what people think My Bloody Valentine is all about... up until the final three tracks. That's when things get real.

"In Another Way" bumps the BPMs up a notch, bringing to mind a more aggressively melodic iteration of "Soon". This is just a palette cleanser for the pummeling fury of "Nothing Is", an exercise in how stasis can represent fury. This leads into album closer "Wonder 2" which I'm not going to even bother describing beyond saying it's delirious, disorienting and makes me hope that I'm not 62 before the next MBV album arrives.

Yeah, I can't believe I am finding myself on "team learn to enunciate a consonant, gurl" but after being asked every week at my last job, by the boss's idiot son, if I'd listened to it, I cannot see myself ever listening to the Daft Punk record.

I have less use for a Daft Punk record in 2014 than I have for an MBV record. Sigh.

xp absolutely, don't care for daft punk and haim neither but out of the two the girls should win..

Furthermore, the impact of "Pretty Hurts" is much easier to handwave when not watching post-purge Beyonce wiping her mouth or the full extent the question "what is your aspiration?" flusters her in the fictional pageant (honestly the best acting I've ever seen Beyonce do)

this aspect of "pretty hurts" - the rawness of the video clip, the cotton wool balls! - is why i refute j0rdan dismissing it as just a generic ballad. it's crucial to the album and crucial to our times

4 of my top 5 has placed in the top 15. Pretty happy.

TWO SPOTS AWAY! TWO SPOTS

The Daft Punk isn't really a dance record for the most part and besides partying with older people who still like to party is underrated. A few months back I was up at 4AM with a bunch of 40/50-somethings drunk off Grand Marnier and dancing to Sade, Steely Dan, and War LPs. It was the best.

i do like both the Haim and DP records but neither are Top 5 quality

i'm gonna do the next two in 1 post, that's how everyone wants it right?