ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

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?

Yes!

Come on haim

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.

― raggett neds of your summer dress (The Reverend), Thursday, January 30, 2014 3:18 PM (25 seconds ago)

^ gr80 sub-interest group

Basically, this album has all the sonic complexity of Loveless but with added rhythmic and keyboard experimentation - it feels like a development of the craft, and also has some incredible weird and brilliant tunes that depend just as much on guitar-textures as melodies - the astonishing coda of In Another Way for a start, or the slow-burning space-float weirdness of Is This And Yes. The album also launches from 'very good' to 'absolutely incredible' with its dnb/jungle-powered final trio, that sound not-of-this-earth, an incredible meld of skyscraper guitars, noise textures and dance music that seems determined to bust through whichever ceiling you choose to place above it. I dig albums that finish strong, what can I say.

xp following that logic mbv did win!

haha I knew you would feel that post xxp

Go girls go.

Interesting that mbv and Yeezus only had 2 first place votes — Chance, despite its low points overall, had 4.

cos its better obv

C'MOWN DAFT PUNK!

i actually dj'ed a 50th birthday party recently and it was a blast. didnt play any daft punk though

Also, MBV is as Dan says pop music delivered with a stratospheric kick and a sense of sonic theatre <3

/leaves

i wish someone had told my sky ferreria was on spotify now, this album is great

So did anyone else actually vote for the Suede record?

Sky Ferreira at #5 is so awesome

So did anyone else actually vote for the Suede record?

― Toni Braxton-Hicks (Turrican)

Yes. Isn't it still to come?

Am so old now that 50 doesn't even seem that old, and some of our party crew in Brighton, UK are approaching that and still party hardy.

DP would be a dull no.1, it's surely the Haims.

MBV was okay but am shocked it's so high. It sounds dated in places for sure, although whether that matters is up to you.

I'm almost fifty and fifty seems old.

Haim will win - didn't vote for it and it just washes over me, but I can sorta hear why other ppl might rate it highly.

Voted for DP but haven't listened to it in months. The CD is still boxed up since I moved house in November. I thought about rummaging for it to give it another listen shortly after Christmas but couldn't be arsed in the end.

tl;dr version: somebody else wz robbed

HAIM appealed to a broad cross-section here.

Yes. Isn't it still to come?

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, January 30, 2014 9:24 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's probably #78 :/

http://i.imgur.com/NqNT0iO.jpg

2 DAFT PUNK Random Access Memories (1,532 points, 44 votes, 5 first place votes)

Spotify

http://i.imgur.com/w9GbgN7.jpg

1 HAIM Days Are Gone (1,792 points, 56 votes, 3 first place votes)

Spotify

my gf : "whats this bland shite?"
me: "its HAIM, the latest pop sensation thats sweeping the nation!"
my gf: "hm"

well then

http://i.imgflip.com/13lz5.gif

:D

http://i.imgur.com/MZ7V51S.gif

it surprised me that ILX was like the only place that didn't rate "The Wire" as the favorite track, i can't even remember how the one that placed above it goes

Fuck off, no way!

56 votes, damn

Wow, it wasn't even close. So shocked Daft Punk did that well.

well phew

<3

WHOOP WHOOP

Ten good albums in the top 10. Nice work, guys.

I am kinda glad that the poptimists still secretly rule ILM.

Yessssssss.

beysus with the moral NINE-first-places victory and baduesque redemption to come :)

That is one of the best top 20s I've seen on here. So many great albums!

Well done everyone.

The Wire was 2012 though xp