ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2013

Mine too! I bought the album last night. Quiet stunner.

The new finds I've been enjoying most are Maya Jane Coles, Danny Brown and Classixx.

ok i'm on the third song of the 1975 album--how many fuckin' times is this guy going to say "petticoat"

considerably less than he says "mouth"

yeah i'm pretty sure i get why some of you guys like this album but this is not for me

the huerco s. record was a disappointment

vehemently disagree

― Lamp, Friday, January 31, 2014 9:20 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'll have to listen to it again and try to see why. i thought everything he did that wasn't on the LP was so much stronger, especially the stuff as royal crown of sweden.

ok i'm on the third song of the 1975 album--how many fuckin' times is this guy going to say "petticoat"

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 31, 2014 10:01 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

alright, yeah, with 'ragtime u.s.a. (warning)' i'm sinking into the vibe for real. i wish i had been listening to this the other night when i drove through some of the thickest fog i've ever been in at like 4am.

although i was listening to the woo daps mixtape and that was a cool experience, too

Think my favorite takeaway from this poll is John Grant's Black Belt.

― bilbo bobbins (how's life), Friday, 31 January 2014 14:50 (3 hours ago) Permalink

Seriously, thanks for the John Grant you guys. I had only heard GMF, which sounds nothing like the rest of this album.

It's such a fantastic album.

how do you guys rank the remixes?

yeah idk how much john grant i need in my life but it's a very cool, weird album and i'm glad dan and others pushed it so hard.

also i had kinda blown off sky f. when it was released but damn it's working for me today.

Thanks poll runners! And wins for the Haim joke.

Taylor S aside I haven't generally been into the pop-country ILM pushes, so the extent to which this Kacey Musgraves is hitting a spot I didn't even know I had is a very nice surprise.

Serious question: pop country as opposed to what country?

alt country duh

Even I like Kacey Musgraves! I wasn't aware that I wanted some disarming honesty in my life, but there it is.

ha, yeah, i guess by pop country i really just mean modern country (indicating my general ignorance).

brandy clark is trying to rouse empathy, not anger, because unlike you, she understands that a simple, elegant description of how things are that rings true can be more powerful than noisy rabble-rousing

― lex pretend, Friday, January 31, 2014 8:08 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fair - I accept that it is my failing that I cannot fully empathise with the message because of my aversion to the music - my personal preference is for a bit of high drama, shock & awe, grand sonic theatre - this sort of music is very understated and plays towards and within fairly rigid genre conventions. perhaps I shall keep trying - through careful listening and maturity I've overcome aversions to other sorts of music, once professed in ignorant childhood (punk, classical, rap, r&b), even if I tend to gravitate towards the more sonically and structurally ambitious examples of each of these

thanks for at least explaining it rather than getting all precious like yr yankee counterparts

I keep meaning to start a pop-country recommendations thread for people who are new to the genre to learn about what they have been missing all these years. Seems crazy in retrospect that Allison Moorer, Brad Paisley, etc were completely overlooked in the UK.

Suspect that it would devolve into me posting Judds YouTube clips and Seminole Wind pretty quickly, though, and putting people off forever.

Imago, did you get past the first few songs to Take A Little Pill, Hungover, etc?

don't you dare talk like that about Seminole Wind :)

Str8 classic, I know, but maybe not a big crossover winner.

Were you a strict metallist, imago?

I was a strict rock/indie/art-pop/bit of metal incoherent babble of fairly whitemale guitarry music tbh, and ILX has to take 98% of the blame for converting me away from that. Damn you, ILX!

Anyway, I'm tearing thru the list - when I get to Kacey, as I've said, I'll give the whole thing a proper front-to-back listen, promise

imago, despite your broadening horizons, do you think there's any music, or art in general, that you like for reasons that aren't quite fundamentally modernist in nature?

My Spotify account just had to run dry right now. There was a mixup because I had to change debit cards due to identity theft issues--part of the Target hacking in this case--the second time I've had to do that in a year. But that could have been corrected. The real problem is that I'm simply that broke.

Well I do have a credit card I could put it onto but I'd rather use a debit card for reasons I can't explain (or perhaps no reason).

I think there's some music I like and will like forever because it was played to me when I was a kid. This includes Duran Duran's album Rio, Joe Jackson's album I'm The Man, and a collection of 70s and 80s Americana which I yet adore, including Let It Roll Down The Highway, Hotel California, Drive (by The Cars), Jack & Diane, JJ Cale's Cocaine, Little Sister and othersuch

Art in general? I can appreciate anything with a bit of wit on the level of high art - saw some brilliant Buster Keaton recently, will stan for Wodehouse, Richmal Crompton and so forth as 'literature' (loaded & dangerous term I know) - this might be my way into country music tbh

Music and film collapse distinctions between high and low art; they're mass market media.

The Kacey Musgraves and Brandy Clark left me cold tbh, tho my number 1 track was Mount Moriah - 'I Built A Town' which is country I think.

Wow, 376 views on youtube apparently.

That's a looking-glass I'm yet to step through - perhaps one day I could look at Jute Gyte and Ryan Trecartin as 'mass market media' but not today. xxp

john grant album is such fun; like a filthy mouthed Glenn Campbell for our generation

man I am still kicking myself for ignoring Fuck Buttons

luckily you can listen to it now and for the rest of your life.

i don't think wodehouse is a very good way into American country music

without Edmund Wilson I don't know how the hell I would've understood Bruno Mars

"filthy mouthed Glenn Campbell" is an excellent description of John Grant that I suspect he'd find wonderful.

xp imago -- do you like stuff like Woody Guthrie, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger?

i'm relistening to some of random access memories and i'm actually kinda pissed at how high this ridiculously cheesy album placed.

like, do any of you guys actually sit down and listen to this? it's embarrassing in places.

not yet sarahell

then just stick with "jack and diane" -- i think it's hilarious you like that song

:D

got a full tracklist somewhere...

like, do any of you guys actually sit down and listen to this? it's embarrassing in places.

― call all destroyer, Friday, January 31, 2014 4:06 PM (3 minutes ago)

you're embarrassing.

imago I am gonna fucking kill you if Jack & Diane stays stuck in my head for more than an hour

Embarrassingly good!

I started to listen to RAM again and got so annoyed that I made the conscious decision to play Damita Jo instead

(fyi Damita Jo is still terrible but "All Nite (Don't Stop)" bangs)