ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

the monkeys album is really good you guys, but you gotta really fall into the vibe. it's not a record for casual listening

https://i.imgur.com/DtkliP4.jpg
#24: SOPHIE - Oil of Every Pearl's Un-Insides - 413 points – 15 votes - 1 first place vote

SOPHIE

Jessie Jeffrey Dunn: "In its flows and breakings, it echoes and repeats a fractured self, locating this fracture as something aimed toward futurity, toward a new image of pop music, toward a new mode of being and becoming, toward a new way of moving limbs on a dancefloor with others. It’s incredible."

Sasha Geffen: "The experimental music of SOPHIE relaxes into new forms on her debut album. It is sprawling and beautiful, while still keeping the disorienting, latex-pop feel of her fascinating production technique."

wild record, this is a nice placement for it

some of this was really lovely but the more industrial parts like "ponyboy", "faceshopping" and "whole new world/pretend world" were absolutely not for me

I think I gave "Faceshopping" some points

this is good but imo slightly inconsistent, didn't vote for it but when it's good it is very good. certainly one everybody should check out

lmao, faceshopping is the highlight for me!

I voted for this

ponyboy & faceshopping are the sort of thing i wish i cld send back in time to my 16yo self to blow his young mind

One of those records where I didn’t listen to it very much since I wasn’t often in the mood for it — but when I did it absolutely blew my mind

Faceshopping/Immaterial/Whole New World were three of the best tracks of the year.

also the best music to make milkshakes to

voted 'immaterial'

Yeah Immaterial is amazing too

also the best music to make milkshakes to

particularly if you have an old rackety milkshake maker so you can perform accompaniment

When I finally got round to listening to this it was a lot less annoying than I'd expected but also sort of harrowing? Like pop songs trapped in big metal cages.

Daytona my #1, cool sounding fun album, what more could I want

being 20 minutes long is a big part of its appeal i think, not even a backhanded compliment

― ciderpress, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 10:51 AM (thirteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally

pusha record being this high sucks ass

what fucking horrible cover art btw can't be said enough

https://i.imgur.com/cZraaFp.jpg
#23: Kali Uchis - Isolation - 430 points – 13 votes

Kali Uchis

Madison Desler: "For an album that’s 15 tracks to be this consistently good is a rarity, an anomaly, and an artistic triumph that should place it on every Best Of list at the end of the year. For Uchis to accomplish this while still holding on to seemingly all the cards, is even more rare, perhaps signaling a legend in the making."

Felipe Q. Noguiera: "Like Beck or Outkast, she's a pop weirdo who works grooves that seem vintage and futuristic at the same moment. She grabs splashes of funk, bossa, reggaeton and soul and blankets them with a sunbaked, psychedelic wooziness"

Pusha T makes albums so he can stop at #25 in ILM polls

oh hell yeah re Kali Uchis. The dullest track is the Damon Albarn collab, naturally.

the big shrieking noises on the noisy trax kind of sound like processed versions of the sort of noises you hear on new songs of the humpback whale, they are so intense

oh damn i was wrong about the aal record. it's pretty ok

sweetener so dramatically worse than dangerous woman i still can't believe ppl rate it so high

mostly i just want a whole album of "is it cold in the water?" and "infatuation" from sophie, or maybe a few more "nothing left to say"/"ehhh"s? "bipp" was fantastic but i don't need any more of that

kali uchis album was solid but i never managed to get too into it, my favourite track is still the intro

Definitely too deep into the rollout now, but was there some reason this Emma Ruth Rundle album didn't get the same traction the last one did? I actually liked it more, I think.

it's better than the last one and honestly a wonderful record, i couldn't fit it in my ballot

Great to see McCraven place. Blistering and spacious and all that. I liked Tropical Fuck Storm well enough but don't think it sustained itself across a full album. This might be my attention span.

the attention span for mccraven but not tfs? ;)

i the attention span for mccraven but not tfs? ;)

Heh. Fair point. Jazz though, innit - the spaces of jazz admit the listener. Gnarled rock music (however much it veers towards the spacious) is more demanding, more wearing.

fair! will give the mccraven a listen on my imminent commute

isolation is so good, she can do so many things so well

https://i.imgur.com/bROQ5lY.jpg
#22: Let's Eat Grandma - I'm All Ears - 431 points – 14 votes - 1 first place vote

Let's Eat Grandma

Stephen Butchard "Through all the eccentricities and quirks, it should be said that ‘I’m All Ears’ manages to be a gloriously readable pop album on first listen. For a band hailed as cult heroes one album in, this is the boldest statement they’ve made so far."

Matthew Neale: "Like a magic eye puzzle falling into place, ‘I’m All Ears’ has only slightly shifted the band’s focus, but suddenly it all makes sense."

This is a good run. I voted for Hop Along, SOPHIE and Kali Uchis. Really happy to see Kali this high. I'd started to think she might miss out as there wasn't a whole lot of action on her thread. She was comfortably in my top five all year and sounded especially great over the summer. I like the way she pulled off so many different genres so convincingly. Excited to hear what she does next.

can we not

that name is such a dealbreaker that I don't care what it sounds like

promising thread titles that turn out to be on ILM

Don't knock it till you try it.

oh I can and I will

(knock it, that is)

Good. Because grandma tastes delicious.

my #1, this album had everything

My "I'd like this to place but surely too few slots left now" that has not been mentioned yet in thread is serpentwithfeet -- so I'll guess that one for 78.

― anatol_merklich, Wednesday, February 6, 2019 8:30 AM

Definitely how I'm feeling about that record too. Voted for it and was hoping to see it place high, but I'm not so confident now

Wow I thought Let’s Eat Grandma would be top 10!

terrible band name notwithstanding, it’s a downright incredible record

Very happy to Kali Uchis this high, though!

another album where i liked some and was indifferent to some

weirdly, the melding of forces between LEG and SOPHIE wasn't so much for me, but the two epics at the end were

I saw the band name "Let's Eat Grandma" and thought to myself "I must play this immediately because I need to know what a band that chooses this name sounds like"

Turns out, they sound great

also Snakes & Ladders is a great deep cut

lots of ppl avoiding great acts because of dumb names itt

Yeah, it's totally worth getting past their name. Brilliant album that was a huge shock after how little I cared for their debut.

completely loved both the slightly askew attempts at pop songs and the epics, highlight of the album was "falling into me" which was the halfway point of the two approaches

life is too short for bands with stupid names, I'll be over here listening to the Träden album which I came to late but is actually the best record of 2018