ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2020

Last one for the day!

https://i.imgur.com/ndgVXRF.jpg
#46: KeiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl - 285 points - 14 votes

https://keiyaa.bandcamp.com/album/forever-ya-girl

“Hers is an astounding achievement in process-driven neo-soul, available as an implement for both building an Afrocentric future and reawakening the unsilenceable presence of blackness in all time.”
https://spectrumculture.com/2020/05/10/keiyaa-forever-ya-girl-review/

didn't vote for this but very very glad that it placed

Day begins and ends with imago ballot placements :)

I've read too much ILX this year. Also on my ballot; also amazing. I think I said somewhere else, the bass on Negus Son nearly made this melt enshitten himself.

i totally hear the deerhunter in that soccer mommy song btw, good call imago

Wow, talk about being drawn in immediately... That bass! KeiyaA!

#77: Selena Gomez - “Rare (Deluxe)” - 184 points - 8 votes
#76: Jeff Parker - “Suite for Max Brown” - 184 points - 10 votes
#75: Poppy - “I Disagree” - 187 points - 6 votes - 1 Nº1 vote
#74: Kairon; IRSE! - “Polysomn” - 188 points - 5 votes
#73: Deftones - “Ohms” - 188 points - 6 votes
#72: Nubya García - “Source” - 190 points - 5 votes
#71: Charles Webster - “Decision Time” - 190 points - 6 votes
#70: Ulla - “Tumbling Towards a Wall” - 190 points - 7 votes
#69: Ana Roxanne - “Because of a Flower” - 190 points - 7 votes - 1 Nº1 vote
#68: Moodymann - “Taken Away” - 192 points - 10 votes
#67: Perfume Genius - “Set My Heart on Fire Immediately” - 199 points - 8 votes
#66: Autechre - “Plus” - 200 points - 8 votes
#65: Adrianne Lenker - “Songs” - 200 points - 9 votes
#64: Run The Jewels - “RTJ4” - 204 points - 8 votes
#63: Lido Pimienta - “Miss Colombia” - 210 points - 6 votes
#62: DJ Python - “Mas Amable” - - 216 points - 7 votes
#61: Brandy Clark - “Your Life Is a Record” - 230 points - 10 votes
#60: Pharaoh Overlord - “6” - 232 points - 7 votes
#59: Brandy - “B7” - 239 points - 12 votes
#58: Victoria Monét - JAGUAR - 240 points - 9 votes
#57: Annie - Dark Hearts - 246 points - 8 votes
#56: K-LONE - Cape Cira - 247 points - 8 votes - 1 Nº1 vote
#55: Mary Lattimore - Silver Ladders - 248 points - 11 votes
#54: Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan - 249 points - 8 votes
#53: Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud - 250 points - 7 votes - 1 Nº1 vote
#52: Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways - 251 points - 8 votes

#51: Westerman - Your Hero is Not Dead - 254 points - 8 votes

#50: Theo Parrish - Wuddaji - 255 points - 12 votes

#49: Julianna Barwick - Healing Is a Miracle - 262 points - 8 votes

#48: Soccer Mommy - Color Theory - 267 points - 11 votes

#47: Cleo Sol - Rose in the Dark - 280 points - 10 votes

#46: KeiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl - 285 points - 14 votes

Anyway, hat-tip to (Extended Mix) aka as the Reverend for hipping me to this - a beautiful and highly-integrated psychedelic journey, reminded me a little of L'Rain and denotes another new artist of immense promise

Self xp - Negus Poem, not Negus Son, ffs.

Never heard of KeiyaA but this and K-LONE and Kairon is why the album 77 rules the school <3

xp You invoked L'Rain, and yes yes yes yes

think I'm thinking of Deerhunter

A friend mentioned that when the album came out, and it's been hard not to hear it since. I also feel like the melody's heading to the "Left of the Dial" chorus after the first two lines of each verse.

the album art graphics this year are amazing, best ever

Voted for k-lone, keiyaa, cleo sol, theo parrish and westerman from today’s results. They deserved a spot in the top 20 if you ask me, but glad they placed nonetheless.

The only artist I wasn’t acquainted with was Ichiko Aoba and it sounds interesting. Will listen to later today.

KeiyaA is alarmingly good on first listen, damn

:) it and u are meant 2 b

Once again, just one of my votes placed today: B7. Voted for Victoria Monét and Dylan in tracks instead. KeiyaA was on my long list. Looking forward to giving Pharaoh Overlord a try.

Super happy the Annie album placed, I love the synth-noir vibe. She should contribute to the next David Lynch soundtrack. Also glad to see Cleo Sol and Mary Lattimore. Several others here I need to check out.

so far... only heard 8 (pre-rollout) and voted for 3. Lots I'll be listening to a bunch, this has been great

I'm at 0. I know I've got a couple that will place, but none of my more esoteric choices have a chance now. I've felt less like checking out the unknowns today but I'm not sure if that's b/c I feel like today is worse than yesterday or if I'm just in more of a shitty mood that doesn't gel well with discovering new things.

i gave in and listened to the waxahatchee and huh i think i like it. country dylan vibes growing like vines all over it. "fire" works a billion times better in context

I have had 5 place (Selena Gomez, Poppy, Brandy Clark, Annie, and Victoria Monet)

KeiyaA I thought was OK, but it didn’t make my lists or ballots because ...
I just wanted it to be even *slightly* more fulsome sonically.

Maybe her next release.

Serious doubts about former ilx darling Gigi Masin placing but maybe

Looking a lot like K-Lone will be my only vote that placed at all.

2 days, 2 placements. Both near the very bottom of my ballot, though (Moodymann with 4 points and Westerman with 10 points).

Over all, though, I'm thoroughly delighted with these results on the whole. Lots of stuff to check out.

I think I'm at zero, unsurprisingly

Gigi better place dammit

i gave in and listened to the waxahatchee and huh i think i like it. country dylan vibes growing like vines all over it. "fire" works a billion times better in context

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:02 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"hell" is amazing

Brandy too low

none for me but expecting two to three overall
not a bad thing either, lots of stuff to check out

yeah it's just a real strong, real polished singer songwriter record - not easy to pull off

KeiyaA is great, glad that album placed

K-Lone is great, wish i would have had this as a work-from-home staple this past year

KeiyaA I thought was OK, but it didn’t make my lists or ballots because ...
I just wanted it to be even *slightly* more fulsome sonically.

Maybe her next release.

― Everything's Blue In This Whorl (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 3:05 PM (thirty seconds ago)

otm. I tried this a couple times and wasn't feeling it.

Cleo was my sole vote to place today -- looking forward to checking out a couple things and I think this is a very cool list so far, but also kind of with emil.y on discovery fatigue. Also hope we get a bit more grit tomorrow, even if a bunch of my own extant votes are in the comfort-quarantine listening vein.

I don’t have a lot of hopes that my picks will place. Maybe The Soft Pink Truth?

we got 45 whole albums to go folks

^^^

nothing i voted for today. only thing i haven't heard is the k-lone album but i'm very interested in checking it out

enjoyed but not quite enough to make my ballot: victoria monet, westerman, julianna barwick, cleo sol, waxahatchee

the keiyaa, ichiko aoba and brandy albums all seemed like the sort of thing i'd like but none ever quite clicked for me. the brandy album is just too oblique for me, it really is a strange record. the ichiko aoba album is beautiful-sounding and gorgeously arranged but it never managed to grab me. the keiyaa album is great at times but is fragmented enough that i could never get into it prorperly despite really trying

finally got one today with Windswept Adan

I'm dumb and I don't know how to go back to look at my ballot, but I know I voted for Mary Lattimore & Jeff Parker, probably Cleo Sol. K-Lone might not have quite made the cut.

KeiyaA is awesome, glad it placed

Theo!!!! The man is unstoppable! Awesome awesome album

Slowly catching up, Ulla is totally my thing and I hadn't heard of them before. (Incidentally, there are a lot of bands named Ulla, most of which are not like this afaict.)

Maybe people were confusing her with Ulrich Schnauss.

i gave in and listened to the waxahatchee and huh i think i like it. country dylan vibes growing like vines all over it. "fire" works a billion times better in context

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 1:02 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"hell" is amazing

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, February 2, 2021 2:07 PM (fifty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Lilacs" and "Hell" are my favorites, and yeah, it's just an easy, summer American rock album with fantastic melodies

Anyway, her 2019 album Big Room is well worth checking out too, if you like Tumbling Towards a Wall. TTaW was step towards a more unique sound, though, Big Room was more generic ambient in the Biosphere style (but still nice).

(xpost)

i voted for the k-lone and ana roxanne albums, pretty confident another 5 or 6 will place, sad that shinichi atobe will likely miss out yet again (mystery to me why ilm doesn't like this guy more, amazingly consistent producer who's put out a string of stunning, concise records with a unique sound that get fairly good coverage, so i dunno)

want to listen to the brandy, cleo sol and ichiko aoba and need to give keiyaa another shot. didn't vote for theo, had 'this is for you' as my #1 in the tracks but found the album just a bit too much in places

looks like b. dillon is going to beat b. dylan here too huh?

placed 3 (all today), with 3 to come, and I'm 95% certain that it won't be more or less than that, pretty content with that all told, best discovery of the day for me is probably very embarrassingly soccer mommy ffs

The KeiyaA rules. Did vote.

It had been said xp

the jeff parker album is great the only one of these i own

i should check out soccer mommy more, that band name is hard to take

football mother