ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2020

@ Moodles the Hum album is one of the best mixed rock albums I’ve ever heard— every element is distinct, the mixer loves a slow pan on the lead guitar (which I love too), and it’s impossible to really tell if they have a bassist because the low guitar is doubled so perfectly that it might as well be an effects send

The economy of the writing is delicious, singer’s voice is nourishing, I love this album— aside from the fact that the first two tracks tower over the rest (which is still great) this was the biggest “omg a basic rock album that I love” moment in memory

So, these are the same HUM from the song “Stars”? Or is it a different band because this sounds nothing like I expected based on “Stars”. Is that the equivalent for only knowing “Creep” by Radiohead?

it's the same band, it's their first album in 22 years. it's definitely a shift towards a slower, heavier, and more immense sound for them. "stars" was pretty representative of what they sounded like back then.

it's not a total left-turn for them but they're not just slavishly recreating what they were doing before either

fgti, I'll give it another try, but something was not clicking with me

Haha Stars - was that the song on Beavis and Butthead where they think the song's over after the intro? Been wanting to find out what that was for years

Onto Slum Of Legs. It's testament to the opening track that it sounded instantly familiar despite me only having heard it once about 5 years ago when, by complete hazard, my band supported them. Loving this so far

Or at least I think they played an early version of it, I might be wrong

i think the album had a prolonged gestation for various reasons so you could well be right

I’m still laughing at myself for briefly legitimately thinking emil.y was so shocked and crying tears of joy because Hum made the list at #36

She’s a big fan!

Also: emily your album rules ❤️

Scratch what I said abt Hum being front-loaded, just a symptomatic response to an album with a focused aesthetic

I like the opening two tracks of the Beths album a lot, and "You Are a Beam of Light" is really pretty - but the others sound fairly undistinctive to me, in a just another good album mailed to college radio on a random week in 1995 kind of way.

I really enjoyed both Malkmus and Hum when I listened to them during the year; never bought either and so didn't spend enough time with them, but had a few good listens to each.

imagine listening to the title track from Jump Rope Gazers and being like "eh"

Wait what. Did I not know we have an ilxor in the countdown?

Surprised to hear so many ppl dissing the Grimes album, I thought it was super cool (fwiw, I find Poppy unlistenable; I think these artists are scratching different itches for different folks).

― excuse me while I fold my pants (morrisp), Wednesday, February 3, 2021 3:25 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i do actually like the grimes album, but i get that some ppl see it as a disappointment in that way...Poppy is rad, give it eight or nine more tries

her songwriting was a fair bit weaker on it and it doubled down on her worst tendencies production-wise. she's never really been that good at the sound design part of production but a lot of it sounds fairly ramshackle with sounds that are just bad or don't fit well together to my ears.

I do try to respect general "separate the art from the artist" principles, but I have my limits and Grimes is well beyond them due to Musk proximity, I actively avoid the artist

I guess there was a new one this year

just another good album mailed to college radio on a random week in 1995

Ha! I get this vibe from a LOT of the guitar-based music ILX favours. (Hum, Soccer Mommy, Deftones, etc too.) I've no particular aversion to rock but it's instantly clear this is mostly Not For Me and there's too much music in the world to bother trying harder. Though it's obviously not the musicians' problem that they're inadvertently transporting me back to mediocre yoof-oriented 'alternative' radio experiences.

On the other hand, Yves Tumor's increasingly rock-ish moves are appealing for some reason, just as the ILX backlash gains momentum!

Also, I should have paid more attention to Pa Salieu and Slum of Legs. Am remedying that.

v immediately obvious to me why the songcraft on the beths album is special

also as many others have said, get a load of that drummer

ctrl+f suggests no one has named the #78 artist yet.

I'll be driving tomorrow morning and Moka will take over.

Trying some more Beths. I want to like them, at the very least because I heart NZers. :) I guess it's possible I *am* actually growing resistant to the charms of the electric guitar/bass/drums thing on a more basic level. That would be unfortunate.

I'll be driving tomorrow morning and Moka will take over.

I know you both live in very different places, but I like to imagine the both of you in the front seat of a Civic driving down the highway and posting each entry when you hit a pocket of 4G.

I've no particular aversion to rock but it's instantly clear this is mostly Not For Me

I wanna get back “into rock” and I do try, but I find it hard to get psyched about these days (even when it’s good). I’m sure a band or album will eventually come along that I go nuts for.

Trying some more Beths. I want to like them, at the very least because I heart NZers. :)

It snuck onto mine at #25 (and not just out of patriotic duty). No Australians on mine though.

before you recognized it yerself, Nag, i was gonna say: if you don't like Hum or the Deftones or Soccer Mommy or The Beths ... well, you *might* have an aversion to rock.

which is fine! it's fine for anyone to have an aversion to rock. what doesn't strike me as particularly productive is when people who clearly have an aversion to rock listen to a rock song they see in a rollout and post "i don't see what's so special about this?"

i mean, i didn't listen to a song from every collection of tuneless clinking and whooshing that popped up in the first two days of the rollout and call them undistinctive. idk, maybe that's my bad.

^as the one who used the term “undistinctive” (not that you were addressing me, but just in case) – to be clear, I traditionally don’t have an aversion to rock, in fact quite the opposite, which is why I feel “qualified” to weigh in on the Beths (I’ve heard & enjoyed so much music like that). I wouldn’t feel qualified to weigh in on clinks & whooshes!

But it’s true that rock doesn’t exactly light my fire these days.

(I also realize it sounds kinda dickish to be like, “I’ve heard this all before, maaaaan” – and I don’t like being that guy, I’d rather be jazzed about something than lukewarm, but guess I’ll take my lumps, lol)

before you recognized it yerself, Nag, i was gonna say: if you don't like Hum or the Deftones or Soccer Mommy or The Beths ... well, you *might* have an aversion to rock.

just popping in to say i don't like 1.5 of those bands, another 1.5 is/was ok, and the beths' first album was perfection and this new one had a few great songs on it as well, and yes i put away the album for several months and then recently relistened. sigh. ok! but what i want to know is....does this mean i have an aversion to rock music? because i love to put on some rock music and really get wild, i really do. i have for a very long time. i love to rock.

To be clear, I usually assume it's 'listener error' on my behalf. I'd ideally like to at least appreciate everything. Like morrisp, I feel like guitar-based stuff is pretty familiar ground. eg. I recently saw my earliest posts and they were overwhelmingly boring comments on threads about indie rock. And I keep running ballot polls on dudes with electric guitars, albeit relatively fey ones!

Anyway, I hate that I might have strayed close to "this is bad!" territory. I should have thought some more before posting anything resembling an actual value judgement and skipped to mumbling "it seems my interests have shifted" to myself.

--

aphoristical: Ha! I don't think there were any on mine either!

I might be suffering from a similar affliction to N!N!N! - I'm a corny indie fuxx0r by nature but these days I'm too quick to knee-jerk dismiss something like Soccer Mommy as "nice, catchy tunes in the nostalgic sense, but what is new here and why are people suddenly falling for a sound that's at least 30 years old?". And then I realise I'm probably not giving it a proper chance

Soccer Mommy album has delicious arrangements, made with obvious care imo.

Glad to note that this year more than previous years there's been a general acceptance and even curiosity towards all placing genres, even if they're mean ole rock music

Anyway what's first on the agenda today? Probably Actress

Hoping at least a few of you have blundered across Finland's finest in the playlist and found enough to keep going btw. If it helps, track 5 is kind of psych metal x Portishead

Pomenitul and I decided to keep nominations open until we are ready to open voting/campaigning next week so if anyone wants to nominate please do

2020 Metal ’n’ Heavy Rock Poll: NOMINATIONS Thread (open until the 8th of January 2021)

There is also a campaign thread which was started

ILM 2020 METAL & HEAVY + Adjacent Albums Poll CAMPAIGNING THREAD IS NOW OPEN

As the Queen said to the vicar, imago, we've already had actress

i gave the soccer mummy album a try when it came out because "circle the drain" was so great at what it does but the rest didn't click with me unfortunately

the kairon; irse! album was interesting but ultimately not quite my sort of thing. clearly good at what it does but i can more easily appreciate it at a distance than be really into it unfortunately

First on my listening agenda I meant!

Actress can be filed under 'intriguing but not quite my thing' I think but I'll finish it

delicious arrangements, made with obvious care

this is also what people say about The Beths, and I do get it because I've enjoyed the odd Beths song, but is it any different to the indie rock bands of my teens and twenties? there's a feeling of ILM going a bit full-circle on indie rock in recent times, having previously dismissed it as sonically unimaginative and limited in scope comparred to other genres. is this just the 20-year nostalgia loop at work; is it people needing cosy meat'n'potatoes comfort, or is there more to it with these bands?

(I realise I've been gushing about Hum upthread and I'll admit about 75% of my enjoyment comes from how they sound like a blend of lots of things I used to listen to).

I think the thing with The Beths is the obvious insane chops of the musicians, but being put in the service of music that's very pop, which is obviously a thing we've seen before but maybe not so much in the indie-rock milieu? I might be talking nonsense tbf

What it also boils down to is songwriting, which is a much harder thing to analyse, but it seems clear the writers in Soccer Mommy and The Beths have good and interesting instincts

Circle The Drain is very catchy, but it's Teenage Dirtbag really innit?

You should think of it as indie rock pastiche.

I'm joking of course, but I don't see "the nostalgia loop/comfort food rock" being that much different from much of the disco revival and bobbins we've seen so far here or in the tracks poll. They aren't really breaking new sonic ground, but why should they?

All about how the sonics mesh though. Also there are better tracks on the album, the opener, Royal Screw Up and Lucy in particular imo

Not necessarily breaking new sonic ground in any major way, but incrementally doing things in the corners, maybe. I wouldn't call either SM or Beths straight-down-the-line meat-and-potatoes indie, just as I wouldn't call yer Murphies and yer Dua Lipas straight disco/discopop pastiche. (Ware otoh...we'll deal with that hurdle when we reach it lol)

Aw, I was getting into the opening track of Hayley Williams but I have to teach now ;_; later!

Hoping at least a few of you have blundered across Finland's finest in the playlist and found enough to keep going btw. If it helps, track 5 is kind of psych metal x Portishead

Is that the Pharoah Overlord record? Struggling to get past the vocals tbh but did enjoy track 5. Would probably listen to an instrumental version of the album.

Loving the Hum album though

Imago means the Oranssi Pazuzu though he loves the PO (and Kairon; IRSE!)

Yeah my ballot was a Finland 1-2 but PO only their second finest; OP > PO lol. Glad you loved Blue Light Hum though, that one's a slow-burn banger of the highest order

(posting from a lesson, v professional)

what the beths are doing (jangly powerpop) isn't anything new but they're extremely good at it, genuinely all-time greats in that sound already. i didn't even vote for them and i can't think of a band that does that sort of sound that i'd rather listen to more.

i don't think "circle the drain" is quite going for "teenage dirtbag", it's aiming a few years earlier - it doesn't have the gratuitous scratching (i wonder if that will ever make its way into indie rock?)

I'm joking of course, but I don't see "the nostalgia loop/comfort food rock" being that much different from much of the disco revival and bobbins we've seen so far here or in the tracks poll. They aren't really breaking new sonic ground, but why should they?

― braised cod, Thursday, February 4, 2021 11:34 AM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

counterpoint: why shouldn't they?
or at least, if it's not comfort food, why should we pay attention?

i feel the same way about the "disco pastiche" stuff btw: it's not that i don't get that some of these are good songs, but a lot of this stuff is no different to things that made the poll in 2012, 2009, 2004, 2001 etc. i like indie rock and i like disco pastiche, indeed some of my all-time favourite songs would fall under these banners, but find it hard to get truly excited about this kind of thing in 2020 beyond "this song is catchy".

is it simple retromania? not quite, because these styles never went away. is it a new twist on an old favourite? not really. is it comfort food? maybe. is it a stagnation of appetite? well... possibly. there is still a lot of thrilling new sounds in these polls, but also a hell of a lot of music that sounds like it could have come out five or ten years ago. I can't think of another time in pop history where stuff that sounds the same as ten years before is still critically viable.