2010 Magazine's Albums Of The Year Thread For Posting Lists and Discussion

i wish i could find the quote where waka says that he doesn't give a shit about anything but three shows a week at 25k a pop

but if webbie shows up at a club in shreveport he's gonna get paid 20k and tons of ppl are gonna show up & he's gonna remain a rich dude even tho he soundscans at 1/5th of the arcade fire

― BIG SANTA aka the sleighdriver (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, December 28, 2010 2:35 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

as long as he keeps up a steady stream of hot material (this also worked for gucci / waka / boosie --> think about how many variations on a similar template boosie's made in his career!)

'hot' there meaning, doesnt fall off, continues to connect w/ audience

& that is of course why all majors now try to strongarm artists into signing 360 deals, because they want to get a percentage of show money

cuz where else would warner make significant money off of waka? digital downloads of "no hands"?

Plus a lot of rappers don't have a fugazi complex and don't mind charging too much for a ticket. I can't even begin to tell you the amount of rap shows I missed in college because I wasn't gonna pay $30 to see Smilez And Southstar or whatev

artists in my last post should specifically read "rappers"

cuz where else would warner make significant money off of waka?

http://www.nodjzone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/waka-mask.jpg

^^^hahahaa ... otm

deej's point about "connection" is important too tho cuz that's one thing the mixtape model does help w/ -- if you're a rapper you can work a regional circuit w/ no album out that anyone cares about (i.e. any boosie album after 'bad azz') because you can put out as much music as you want & maintain that connection so ppl will show up to see you play a club even if they're not gonna buy the album that the label puts out on dec 15

lol whiney

if it was 1997 young dro would've put out an album in each of the last two years instead of riding yung LA's fruity unicorn in the hopes that his label will put out an album

If young people are no longer buying albums, why do Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift each have two of the top 10 best-selling records of 2010? (I don't buy Taylor as a total anomaly.) Who's buying the hit Glee soundtracks, the Twilight soundtracks, the NOW compilations? Disney pop like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus still sells well, too, IIRC.

The way I've tried to interpret this is that this is either parents buying albums for their kids, or else kids who a) don't have their own computers or b) aren't allowed to download illegally, or c) are too young to figure it out. Which strikes me as a not-insubstantial population.

yeah i mean those all seem like reasonable explanations. not sure that argues against the idea that some genres / styles would be harder hit than others, having a distorting effect on the overall accuracy of charts

i mean the issue i have w/ whiney's argument is that it feels like an attempt to marginalize rap's primary performers, to reorient the genre around a bunch of inoffensive performers who dont care about rapping any more & just worry about which fake chris martin will best help them sell their next single.

Anyway, back to the "poster's wives" theme - http://batgirlbob.tumblr.com/post/2401975659/albums-of-the-year

Thats a good list. Glad to see some love for Warpaint and the Jenny & Johnny record.

"The way I've tried to interpret this is that this is either parents buying albums for their kids, or else kids who a) don't have their own computers or b) aren't allowed to download illegally, or c) are too young to figure it out. Which strikes me as a not-insubstantial population."

rilly probably just millions of bored kids with their momz shopping at walmart or the mall and momz buys them a cd to get them to shut up about how bored they are. and CDs are like five bucks on sale next to the register with the gum and copies of us weekly.

Anyway, back to the "poster's wives" theme - http://batgirlbob.tumblr.com/post/2401975659/albums-of-the-year

good on her! more good records than dull, which is more than we can say for a lot of these lists

Whiney/deej/J0rdan back and forth i skimmed is the most interesting thing on this thread

so so rong

ilxor just wants to sit here and read the lists of everyone's spouses

Yeah but this is not the "Is Soulja Boy more popular than his dire Soundscan figure indicate?" thread.

And BTW my spouse's favorite 2010 album is the Crazy Heart OST.

figures

Yeah but this is not the "Is Soulja Boy more popular than his dire Soundscan figure indicate?" thread.

you're right, it was a discussion that really interfered with all of the magazine end of year lists that have been posted in the last 48 hours

rilly probably just millions of bored kids with their momz shopping at walmart or the mall and momz buys them a cd to get them to shut up about how bored they are. and CDs are like five bucks on sale next to the register with the gum and copies of us weekly.

― scott seward, Tuesday, December 28, 2010 7:53 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

may also be that some populations of young listeners are themselves more likely to buy CD than download music for free through whatever channels. lot of factors could figure in: wealth, culture, personal taste, etc.

plus yeah, the whiney/deej/j0rdan biz is way more interesting than anything else that's gone on in this thread in the last couple days.

deej/j0rdan/whiney swag-off sesh

DJ Magazine Top 50 Albums
1. Four Tet, There Is Love in You (Domino)
2. Altered Natives, Tenement Yard Vol. 1 (Eye4Eye)
3. Caribou, Swim (Domino)
4. Breakage, Foundation (Digital Soundboy)
5. Catz N' Dogz, Escape From Zoo (Mothership)
6. Mount Kimbie, Crooks and Lovers (Hotflush)
7. Shit Robot, From the Cradle to the Rave (DFA)
8. Bonobo, Black Sands (Ninja Tune)
9. Phonique, Kissing Stranger (Dessous)
10. Maddslinky, Make a Change (Tru Thoughts)

11. Scuba, Triangulation (Hotflush)
12. Lone, Ecstasy and Friends (Werk)
13. Butch, Eyes Wide Open (Bouq)
14. Hot Toddy, Late Night Boogie (Smoke-N-Mirrors)
15. Fritz Kalkbrenner, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow (Suol)
16. Clouds, Hökarängen Space Program (Exceptional)
17. Javelin, Mo Mas (Luaka Bop)
18. Quantic, Flowering Inferno (Tru Thoughts)
19. !!!, Strange Weather, Isn't It? (Warp)
20. Artificial Intelligence, Stand Alone (V)

21. Flying Lotus, Cosmogramma (Warp)
22. Ikonika, Contact, Love, Want, Have (Hyperdub)
23. Pursuit Grooves, Foxtrot Mannerisms (Tectonic)
24. Washed Out, Life of Leisure (Mexican Summer)
25. Neon Indian, Psychic Chasms (RCRD LBL)
26. Hot Chip, One Life Stand (EMI)
27. Virgo (Rush Hour)
28. Skream, Outside the Box (Tempa)
29. Wolf + Lamb, Love Someone (Wolf + Lamb)
30. Gold Panda, Lucky Shiner (Notown)

31. Chilly Gonzalez, Ivory Tower (Schmooze/Gentle Throat)
32. Tony Lionni, As One (Freerange)
33. Teengirl Fantasy, 7am (Merok)
34. The Glimmers, Whomp That Sucker (Gomma)
35. Oriol, Night and Day (Planet Mu)
36. Count & Sinden, Mega Mega Mega (Domino)
37. Sleigh Bells, Treats (Mom + Pop)
38. Jimmy Edgar, XXXX (!K7)
39. Matthew Dear, Black City (Ghostly International)
40. Toro Y Moi, Causers of This (Carpark)

That should be Top 40, not 50, obv.

DJ Magazine Top 40 Mixes
1. Juan MacLean, DJ Kicks (!K7)
2. Brownswood Electric Vol. 1 (Brownswood Electric)
3. 5 Years of Dirtybird (Dirtybird)
4. Tensnake, In the House (Defected)
5. Ninja Tune XX (Ninja Tune)
6. Selected Labels Works Vol. 2 (Permanent Vacation)
7. Scuba, Sub:Stance (Ostgut Ton)
8. Commix, Re:Call to Mind Remixes (Metalheadz)
9. Dave DK, Retake One (Moodmusic)
10. Friendly Fires, Bugged Out! Presents Suck My Deck (New State)

11. Five Years of Made to Play (Made to Play)
12. Rebel Rave (Crosstown Rebels)
13. Optimo, Fabric 52 (Fabric)
14. International Deejay Gigolos Twelve (Gigolo)
15. Leo Zero, Disconnect (Strut)
16. Danny Krivit, Edits by Mr. K: Music of the Earth (Strut)
17. Gilles Peterson Presents Worldwide (BBE)
18. Kode 9, DJ Kicks (!K7)
19. Brackles, Songs for Endless Cities (!K7)
20. Riddim Box (Soul Jazz)

21. I Love Funky (Rinse)
22. Tom Moulton, Philly Regrooved (Harmless)
23. dOP, Watergate 06 (Watergate)
24. Elevator Music (Fabric)
25. Rick Wilhite, Vibes New & Rare Music (Rush Hour)
26. Ten Years of Moon Harbour (Moon Harbour)
27. Kitsune 10 (Kitsune)
28. The Minimal Wave Tapes Volume One (Stones Throw)
29. Lost My Dog: 5 Years and Still Looking (Lost My Dog)
30. John Digweed, Structures (Bedrock)

31. Future Balearica (Needwant)
32. Ben Klock, Berghain 04 (Ostgut Ton)
33. Bear in Heaven, Beast Rest Fourth Mouth: Remixed (Hometapes/Dreamboat)
34. Shaping Elements: Poker Flat Volume 8 (Poker Flat)
35. Sound Pelligrino (Scion AV/Sound Pelligrino)
36. Worth the Weight: Bristol Dubstep Classics (Punch Drunk)
37. Fuck Dance Let's Art (!K7)
38. Valeu: Cleebrating 5 Years of Man Recordings (Man)
39. Lee Jones, Watergate 07 (Watergate)
40. Jumpin' (Harmless)

ilxor just wants to sit here and read the lists of everyone's spouses

hahaha :x

finally,

DJ Magazine Top 40 12"s
1. James Blake, "CMYK" (R&S)
2. Tensnake, "Coma Cat" (Permanent Vacation)
3. Butch, "No Worries" (Cecile)
4. Lee Foss, "U Got Me" (Hot Creations)
5. Ramadanman & Midland, "Your Words Matter" (Aus)
6. Art Department, "Without You" (Crosstown Rebels)
7. Soul Clap, "Extravaganza" (Wolf + Lamb Black)
8. Justin Martin & Ardalan, "Mr. Spock" (Dirtybird)
9. Deadboy, "If U Want" (Numbers)
10. Midnight Magic, "Beam Me Up (Jacques Reneault Remix)" (Permanent Vacation)

11. Discreet Unit, "Down" (Prime Numbers)
12. Caribou, "Sun" (City Slang)
13. Nicolas Jaar, "A Time For Us" (Wolf + Lamb)
14. Breach, "Fatherless" (PTN)
15. Roska, "Squark" (Rinse)
16. Lone, "Pineapple Crush" (Magic Wire)
17. Lovebirds, "My Man" (Freerange)
18. Julio Bashmore, "Batak Groove" (Soul Motion)
19. Redlight, "Stupid" (Digital Soundboy)
20. Four Tet, "Angel Echoes" (Domino)

21. Addison Groove, "Footcrab" (Swamp 81)
22. Tim Green, "Old Sunshine" (Get Physical)
23. Kink, "Bitter Sweet" (Liebe*Detail)
24. Jesse Rose, "You Know It" (Made to Play)
25. The Count & Sinden, "After Dark" (Domino)
26. Ill Blu, "Bellion" (Hyperdub)
27. AFMB, "Back Up Days" (Drumpoet)
28. Jamie Jones, "Ruckus" (Hot Creations)
29. T. Williams, "Heartbeat (Mosca Remix)" (Local Action)
30. Zev, "Don't Break It (Kenny Glasgow & Jonny White Remix)" (Wolf + Lamb)

31. Cosmin TRG, "Liebe Suende" (Rush Hour)
32. Fritz Zander, "For Your Love" (Suol)
33. Axel Boman, "Purple Drank" (Pampa)
34. FaltyDL, "Phreqaflex" (Planet Mu)
35. Dubbel Dutch, "Throwback" (Palms Out Sounds)
36. Deniz Kurtel, "Yeah (Jamie Jones Shower Aquafunk Mix)" (Crosstown Rebels)
37. Pariah, "Prism" (R&S)
38. Munk, "La Musica (Azari & III Remix)" (Gomma)
39. Doc Daneeka, "Hold On" (PTN)
40. Ramadanman, "Work Them" (Swamp 81)

James Blake is so bad, though

Yeah but this is not the "Is Soulja Boy more popular than his dire Soundscan figure indicate?" thread.

you're right, it was a discussion that really interfered with all of the magazine end of year lists that have been posted in the last 48 hours

― BIG SANTA aka the sleighdriver (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, December 28, 2010 7:37 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

C'mon allow a low level poster his little zings against the big boys.

mommy wow! i like big boi now

oughtta be a law...

anyway, problem with the whiney/deej argument above is that it's irresolvable. tend to side with deej, but whiney's got a point in that you can't necessarily equate interest (as represented by downloads, discussion, etc.) with potential purchases. sales charts have never measured what people like or want to listen to, only what they're actually willing to pay money for, and that changes with time.

makes me think of the way grunge supposedly killed hair metal. i'm sure that millions of poison and motley crue fans continued to listen to their favorite poison and motley crue albums, but they were no longer in step with the youth culture they'd once represented. they'd aged out or otherwise been isolated by a cultural shift. if all those fans had kept on buying, the artists in question wouldn't have seen their careers drop off so precipitously. but they didn't, and so the end came suddenly. point is that the interest was probably still there, at least in some circles, but the willingness to buy had evaporated.

not saying that the situations are equivalent, only that it's hard to say what people would be buying, if they were buying, when they aren't.

I've been reading a good book called Record Store Days and it goes into a lot of interesting detail about how Soundscan changed the charts in 1991. It touches on a lot of these same issues of "how to you find out what's actually popular" - before Soundscan the majors were gaming the charts, afterwards, it was discovered that indies had a 20% market share that hadn't previously been accounted for. I'm pretty sure some aggregator algorithm will come along in the next few years that will quantify more of the ephemeral stuff like Youtube views into all-encompassing social media charts that will at least give industry & artists bragging rights (if not the sales of yore).

how DO you find out etc.

makes me think of the way grunge supposedly killed hair metal. i'm sure that millions of poison and motley crue fans continued to listen to their favorite poison and motley crue albums, but they were no longer in step with the youth culture they'd once represented. they'd aged out or otherwise been isolated by a cultural shift. if all those fans had kept on buying, the artists in question wouldn't have seen their careers drop off so precipitously. but they didn't, and so the end came suddenly. point is that the interest was probably still there, at least in some circles, but the willingness to buy had evaporated.

I gotta admit, this kinda doesn't make sense to me...why would the hair metal diehards stop dropping cash on albums just bcz MTV started playing Nirvana videos???

i've gotten emails from this site forever and i've never actually looked at it. but they have a top 50 and you guys like those kinda things:

http://blurt-online.com/features/view/782/#

and blurt writers weigh in!

http://blurt-online.com/features/view/780#

is blurt a magazine? or just a webpage. i've never seen it if its a magazine. fred mills used to edit magnet, no? or write for them. does ilxors write for blurt?

BY THE BLURT CRÜE

As part of our year-end wrap-up, we first yield the podium to the staffers and writers and their personal picks for 2010. We think we have a pretty diverse and lively crew here at the BLURT ward (it helps that we ply them hourly with tequila and Oxycontin), and their selections reflect a true music aficionado's eclectic ideals. Guarantee: all dialogue reported verbatim. (Go here for Part 2 of the Writers' lists.)

LEE ZIMMERMAN

MIAMI, FL

BLURT CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Top 10 New Releases

Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (Glassnote)

Worst New Artist
Lady Gaga - or should we say, Lady Gag Gag. First of all, m'lady, your name strikes three blows against you before we even proceed to the music. Secondly, The make-up thing and silly props idea was done to death way before you ever came along - by the likes of David Bowie, Madonna, Elton John and even Cher. Give it up - you already seem redundant.

i dig some of the blurt writer top tens:

Top 10 New Releases

Len Price 3 - Pictures (Wicked Cool)

Christine Ohlman and Rebel Montez - The Deep End (Horizon)

The Jim Jones Revue - Burning Your House Down (Pias)

The 88 - The 88 (88 Records)

The Grip Weeds - Strange Change Machine (Rainbow Quartz)

The Mother Truckers - Van Tour (World Records)

The Sights - Most of What Follows Is True (Alive)

Edward O'Connell - Our Little Secret (Oaf Ramp)

The Greenhornes - Four Stars (Warner Brothers)

Farrah - Farrah (LoJinx)

not that i've heard any of those albums...

terry adams is number one! that's pretty hardcore:

MARY LEARY

SAN DIEGO, CA

www.sdentertainer.com/author/mleary/

Top 10 New Releases

Terry Adams Rock ‘n' Roll Quartet - Crazy 8's (Clang!)

Robert Wyatt - For the Ghosts Within (Domino)

Lake Street Dive - Lake Street Dive (Signature Sounds)

White Noise Sound - White Noise Sound (Alive Records)

Jaill - That's How We Burn (SubPop)

Kelley Stoltz - To Dreamers (Sub Pop)

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast (Kanine Records)

Dead Confederate - Sugar - (Old Flame)

Unnatural Helpers - Cracked Love and Other Drugs (Hardly Art)

Ty Segall - Help (Goner Records)

another gaslight anthem mention at least

this seems to be quite a biggy with the blurt crowd:

Justin Townes Earle - Harlem River Blues (Bloodshot Records)

seriously some of these top tens are friggin' cool in some alternate universe way:

Top 10 New Releases

The Riot Before (Paper + Plastick)

Bad Religion - The Dissent of Man (Epitaph)

The Posies - Blood/Candy (Ryko)

Jesse Malin - Love it to Life (SideOneDummy)

Off With Their Heads - In Desolation (Epitaph)

The Successful Failures - Three Nights (FDR)

Moneybrother - Real Control (Bladen County)

Ike Reilly - Hard Luck Stories (Rock Ridge)

Flogging Molly - Live at the Greek Theatre (SideOneDummy)

David Ford -Let the Hard Times Roll (Original Signal)

the posies! who knew??

why would the hair metal diehards stop dropping cash on albums just bcz MTV started playing Nirvana videos???

well, diehards are a tiny portion of the overall buying public. and it's clear that there was a generational shift away from hair metal among pop/rock fans in general. i don't deny that, and that's the sense in which this is a poor analog for what whiney & deej were talking about. but maybe another part of the story is that many hair metal fans just got older, started raising families, stopped participating in a social culture that encouraged the purchase of sleazy party metal albums. it's like not the crue were well equipped to cater to the aging of their existing fanbase.

i don't know that this meant that no one was interested in listening to motley crue anymore. maybe yes, maybe no. what we do know is that no one was interested in paying money out of pocket for new motley crue albums. similar, but not exactly the same thing. they continued to tour profitably for quite some time, iirc.