Year-End Critics' Polls '08

gotta second these noms for avant albums of the year...

paavoharju - laulu laakson kukista
natural snow buildings - laurie bird
emeralds – solar bridge
burning star core - challenger
the goslings – occasion

a few suggestions...

demons/hatred - split lp
liquid metal - alternative soundtrack to digital overdrive
u.s. girls - introducing...
teotihuacan - live smokeshows from inside the ciguri cave hazed diamonds with windswept hair
bulbs - light ships

no more... fuck buttons, please.

i kinda like pocahaunted, even though i'd choose mi ami over them any day of the week. speaking of which, add mi ami - african rhythms 12" to that suggestions list.

I couldn't get into the Burning Star Core there's a trio of tracks I really enjoyed (Challenger, Mezzo Forte and Mysteries of the organ) but the rest is not as good. Same goes with Fuck Buttons, a couple of good tracks but that's it. Lot of those seem like they'll wind up on TinyMixtapes list.

I like the staff pick lists on Dusted Magazine. Every year they turn me on to some great record that went under my radar.

Screw magazines, where can I see some ilx people's lists?

i can post a tentative top 100 if anyone cares, or should that be another thread?

Answered my own question:

So we're halfway through 2008; what are your top 10 albums of this year, so far?

it sounds great at 33 rpm! i did this on accident a couple times, and the room full of people i was with was fooled into liking the 33 rpm as well. makes the normal version seem so hyper, but obv they're both good.

i realllllly like that demons/hatred split, esp if you dug evocation.

also, it's funny when metal turns electronic. genghis tron and zombi are good examples of bands where metal kids hear something a little different and flip their shit for it, probably because they get so bogged down with technicality/musicianship/doooooom. i think this crosspollination is great though, although i'll admit to liking zombi much more than genghis tron

^ See I could never play something like Burning Star Core to anyone I know without them asking me to play something else. I need new friends.

moka- tinymixtapes' eureka list and the dusted ones usually have some good picks, but i'd peruse the picks that volcanic tongue and aquarius have been making this year to maybe even predict what those will turn out like

^ links please?

here's my "indie rock" best of. totally boring! what can i say? i likes what i likes.
1. Robert Forster – The Evangelist
2. Pas/Cal – I Was Raised On Matthew Mark, Luke & Laura
3. James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes
4. Stephen Malkmus – Real Emotional Trash
5. Earth – The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull
6. Destroyer – Trouble In Dreams
7. Lambchop – OH (Ohio)
8. Stereolab – Chemical Chords
9. Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea
10. Lindstrom – Where You Go I Go Too

tylerw: How's that Lindstrom album? I loved the collaborative album with Prins Thomas released two years ago but for no real reason I haven't given this one a chance and I've been seeing it pop up on several lists.

any rap lists?

it's great! the lindstrom i mean. as perhaps the rest of my list suggests, it's not entirely my area of expertise, but it might be the new album i've listened to the most in the latter half of this year.

been looking for that Pas/Cal thing for months now, was beginning to wonder if ti had even been released...

it's funny, i like the burning star core album more in an eno/tangerine dream kind of way more than anything else. even though arp's 'in light' is better in that respect (and way smooother)

oh, here are the links-
http://www.volcanictongue.com/?cat=1
http://www.aquariusrecords.org/

they're record stores that take the time to pick their favorite albums and write about them and every other release they choose to add to their shop. great resource

loved the lindstrom as well. just realized that the vinyl version is 3/4 prins thomas edits, as someone pointed out in the thread for that album.

Thanks for the links. Will check that lindstrom album then.

Also released this year is this great Nigerian Highlife Compilation on soundway:

http://kinosport.tv/notebook/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/nigerian-special.jpg

Great song selection and beautiful artwork.

we should make a reissues of the year thread

I don't even know if I could make a top 10 out of things I heard this year, but...

people need to quit sleeping on the bug CD

I couldn't get into a mountain of one until the other day when I had a massive hangover and it was the only thing in the pile that made any sense. how is it not on any of these lists? also liked:

landed - how little will it take?
naked on the vague - blood pressure sessions
teeth mountain
some of that destroyer album

things I need to spend more time with: endless boogie, prurient

things I still haven't heard: the ex & getatchew mekurya, indian jewelry, made in mexico, usaisamonster, growing, no age, cut copy

things I tried to listen to but stopped because it felt like homework: marnie stern, ponytail, portishead, times new viking, guns n roses, vampire weekend

oh shit I meant to put that on the other thread

Uncut magazine

Top 20

1. Third - Portishead
2. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
3. Dear Science - TV On The Radio
4. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver
5. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
6. The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow
7. Stainless Style – Neon Neon
8. Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
9. Only By The Night - Kings Of Leon
10 22 Dreams - Paul Weller
11. Brighter Than Creation's Dark - Drive-by Truckers
12. Stay Positive - The Hold Steady
13. Litany of Echoes - James Blackshaw
14. Harps and Angels - Randy Newman
15. Made In The Dark - Hot Chip
16. Limbo, Panto - Wild Beasts
17. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
18. Real Emotional Trash - Stephen Malkmus
19. Rook - Shearwater
20. Evil Urges - My Morning Jacket

Very pleased to see James Blackshaw at number 13 on the Uncut list.

I didn't buy too much new suff this year, but the Nothing People LP stands out as something that would be in any lists I made.

i understand it's totally cliche to be like "omg yall lists suxxorz" but what is up with these? i'm glad RET is getting love though.

Fleet Foxes failing to get #1 in Uncut must be regarded as some sort of catastrophe for their PR people.

Seriously, what is up with My Morning Jacket making so many of these lists? That album had two or three good tracks and twelve average-to-total-shit songs. Any album that contains "The Librarian" and "Highly Suspicious" belongs nowhere near a best-of-year list.

Fleet Foxes payback innit.

They did get the inaugural Uncut Music Award however!

http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/index.php?blog=13&p=1026&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Since Dave Stelfox left Pitchfork I don't think they've gotten a new dancehall/reggae columnist so that means even less year-end critic coverage of reggae/dancehall

Pitchfork year-end reggae/dancehall coverage went up today here.

best 'noise' thing I heard this year was 'gongs of violence' by andrew coltrane. i think he has loads of discs and tapes out, they're probably all good. and pale fatal sister by hototogisu hit the spot w/ me

i loved solar bridge by emeralds, but don't see anything v. noise abt it

I'm conscious that I've almost entirely missed out on the noise/Wire-oriented side of things this year (a situation admittedly not helped by the delibidinising effect of Wire writers, some of the most turgid and joyless writers the music press has to offer). So their EOY list might be of practical use to me for catch up purposes.

The only other EOY list I find of active use is the OMM one, which, though generally crap and predictable, is good on World Music and I do tend to blue pencil those entries.

The Hot Chip album seemed to get a mixed reaction on its release but it sure ain't doing badly in the year end lists.

it's terrible except for "Shake a Fist"

best Hot Chip track of the year, by a mile: Supermayer's remix of "One Pure Thought"

I really like the first two-thirds of the Hot Chip album but then it totally falls apart. That Supermayer remix is great though.

i don't dislike hot chip by any means but calling that album the best of anything is a bit weird. though depressingly it does seem to be among the best of all the lists it's on :/

Supermayer's remix of "One Pure Thought"

does it sound anything like M83's 'Couleurs' (part of which reminds me of 'One Pure Thought' itself)?

It sounds like the DFA.

which also means it has great singles but the album is a little hard to make it through all the way

We're talking about a remix, not an album.

i thought we were talking about Hot Chip

There has only been one mention of Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill by Grouper, and it wasn't even by a publication...That album is so amazing. Might be #1 this year for me.

That's the retro shoegazing, dreamy, 4AD, slurred vocals, ambient, Yo La Tengoish group from Portland, right.

It's Liz Harris

Pfunkboy wins.

All her records are great.

Uncut cont.

50 Mercury Rev - Snowflake Midnight
49 Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun
48 Byrne/Eno - Everything That Happens..
47 Sic Alps - USEZ
46 Pete Greenwood - Sirens
45 The Fall - Imperial Wax Solvent
44 REM - Accelerate
43 Joan as Police Woman - To Survive
42 Metallica - Death Magnetic
41 James Yorkston - When The Haar Rolls In
40 That Was The Week - s/t
39 Beck - Modern Guilt
38 Endless Boogie - Focus Level
37 Lambchop - OH(Ohio)
36 Earth - The Bees Made Honey In The Lions Skull
35 Toumani Diabate - The Mande Variations
34 Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
33 Sigur Ros - Bollocks to typing this out on a BlackBerry
32 Flight of The Conchords - s/t
31 White Denim - Workout Holiday
30 Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
29 Robert Foster - The Evangelist
28 The Felice Brothers - s/t
27 MGMT - Orcular Spectacular
26 Lucinda Williams - s/t
25 Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
24 Glasvegas - s/t
23 Black Mountain - In The Future
22 The Raconteurs - Consolers of The Lonely
21 Howlin Rain - Magnificent Fiend

(note: at least two of these are made up)

...the Nothing People LP stands out as something that would be in any lists I made

absolutely. a lot of good stuff on s-s this year.

26 Lucinda Williams - s/t

This one came out 20 years ago.