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

Cuz it ain't ready!

it's also not the end of the year yet!

Yep, records that are getting fucked on ppls lists because they're poppin out to early
--Diddy-Dirty Money
--Ghostface
--Anika

- jazmine sullivan
- ciara
- r. kelly

(- keri hilson: not likely to be on anyone's list, not even mine, but doesn't deserve to be ignored either)

...

If it isn't actually good enough to appear on anyone's best-of-the-year list, why does its release date matter?

Yep, records that are getting fucked on ppls lists because they're poppin out to early
--Diddy-Dirty Money
--Ghostface
--Anika

if more than a few random ilxors and geoff barrow stans had heard of anika, that might help a bit

that r. kelly shit is all over my list, it's really good!

At least Diddy is sure to wind up on my list next December.

geoff barrow is involved? colour me excited.

i haven't heard it yet, but i understand it's basically BEAK> (Barrow's new-ish band) with a Nico-sounding female singer, with usual Barrow production, dub/kraut/post-punk influence, bit of '60s girl group stuff, oh and it's released on Stones Throw -- one of the few labels I'll buy pretty much whatever they put out and it's almost always worthwhile

speaking of Stones Throw, is no one else following the Madlib CD series on Stones Throw this year??? not one mention anyplace. i mean it's a Madlib 11-12 CD series of archive/vault stuff + mixes, i understand it's a niche product, but any critic listening to a couple hundred plus albums in a year needs to find room for stuff like this

If it isn't actually good enough to appear on anyone's best-of-the-year list, why does its release date matter?

some individual trax are strong enough to appear on people's lists, and generally it's worth a mention in general round-ups

i'm amazed that a geoff barrow project went so under-the-radar! want to check that out

Anika is in our Top 20 but to be fair the album got so badly mishandled that it's getting "released" again at the end of January.

the madlib (2, 3 and 5 i think) i heard was nice but come on, i couldn't keep up with dude back when he wasn't releasing at least (!) one thing a month, dunno how i could this year.

speaking of Stones Throw, is no one else following the Madlib CD series on Stones Throw this year??? not one mention anyplace.

http://blog.allmusic.com/2010/12/15/allmusic-loves-2010/

http://blog.allmusic.com/2010/12/15/allmusics-favorite-reggae-albums-of-2010/

http://blog.allmusic.com/2010/12/14/allmusics-favorite-world-albums-of-2010/

OH MAN

*spends rest of workday getting lost in AMG writers' individual lists*

your list is awesome Andy!

yeah i was about to say if there's one list i most look forward to seeing it's andy's

you still slept on jeremih tho!

deej props for putting "you neva know" at #1, that's in my top 5 too i think - haven't seen anybody talk about that one in a while

(Thanks, you guys.)

Here are some lists by a bunch of political writers, in case you want to know what's blasting out of the speakers at Foreign Policy magazine or the Cato Institute:

http://gq.tumblr.com/post/2418770447/political-hacks-best-music-of-2010

Dave Weigel, Reporter, Slate.com

* Rick Ross - Teflon Don

XD

i'm sure i'm not the first to say this but i would not have predicted the emergence of "did it on em" as the consensus nicki minaj track on these list. in retrospect it kind of makes sense, but really?

Charles Homans, Associate Editor, Foreign Policy

* Das Racist: Shut Up, Dude

it's all hip-hop/rap though!

like, if someone puts out a year-end list that's 100% "in my world of white guitar ppl" we all lose our shit

deej's list is similarly zzzzzzzz, right?

― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor), Wednesday, 22 December 2010 15:46 (7 hours ago) Permalink

ilxor, I think you and contenderizer are riding this whole anti-anti-indie steez too hard. No-one's gonna complain about a list of white guitar ppl that is called "best white guitar ppl of 2010". It's the short-circuit between white-guitar-ppl (and kanye) with "best music anywhere in the world" that gets negative reactions.

I hinted at this upthread but one of my favourite sets of lists are those done by juno, which are even more severely circumscribed e.g. "Best Electro-House Tracks of 2010" etc. - these are genuinely helpful, and actually focus the minds of the listmakers on what constitutes "best" within particular parameters (with particular barometers). It's all these "best albums of 2010" with the same 20 f***ing records that are much more zzzzzz IMO.

Alright, people probably would have a problem with the title "best white guitar ppl of 2010", but not because it's genre-specialist.

^^^lol

otm

It's the short-circuit between white-guitar-ppl (and kanye) with "best music anywhere in the world" that gets negative reactions.

i've never seen a yearly best-of list that really addresses the "best music anywhere in the world." all such lists are limited by the culture and broad genre boundaries from which they come ("western pop music" being an example of a broad genre boundary). it's a matter of how broad you claim your list to be in relation to how broad (or how narrow) it actually is.

otoh, i'm not a critic, so maybe i'm not in a position to opine.

i've never seen a yearly best-of list that really addresses the "best music anywhere in the world."

Yes this is true in practice, but:

it's a matter of how broad you claim your list to be in relation to how broad (or how narrow) it actually is.

Right. Any list which states that it's a list of the "best albums of 2010" and includes at least a couple of albums by a couple of genres is implicitly saying that there are few if any formal restrictions on what can be included.

I much prefer a list which is formally constrained and, as a result, is more inventive, unusual or informative.

cosign on the juno lists, btw. but i wish they'd have two extra filter categories, for "songs with buzzy, arcade effects" and "songs without buzzy, arcade effects"

They could rename those categories "overrated in 2010" and "underrated in 2010".

im sure there are ways to make interesting cross-genre lists -- but maybe these are just easier as radio formats ("quiet storm") or DJ genre constellations ("balearic") than critics lists

ha!

(xp)

im sure there are ways to make interesting cross-genre lists -- but maybe these are just easier as radio formats ("quiet storm") or DJ genre constellations ("balearic") than critics lists

Yeah DJ constellation (or similar) round-ups can be the best because the very act of listing the songs together also performs that process of drawing the constellation in a way that doesn't exist for straight "best of" lists and isn't necessary for official genre lists.

& obv 'personal lists' qualify that way too

speaking of, i made a youtube playlist of the top 50 rap songz

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=3FF03078C1191155

good job, more yt playlists already

ilxor, I think you and contenderizer are riding this whole anti-anti-indie steez too hard. No-one's gonna complain about a list of white guitar ppl that is called "best white guitar ppl of 2010". It's the short-circuit between white-guitar-ppl (and kanye) with "best music anywhere in the world" that gets negative reactions.

oh man... appreciate the sincere response. honestly i was bored at work (office is DEAD this time of year) & about 20 minutes into the day, posted a couple straight-up trolling posts on ilx to make my day a bit more interesting. was hoping for a good whiney/deej/j0rdan response or something fun. i don't actually believe any of what i wrote there ;)

i agree w/ you tim & also really like deej's list -- in fact, i said as much upthread:

i love everything i know from that list (about 20% of it, naturally) and am really thrilled w/ all the youtube links: that's one of my favorite year-end formats, when i can quickly click over and check out the stuff i haven't yet heard

― i genuinely thought when i first joined that he was the admin (ilxor)

Alright sorry ilxor, I couldn't remember your prior posts when I saw the last one.

props to Andy K for including the Mathew Jonson album, that's the record i loved the most this year that hasn't been getting much list love

tim... no worries, & no need to apologize, no offense taken! i just saw yr response and was all O_O

ilxor, I think you and contenderizer are riding this whole anti-anti-indie steez too hard.

― Tim F, Wednesday, December 22, 2010 3:03 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

hey, i don't think i've even made that point in this thread. not that i haven't made it elsewhere, but...

thing is, my eyes glaze over at relentless indieism, too. tried to get something out of those AMG lists, but if half your contributors stuff up their top 20s with some combo or variation on deerhunter/best coast/arcade fire/lcd soundsystem, then your definition of "allmusic" probably isn't broad enough to justify the name. otoh, lists composed entirely of equally obvious non-indie stuff are just as tedious. it's obviousness and impersonal pack-following timidity, rather than indieness per se, that i find most dispiriting.

not sure it's even timidity, more like people have limited time to listen to new albums, so they listen to the 50-100 most critically trumpeted albums in a given year, then spit out "personalized" lists that rank their favorite 10-20 of those 50-100 albums; it's just rather small pool of albums to begin with, though, so all the lists come out looking like variations on a theme

not that i'm one to talk as my top 10 would include robyn, big boi, four tet, caribou, the-dream etc. etc.

pot kettle black etc.

not sure if this counts as agreeing w tim, & even though this is in some ways the opposite of my own approach to listening to music, i would a hundred million percent rather read someone who focuses on a small number of tightly related genres & knows a lot about them & is consistent and discerning over some cosmopolitan dork overenthusiastically trying to capture some nonexistent zeitgeist who knows nothing. it's really interesting when you feel you understand someone's tastes, that you can see it as an aesthetic set, what makes a song functional or acceptable to them, it becomes possible to rediscover music & see if in a way totally foreign to you, & i think that's easiest to do if it's applied to a more limited range--although it can definitely stretch across genres if necessary

everyone who is a cool music fan should listen to as many albums outside of the most critically trumpeted set as out, imo. big world &c