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

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.

That Mother Truckers album is pretty good, Scott! It was #109 on my year-end list. (I just checked the thread you started, to make sure.) I liked their previous two albums too, and they are loads of fun live. (Saw them once; they're in Austin.)

Also, that Jimmy Edgar album, #38 on the DJ Magazine list that Matos posted, made my "honorable mentions" list below my Top 150. So I am hip with both the Blurt and DJ Magazine crowd, ha! (I actually used to do a column for Blurt, a few years ago. But then they disappeared, and then came back to life. But I didn't. Or something like that.)

Also, fwiw, plenty of people who used to buy old Bon Jovi albums are still spending money on new Bon Jovi albums (not to mention albums by various Nashville country acts who sound like hair metal bands used to, a few of which have even been known to cover old hair metal songs.)

how long did you do a column for blurt????? did i read any of them? maybe you linked to some. i am easily confused by the internet.

Lady Gaga... or should we say, Lady Gag Gag.

http://kimberlyburton.typepad.com/memoirs_of_a_redhead/images/2007/12/15/ist2_4358818_nothing_but_net.jpg

xp Me too. Actually, I did two columns -- one with brief reviews of whatever random new albums I liked that I couldn't land reviews of anywhere else, and one on old indie 7-inches that were in my collection, in alphabetical order. (I even wrote about an old Bunny Brains 45 once!) But I'm pretty sure only the first one ran in the actual magazine; the singles one was only on line.

I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have me anymore, though, seeing how I like Ke$ha so much.

Ke$ha? more liek Ke$hit

"like"

you need to start listening to more posies albums. and go to my morning jacket concerts.

x-post

Worst New Artist
I avoid commercial music like the plague, to avoid hearing any. My credo for decades has been, ‘the best music is always in the underground.'

~~~hmmmmm~~~ do i really care what else this guy has to say? sorry, NO

"I avoid commercial music like the plague, to avoid hearing any."

great sentence

that sentence reads like something off of P. Scaruffi's website after the Google Translate...

My credo for decades has been, ‘the best music is always in the underground.'

Me too! In fact, I am listening to a Skin Yard album from 1986 right this second. Grunge will kill hair metal yet, mark my words.

Paul Blurt: Mall-Punk Cop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW55n1JLBUQ&feature=related

deej? whiney? any more relevant topics you guys wanna beef about?

It's the "iStock Photo" that makes it.

i dig the underground too. this is KILLING me tonight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhiRzu8QTkk&feature=related

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs8fOfwVqyk&feature=related

and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CLbkq5UIB4

but carry on. sorry.

Silent Ballet is really dragging out their countdown 'til the last minute this year. They're only to 51 of 100! As usual there's at least a couple dozen I haven't heard, and I'm too spent to go digging for them for a couple weeks. Who knew J.G. Thirlwell put out an album? Looks like another good list, even if Ufomammut is at 71. http://www.thesilentballet.com/tsbt/2010/100_91.html

lol @ me being two days out on this but ~rmde~ (omg! omg!) @ deej arguing that gangsta rap is "as popular as ever". hmmmmmmm

i wld totally marry her

oh lol

lol @ me being two days out on this but ~rmde~ (omg! omg!) @ deej arguing that gangsta rap is "as popular as ever". hmmmmmmm

― Hyrule's (Lamp), Wednesday, December 29, 2010 12:42 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

why is that 'lol' and the argument is from earlier today

oh sorry misread, why are you *rmde* at that? i think i made a pretty solid case here that sales arent reflective of the popularity of the genre as a whole

or are you just trolling per usual

i mean i basically think the music critic line on rappers 'finally' getting over the 'staid' template of gangster rap is pretty much one of the most tiresome conceits of writing from writers who basically fuck with only the 1st rap artist they hear. afaik nonviolent drug offenses still impact an overwhelmingly huge number of black men & this is basically what 'gangster rap' is and has been about. yuppie rap fans trying to turn the genre into a 'post-gangster' 'art form' are imo basically doing the musical equivelent of destroying public housing, watching the poor scatter & then acting like anything has been 'fixed'

http://i40.tinypic.com/1zqzvjt.jpg

fleeing children otm

http://premiumplusmagazine.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/drake-so-far-gone-retail-front1.jpg