Year-End Critics' Polls '08

I find "Single Ladies" kind of noxious, tbh.

i like lollipop more than a milli, still

Hip Hop Connection's top 40 of the year

40. Sway - The Signature
39. DPF - It'll Never Catch On
38. Triple Darkness - Anathema
37. Vast Aire - Deuces Wild
36. The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
35. Dagha - The Divorce
34. Santogold - Santogold
33. Sadat X - Generation X
32. Foreign Exchange - Leave It All Behind
31. Termanology - Politics As Usual
30. Kidz In The Hall - The In Crowd
29. People Under The Stairs - Fun DMC
28. DJ Revolution - King Of The Decks
27. Nappy Roots - The Humdinger
26. Blak Twang - Speaking From Experience
25. Atmosphere - When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
24. Guilty Simpson - Ode To The Ghetto
23. Jake One - White Van Music
22. The Bug - London Zoo
21. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
20. The Game - LAX
19. Pete Rock - NY's Finest
18. NERD - Seeing Sounds
17. Nas - Untitled
16. Kashmere - Raiders of the Lost Archives
15. Prodigy - HNIC 2
14. Young Jeezy - The Recession
13. Baby J - Baby Food
12. The Roots - Rising Down
11. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
10. Black Milk - The Tronic
9. Large Professor - Main Source
8. Elzhi - The Preface
7. Sir Smurf Lil - A New Bloodline
6. Fat Ray & Black Milk - The Set Up
5. ABN - It Is What It Is
4. EMC - The Show
3. Million Dan - Spektrum
2. The P Brothers - The Gas
1. Roots Manuva - Slime and Reason

voting for triple darkness!! propz

#18?

With the exception of guys who are in there because they always have to be in a rap year end list (Nas, NERD, Twang), that's a nice list.

Or what he just said, xp.

It's described as an "album that brought the funk".

19. Pete Rock - NY's Finest

^^^this album was so terrible it made me want to ;_;

fact magazine top 100 tracks

http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1604&Itemid=27

another day, anopther quietus list.

this time reissues/mixtapes/compilations get the love :

30 Various Artists - Optimo Sleepwalk
29 A Guy Called Gerald - Black Secret Technology
28 Throbbing Gristle - 32nd Annual Report
27 Magazine - The Peel Sessions
26 Various Artists - BBC Radiophonic Music
25 808 State - Ex El
24 New Order - Low-Life
23 Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Union Café
22 Various Artists - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Mix Tape
21 Soft Cell - Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret
20 Various Artists - Top Ranking Santogold: A Diplo Dub
19 Various Artists - New Orleans Funk Volume 2
18 Various Artists - Nigeria Rock Special: Psychedelic Afro Rock & Fuzz Funk In 1970s Nigeria
17 Diamanda Galas - Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Live
16 Loop - Fade Out
15 Omar Rodriguez-Lopez - Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fungus
14 New Order - Power, Corruption & Lies
13 Prodigy - More Music For the Jilted Generation
12 Killing Joke - The Peel Sessions 1979 – 1981
11 Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
10 Gary Numan & Tubeway Army - Replicas
9 Artery - Live at Meltdown
8 Einsturzende Neubauten - The Jewels
7 Gas - Nah Und Fern
6 Teenage Jesus & The Jerks - Shut Up and Bleed
5 Various Artists - Dancehall: The Rise Of Jamaican Dance
4 Aphex Twin - Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92
3 Various Artists - Sprigs Of Time: 78s From The EMI Archives
2 OMD - Dazzle Ships
1 Suicide - Live 1977 - 78 Box Set

35. Dagha - The Divorce

Anyone know if this is good?

I've liked what I've heard from it so far, but I think I'd like it better if I did hella weed.

the posting of the wire list coincided nicely with my monthly emusic download renewal.

that philip jeck album in the #2 is serious. i've heard of less than half the rest of the list, though

35. Dagha - The Divorce

the only hip hop album i actually listened to more than twice this year.

That P Bros any good Dom?

Would make a good soundtrack for Blade 4.

Norway's Aftenposten Newspaper - Best 2008 Albums
http://oslopuls.aftenposten.no/musikk/article111824.ece

Aftenposten scrapped their English language website recently, so only Geir can read the blurbs. Aftenposten is Norway's equivalent of The Daily Telegraph.

So far, the list that my/our EoY list is most going to resemble is...

The Wire Hiphop list!

fact magazine top 100 tracks is the first list i've actively enjoyed (if u ignore the indie obv) - loads of trax which are in line to make my own list, plus quite a few that i hadn't heard & now need to check out

Fact Magazine website also seemingly non-cognisant of term "at a glance."

Lex OTM though.

it actually hurts my head to think that this is the only list so far to feature a crazy cousinz item

btw, everyone, I got the Geeneus album yesterday and it is fab fab FAB and that'll teach everyone not to wait until the actual end of the year before doing EoY lists.

Well, I got it on TUESDAY so NERR I AM FUNKIER!

(Although he could stand to slow down a bit on the mixed CD - 31 tracks in 60 minutes, phew...)

Fact magazine produced a really good list last year as I remember. I should try reading it sometime.

"btw, everyone, I got the Geeneus album yesterday and it is fab fab FAB and that'll teach everyone not to wait until the actual end of the year before doing EoY lists."

I'm more annoyed about not including "As I" in my top ten singles than the Geeneus album in my top ten albums (it reminds me a bit of the first Wookie album - in both cases the pre-album singles included are more exciting and raw than the self-consciously futurist tracks). And I had ample warning slash no excuse with "As I", it just hit me rather slowly how much I adore it.

"Yellowtail" was the most ubiquitous and one of the best funky tracks of the year, but I'd feel a bit Dissensus repping for it too hard.

Kudos to Fact for putting audio links on all of that. I'm not sure I've heard the Heartsrevolution track.

(Although he could stand to slow down a bit on the mixed CD - 31 tracks in 60 minutes, phew...)

On the average George Mitchell Minstrels album you got 60 songs in 31 minutes! Kids these days etc.

Startled at Hip Hop Connection putting a couple of fortysomethings from Nottingham act at #2. (The P Brothers - The Gas) My promo CD was literally unlistenable: low bitrate (I'm guessing 64k) PLUS blasts of white noise every minute or so PLUS annoying electronic voiceover announcements, again every minute or so. Pure torture, and they even pulled the same stunt on the album's preview megamix on MySpace! Is this common anti-piracy practice in hip hop, then?

Actually judging by the awful elitist Dissensus-lite copy on the Fact list, maybe I won't bother with the magazine after all.

I got a sampler of the Prodigy album that HHC has at no. 15 and it has to be heard to be believed. I didn't get round to timing the gaps between voiceover dropouts like I was going to but it was roughly every 10 seconds. It was basically impossible to tell if the actual release would have any merit or not

I dunno if I'd call 'Dissensus-lite' a bad thing per se!

"awful elitist Dissensus-lite copy" - MUST READ!

It is fairly standard practice as anyone fool enough to pick up the average Lethal Bizzle or Kano promo will testify.

Actually I was reading the list last night and there was a track (can't be arsed checking now) that was, paraphrasing, "good but has since been licenced to MoS so is liked by idiots" that basically made me want to shank whoever wrote it, so yeah not gonna go great lengths to defend the mag (I quite enjoy it when I read it on the whole tho)

Mail on Sunday?

xpost: That was Kid Cudi's "Day 'N Night", I think.

Last year's Kano album promo played lovely! It must be a Worrying New Development.

The last Prodigy album I had a promo of - Never Knowingly Undersold, or whatever that underachieving fourth album was called - was also interference free so maybe they're getting worried.

http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/41537

(lol acronym meld)

(Ministry innit)

xxp

This is Mobb Deep Prodigy btw

"I think that if we can move into original content in the long run that will be more exciting. It is closer to what we do in the newspaper - we don't publish other people's stories. We are original content providers."

Ha ha, tell that to the various bloggers whose content they've splashed over double page spreads without permission or payment!

Pushing the envelope already with the ACM Gospel Choir there.

Very glad to see others got in ahead of me with the task of typing up the Wire lists. I bet myself before turning the page to see the top of their list that the Bug would be #1, good to see I've been keeping my finger on the pulse.

wow, the wire's "critical beats" list sure veered dubstep this year. (for the record, i contributed about half of that; guessing walmsley did the rest. and my list was, shockingly, mostly dubstep, with the exception of villalobos, koze, and louis guilliaume. i think i voted for move d's "drøne," too, but it looks like that slipped over to the electronica list.)

as for mixing up tracks, albums and singles, IMO it's the only way to do it when each genre just gets one (short) list...

xpost: That was Kid Cudi's "Day 'N Night", I think.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha thats one of the main songs discussed in frankenstein beats thread -- it has an american corollary w/ a crookers remix as well

1. Roots Manuva - Slime and Reason

really missing something with this

I can't get past the cover. Ties with Santogold for title of worst 2008 album cover.

1. Roots Manuva - Slime and Reason

really missing something with this

― Yentl vs Predator (blueski), Thursday, 11 December 2008 12:27 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Problem with Roots Manuva albums is that they take far too long to "unlock" when listening to now, and I just get convinced the further he gets into his career the less valuable the stuff you're gonna be discovering on the 40th listen is.

i think i just wanted some not-boring beats

I sort of lost interest in Roots Manuva when I realised he was a really plodding MC who happens to have an amazing voice.

Gigwise's Top 50 Albums Of 2008!
http://www.gigwise.com/photos/48128/Gigwises-Top-50-Albums-Of-2008