Year-End Critics' Polls '08

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

Spin Magazine - The 40 Best Albums of 2008
http://www.spin.com/articles/40-best-albums-2008?page=0%2C0

Dear Gigwise,

I can't be fucked to click 'Next' 50 times to see which record you voted as number one. Please make your website less shit or I will assume you voted for MGMT like everyone else.

Yours,

poor Gigwise they just don't understand Information Design

http://pub37.bravenet.com/forum/3172289350/show/930811

Gigwise Top 10

1. Elbow
2. Lil' Wayne
3. TV On The Radio
4. MGMT
5. Kanye West
6. Neon Neon
7. Friendly Fires
8. Metallica
9. Mogwai
10. Sebastien Tellier

Gigwise need to become WEBwise
http://www.informationdesign.org/

I fiddled with the URL - it was Eblow what won it.

x-post durn it

does anyone on ILM love/care about both the Elbow and Lil Wayne albums to roughly the same degree?

Probably a fair few who think they're both shit.

and the faeces

what's up with spin's santogold review? so who actually gets the spot, her or lykki?

same goes for elbow

Lykke gets Lykke's spot, clearly.

Did Spin really compare Hot Chip to Nate Dogg?

what's up with spin's santogold review? so who actually gets the spot, her or lykki?

I don't understand this comment. Did we read the same review?

SANTOGOLD
SANTOGOLD
The M.I.A. comparisons fly as far as surging opener "L.E.S. Artistes." From there, Santi White concocts her own dance-floor ultramodernity, incorporating '80s new wave (the Missing Persons–meets-Devo "You'll Find a Way"), reggae ("Shove It"), and coconut-flavored electro (the buzzing "Unstoppable"). It's a sonic mash as gloriously schizoid as her outfits. Who else could make opening for Coldplay, writing songs for Ashlee Simpson, and collaborating with Spank Rock seem so audaciously natural? J.M.

coconut-flavored electro?