ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

i really liked this at first but then it was kind of diminishing returns. this might still have been near the bottom of my ballot tho, can't remember

Haha, my number 1. Would have been so sad if it hadn't placed, although I'm kind of disappointed it didn't place any higher than this. It's a beautiful, perfect record for me. I remember coming home after little sleep, hungover about 11am and putting it on and just listening to it in the dark from beginning to end. I maintain that's the optimal situation to hear it in. A few more thoughts about this written for the Quietus

well at least we get to discuss 76 nice records before the gushing over an album of faux-emotional warbling and caterwauling.

This is an excellent start - I missed it last year but have been playing it over the last week and it's fantastic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEvnsKdP2m0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfefYDZvDKk

The whole thing's great, and it's best heard as a piece, but here are two highlights

I liked Konkylie a lot! Didn't go back to it as much as I thought I would at first, but it's a lovely and interesting record.

The kind of thing I'm glad to see sneak in at 77 even if it isn't Top 25 of the year for me or anything.

NO EMBEDDING! xp

a couple solid tracks on this one. I like the industrial+balearic/chillwave elements even if it doesn't hold up for me over the whole album.

can we not throw a million youtubes in here or make sure that they're links not embeds? thx.

agh can we just post links to youtubes not embeds please? i fear for my browser otherwise

oh sorry JF - don't know how to unimbed

aw dang it's the actual album covers not ms paint versions :(

unembbed?

prediction katy b and pj harvey are the top 2

This sort of sounds to me like a more sincere version of Autre Ne Veut crossed with Anthony.

Although, lol I forgot about the lyrical namechecking of Linden trees.

oh sorry JF - don't know how to unimbed

either the short version of the youtube link or use the bbcode

To NOT embed youtube links, click on the "Share" button below the video and copy the short url it provides. Short urls do not auto-embed on ILX.

k, got it - no more vids.

The "Kelly" video above may be the best of the year, despite all the skin crawling creepiness.

oh beyonce will be top 3. maybe even the winner

Beyonce
Katy B
PJ Harvey

The Kelly video is basically Black Swan with all the fat trimmed off, right?

Let's refrain from talking about the top 3 this early, shall we?

Serious Arthur Russell vibes too...

xpost ^^ this

i was just trying reassure lex that Destroyer has no chance of winning

Save us Johnny Fever!

no mention of derulo yet. probably because of cross voting between spelling his name with and without an umlaut.

considering it got 10 votes and a first placer, WSGM is pretty low. the following 76 had better blow my MIND!

First impression: I like a lot of the ingredients, and it's obvious why ILM would go for it, but I'm not really taken with any of the songs I've heard so far.

i fully expect braids to finish #52 to #50.

silence as netizens try to think of their #52 to #50 predictions

whenever someone mentions that band i have to retrain myself that they're not talking about the emo band from the 90s.

I can't even remember what I voted for. I don't think I really got into many albums last year.

That said, it would be nice for some artists that were absent from the singles vote: Gucci Mane, Peaking Lights, Tim Hecker, Laurel Halo, Metronomy, Braids, Oneohtrix Point Never, Maria Minerva, maybe Art Department...

or the r&b duo who did the 'bohemian rhapsody' cover in the '90s xp

...and LMFAO of course! ;)

j0rdan is the rollout finishing thursday like the tracks poll or friday?

i'm cool with whatever

thu worked well i think - as someone said on the trax thread, by the time you get to the top 10 there likely won't be any surprises by the order left, so no point holding it back

i think its more to do with those leaving work on a friday not seeing results til monday

i gave this one a listen at ned's behest last year. it was okay as i remember, but i never went back to it.

― first period don't give a fuck, second period gon get cut (lex pretend)

yeah this^. checked out the thread on this band after someone mentioned them somewhere recently and was surprised to see i had posted positively in it but had completely forgotten them in the intervening months

but im happy going with whatevers best for j0rdan

I would have voted Konkylie higher were I to redo my ballot. It's really a fantastic album, full of a little bit of everything for everyone (conventional synth pop numbers like "Kelly", slightly skewed synth pop numbers like "Church and Law", wobbly mood pieces like "The Same Scissors", compositional music nerd freakouts like "Konkylie" and "Add Ends").

Weirdly, the singer sounds just like Antony but for whatever reason I do not want to pull out his esophagus and strangle him with it. I suspect it's because he's getting better support from his backing music.

Haven't seen the video for "Kelly" but "Add Ends" is great:

http://youtu.be/eQby5ZsopR8

http://i.imgur.com/OhVu2.jpg

76. Robag Wruhme — Thora Vukk (262 points, 8 votes)

P4K: DNP
P&J: 392

Spotify

I have no idea what this is

me neither...

nor me

to me konkylie's one of these records with so many little musical "bits" that only reveal themselves after a few listens - the only thing I can compare it to is Boards Of Canada's Geogaddi in that respect.

I had come up w/ a list of possible #1 placers:

PJ Harvey
Beyonce
Katy B
Destroyer
Tim Hecker

(I've changed my mind about TH, and now will be v impressed if he makes top 10...)

Xp ha! Never heard of #76: is this poll going to be awesome?

ah that robag wruhme record was lovely! not on my ballot but happy to see it place. useful when hungover

the invite has been claimed.

and katy b isnt fun

hey gr80 whats your what login

hint: i made the 77 collage

really loving the colin stetson. thanks ilx!

i mean, i'm barely into it, even, but i'm just astounded. also, the best cover i've seen all year.

not just the cool horses, but also extending their herded gallop across the frame on the left. awesome.

last post, sorry, but thanks for making the collage on what, gr8080!

you're welcome!

also, yeah that colin stetson cover is gorgeous. very Z S, imo.

grady, im irish, i voted for that destroyer album

english ppl be acting ridiculous here btw

michael b has no love for katy b

i dont actually, her tunes are a bit slight haha

michael b otm

ok grades im drunk rite now and listening to the katy b album but 4 mins in it aint no kaputt CMON LEX HAVE AT YE!!!!

ugh shoutouts...great

hold on a sec this is kinda good haha

XD

So I listened to this James Ferraro thing on my way into work today and... well it's this thread Internet nostalgia made into an album, innit? I totally get why a lot of people think it's nobblers, but I think the Encarta 94 nostalgia trip works on me. Our first family PC, playing demos of Sim City, Beneath A Steel Sky and Magic Carpet, making "funny" Powerpoint presentations from clipart etc. Obv this isn't really a record I'd want to listen to every day, but it's keenly observed (everything from the LO text-to-speech voices to the fast fades at the ends of tracks). It all builds into this Pentium-Inside near-retro-futuristic vision as heard through the medium of Cool Edit as opposed to VHS cassettes. Some of it reminds me of Sufjan Stevens' 'Michigan' album for some reason.

It's also interesting to see, particularly with this album, the exponential rate at which nostalgia seems to be turning over. Assuming retro is an unavoidable aesthetic that is just going to happen at this stage, the rapidity at which artists seem to be rushing through these tropes is kind of staggering - from post-punk revivalism, through chillwave's mid-late '80s TV obsession and now Ferraro's Netscape-aesthetic - it's like retro music is rushing to get to that theoretical point where it literally catches up with the present. Unlike many revivals so far, I'm old enough now to distinctly remember the early days of the internet, but at the time I was so impressed with the fact I could download Pearl Jam tabs and muck around with voice recordings in a sound editor, that the imperfections of these systems weren't apparent to me. It requires temporal/technological distancing to make these talking avatars and bandwith-draining web ephemera seem old-fashioned and naif. I think Ferraro makes that point explicit by putting an iPad on the cover - it's just a reminder that tomorrow, today's cutting-edge ideas will be considered extremely naff within only a few years.

hm. interesting points.

gawd WHEN is there gonna be a new psychic paramount album??!?

Pearl Ensemble is the next best thing j.

Ensemble Pearl

def need to check that out soon

they need to get one (1) hot rhythm section before 'next best thing' makes any sense at all, PP on the other hand cook like a motherfucker

I didn't mean that they were sound-alikes, they are two different bands after all. There isn't anything as delicate as Wray on PP's last record. I just meant it is a psyche/drone album that possesseth a similar undefinable quality, they don't to do anything more.

i was thinking more of their possibly also obliterating the difference between the sky and the ground until everything rushes on ahead in a metronomic cacophony, but ah well, delicacy

I meant to say They don't 'need' to do anything more. Fuck me 'metronomic cacophony' ? I would get some ointment for that.

something to sniff at least