ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

how come it's always the placement of indie rock bands in an ILM poll that causes the most handwringing?

I was thinking earlier that the difference in overall attitude/approach on this poll compared to the tracks poll is pretty big - almost like two different boards.

It is every year, though, from what I can remember. And bear in mind we're in the lower reaches still - a lot of the big hitters in tracks who have released album will appear later.

*albumS. I need to proof-read my posts more.

was there a nyan cat album?

Oh I was referring more to the overall mood of the thread. Everyone seemed more energised and enthusiastic on tracks, but people seem more considerate and open minded over here. Maybe that'll all change as we reach the upper regions of the countdown.

Is it alright to speculate over the chances of Diamond Mine placing? I know KC has a small but strong contingent lurking around ILX, but will it be enough to push him into the 77?

Well I voted for Veronica Falls, Drake, and Joy F. The K.R.I.T album just missed my ballot. So out of the stuff I hadn't heard found the When Saints... hella boring. Lykke and Low were okay. Really dug Psychic Paramount though.

was there a nyan cat album?

― Derartu Cthulhu (NickB), Tuesday, 31 January 2012 11:32 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Am now imagining a "riddim" style compilation made up of different people toasting over Nyan Cat.

Album lists attract a slightly different crowd - there are people posting prolifically here who didn't post on the tracks thread at all, and I'm willing to guess there are people who only voted in the albums list (and to a lesser extent vice-versa). Also you see different types of music appearing - this list so far is a lot indier, with more consensus picks appearing.

true, true

What's (kind of) interesting is that it's more or less the same group of voters in albums and tracks. I don't have exact numbers but I'd say well over 100 people voted in both.

My tracks ballot was mostly odd dance and some poppier stuff and my album picks are mostly weird noise. Neither of which will have much of an impact on these polls. But I do still read lots of album review, and that's my main way of finding new things, whereas with the tracks its mostly stuff that has been filtered through ILX or blogs or whatever.

Voted for 25 in the other and 4 in this - no overlap, doubt most of the ones in the track ballot will ever release an album

I can't remember the exact figures but I think the albums poll had about a dozen more voters.

One contributing factor to why the albums poll varies from the tracks poll is because a good number of people feel that they should avoid voting for tracks off of albums they think have multiple standouts. How many times did something either place low in the tracks poll or come up in conversation as a missing entry where several people said "oh I voted for that album instead"?

And thank god for that. One of the reasons why, say, the Pitchfork tracks list is so boring is that it's largely people just voting for their favourite tracks off their favourite albums, and that crowds out so much great music that appears on patchy albums, or never appears on an album at all.

Hmm looking at it I voted 6 albums where I also voted for a track off said album. Not that bad out of 25 I guess.

I don't know if it's because I know their history before having heard the album, but Liturgy don't so much sound like a black metal band as what Oneida or Liars would sound like if they were spoofing it. The intro to True Will sounds like an Animal Collective b-side, the production is also very indie - it doesn't have that galloping "sheets of glass being dropped in a church" effect, sounds more like it was recorded in a loft. And the guy's voice is just lost - BM singing tends to be more structured whereas this just sounds like someone whooping in some vague unison with the backing. It's not that I don't like it, but this has much more in common with the NY noise/hardcore continuum than it's being given credit for.

The tracks that most miss out for me are those on albums which are mostly not-great but have a few standouts (ie you can't pick just one to vote for but the album's not good enough to vote for either). MJB springs to mind for last year

Yeah but if any of those MJB tracks had been out-and-out amazing you'd have voted for them anyway?

Okay, so it seems Liturgy are Black Metal to Fucked Up's hardcore punk - in this case it isn't BM at all, it's math rock/post rock with screechy vocals whereas Fucked Up do pop-rock with punk vocals.

Xp not nec! There were at least 100 out-and-out amazing tracks I didn't have room to vote for

fwiw i really like the drum sound on the liturgy record, and the WITTR record makes me think "why do drums usually sound so terrible on metal records?"

so in a roundabout way dog latin is saying Liturgy is hipster metal made by indie kids and not proper metal at all?

I wonder if Mastodon will place if we're talking about awesome drummers.

I guess this is all a symptom of the net and the way it's bolstered listeners into having "eclectic" tastes. The more websites like Pitchfork are expected to diversify from their original indie-rock template, the more a market opens up for music from disparate styles that somehow fits into this template.

I feel kind of precious for listening to Liturgy and saying "but that's not Black Metal!", but I'd say I'm justified in the same way the Lex will complain about The Weeknd and Frank Ocean - by fitting into this eclectic schema, these acts lose a lot of their edge. Liturgy's all very well, but why listen to these guys when there's probably a grillion more worthy metal albums out there not getting the same kind of attention? Well that's obvious - Liturgy are approachable, they speak frankly and openly in interviews, they're not from inaccessible Scandinavian outback, they don't wear fright make-up and chainmail and they don't go around burning churches and eating each other's brains - all factors which make the genre inaccessible to the casual fan. But if you take these away, what are you left with? A BBFC-approved version of the original style with all the cigarettes airbrushed out. No offence to people who come to metal via Liturgy, however I can imagine the majority of newcomers approach Liturgy as exactly that - a "safe" gateway into a style that bypasses all those difficult hurdles that people have trouble with when listening to albums like Filosofem or Battles In The North. But by avoiding these obstacles, you're not so much jumping in the deep end as wading around in the surf, which isn't really any fun at all.

i like to imagine he looks like HEALTH's drummer

I don't have much of a problem with anything that dog latin has to say (though I can certainly see arguments against it) except for the assertion that wading around in the surf is no fun. Wading around in surf is totally fun. Seriously. Get to a beach, try it, then tell me you had no fun. You'd be lying.

Save us, Johnny Fever!

Landfill was the big post-Libertines Top 40 stuff like the Kooks, View, Fratellis, etc

This is largely true. However, I will note that the Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger" is the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team. Like, whenever they score a goal, the stadium blares the song and everyone sings along. Kind of funny b/c most people here don't even know who the band is.

ah, emil.y I guess that's where the rule is dis-proven because I'm completely guilty of "paddling" when it comes to genres like r'n'b, which unlike metal I didn't really have a lot of exposure to in my former years. As a dilettante who's nevertheless willing to hear more, I'm still naturally drawn to the more Pitchfork-y end of the genre (Badu, Monae, Ocean et al). I still find some of the more outré r'n'b tropes hard to grasp onto, maybe even off-putting. And while I'm aware that many will dismiss the above artists as perhaps lacking in something or other, I still find them a useful access point.

Yeah, its so weird that that song is pretty much universally known around Chicago as "that Blackhawks song", sort of like Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Part 2" has basically been "the Bulls intro song" since the Jordan era.

(xpost re jaymc's post)

I was actually being an annoying literalist, tbh.

the Fratellis' "Chelsea Dagger" is the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team

Hockey + barroom Britpop are basically made for each other. Wasn't Song 2 a big hockey tune?

The tune from "Chelsea Dagger", incidentally, was written by me when I got my first guitar. Ten years later and it's a big hit. Drat.

dog latin is rich

Erykah Badu was embraced by R&B fans well before Pitchfork was.

But I suppose the issue with eclecticism is that it can end up going one of two ways - constant collaging and changing and mixing leading to fresh sounds and new forms, or ending up with a homogenised landscape where everything is mixed up but nothing is on the outskirts pushing in a new direction.

er that wasn't right

Erykah Badu was embraced by R&B fans well before she was embraced by Pitchfork.

Badu maybe not so much DJP, true.

I was wondering what you were on about there.

just talking shit, ignore me. when's the countdown gonna return?

I first heard of the Liturgy album from Doran, a couple of months before it came out. I was p eager about it, and when I saw that some blog had offered a preview track--"Returner"--I snatched it up. I think that turned out to be the second track, ie one of the tracks that ppl on this thread did NOT at all like. But I was very taken with it. I was not familiar with black metal as a genre at all, but even I coiuld tell there was something different about it: I kept feeling like it should have its own genre, like "blue metal" or "sky metal": to these ears at least, that song was all soar and swoop.

The Quietus wrote:

they forge a unique sound that uses the form of black metal not to reflect on the cruelty and isolation of existence but to harness the elemental violence of nature

which to me was otmfm.

Unfortunately, when I finally listened to the album, I found it tedius. Turns out "Returner" was all I needed for them, so I voted for that song high on my tracks ballot, and left Aesthethica off my albums ballot...

I've only heard two Joy Formidable: "The Last Drop" which was nominated in the all-time shoegazer list last year--where I voted for it--and "Whirring". Whirring is okay, but I'm just happy that it turned out that the JFs were the WElsh version of the Silversun Pickups (a far far better band than Yuck)

D'oh, I actually didn't mean you then, I meant DJP's garbled post where he seemed to be asserting that R&B fans now love Pitchfork. Which they might do, I guess, I dunno.

xpost

loads of xps later

that shd read 'two Joy Formidable SONGS' btw. smh @ myself

D.A.M. - I don't listen to BM that much any more at all. I think what I'm saying is people shouldn't just check out Liturgy, give it a quick listen and then stop at that. It's really not that remarkable and the aesthetic angle they're going for has more in common with Mogwai or Liars or Lightning Bolt than any metal I can think of. I really despise myself for saying these things as there's nothing worse than a "True Metal" boor, but hey that's my feeling on the subject.

Also, only listening to the first track on that Liturgy album is not really the way to go. If you want to sample only one song I'd say either "Returner", "Generation", or "Veins of God" would be the way to go. The first track doesn't really do their approach justice, imho.

not to reflect on the cruelty and isolation of existence but to harness the elemental violence of nature
see to me, these are sort of the same thing, so i was disappointed when i really didn't hear it. maybe i didn't give it a chance? i like black metal but liturgy just didn't speak to me. it's also possible i was in the wrong mood the one time i gave it a chance...

I'll try again if you guys think it's worth it. Sometimes I just feel like I'm biting at the "violent nature" catnip though.

Well I definitely think Liturgy is distinctly (and purposefully!) far removed from what other black metal bands have been doing. I think its actually easier for someone with little black metal experience to get into Liturgy, but I'm having trouble with spelling out exactly why. For me, I hated Liturgy at first, but once I kind of realigned my expectations and approached it differently from standard black metal, I was able to really appreciate it on its own terms.