ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

only played the TW album once so far but Hell Broke Luce completely owns

basically a really nice balance between drunken rollicking explosions and chants / sentimental balladeering / casting a caustic observer's eye over the financial crisis

xps

Lex, I agree it's def Tom's chillin out having fun being human album - think that's what made me like it in the first place, but I do miss his more character-based/theatrical side.

http://i.imgur.com/wl1sI.jpg

47. Clams Casino — Instrumentals (354 points, 12 votes)

P4K: 17
P&J: 61

cannot stand Last Leaf! Chicago and Face to the Highway are both great (among the other quality tracks mentioned)

XPOST

oh god i just can't be bothered with clams casino until and unless rappers rap over it

so bored of 2am lonely laptop music in any case

Man. So many albums I literally haven't even heard of. I'm excited.

ooo ooo ooo ooo ~melancholy~ ooo oooo ooooooooooooooooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Clams is sweet. Shame 'I'm God' wasn't on the mixtape though, that's amazing.

XP

LOLex

http://www.residentadvisor.net/images/reviews/2010/dialcd22.jpg

cover connexion

clams is cool... he has a few classic beats but the actual rap songs are good enough that i don't see the point of the instrumentals

what does this sound like?

i am CONCERNED yall. we're 20 albums in and my favourites are by TOM WAITS and LAURA MARLING. and my favourite new music i've heard this week is by LEONARD COHEN. what is happening to me!!!

otoh i am downloading this hatchback album based on the awesome title track. wish i'd known about it last year, i felt like i wanted music like this a lot. psychgawsple did you like the almunia album?

i mean karl...

or er both of you

i like but don't love clams, prefer his music with rappers too.

so bored of 2am lonely laptop music in any case

so reductive

Ha, that John Roberts album is songreat and none of you bastards voted for it last year at all. Clams Casino was like the Balam Acab record for me, pretty but kind of dull.

lex, also check out White Elephant's Sir John (plus Mark E Remix) and Torn Sail's Birds.

I like that Clams album a lot. Surprised it's this low, to be honest.

Lex you being a tom waits fan is so crazy to me! In a good/unpredictable way

yeah, i voted for the Almunia album. i think my ballot was unweighted, though. i couldn't pick 25 albums to fill it out.

lex, also check out White Elephant's Sir John (plus Mark E Remix) and Torn Sail's Birds.

love both of these - they were on a great compilation called future balearica that i had. past tense. gone in my hard drive death ;_;

lex i bet all your faves are much higher in poll if tracks results are anything to go by.

Thought the Almunia album was ok (the title track is a jam) but it was only like my 5th favourite beach vibez album of the year after Hatchback, Gatto Fritto, Out of City and probably something else I'm forgetting.

http://i.imgur.com/Ri9hd.jpg

46. Azari & III — Azari & III (358 points, 12 votes)

P4K: DNP
P&J: 737

Demdike Stare is fantastic, but I didn't vote for it because I kind of thought of it more as a comp/reissue.

― Gonjasufjanstephen O'Malley (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 11:24 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah, but i figure that if an album got okayed by the nomination process and the sounds contained are among my favorites on the choose-from list, then that's reason enough to throw it some points. a big part of my goal is to bring attention to music that i think deserves it, and i don't want technical considerations to limit me in that regard.

I was stunned by how much I loved that Azari & III record.

contenderizer - that's fair, I just didn't even see it on the nom list tbh

yeahhhhh azari & iii!

actually i'm not sure this quite made my ballot either but it's a super great album - undecided was my favourite of the previously unreleased tracks

they've come such a long way, can't believe they'll be supporting madonna on her next tour. they should be fucking producing for her

a & iii put on a fantastic live show too - "into the night" as final slow dance <3 <3 <3

Really happy that Laura Marling placed, I suppose the difference between her and KT Tunstall is largely the darkness (ie she is 1x massive goth) - I think of her as closer to Will Oldham than any of the Mumfords set.

Also Laura is a better songwriter by fucking miles.

Hatchback is just precision loveliness.

A few hours late with this since I've been cooking/hosting dinner, but the Ferraro is a fun album - breezy/blank but quite psychedelic and non-intuitive in how things are assembled. One of my dearest friends has been raving about Ferraro for a few years now, so I view Ferraro via my friend's more artworld kinda axis (Cory Doctorow/Paper Rad/etc). High concept, sure, but not any more low-stakes gamesmanship than, I dunno, Brian "Windows 95 sound" Eno's ambient stuff. Reminds me a bit of 50s generic happy modern machine music & other optimistic chintz - cheers me up a lot more than the other ambient-y stuff I was listening to this year (Roll the Dice/Blanck Mass/Hauscka/etc).

ogmor probably put this better tbh.

i was pretty shocked that azari & III finished in the 700s in P&J

despite absolutely loving the pre-album singles i still haven't gotten to that azari & III album

does anyone have like a list or mix of good clams casino songs with rappers?

This is the point I realise that Yob wont place :( I knew Corrupted wouldn't. The top of metal poll doesn't always translate over to doing well in big poll.

I'm not even sure the metal poll winner will place now.

I think "Manic"/"Undecided" were great but not sure how well the Azari & III hangs together as an album - better than the new H&LA, but not a patch on, say, the H&LA debut.

does anyone have like a list or mix of good clams casino songs with rappers?

― call all destroyer, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:41 PM (12 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lil b - i'm god
squadda b - fakest year ever
lil b - motivation
asap rocky - palace
lil b - cold war

I voted for both Danny and Kendrick (the latter of whom was my #4), so stuff it, lex!

I'm running a bit behind here, but just chiming in to say I really enjoy that Laura Marling album. It's got kind of a '70s singer-songwriter vibe to my ears: sprawling song structures, wide dynamics (too few albums recorded with headroom like that these days), confessional lyrics. Not sure exactly who it reminds me of. I also dig her voice a lot. My fave track is probably "Salinas" but there are many good ones. They're best heard in the context of the album though. I should probably go back and check our her previous work.

ASAP Rocky 'Wassup' probably ended up my favourite Clams production jobbie of the year.

XP

Lil B 'Motivation' killer also, yeah. Can't see a Lil B record scraping in here, iirc 'Angel's Exodus' was hovering around the bottom end of my ballot.

Checkin and diggin the Moon Duo album

Yeah the Laura Marling was a great discovery for me, I really like the vibe.

couldn't get into the Azari & III album at all, nothing was as good as the singles which i was already sick of

Checkin and diggin the Moon Duo album

― Number None, Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

me too! this is good

what label put this out?

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

45. The Weeknd — House of Balloons (360 points, 10 votes, two first place votes)

P4K: 10
P&J: 13

uh oh

Uh - ohs

Sacred Bones (xpost re: Moon Duo)

Haha xp!