ILM's Top 77 ALBUMS of 2011

defend the albums if you like them! i wouldn't mind if my favourites got "fuck this shit" reactions, it'd just make me ride harder for them

..and that cycle rarely ends well ime
i have vowed to truly stfu until i have something that is worth saying

it can be enlightening to find out what people w/different listening experiences to me dislike in things i find flawless, anyway

never really heard about sidechain compression before, looking it up...

so is that how stott creates that vacuum on the bass drum hit that makes my entire room throb?

yes

thread has maybe felt tetchier than usual? i guess the albums poll brings in a wider constituency than the tracks one

I think I'm enjoying "Dark Details' (A. Stott) but it's actually sort of hard to concentrate on it -- is that normal? Also kinda hate the cover.

less tetchier than previous years (so far anyway)

I really liked the Moon Duo tracks from last year I heard on Spotify - like with Veronica Falls they wouldn't have sounded out of place at the first ATP and would have been considered somewhat old-hat then, but Moon Duo are really good at what they do. They know their way around a good noisy spacerock riff - bet they're amazing live, will check out the album.

I wish I liked the Azari & III album more than I do, Reckless is amazing (like top five single of the last few years for me) but not much else of the album is in the same league. They have these two amazing diva frontmen who aren't given enough room to shine.

I'm glad The Weeknd album is getting the level of debate here it deserves (ie none). King of Limbs certainly has its moments but there are too many songs that sound simultaneously overworked AND half-finished (Little By Little ffs).

The Fucked Up album is amazing and fun in short blasts but exhausting in its entirety, I think. And the story is impossible to follow.

diamonddave: sidechain compression (aka ducking) has been used for decades (probably back to the early 70s) to keep kick drums clear in mixes. French house exaggerates it as an aesthetic element in its own right, and there's a lot of dubstep that plays with the sound (my favorite example being Blue Daisy's Space Ex). Andy Stott is the minimal version, where there's so little else going on the entire focus is the ducking sound.

Andy Stott sounds pretty dark and creepy.

xp
yeah, maybe it just feels that way to me b/c the tracks one is fresh in my mind

RE: Stott - I loved night jewel when it came out (and some of the claro intelecto stuff) but haven't got that much into anything else by him, should give this a play at some point, don't really understand album format for this kind of thing though

it's weird looking at the early eoy threads that were linked to early and seeing how dead they were. Though I remember the threads from the time and they just didn't interest me. Didn't even vote til 2005 maybe?

Teebs "Ardour" is also a good way to understand sidechain compression

There should be little to no debate about this album by "The Weekend", it's one of the glorious music Statements of the year (2011.)

if tuneyards is top 10 then i guess thread might be tetchy then but the p4k loved stuff seems to be low this year so haters are happy with that 'victory'

xp thanks for the info on sidechain, interesting to find out the technical details on one of my favorite parts of the album

here's one of my fav from the two if anyone's interested in hearing more: hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl3gdkC2Xrk

lol I was in a meeting and missed several cues

i love laura marling and am glad to see her place and disappointed to see djp hating

This may be upsetting to many ppl here but I don't actually hate KT Tunstall so that comparison, while somewhat negative, was really more of a troll than anything else. Laura Marling seems to be perfectly fine but I'm probably not going on her mailing list.

re: Fucked Up, duh of course that album was going to place after the massive boner displayed for it on the tracks thread. Still kind of cracking up that when I listened to it, there was virtually no difference between the song that placed on the tracks poll and the song that followed it, down to the tempo and the key.

I have no opinion on anything else that placed.

btw even though it's not my thing I will be psyched if tune-yards goes top ten just on strength of technical achievement

(my favorite example being Blue Daisy's Space Ex)

blue daisy album was awesome! reminded me a lot of massive attack's mezzanine.

this is a p cool list although the only album i voted for was zeus and apollo

lex: Blue Daisy just missed my ballot. Gobs of atmosphere, but the singles had the tunes.

I tried to listen to a couple of Azari & III singles, but IMO the vocalist's nervous/thin/indierockish vocal style feels totally out of the place with the house music beats. Are all of their tunes like this? Isn't anyone doing classic, gospelly house vocals anymore?

good sirs i am of the opinion that the andy stott album is a terrible depressing mess i want no part of but i whole-hardheartedly endorse your right to relish it with great passion

Tuomas, try this: http://open.spotify.com/track/22QlnkZkann673OZ3W7rBp

hey more of my votes! Moon Duo, Demdike Stare, Grouper... nice.

Yeah just dropping by now, very pleased to see Demdike Stare and Grouper place!

60. James Ferraro — Far Side Virtual (295 points, 11 votes)

didnt vote for this but its an interesting record. i thought it was a p empty pose the whole digital detritus concept but the songs are better than i initially gave them credit for. i dont really get the pysch thing tho, this the sound of emptiness, of the blank spaces btw thought

58. Grouper — Alien Observer/Dream Loss (304 points, 11 votes, one first place vote)
57. The War on Drugs — Slave Ambient (322 points, nine votes, one first place vote)

this is total pseud music and everyone voting for these should be ashamed.

56. Danny Brown — XXX (323 points, 11 votes, one first place vote)
54. Kendrick Lamar — Section.80 (337 points, 10 votes, one first place vote)

i like both of these a fair bit although i prefer lamar's.

50. Hatchback — Zeus and Apollo (350 points, nine votes, two first place votes)

fantastic record, think i had it #3 or #4 on my ballot. requires some deep listening imo

41. Andy Stott — Passed Me By/We Stay Together (363 points, 13 votes)

this and demdlike and to an extent moon duo are sorta right on the edge of music that i really like w/o managing to generate much interest or excitement in me. this record in particular just seemed... not good, in a way that isnt even interesting to dissect

Dan, that was kinda cool, but lacking in house beats.

I am glad both Stott's releases were banded together. Hopefully Cass McCombs ace double will chart in a decent position as well. I have really got into C M in the last year. I am getting into him backwards (f'narr f'narr) in that I have only just got into Catacombs.

I find it amusing that everybody hates the odd Radiohead album I like. I am cool with them making sexy makeout jams.

that andy stott might be a depressing mess but somehow it sounds like i would have liked burial - into whom i never got - to sound. btw i like my dose of sadcore.

I don't hate KoL but I don't really remember it at all

best thing about the not-bad stott album was the cover art imo. might have to give it another shot, though. grouper's twofer was pretty much the best double release of the year, though.

gr80 otm re Stott

I'm not following dance music that much these days, but it kinda feels that ever since the "indie electro" boom of the 00s, the vocal lineage of gospel -> soul -> disco -> house has been broken, and classic dance vocals have been replaced by thin, rock-influenced, abrasive and/or whiny singing styles. Where are the Robin S.'s of today?

(several x-posts)

Teebs "Ardour" is also a good way to understand sidechain compression

^^^at first i had a hard time listening to it because of the extreme sidechain comp ratios, but i guess i'm so inured to it now that it doesn't bother me. it's definitely a key musical technique of that record.

I don't hear indie at all on Azari and iii.

i enjoy king of limbs when i listen to it and then i forget it exists. in rainbows was way better.

Where are the Robin S.'s of today?

http://thenewgay.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/robyn-opt1.jpg

Getting plenty of ilx love on the tracks list.

i find veronica falls incredibly grating, but i can't really articulate why

That's a different Robin/Robyn, people tend to mix them up because of the similar names, and because both had a hit single called "Show Me Love".

Where are the Robin S.'s of today?

still in deep house, funky house etc? monique bingham, marissa guzman, natalie may, ruby lee ryder, terri walker. and katy b obv.

I don't hear indie at all on Azari and iii.

― I want your nose, your shoes and your unicycle (dog latin), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:23 PM Bookmark

^^^

tuomas, what the hell are you on about?

Haha I know Tuomas, I was trying an unsuccessful zing based on that celebrities hanging out thread.

but yeah azari & iii have pretty classic male diva singers so i have no idea where the "rockishness" thing comes from

can someone try to explain the hatchback love to me? i know nothing about the album except the title track but that is a boring ambient, easy listening piece going into no man's land. inoffensive, harmless, superfluous. is that how the album is?

http://youtu.be/f2RkfFDCrWc

listening to fucked up now. i do like this. it's like if leatherface made american idiot.

I don't hear indie at all on Azari and iii.

― I want your nose, your shoes and your unicycle (dog latin), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 1:23 PM Bookmark

^^^

tuomas, what the hell are you on about?

Well, I only listened to a couple of tunes that I found on Youtube, but the vocals on this tune, for example, feel much more in line with shouty indie-electro and electroclash (and 80s synth pop that inspired them) than with house music. That's why I asked if all of their tunes are like that, because I like the beats, but not the vocal style.