ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

I'm a nerd who wanted to kick it off at midnight (on the east coast, anyway).

It's a soft launch.

barf

Kinda sad that Anco did better here than P&J or Pfork, but still having them at #77 is perrrrrfect

78 woulda been better

anco at 77 is even better than anco not placing at all imo.

also no way ilx was going to let an anco record go w/out voting for it

still haven't listened to this. kind of curious all of a sudden as to why the general response was so underwhelming.

damn, when are you planning on rolling this out?

mob mentality in part.

also poor production choices.

I've never heard anything by them that didn't have terrible production choices.

I was the one who placed it at number one. It is probably the best thing anco has made since Here Comes the Indian (only Strawberry Jam might compete): Chaotic, weird and LOUD. And of course the whole indie-sphere recoiled and opted for safer ground. Yeah, I might have become more ardent about it because of it's response, but it is really great. They march in 7/4, shout 'monkey' at the rich, and dissapear into a mushroom forrest.

yeah i thought that was a part of the appeal? xp

I thought the #1 vote would've been someone trollin' hard but ey fair enough Frederik I suppose. I'm a terrible Anco fanboy but apart from a couple of songs (probably more moments than songs, even) I didn't come close to getting into this. The brash + ugly aesthetic that I think they somehow made work on Strawberry Jam and to a lesser extent on MPP is just ugly-ugly here.

good post frederik.

yep, nice post Frederik and power to you for sticking to your guns.

bahahahaha @ JF contemptuously flicking this out of the way ahead of time

I've been one of ilm's most vocal supporters. The amount of word space I've dedicated to defending them since 2004 when I first discovered them as a troupe of noise/folk beach boys-influenced weirdos is unaccountable. But here was where the buck stopped. After three albums of diminishing returns they finally made the album they'd always threatened to. It's pretty much guff all the way through. Every irritation they're all too often associated with was amplified on this album. It's just so fucking wanky I haven't been able to get through the whole thing more than once.

I still rep for that crazy sample-based 2-track single, Honeycomb/Gotham they released last year though. I'd hoped the new album was gonna sound like that but no, it was just terrible.

Re: production choices - these have marred the last two albums or so very badly. For some reason they seem hell bent on finding this disgusting frequency and then distorting it to thw point it sounds like a lo-bit mp3 scraping through a cheese grater. While on previous albums it was less present, and any graininess could have been attributed to the fact they were once very much entrenched in the same Brooklyn noise scene as Black Dice, since MPP it's developed into an excruciating blanket of constant high-mid screeing.

Amazed that it didn't place on PF though. Wow.

obviously not flavour of the week on pitchfork now.

didnt vote for it but that album is good so stfu

I refuse to believe this is radically worse than the rest of their music.

Flavour of the week - PF have been propping up AC for years now. At some point, and I don't know who came to meet who, they became representative of THE typical PF band.

For me, AC's decline is more to do with them slowly going from noise-influenced deconstructed folk/psychedelia experimental pop with shitloads of ideas --> prissy, cloying, "fashionable"-in-a-horrible-way, increasingly influenced by their own imitators, and apparently doing their best to exacerbate the issues that have been attributed to them over the years. Since Strawberry Jam, I've been waiting for them to somehow consolidate everything and actually make an album as good as Sung Tongs, Feels or Campfire Songs, but the only times they seem to come close are on EPs and side-projects. Their album output appears to be cursed into compromising the band as something in Pitchfork's making, and now even the hand that feeds them has lost interest.

I'm glad some people enjoyed this record. I still hope they'll one day come back with a truly excellent album, but for the last several years it's felt like "making do" for me.

Stoked for this list anyway, for the last few years the albums list has tended to be the one that throws up a load of curveballs and interesting shit.

more like coughing up a hairball so far

was kind of jf to post a b&w version of that album cover btw. this sounds v. dumb, but that horrible thing completely killed any residual excitement for hearing it. i was disappointed before i even played it.

Looking forward to having a read and maybe checking out an album or two. From the tacks list that has currently gone over into a few albs anyway but I'm expecting a couple more I'd be compelled to check whose tracks didn't make it onto that poll.

Want to encourage everyone to post youtube links (not embeds!!!) to what they think are the best trax off the albums they like btw.

(You don't need to do it yet, I don't think I'd willingly click on an Anco link in a million years. Doesn't "Anco" sound like the abbreviation of a stock exchange?)

liking the imgs so far too - JF was it deliberate to cut off the band name so that it basically reads "bad collective"?

xpost
Reminds me of Amstrad or something, although I've only seen the abbreviation used (usually in a negative context) on ILM.

I think it's a Hipster Runoff thing. Maybe now that we're post-buzz they're relegated back to plain old AC.

Want to encourage everyone to post youtube links (not embeds!!!) to what they think are the best trax off the albums they like btw.

Was going to ask this but thought I might be the only person NOT on spotify. Otherwise I'll check out random tracks if I feel it might be something interesting.

liking the imgs so far too - JF was it deliberate to cut off the band name so that it basically reads "bad collective"?

No abbreviations are deliberate, but every image is made with the same template and I'm going b&w this year. A few of the albums' art really pops more than you'd think with the color removed.

seandalai has just revealed to me some very distressing news about the albums poll results. I shall not share, but know that I am sitting at my desk fighting tears.

― Johnny Fever

I assumed this was a comment on the lack of love for Niki & the Dove.

http://i.imgur.com/zqEyGav.png

76. JEREMIH Late Nights With Jeremih (206 Points, 10 Votes)

Didn't think that many people on here rated this Jeremih album. Might have put it on my list, but only heard it a few days before I voted.

Didn't really like the track I heard of that on the other poll, seemed like a soup of different prod effects without anything much as back up.

iirc

Yeah, 773 Love was one of the only tracks in the 77 that I felt didn't deserve to be there - so inert - so I haven't heard the album.

i did like "fuck u all the time" off late nights - really compelling minimalism - but in the main i agree with what rtc said on the trax poll; it's an adequate stopgap mixtape that isn't as fully realised in terms of songcraft or vision as jeremih's best work. surely even fans of "773 love" must acknowledge there's tons of nondescript filler on it? in terms of r&b mixtapes, kalenna's chamber of diaries - which is far from perfect itself - still seemed much more of a statement.

also, one of the best tracks on late nights, "ahh shit", is just an inferior take on the beat for goapele's "play"

Late Nights isn't as good as his first album and there is nothing in the same league as Another Song (his best moment by a mile) but it's a really good album, only a little filler. Agree that his take on the Goapele track is pointless, the original is already perfect.

http://i.imgur.com/VBMFhzP.png

75. BIGBANG Alive EP (210 Points, 6 Votes, 1 First Place Vote) Spotify

Is this k-Pop?

It is.

Highlight from the Big Bang album in my opinion http://youtu.be/1qnV55LUFVM

Many people will point to 'Fantastic Baby', though.

'Monster' is on there too yeah? Or was that a special edition?

all the k-pop i see makes me think it's where the spirit of early-00s pop-rap/pop-r&b went

Trust did speak to parts of the ILM massive; it came in at #78!

DIIV - Oshin

this album is super awesome

i get the sense a lot of more rock oriented ppl don't vote in this poll, at least i didn't

this is so sad but the flying lotus album not being on spotify means i only listened to it once

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, February 1, 2013 11:53 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this probably had an impact on its standing. I didn't hear it until a few weeks ago because I got if for Christmas.

I still haven't heard the Flying Lotus for the same reason.

Before Spotify, we found ways. Some of us even left the house.

I guess I'm not that desperate to hear it either, otherwise I'd find a way round the inconvenience. There are other albums I'm more motivated to hear but if it had been on Spotify I would have checked it out.

DIIV - Oshin

this album is super awesome

i get the sense a lot of more rock oriented ppl don't vote in this poll, at least i didn't

― downton arby (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, February 1, 2013 12:55 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i voted for Oshin!

also i just discovered the Graveyard record which i easily would have voted for if i had heard it, i think it was more than one voter out of the top 77 though.

i voted for oshin too, that record really snuck up on me w/how good it is

actually comparing the poll results to my ballot made me realize how ilm has kind of turned me from a rock-oriented person into a pop-oriented person, gonna try to reverse that a bit in 2013 since there's probably a ton of good rock music i'm missing out on

polyphonic's color album art imgur has been udpated btw: http://imgur.com/a/HGHgu

<3

i also voted for oshin

No Tomorrow by Chief Keef is fucking awesome, really getting into the album as well. I have got the Nicki album for my son's ipod (it was making me sad that he still listens to Lady Gaga) and decided to give it a blast earlier and I really love a lot of this as well. Sometimes its really cool to just flip a bit + check stuff out that you think you won't like and be totally startled by how fucking good it is.

78 Trust - TRST

OH FUCK ALL OF YOU

― Ima R.A.E.D. (DJP), jeudi 31 janvier 2013 20:19 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seriously. It was my #3. I think a lot of people get put off by the cover, which I find hilarious. The whole thing's great form start to finish. Sounds are reminiscent of Front 242, Anne Clark, Clan of Xymox all wrapped in catchy songs.

I'm a listener more likely to be put off by vocal mannerisms than anything else. Dylan is excruciating. And it kept me from appreciating Trust.

trust would have placed had i voted, sorry y'all

fsr that was the most popular 2012 album among my friends

elections polls have conseqeuences!

and they have consequences too

another record that didn't make this list but that is excellent and should've: Lotus Plaza's "Spooky Action at a Distance"

^true

also no gbv nominated was a silly oversight (of mine and others)

No one could agree on which of the three 2012 albums was the best, so they'd have been split right out of the top 77.

(It was The Bears for Lunch btw.)

wow. had never heard the FLA. verrry entertaining.

Things I own:

63. CHRISTIAN MISTRESS Possession (Well, it's on the way in the mail right now...)
49. DEATH GRIPS The Money Store (Fantastic!)
48. CLOUD NOTHINGS Attack on Memory (Just got it, have to listen.)
21. GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR Allelujah! (A splendid release, their most accessible for sure, and that's not a bad thing.)
11. SWANS The Seer (Just arrived in the mail today!)
10. GOAT World Music (Really amazing album, worth the hype!)
05. GRIMES Visions (A really enjoyed this album and it's not the kind of stuff I usually listen to.)

Things I would like to own:

68. METZ Metz
53. JAPANDROIDS Celebration Rock
52. CONVERGE All We Love We Leave Behind
38. THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Transcendental Youth

The Converge is mainly because of all the critical acclaim here on ILM (winner of the metal poll; placed in this one) because I have always found the group to be good but not amazeballs... The other ones I don't know as well.

Work seems extraordinarily slow today now that there isn't an eoy poll to follow. ;_;

there is the springsteen poll. Not spoken to james about restarting the 70s poll.

Not to worry, we'll soon be back in 2014 when m b v tops the 2013 albums poll!

i bet it doesnt

just for jf its reopened
1970-1979 WTF - The Hard 'n' Heavy 'n' Loud + Krautrock, Arty, Noisy, Weird, Funky, Punky Shit - Albums Poll!- VOTING THREAD!- Closes Nov 8th 11.59 PM UK Time - All ILXORS/LURKERS WELCOME

http://i.imgur.com/0Dxvtri.jpg

OK, this Miguel record is rather good. A bit goth too, innit? I've filed the CD next to Mezzanine and the Portishead s/t.

Only tracks 2 and 3 really.

I've come to the conclusion I've been playing Andy Stott at the wrong volume all this time

the trick is to play it just a smidgen over what you think is comfortable.

I wish I had heard the Young Magic album before last month ;_;

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Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss, and permanent file deletion.

What is on this page that is causing this?

probably a picture someone has posted

i'm a known malcontent fwiw

It would be cool if a mod could put the countdown, or a link to it, at the top of the thread to save us going through the whole thing looking for it.

took me 15 seconds bruh: ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

Hmmm... That link takes me to a random post about goat in my iPhone.

The poll results got me listening to several albums that I missed this past year, all good ones:

School of Seven Bells
Chairlift
Blondes
John Talabot