The 2018 end of the year music lists thread

The Boy Azooga album is great too

see, musicophilia is a good reminder of why i stick around for this year-end clusterfuck. hard as i try to keep up with the new music scene there's always stuff i had no idea even came out, like neneh cherry and jlin.

Piccadilly always do a really good EOY list, a mix of stuff I know I really like already and stuff I've never even heard of, and I end up investigating the latter based on the strength of the former. I imagine their list is preperation for Black Friday shopping

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever is showing in a lot of these and it didn’t do much for me on first listen. Should I give it another chance?

It’s currently #1 on the AOTY summary score:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2018/

It’s too early to tell but compared to the critic score summary it’s not even in the top 25:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/6-highest-rated/2018/1

Those lists make 2018 seem weirder for music at least from my POV. I don’t really agree or have even heard 80% of the albums on those lists :/

Happy to see Low doing well I guess

Resident did a list. Without even looking at it I said to tt 'Roling Blackouts Coastal Fever at 3 then'. They're at 4. I guess record collector rock lives

Or at least, UK record shop rock

rolling blackouts is decent, their ep made it into my top 50 last year

haven't listened to the new one, but if it's a whole album's worth of the same, it probably isn't as good

They're a very bread and butter guitar band, could slot them into 1984 as easily as you could 2004. I guess that's what makes them unique in 2018?

The record has really strong melodies and hooks, and some lovely guitar interplay. Took a few of listens for it to sink in for me - I saw them live before hearing the record and was initially put off, but the album converted me. It isn't experimental, it isn't political, it says nothing about the age we live in (these are the kinds of things that tend to see something get rated highly on EOY lists), but sometimes ya just need a record with a bunch of good songs on it.

the vocals are bad

It’s ok but very nondescript? I’d rather have The Beths or Orielles or Black Belt Eagle Scout get the nod than this record...

Losers so far for me on the “indie rock” category are Amen Dunes, Beach House, US Girls, Mr Twin Sister... really good records and i must be getting old because I would have predicted they would make it in many eoy lists and I don’t think they’ve even showed up anywhere yet.

Not sure you can class Mr Twin Sister as "indie rock" anymore tbh

Piccadilly always do a really good EOY list, a mix of stuff I know I really like already and stuff I've never even heard of, and I end up investigating the latter based on the strength of the former.

Their compilations Top 20 tends to be really good too and I always discover some gems that I missed during the year.

https://www.piccadillyrecords.com/counter/feature.php?feature=872

yeah and I love that they do a compilations list as so many other places tend not to bother despite comps being a great launching point for further explorations

3. Beak> - >>>
I find this more fun than it probably is

They're a very bread and butter guitar band, could slot them into 1984 as easily as you could 2004. I guess that's what makes them unique in 2018?

This must be true of hundreds of bands, the only difference is that people pay attention to RBCF.

would be very surprised if Mr Twin Sister show up on any list except the ILM one, they were completely ignored by most outlets unfortunately

Is there a good reason why this year's Jlin record has been largely ignored?

probably because it's a soundtrack and wasn't really presented as the real follow-up to Black Origami

This thread is giving me anxiety, seeing all these names and they are like marksmen taking up positions on nearby hillsides. Some familiar from incidents past, and some new ones coming through the ranks

There are so many of them and fact they are ordered and numbered suggests they are organized this time, so in theory I should be able to dodge the most dangerous but its not likely to work out that way I know

don't be so precious and get yer sen down Our Price and check out the hit parade, saer!

Lol at the RBCF backlash. Never thought I'd see that happen, as I just expected them to be ignored as usual by people unimpressed by anything that doesn't obviously say anything about the age we live in. There is hardly a shortage of jangly guitar rock with bits of garage and post-punk this year - Body Type, Neurotic Fiction, Melbourne Cans, The Black Watch, Salad Boys, Clearance, RAYS, The Roves, Heaters, Sea Pinks. Sans jangle there's Teen Judge, Sir Robin & the Longbowmen, Goat Girl, Parades Against Parades and dozens more. Also RVG, Chook Race, Total Control, Dick Diver, Zebra Hunt, Black Springs, Last Leaves, Odd Hope, Melenas, Glaciers, Real Estate, Proper Ornaments. Anyway, RBCF deserve the attention. And they DO get political, they just don't waggle it in your face -- the album Hope Downs is named after a giant hole meant to mine iron-ore until 2037, at the expense of the community, environment and economic sustainability.

Piccadilly has outdone themselves, complete with a printed guide to accompany the list (you can read the PDF here). There's interesting choices pretty much all the way through. Check out #58 Mildlife - Phase, for example. Good to see mentions of Les Big Byrd and White Denim. I spent time with Altın Gün earlier in the year and I admired it, but didn't get into it, need to revisit. I've loaded Spotify with at least a dozen albums I hadn't heard yet.

I never said there weren't a lot of active guitar bands, just that the one people chose to rally around this time is RBCF for reasons that remain a mystery to me.

That's fair, as I think most of the bands I mentioned above are really great. But I do especially enjoy the perhaps indulgent use of three guitars among other factors that give them an edge in my mind (my review).

Here's the portion that might address the questions at hand: "So what makes them so great? Let’s start with the fact that they have three members sharing guitar, songwriting and vocal duties. This could create a chaotic, shambolic sound, and while early tracks do have a giddy, fragmented quality, the writers sound completely locked in tune with each other, so I can’t easily tell who’s songs are who’s they all sound like RBCF. The band has been described as “motorik jangle” thanks to Joe Russo’s bass locked in with Marcel Tussie’s precise propulsion which is actually rooted in his background with Afrobeat. And then there’s the guitars, guitars, guitars! Fran Keaney’s acoustic guitar is aggressively percussive, while Joe White paints wide swaths of sound. With his 1959 hollowbody Gretsch, Tom Russo produces a distinctively sharp chime, a post-Shadows and Hank Marvin surf twang. Together they create a rich array of textures and intertwined leads. While so many bands feel obligated to rely on synths (a technology that’s already a half century old) to sound contemporary, it’s refreshing to just roll around in guitar heaven with a pop band.

While their Sub Pop recordings are relatively clean and pristine, the band manages to retain some of their original garage punk feel amidst the sweet melodies and hooks. “An Air Conditioned Man” is a jittery masterpiece of tension and drive, with vocals that remind me of prime Felt, a couple solos tossed back and forth like challenges. If you think this would make for great live music you’d be right. A month and a half before the album’s release, I saw them near the end of their tour. Despite coming all the way from Australia and driving across North America, the band were nearly bursting with joyous enthusiasm, clearly having a blast playing."

I agree, RBCF deserve the plaudits. The propulsive nature of their songs makes them stand apart from the crowd and it doesn't surprise me that RBCF has got the momentum at the moment.

The thing about the RBCF album for me is that each song sounds pretty good in isolation, but when listening to the album the sameyness all becomes noxious.

I do like the jangle motorik sound and they are actually tight-sounding live but for a band with three vocalists none of them are really good. Fran Keany in particular is really bad imho, and yet he seems to pen their catchiest choruses.

I don’t really hate it but seeing it as the top, consensus album of this year so far is a little baffling to me. Everyone in here seemed to hate War on Drugs (which sort of was the indie/jangle consensus pick from 2017) and this one sounds like a lesser version of that sound to me.

Maybe I’m just sore that none of the artists I mentioned upthread will make it to the top 50.

I have always felt that War on Drugs take themselves very seriously whereas there is a playfulness to RBCF that I find endearing. Maybe I am just predisposed to Aussies having spent a formative year out there...oh, and I really like the vocals, admittedly, they can't sing for toffee but then neither could Grant or Robert. Most of my favourite vocalists are 'bad' singers.

That said, I'm equally baffled by the seemingly random nature of reaching a consensus. For example, Overload by Georgia Anne Muldrow hasn't appeared on any list as yet, as far as I can tell, yet is a stone cold classic. I also really liked Hop Along's album, also conspicuous by its absence from these lists.

Is there a good reason why this year's Jlin record has been largely ignored?

― Matt DC, Friday, November 23, 2018 11:54 AM (five hours ago)

probably because it's a soundtrack and wasn't really presented as the real follow-up to Black Origami

― ufo, Friday, November 23, 2018 12:00 PM (five hours ago)

Yeah, it's not been promoted as a Jlin solo album, but like a collaborative side project thing. I need to listen to it, tbh, because it's probably still great.

...
ILL - We Are ILL (whacky Manchester psychedelic post-punk)
...

― Fastnbulbous, Wednesday, November 21, 2018 3:34 PM (two days ago)

Also need to listen to this, I've really liked some other ILL stuff. (To be fair to me, I don't think it's been out long.)

Jlin is definitely worth checking out, she branches out a bit with more atmospherics and melodic elements, but it's still very much a Jlin album.

Not to worry, I suspect RBCF will be lucky to make the top 50 once all the lists are out. I really don't understand the "bad" vocals criticism though. It's not like they're over-reaching or anything. Comparisons with Go-Betweens is apt. Feelies too -- very unobtrusive, flat vocals, just like it should be for this music. I really don't think it would work for them if they got a Jeff Buckley-like chanteuse to handle vocals.

1 - Kadhja Bonet - I like this a lot, though it's only hovering in my 130s just because it doesn't get as heavy rotation as my preferred genres and there's so. Much. Music. Her tart, prickly interview in the booklet is great.
2 - Lump - I've appreciated Laura Marling in the past, but this album did nothing for me earlier in the year, and gets zero feels out of me now. I'm sure it's fine, I'm just dead inside and need different triggers to ignite me.
3 - Beak> - I'm always impressed by Beak>, but rarely listen to their stuff more than a few times. This is a bit more challenging, and makes sense in this list.
5 - TVAM - Un upgrade of the latest disappointing Hookworms.
6 - Halo Maud - A pleasant psych pop companion piece to Melody's Echo Chamber, will give more listens to see if I like it quite as much.
7 - The Advisory Circle - I thought they were fab via Other Channels (2008), but have since been bored with them. Still not in the mood, pass.
8 - Phil France - Not something I usually seek out but nice percussion, melody and flow, enjoyable.
9 - Ezra Collective - I liked their track on the We Out Here compilation, and the album doesn't disappoint. This makes an excellent addition to my Afrobeat Kosmische Jazz Electro Fusion playlist! Just an EP but just the right length. A nice bookend to Maisha's There Is A Place, with a cover of Sun Ra's "Space Is The Place."
10 - Khruangbin - Didn't fully get the enthusiasm for them but after lurking at the bottom of my playlists all year, I'm enjoying it as background music.
12 - Eleventeen Eston - The blurb's invocations of Durutti Column and Arthur Russell are much more enticing than the actual music.
16 - The Orielles - Bog standard dream pop, I'd rate about ten albums in this category over it.
17 - Children Of Zeus - Smoove jazz soul along the lines of D'Angelo, broken beat, I can get on board with this.
19 - Boy Azooga - One of my favorite psych pop singer-songwriters, Jacco Gardner, doesn't sing on his new album. This could possibly scratch that itch, but wish it were better ("Taxi To Your Head" is a highlight). Maybe Dougle Tuttle's new one will do the trick instead. "Losers In The Tomb" and "Waitin'" might be growers, we'll see.
20 - Whyte Horses - Okay, more British psych pop. I don't hate it despite the Stone Roses references!
26 - Prins Emanuel - Now THIS is more like Durutti Column!
29 - Tim Burgess - I alway perk up because I keep confusing him with the Chameleons bloke, Mark Burgess. This is at least better than his stuff with the Charlatans.
32 - Shelter - French cosmic progressive electronic sounds, hard to find streaming, had to download to hear. Try to decipher Growing Bin's incomprehensible blurb. "Jules Verne by way of Vangelis," if you say so!
33 - D.A.L.I. - 80s style synthwave, this holds up well against the more horror themed entries this year from Dance With The Dead, Stieglitz, Daniel Davies. Where is S3 of Stranger Things BTW?
36 - GoGo Penguin - Always pleasant jazz fusion, but would never thought of them as top 100 material. RYM needs to stop with the "Nu" genre qualifiers, it's diminishing.
37 - Tess Parks & Anton Newcombe - After seeing the documentary Dig! (2004), it was hard for me to listen to any of Newcombe's projects because he's so horrible. But this is decent.
41 - Gulp - Well there's no shortage of female-lead dreamy psych/dream pop this year. Not bad but not impressive.
43 - MIEN - I was excited about this space rock supergroup (Black Angels/Horrors/Elephant Stone/Earlies) and bought it. It's good, but I still found 168 better albums this year so far.
46 - Fatima - Pretty good soul tunes, need more time to compare to others.
47 - La Luz - I've been wrestling with this all year. Surf punk and dream pop, should be a winner, but I currently have it ranked in the 400s.
50 - The Vryll Society - I love the cover, but man, they do sound like Verve! Nope.
58 - Mildlife - This has been floating in my top 100 for a while. Not just jazz fusion funk, also some space rock and psych prog in there.
64 - Holy Motors - Dream pop from Estonia with a noirish twang, nice.
68 - Amen Dunes - I can see why he's usually ignored, his quirky vocals can be hard to get on board with. But if you can get past that, he's a decent songwriter.
76 - Thom Yorke - One of the dad rags gave his Suspiria soundtrack five stars. Eh. Hard to get excited over this.
93 - Sauna Youth - Last year Piccadilly offered up Flat Worms and L.A. Witch for some prime garage punk. All they got this year is this? I love the one review on RYM - "Deaths is too noisy and too unmusical and the album sounds as if Sauna Youth wish to kill us with their fake punk rock." Ha ha ha. I'll still give this another listen.
96 - Holy Wave - A year or so ago I bought all their stuff on Bandcamp because I loved the idea of the surf psych. Tunes didn't hold up, or they're trying to be hypnagogic or something and this album is currently #735 on my list. I'll revisit.

I never said there weren't a lot of active guitar bands, just that the one people chose to rally around this time is RBCF for reasons that remain a mystery to me.

For example, Overload by Georgia Anne Muldrow hasn't appeared on any list as yet, as far as I can tell, yet is a stone cold classic.

Can you name Georgia Anne Muldrow's publicist? Me either. That's why she's not on any year-end lists.

keep meaning to here the prins emanuel, his last one was ace

The Eleventeen Eston album is fucking great

lol at hip Arthur russel/dietitian reference points, though. the sources are actual unhip (well they're hip now) smooth things

I've listened to it a lot this year but i definitely preferred their first album

Doug Tuttle has 2 fans, me and Fastnbulbous. He should be a huge star, but is in fact teetering on the edge of even remaining in the music business.

Wtf is rbcf

Red Bot Chili Feffers

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, also sometimes known as Rolling Blackouts C.F., is an Australian indie rock band

sounds very run of the mill post punk revival to me

not bad, not something I really need

it's much more dry than War on Drugs, don't see much similarity there

more like that first Parquet Courts album with the swagger of some British retro rock outfit

and by dry I mean not doused in reverb

I have to admit I'm rather enjoying the album right now I see how it would be a consensus pick, it's kinda joyful and innocuous, well done, no indie rock fan could hate

they channel a bit of Real Estate, Deerhunter for me too