ILM’s Top 77 Albums of 2018

Sorry for letting down Team Black Dresses in the tracks poll, but it was v high on my album ballot, so I feel like I can be re-embraced into the fold now.

Conversely, GGD (although I kinda liked Saint Dymphna) are the sort of gloopy artpop that I mostly can't abide, but let's wait until the business end of the poll before getting into all that properly. Besides I may have to listen to more than the advance singles before judging

wb emil.y lol

missed this! will have to listen

imago don’t read this

someone w good taste do I want to listen to black dresses y/n

black dresses don't resonate with my personal experience

ha youll get a good idea if you listen to 'wiggle'

black dresses *do* resonate with my personal experience. still terrible

https://i.imgur.com/6MTtzaw.jpg
#41: Ashley Monroe - Sparrow - 304 points – 12 votes

Robert Ham: "Choosing instead to work with Dave Cobb, the man behind the boards for Jason Isbell and Chris Stapleton’s recent triumphs was a brilliant move on her part. Their collaboration has resulted in one of the strongest and most grown up country albums to be released this decade."

Josh Hurst: "Monroe is unparalleled at fusing classicist country songwriting with a modern sheen, something she proved on The Blade, which deftly balances traditional country sounds with bubbly pop. With Sparrow, she's topped even that achievement, creating a rich and emotional album that feels deeply connected to the past but also fully engaged with the present."

Black Dresses...not my thing

guhhhhh listening to GGD again. J-TREE so good

lol a ton of record from my ballot placed today

bought a copy of this for the folks

This is not the final album of the day.... I have to go do some errands probably will come back in 35/40 mins to post another 5 or 6 albums.

nice! Sparrow is just slightly her third best album but that's more a personal thing than a quality thing. I think The Blade is her peak, Like a Rose just slightly behind that. This is super fantastic whatever the case.

yes keep going imo xp

sparrow > like a rose > the blade

all great so who cares

this wasn't *quite* consistent enough to make my ballot but def some fantastic highlights

ggd think they're best at big climaxes but are actually best at a sort of quiet, beatific focus

It depends on what I'm feeling like at the moment, they're all awesome.

I saw her live in a 150 capacity joint last year and via her keyboardist passed along some fan art our kid made for her (he's made fan art for a few musicians he likes!) and after i tagged a live photo from the venue on IG coupled with a pic of him holding the art she tracked me down and left a very sweet on the photo for him.

*a very sweet comment

wholesome!

omg omar

"wiggle" is the best song on the black dresses record so far, i'd consider it a misleading intro

black dresses *do* resonate with my personal experience. still terrible

― jolene club remix (BradNelson)

mostly by that i mean "their understanding of what it means to be genderqueer doesn't really intersect with mine". their perspective is valid, but they don't speak for me.

I listened to wiggle and while I didn’t love it, i didn’t hate it either. is the rest............. special

when you say special...

there's a "zombie" sample in "dreaming" that's p hilarious

otherwise from what i've heard so far, rest of the record is like "wiggle" with fewer tunes xp

all right, gotta turn this off

sorry lj i did this bc i feel like i make you listen to a ton of things you hate lol

Loving the queer plurality itt.

Is poll finishing Thursday as usual? Would love to see more results tonight if so

I switched to wednesday campanella, which was the other one I haven’t heard of

wth is this ? oh, japanpaws...

we're getting "5 or 6 more" apparently xp

'in my mouth' has the bangingest tune on the album imo, proper trash anthem

will listen to all these brad votes presently haha

i kinda want to hear a ggd record where they go all out on the cocteau twins x can thing and give us a bunch of 10-20 minute epics, like they've said that's what a lot of their sonfs start out as and i'd love to hear the jammier bits of their albums go on for longer

before i begin tho, let me just take this all the way back to foxing. i rly do like the album but feel it'd be so much stronger if it ended after 'heartbeats'. 7 almost perfect alt-emo bangerz and done

the closer is one of the best songs!

"bastardizer" is my favorite song on the record so i sorta disagree. however... i don't need "five cups" and i never will

it is def too long but also it's a pretty good sign no one can agree on what tracks to cut (no one say "crown candy" the subtle acoustic pixies jam toward the end)

maybe i just need to listen more to the 2nd half. it does feel like it should be 40 minutes long somehow

the placement is weird - I'd prefer it in the penultimate slot - but I like "Five Cups" a lot

Glad to see Gang Gang Dance place, really cool record, I think I prefer it to Eye Contact but it's close, happy to get another album after such a long gap either way.

i would probably like it more if it were placed sensibly true xp

i'm revisiting the ggd record and it's as completely wonderful as i remembered

I can't remember if I voted for Sparrow but that and the Eiko Ishibashi are beautiful records.

So is Kazuashita which was top five of the year for me and kind of like the best Future Sound of London album ever made.

I'm back!

https://i.imgur.com/LCMe4zP.jpg
#40: Natalie Prass - The Future & The Past - 306 points – 11 votes

A thread for Natalie Prass

Harry Harris: "You absolutely can hear the fingerprints of Prass' influences across these tracks, but as well as the Dusty Springfield and Karen Carpenter tones that colour her first record, there's bits of Dionne Warwick, Laura Nyro and Diana Ross. More than that though, you're hearing a songwriter who seems to know exactly what she wants to make, and has all the tools to do that. A glorious, glorious album."

HEYYYYY

i'm revisiting the ggd record and it's as completely wonderful as i remembered

― jolene club remix (BradNelson),

Yeah, I just threw on the Gang Gang Dance album too and I'm instantly realising it was way too low on my ballot.

TOOOOOOOO LOOOOOW

but tbh I was beginning to worry it wouldn't place at all

i ended up not voting for this record but i'm glad it got this far

kind of like the best Future Sound of London album ever made.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, February 5, 2019 11:10 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sold