ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2019

ha! world eater is the album I accidentally voted for. I like it, but it overdoes it a bit and like I mentioned in the tracks thread, sounds like a caricature of World Eater

I also want to call out "Club Down" for having a backing track made up entirely of synth stabs and screams and the lurching nightmare beat of "All In Your Head" that blossoms into really the only moment of positive catharsis on the album, an a capella hymn-like text that blossoms into a full-on drum n bass celebration.

Daveed Diggs of clipping. also has a snowballing acting career onstage/film/television.

You're gonna see a lot of him this year as Frederick Douglass in the Ethan Hawke HBO show The Good Lord Bird and in the (god help us) TNT adaptation of Bong Joon Ho's dystopian sci-fi movie Snowpiercer.

he's sorta ridiculously talented is what I'm getting at.
I saw him in White Noise last year and, though the play was garbage, he was magnetic.

apologies but clipping always sounds very corny to my ears. it's a combo of diggs' super-wordy and enunciated rapping and the "WE'RE SCARY!" aesthetic

wtf does snowpiercer really need or deserve an english language adaptation

DJP didn't even mention the incredible "Blood of the Fang", which made my singles ballot and almost cracked the 77.

thank you djp, helpful posting!

Surprised that clipping is so low despite not voting for it myself, thought it would have reasonable ilx support.

wtf does snowpiercer really need or deserve an english language adaptation

― ciderpress, Monday, February 3, 2020 12:04 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

not sure if irony, but snowpiercer was definitely in english

None of you have mentioned La Mala Ordina (my #4 track) or the Piano Burning outro yet either, which brings us to virtually the whole album

oh right that's even more perplexing then

(Adding to DJP's excellent write-up, the use of cars playing the beat as they drove by in Run For Your Life was some properly breathtaking stuff. I first listened to it walking alone by a road in the early morning. A good setting for it)

to say something positive though, i love the cate le bon album and am glad it eked its way on here

Most of these albums so far are TOO HIGH. Clipping, Cate le Bon, and Blanck Mass were all overrated.

https://i.imgur.com/NQj4g7U.jpg
#69 – Sampa the Great – The Return (194 points, 7 votes, 1 #1 vote)

Rolling non-US rap thread 2018

https://www.popmatters.com/sampa-the-great-the-return-2640293029.html

Excellent first half, then it completely lost me – and I'm a fan of 90s-style full CD-length overreaching in hip-hop.

oh damnit TOO LOW. My #1

Are you Bandcamp?

Was that their #1? If so they have good taste

nice

Tell us why it's good then!

oh i loved this record, first of all votes to place this fortnite

I was a bit disappointed at first by The Return, it felt a bit too mellow coming after the undeniable energy of, er, "Energy" and "Final Form". But it did grew on me, even the slower jams make sense in the context of it being an introspective concept album on African immigrant experience.

It's gorgeous - Sampa's voice, her words, and the production. Probably the album with the best balance of those three things this year imo. It's super close to my other favs of the year but I had to pick a #1 and it won out

#72 – Jme – Grime MC (187 points, 7 votes)

so happy it made the top. such a great record.

impressive for an album with no digital release whatsoever

And Laurel Halo's DJ-Kicks was my #3, so I'm glad I helped it make it to the the top 77. It really is one of the best DJ mixes of the millennium, and the best record she's ever released. If you buy the Bandcamp version that comes with a free download of full versions of all the tracks, you can see what a great job she did at selecting them and mixing them in a coherent whole.

impressive for an album with no digital release whatsoever

― bold caucasian eroticism (Simon H.), Monday, February 3, 2020 12:41 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

did it even see physical release in the US?

not AFAIK

the Laurel Halo DJ-Kicks album was great I thought! It was high on my list. also voted for the Matana Roberts

apologies but clipping always sounds very corny to my ears. it's a combo of diggs' super-wordy and enunciated rapping and the "WE'RE SCARY!" aesthetic

I can't really put into words exactly how offensive this position is to me. It comes across to me as saying Diggs can't be good at hip-hop because he's not black enough.

https://i.imgur.com/L3Sd3kC.jpg
#68 – The National – I Am Easy to Find (195 points, 8 votes)

thread for i am easy to find, the 2019 album by the national and film by mike mills

https://music.avclub.com/the-national-takes-a-deep-breath-on-the-revelatory-i-am-1834779961

This is not one of my fave National albums but I'm surprised to see it this low.

who is this please

probably the most high-profile indie rock band that's going to place?

Seems a shame to bring in all those female vocalists just to have them emulate Berninger's vocal melodies.

80-minute slowroll for this lmao

probably the most high-profile indie rock band that's going to place?

VW?

love this record dearly

oh, right, VW. zzzzz

DJP otm about how Clipping have had to weather repulsive inauthenticity critiques throughout the years. Let the sub bass speak indeed

this would have been a great place for the VW to place actually

I binged the shit out of 2019 releases and this remains one of the 5 or so albums I outright hated the most (sorry Brad).

{alternative}^{alternative} = alternative

Why does "overenunciated" translate to "inauthentic" and "not black enough"? To me it just means, too 90's poetry-slam digable planets.
(none of those a bad thing in my book, btw, but ymmv)

https://i.imgur.com/jH26857.jpg
#67 – Caterina Barbieri – Ecstatic Computation (200 points, 7 votes)

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?action=showall&boardid=45&threadid=98991

https://thequietus.com/articles/26405-caterina-barbieri-ecstatic-computation

Thanks for the clipping write up, DJP. Will be checking them out.

Never heard of this one.

ooh this Barbieri looks like my kinda thing

voted for this too, it's really nice

Why does "overenunciated" translate to "inauthentic" and "not black enough"? To me it just means, too 90's poetry-slam digable planets.
(none of those a bad thing in my book, btw, but ymmv)

The exact words were "super-wordy and enunciated" and it was in contrast to the description of their music as "WE'RE SCARY", which is absolutely a vibe they were going for on this album but doesn't (to my ears) accurately describe their entire catalog without making a lot of assumptions about tone and intent.