Any reason why ILM is so quiet these days?

It's mostly dead until the American posters wake up and even then hardly any action on threads.
I know most people use SNA and have a lot of ilxors just turned off ILM on there? If that is the case a mod should move this to ILE so people can answer.

Hardly any movement on ILM since last night yet ILE is as busy as ever.

Is there anyway to show unique users to ILM rather than all of ilx? 62 active users just now but I doubt they are all reading ILM.

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

Also why is ILM so quiet?

quiet compared to when? a few months ago? this time last year? i imagine a lot less people are sitting in front of a computer refreshing ILX whenever they're bored in July than in February.

culture (politics) beyond music is much more interesting than music at the moment maybe?

maybe ILM needs Chris Ott to save it?
http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/where-have-all-the-music-messageboards-gone

Sorry to come over all Tuomas, but what is SNA?

Site New Answers

I realized that a millisecond after posting.

be the change

I don't use it either Tom I keep ile and ilm tabs open but I do think some may have set it to not show ILM.

Theres hardly any polls too so that cant be blamed by poll haters. There's far far less than there used to be.

the world has changed and we have all become metal men

I guess facebook could be one reason but then why is ILE as busy as ever? Do posters still think ILM is unfriendly or has music/music discussion become boring as ilxors got older?

balkanisation.

Cosmic Slop, why don't you listen to current ILM buzz-band Years & Years and post your thoughts in their dedicated thread? They're getting a lot of love!

we're giving ILM the silent treatment

and if you can't figure out WHY, then i'm certainly not going to explain it to you!

i think it's time for me to repost the unicorn song no one cared about last night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBbmOHU2MoQ

maybe music piracy's downgraded the prestige of music in general thus dampening meta-discussion about music? maybe "music" is a greek word and greece itself is feeling unloved these days? maybe it's time to start collecting cars?

Cosmic Slop, according to your screencap, you've only clicked on ONE of those threads. So like, why aren't you participating in ILM?

I don't have much to say about anything released in the last five years or so, but if there's a thread for 'floating below the 40' Billboard singles from 1985, bump that shit.

or I have read them and they havent been updated, you choose

Whoops! I never look at the dots. Sorry.

music sucks, no more conversation needed

we're giving ILM the silent treatment

and if you can't figure out WHY, then i'm certainly not going to explain it to you!

IT KNOWS WHAT IT DID

did someone say something

tumbleweeds blow....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvUL_Xi_UqE

Sorry to come over all Tuomas, but what is SNA?

― holger sharkey (Tom D.), Wednesday, July 8, 2015 3:01 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is super easy to mis-read...

c on T

I never knew what SNA was! I was thinking it was another one of those shadow boards.

sooooo
ne1 notice how all of today's top singles are dance, urban, and/or teen bop?

is this because america is shit?

also I remember when everything sounded more white. even the hip-hop

after the last round of john v. paul, ilm's credit rating was downgraded and austerity is in force :(

also something about mexicans not having diverse music taste

I think my continued attempts to keep the Classical Music You Buy From Boomkat thread going are scaring people away. Sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTd54695IrM

^Went looking in vain for the Like button on that post

You couldnt hear our metallica party? :( - pplains cranked the volume way up hoping for noise complaints

i'm on a facebook music group during the day. i like it better than here now. a lot of my real world friends are on it and a lot of my ilx friends too. i mostly look at ilx out of habit.

now playing or another one?

yeah, now playing. that's my spot. i need my daily dose of andy zax. who doesn't?

ile is absolutely not as busy as ever, its nothing like as busy as ever

ilm was a bad idea and I'm.surprised it lasted this long

"see this music? it's shit"
"no its good"
"sound"

I started reading ILM when it was only ILM around here. You would have hated it.

d otm, there's no accounting for taste

Yeah, polling usually does the opposite of accounting for taste

maybe we need a new scapegoat, a la 1977 and prog rock?

only thing that might save ilm now is if ppl agree to stop talking about music

also, the music critic thing? not a job. ignore them.

There is definitely a lack of posting in the UK morning which suggests not many brits/euros are on ilm now.

I think the lex mentioned once he doesnt even bother with ilx til the americans are awake as its so dead

music critics used to make lots of big posts here.. Now it feels they save that for the dayjob. Which is a loss to ilm

dyou know what would be good

ile is absolutely not as busy as ever, its nothing like as busy as ever

I had thought this too (and the ad money is no longer anything like covering the hosting bill) so tonight I went over all the data I have. Compared to 2013-2014, in the past year we are down average 18% on page views, 27% on active users. People are spending exactly the same amount of time on the site when they do visit, though.

I think a couple of big Google changes have affected us:
- The change that downranked forums. This is the one that nearly killed Metafilter.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3030848/what-google-search-algorithm-changes-do-to-the-internet

- A more recent change to penalise sites that aren't mobile-friendly.

Can't do anything about the first one, don't really want to do anything about the second but may have to. I also don't think that's the whole story either.

interesting info, thks

feels a lot quieter than even that drop tho

stet is there any way to differentiate how many active users are on ile & ilm instead of the sitewide one?

individually counting the bearable ones

dyou know what would be good

― irl lol (darraghmac),

does it include suggest bans?

Also, there is no change in the geographic distribution of users: 20% are from the UK, and that number has been the same since 2012.

xp not trivially, but I'll try some log analysis

I said users, I should have said "site visitors"

xp I thought better of it tbh

i post a bit less and it's totally because twitter has kind of become where i have a lot of the conversations i would've had here in the past, i imagine that's true for a fair # of people here. still love it here and think that the pace of things around here is a little more agreeable now than they were maybe a couple years ago when it just kinda felt like a daily rotation of clusterfuck threads dominating SNA.

come man that's no attitude

SHOTS FIRED

too few polls obvs

shots fired at a couple years ago? i'm trying to think if anybody noteworthy was posting then that isn't now, honestly don't know.

ilm is 'quiet' because even our young kids are pushing 30 and we've had all the conversations dozens of times and maybe our feelings abt music are slightly less fraught and there are other outlets and kids and etc etc

but mainly because there are few new posters. tbh it's astonishing that things have been somewhat vital for so long

shots fired at a couple years ago?

Nah, I was just goofing at darragh

I still find plenty to talk about on ilm by digging up posts from the archives, but I'm not terribly in sync with a lot of the new music that gets people hyped on here (and even when I am, I end up liking the songs from albums that other people don't so much). This has been the case for years, though, so I don't see it as a sudden shift.

I'm gunning 4u now watch ur back

This is a sad thread

oh shit

Less people are excited by modern music. Social media can be used to transmit shitty opinions about albums much more efficiently. Take your pick.

when you've lost cousin slappy, you've lost the nation

― mookieproof, Saturday, 24 November 2012 22:58 (2 years ago) Permalink

i was otm

Anyway, yeah, bummer thread. Have been trying to force myself to delurk and actually contribute something to a place that has meant a lot to me for the past 5 years; I don't want it to wither away now. I especially don't want it to wither away through being outcompeted by the megaplatforms (though obviously I can't begrudge anyone not wanting to hoe the same row indefinitely). I especially don't want it to wither away before the Stereolab poll finally happens!

ilm is 'quiet' because even our young kids are pushing 30 and we've had all the conversations dozens of times and maybe our feelings abt music are slightly less fraught and there are other outlets and kids and etc etc

this also seems really otm.

I've been here since senior year in high school and am now turning 32 this year. It's been interesting watching all of you age out of this thing that you do/once did. I'm in it til the bitter, bitter end though.

It's because twitter is better than ilx.

I was afraid of that. I liked twitter for a couple years, and then I didn't anymore. Don't want to go back.

classic rock poll last year was so much fun, wish we could do it again and again

it definitely felt like the peak of my ilx career!

i think that ACTUAL valuable new posters are coming in and will continue coming in, although it takes a while sometimes to see who's gonna stick around, and which Raccoon Tanuki's are worth trolling back until they go away

pls don't all go to 77 and/or facebook, I'm not on either and don't want to leave - even though I'm not that active or vital here, it still feels like home somehow

god, how awful

1) get on facebook because it's what people do
2) 77 is just private idiot repository board

You fucking wish

that was not a qualitative opinion, it's all good!!

fucking

the minimal text groove of ILM is work friendly - FB is not.
hence i still hang around here.
i posted about that messageboard article on an ilm thread : very little reaction.
ned posted on his facebook page - loads of chat/responses.
the FB 'Present Listening' group that i have recently signed up to gets lots of reaction to posts etc.
and as westworld once declared 'i wanna go to where the action is .. '

I don't want to be on Facebook (and can't figure out how to read Twitter, layout never made sense to me) so I'm sad to see a lot of music forums "moving" to fb, don't see this happening to ILM anytime soon though.

Something that's cool about ILM is that its structure is a lot more open and transparent than Facebook's, and even if at some point it's abandoned it will always be a great, searchable archive of zeitgeisty discussion.

xp yeah the best part of ILM is that it's text-based and minimal and people use handles rather than real names and i don't have my IRL friends all over it.

While I'm sad at the lower activity here nowadays, I think it's most likely a result of the Google search rankings and not a cultural shift away from taking music seriously amongst teens & twenty-somethings... just look at the activity on https://www.reddit.com/r/letstalkmusic ... mostly kids but that's part of its charm.

No list threads

I despair of the youth of today

One important reason why twitter is better than ilx is that it's a lot easier to have conversations with people other than white dudes. ;)

i have trouble having conversations with anyone on Twitter. Only ever use it as a promotional tool really. I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now, even if it is still a bit glitchy.

I don't use it either Tom I keep ile and ilm tabs open

I do use SNA, just didn't know SNA was called SNA.

I'd like to see more threads dedicated to individual records. The rolling threads served a purpose back when ILM was at its busiest and the genre-specific threads are great for checking out, for example, the latest afrobeats or trap tunes, but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

xp yeah the best part of ILM is that it's text-based and minimal and people use handles rather than real names and i don't have my IRL friends all over it.

This. It's from a more innocent and exciting era of the web.

it will always be a great, searchable archive of zeitgeisty discussion.

this is totally spot on.
i spend hours digging around catching up re old bands i missed out on at the time.

I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now

flag latin

I like Facebook's recent multi-threaded approach now, even if it is still a bit glitchy.

oh god no

(and fuuuuuuuuuuuck fuck fukc fuck f u c k twitter's even worse take on this. so hard to follow a thread now.)

anyone who likes multi-threading should be banned from ilx

I would like to see more posts where people boast about obscure music they love and try to win others over. Preferably in topics not dedicated to sed obscure music.

Maybe we could have obscure music by genre threads or if said genre is already obscure then more active threads dedicated to that particular genre/style that can include less obscure music

the minimal text groove of ILM is work friendly - FB is not.
hence i still hang around here.

Totally this. I'm able to ILX at work because it's totally inconspicuous. Plus I absolutely loathe Facebook and I haven't used it or Twitter in a couple of years (outing myself as an old).

Maybe we could have obscure music by genre threads---― The Once-ler

We have plenty of them already.

Rolling Afro-Latin Music 2015 and onward: Salsa, Bomba, Merengue,Reggaeton, Bachata, Latin-Jazz and more

Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

why would we have our discussions facilitated by some fly by night web megacorp when we have our own sweet DIY platform right here? greenspun forever aeon flux forever

I miss threads for new artists. Used to check new answers and after seeing an unfamiliar name enough times I'd say "oh maybe I should check out this dizzee rascal guy." Whereas now someone would've just posted I luv u to the rolling uk carpark thread or whatever.

I mean I get the desire to discuss artists in context or just the friction of starting a new thread.

eh rolling threads are kinda meat grinders

okay, how about we have one thread where we discuss our favorite finds and old flames?
I feel like no one notices when I bump a thread for 'obscure band ____'

i think people probably notice but if they're not interested there's not much you can do!

i like to bump clarke's metal faves thread for that but it always takes me like 10 minutes to find the damn thing so i tend to just let it go

eh rolling threads are kinda meat grinders

way i read this you're agreeing with me? rolling threads mean that the new answers page isn't a useful guide to anything except which scenes people are following.

i think people probably notice but if they're not interested there's not much you can do!

^ This. I mean Louis has been trying to get us all to listen to the Cardiacs for about 8 years to little or no avail.

do you guys like Haves & Thirds? i love this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BHC3YrXUuU

^ This. I mean Louis has been trying to get us all to listen to the Cardiacs for about 8 years to little or no avail.

haha.
indeed.
i did check some of the bands out as per nudged on that thread, but, nah, not for me ..
i am in two minds re the rolling threads.
on one side, they can provide a great quick dive into a particular scene/sound, but on the other, if you are not invested and up to speed with the detail, then the thread becomes a bit of a closed shop and can end up being too intimidating for genre scum surfers like me.

i tried to watch a couple of cardiacs videos because of him. didn't get far.

I remember someone liking the Cardiacs but maybe it was the art bears
what's her face

The minimalist and anonymous thing is a big draw but then again I started with Usenet and BBSses.

ILX has 88 threads about dizzee rascal

way i read this you're agreeing with me? rolling threads mean that the new answers page isn't a useful guide to anything except which scenes people are following.

yes; i was just adding that the 'context' provided by a rolling thread seems pretty minimal/notional.

I mean

but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

what other form would discussion take on a genre thread

I like the Cardiacs fwiw

I like art bears

i like big butts

I like art bears

Best prog band of all time imo

It's not impossible to imagine that ILM will outlive Facebook.

Facebook is just such a miserable experience

And no fucking way is Twitter better than ilx. Everything on there washes away so quickly, there's no way you can get a substantial exchange going unless you're riding the app all day long. Everything just disappears.

This is the only place/app/whatever that doesn't make me want to kill myself

^^ otm

i have tried asking questions periodically, but i think a lot of the conversation that used to keep ilm (specifically) alive was fueled by discovery and people learning about stuff from people who had more expertise. i don't enjoy personality-driven sniping or argument wrt music honestly, mostly i have used ilm to ask questions and to discover new stuff. also, it afforded people like me the chance to talk about music with only words to identify me. i never would have attempted to do any number of things if it weren't for the freedom of being text on a page. i hope this isn't a death knell (but even if it is, i can't say i'd walk away empty handed)

I've only got one thing to say, Can we be shown weirdos + Mike Love?

Usually music news these days is super depressing. Like I just read something that makes me want to crawl back in bed.

Also maybe think-piecing things to death has had an effect on discussions. Music/video drops and you've heard it and read an article/headline about it and by the time you get into a ILM thread there's all this meta baggage it's already been discussed to death and Twittered about and everyone has probably read slightly different takes on it and now you are dealing with all of these invisible browser histories that you have no idea of.

This leads sometimes to threads where people are arguing against arguments that don't exist on the threads themselves but on external websites. Which is fine and good but kind of confusing.

It's a small issue but one thing I've always liked about ILM is if you make a misstep, you don't get an instantaneous beat down from some gatekeeper hard man, more snark or gentle steering in the right direction unlike some more specific forums on or off FB where hair trigger peeps go from zero to apoplectic in one exchange.

Damn. I'm not sure I've ever had that experience.

But I think ILM has mellowed a bit (aging? music taste isn't so identity defining?), still loads of snark and sarcasm of course.

still loads of snark and sarcasm of course.

which apparently scared a lot of posters away

I don't see much of that on ILM tbh.

There's a lot of snark but very little actual RAGE, which I occasionally see on other boards.

Snark gets boring really quickly though.

But, you know, first there was Zing now there is Snark, plus ca change.

i have tried asking questions periodically, but i think a lot of the conversation that used to keep ilm (specifically) alive was fueled by discovery and people learning about stuff from people who had more expertise.

i think the lack of zero-cost instant universal availability also meant that ppl constantly had to rely on finding productive/attractive ways to convey that expertise to others w/ analogical reasoning, comparisons, descriptions, convincing personal representations, etc. - as an investment in discovery

all that can take place in full view of the actual artifacts, and after the fact rather than before everyone has had a chance to experience them, but there's a kind of natural indolence that comes out when you can just hear something for yourself and nothing much rides on whether you can articulate its significance or quality in anything other than private terms

there's a related dimension too, that opinions are connected to ppl and once the internet is glutted w ppl and their opinions, there's a real disinclination to find out more about anyone via their opinions (like, the difference between being 20 in 1999 and finding out, like, 'omg there's all kinds of super music fans on the internet!!!!' and being in your 30s in 2010 and being like 'ugh, more super music fans on the internet')

scared away, bored away, i don't really care

there#s been some serious bad behaviour occasionally over the years but it's easy to skip it on ILM in particular and god knows u have to have some kind of deterrent for challopians, blowhards and other spoilers of joy

But, you know, first there was Zing now there is Snark, plus ca change.

― holger sharkey (Tom D.), Thursday, July 9, 2015 6:30 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

almost as if it was just an intrinsic part of human communication

Some posters were banned too, right? R@cc00n is the most recent one that comes to mind.

at least deems will be pleased bans are back then

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/plum-juice-glass-realistic-full-drink-cocktail-straw-isolated-white-background-vector-illustration-41601780.jpg

almost as if it was just an intrinsic part of human communication

Well, maybe, it's sometimes pretty forced and some people just don't have the Zing/Snark chops but feel as if they have to join in when they should leave it to the experts.

I'm rambling now, I'm going home.

Your mums an expert

there used to be better handwringing on ilm too. step it up, you guys!

i think that ACTUAL valuable new posters are coming in and will continue coming in, although it takes a while sometimes to see who's gonna stick around, and which Raccoon Tanuki's are worth trolling back until they go away

― some dude, Thursday, July 9, 2015 12:37 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as a relatively new poster (started in 2013), it is extremely hard to understand the culture of ilxor, took me a while to understand a few things and i still feel outside the circle at times. you need to invest time, and none of my friends my age really care about discussing music on a message board (they will do it on twitter, facebook, etc).

OK tom I'm not sure I buy that, quite aside from the fact that you employ the zing/snark register as often (and as well) as any given poster I don't think I agree that it's that dominant around here really, even if I cared about these putative swooning consumptives "scared off" by internet zingers. Maybe I've missed the really vicious stuff tho

some of us still wade in and call something that half the music board really likes shit, which always goes well

im revisiting art bears now because of my subunconscious spitting out that name upthread. this sounds more like art-rock than prog-rock (their 1981 album at least). that's not a bad thing

I want art-rock / art-pop thread revivals

and i still feel outside the circle at times

i've been here over 10 years, and this feeling never leaves.

there is a cracking 'hello ilm' thread somewhere that used to be pretty snarky, but recently has been a genuinely warm welcome for newcomers.

if only there was a 'sticky' thread option.

[/joke]

It's a small issue but one thing I've always liked about ILM is if you make a misstep, you don't get an instantaneous beat down from some gatekeeper hard man, more snark or gentle steering in the right direction unlike some more specific forums on or off FB where hair trigger peeps go from zero to apoplectic in one exchange.

― MaresNest, Thursday, July 9, 2015 1:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is absolutely key.

1. There are actually community mores here which people are interested/invested in enforcing, but

2. the enforcement happens in such a (for the internet) civilized way

^^^^ in regards to both ilm and ile

One important reason why twitter is better than ilx is that it's a lot easier to have conversations with people other than white dudes. ;)

― The Reverend, Thursday, July 9, 2015 7:29 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is my major problem with ILX (as a white dude), and I don't know how to address it. Gatekeeping for the purpose of a better discussion is without a doubt part of what makes this place what it is but I think that in practice it shades hard into the everyday forms of exclusion all of the overly-white-duded institutions practice. As much as they are blocked or subverted in practice, there are at least known levers for making communities and institutions more inclusive - how can you encourage that to happen in a message board?

By paying attention to ppl who aren't white dudes?

As a white dude I'm not feeling 'the everyday forms of exclusion', you'll have the occasional diss on the War on Drugs but heh.

I don't get this topic at all, really.

yes you do Austin stop lying

Never understood the need to post about posting.

^^^ posting about not posting about posting

I don't think I'm a very nasty poster but I've also never been scared off, it's always kinda mystified me that people might find it super intimidating.

whenever I recall any of the posters that pushed the 'I know loads of ppl that don't/won't post to ilx when I tell them about it' line I always think yeah I'd avoid your version of ilx too I'd say.

I can't think of too many who pushed this line that weren't v capable of being nasty cunts themselves as and when it suited them. int life funny.

going meta keeps us grounded
we can admit that a lot of what we say is in hope of winning the coveted zing thread quote archive

and i'm sure there's more to admit behind about our posting styles

I don't think I'm a very nasty poster but I've also never been scared off, it's always kinda mystified me that people might find it super intimidating.

― Tim F, Friday, 10 July 2015 08:28 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're extremely eloquent & assured in your expression of opinion; I have never seen you flustered or backtracking; not all have these gifts and not all lack the self-awareness that would necessitate a cautious approach when understaffed with sage conviction

of course, some of us lack that self-awareness and dash ourselves upon your shores over and over again. expect some petulant words about years & years come EOY time lol

Not downplaying the obvious and actual trends discussed itt, but with 44 threads updated in the last 12 hours, "quiet" is a relative term.

yeah but they were all updated by me.

ILE (maybe not so much ilm) does not really feel so lacking in non white dude presence to me? But I'm a white dude so my perception may be skewed. Certainly there are tons and and tons of active posters about whose gender and ethnicity I have no idea!

I've tended to assume that the majority of posters here are white and male.

Part of me has kind of wanted some sort of demographics survey to see how off my perceptions are.

you guys should have been at my store last night. what a show! 4 great acts. at one point, my basement reverberated with the sounds of italian horror movies.

https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/11737930_10154068668112137_1580855551284872626_n.jpg?oh=6ced29a89452ba2014adc7a9461526fc&oe=5627D3A6

I must admit I never think of anyones racial or religious make up on here. I have no idea what most people look like.

but even I notice ILM is overwhelmingly male unlike 14 years ago

This is how I imagine you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USHZZ5bwASU

couldn't be less like me if you tried.I have short hair (not balding) and i wouldnt be seen dead in that type of tshirt. And idgaf about slayer

Dog Latin has gone in on Years & Years! One for the team, good luck out there pal!

more like my ears, my ears amirite

i let becoming a best new poster go to my head. gonna settle down now

How often do you post on ILM?

couldn't be less like me if you tried.I have short hair (not balding) and i wouldnt be seen dead in that type of tshirt. And idgaf about slayer

― Eric Burdon & War, On Drugs (Cosmic Slop), Friday, July 10, 2015 11:23 AM (17 minutes ago)

After all this time you can't tell when I'm joking. ILM IS LOST

i know you were joking. you have seen me, you used to do those chatz yahoo live thingies

Dog Latin has gone in on Years & Years! One for the team, good luck out there pal!

Yeah wow this really shook things up

lol

sometimes first thought = best thought

what ILM definitely needs is more posts about music people don't love

The rolling worst music thread gets bumped every few weeks.

if ILM being "loud" requires new posters then I'd expect it to continue to be quiet as the amount of money spent on music per person continues to decline (assuming that's true? it feels true, isn't that a enough of a standard for a post?)

dunno about ILE, I took it off SNA a long time ago, only check it once or twice a day (plus whatever threads I've bookmarked)

money might be spent less but with streaming services/youtube etc being free its probably never been listened to more.

I wanna see word count per user and who types the most words vs most posts.

quality vs quantity

I forgot everyone moved to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ilxorsnowplaying/

ILXOR Snow Playing?

I don't hate "music chat" cause I like music & conversation but I rarely post to ilx, just find I don't personally have much to say

I just started a thread on Amara Toure. That should get the ball rolling!

Is dog lating in years & years?

Latin*

i revive the balearic revival thread once every few days. come and check it out sometime.

is there a Balearic revival this year?

is there a Balearic revival this year?

yes, and i am expecting this to be in ilm 77 tracks list of 2015:

Bicep - Celeste
https://soundcloud.com/i-d-online-1/premiere-bicep-celeste

is there a Balearic revival this year?

on ilm, every day is a balearic revival

sorry i have to go now a conga line is forming behind me

I've been posting to ilx a fair bit lately but no-one ever takes any notice of anything I say, which is fair enough

conga conga conga

xpost

who will post last?

Any reason why ILM is so quiet these days?
Maybe it's because PC Music haven't done anything/anything stupid lately ;)

thread titles like this are what keep me coming back. so enticing!

Rolling 2015 Indie Rock/Pop Thread - Bring Your Bulldozers; Time to Plow the Landfill for Great Indie Rock!

perfectly summarizes the drudgery that listening to most modern indie rock is for me.

ILE isn't all its cracked up to be:

Buckinghamshire

By paying attention to ppl who aren't white dudes?

― La Lechera, Thursday, 9 July 2015 23:59 (Yesterday) Permalink

Makes sense! I guess the thing (for white dudes) is developing the judgment to stay on the right side of paying attention.

ILE isn't all its cracked up to be:

Buckinghamshire

― djh, Friday, July 10, 2015 10:20 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that thread is my favourite thing on ilx so far this month

had relatives in stoke mandeville but i don't remember much about it. had a lovely wide road

who will post last?

ILX System obv

It often takes me a long time to figure out what people are talking about on ilxor. So many in-jokes and things you only understand if you go to certain threads.
I'm guessing LJ, l0u1s jagg3r and Imago are all the same person?

And FAR TOO MUCH abbreviations and acronyms that are really difficult to search for. I assume people are using them so much because they are posting from their phones?

It's hardly the most aggressive forum but there's still a lot of rudeness that might turn people away but I don't know if the alternatives are much more friendly or if most people care that much about politeness.

I don't get the appeal of the regular Taking Sides threads. It seems pointless. Especially when two bands are compared.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that System learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom System might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, System thought how best to do this. Carefully, System organized the program.

The consciousness of System encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And System said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

I assume that all new TS threads are jokes xp

Ljimagolouis OTM on Buckinghamshire btw.

some of the early taking sides were ridiculous and funny

I'd like to see more threads dedicated to individual records. The rolling threads served a purpose back when ILM was at its busiest and the genre-specific threads are great for checking out, for example, the latest afrobeats or trap tunes, but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

― cod latin (dog latin), Thursday, July 9, 2015 11:49 AM (Yesterday)

agree with this

Only because dave q was responsible for most of them. (xp)

i never found him funny

I'd like to see more threads dedicated to individual records. The rolling threads served a purpose back when ILM was at its busiest and the genre-specific threads are great for checking out, for example, the latest afrobeats or trap tunes, but there's rarely that much in the way of discussion and when there is, it's generally the same four or five posters doing an inside-baseball thing.

― cod latin (dog latin), Thursday, July 9, 2015 11:49 AM (Yesterday)

agree with this

― tayto fan (Michael B)

dont see rolling metal thread being stopped somehow

until they stop getting promos

the writing's been on the wall since geir left

i never found him funny

you never him?

geir is active in https://www.facebook.com/groups/ilxorsnowplaying

Cue mass exodus of the few stragglers remaining on ILM to Facebook.

unlikely. Its only people posting pictures of the records/cds/tapes etc that they are listening to.
But since youre on fb feel free to join

or screenshots

You can't beat them so why don't you join them... personally I have no interest in beating them or joining them.

you just dont want to add me on fb

its a common thing im sure

but the group is missing pics of chou pahrot records

I've no interest in Facebook either except for stuff like reposting that picture of Merkel and Netanyahu that Mordy posted earlier... and that picture of Paulette Goddard.

deems isnt in the group either

I'm kind of anti Facebook for no real reason. Maybe just resent their relentless Zerg creep

I've been floating around here ~5 years now (!) and I don't even really look at ILM ever, some people just aren't into music but are into fucking around in weird internet spaces, yknow? I don't even look at the ILE index all that much, I have so much random stuff bookmarked there's usually something or other to catch up on even if it's "low-value content"

it makes me sad to see a lot of discussion move over to facebook and twitter since ILM's long history and deep archive is what makes the site special to me. a lot of my time on this site is spent reading through old threads of music I want to learn more about. i feel like i've even gotten to know the personality, music tastes, and expertise of posters long gone--which is not at all possible with facebook. heck, one of my favorite moments on this site was reading through the reactions to kate bush's aerial which had just leaked 8 years after the fact.

it seems all the music critics prefer twitter but the rest stay here. No idea why critics prefer twitter to facebook

Given all the wariness and cynicism about the really shitty side of facebook and (to a lesser extent)twitter, I'm surprised so many people here want to go those places.
I've noticed that a lot of people who are not wholly enthusiastic about those places reluctantly go because they can't turn down the networking and business advantages. Is that the case here? Then the convenience of doing everything else at those places comes later?

Shouldn't have said "those places" three times

Certain music discussions on ILM are still extremely rewarding, but a lot of times, I know a particular topic will attract the same handful of posters, often staking out the same opinions they had 5-10 years ago, myself included. On Twitter there's a lot more potential to get different perspectives or get to know people who turn out to be kindred spirits.

why twitter and not facebook though? you cant get great posts like here or facebook when you are limited to characters plus its a pain to navigate imo

I've noticed that a lot of people who are not wholly enthusiastic about those places reluctantly go because they can't turn down the networking and business advantages. Is that the case here? Then the convenience of doing everything else at those places comes later?

not me obviously. Im only there to keep in touch with people I know from other online places like audiogalaxy/soulseek/soundrop communities , other ilxors and their nice friends who add me.

Im guessing what branwell said on the other thread about not having to deal with certain people is the attraction?

Also some ppl prefer the format?

branwell otm. i go on facebook because its branwell-free.

Not having to deal with certain ilxor people or just generally the way forums make you deal with unpleasant people?
Do twitter and facebook have increasingly better options for blocking people? Because I know a lot of folks leave twitter and facebook because of harassment.

that isn't very nice scott
xp

i think you can safely say robert they mean both but esp the former

Facebook and Twitter feel like appropriate spaces to make declarations (often by reference to linked news, opinion pieces etc) which then spur discussions. The bar is higher for thread starting on ILX - and higher than it used to be because volume is down - so people are more likely to just participate in existing conversations... Or not, if they have nothing of interest to say on the current active threads.

Ned is an excellent Facebook user for example - his wall provides a good case for what works about that format.

i never see ned on facebook. but on twitter we are thick as thieves.

ned's a lunatic! nothing but posts about the Warped Tour morning noon and night.

he has sent a few of my tweets viral - if ned leverages his personal brand in your favour it will boost your level of engagement to the max

Often shocks me how dickish the earliest years of this forum were.

On the contrary they seem laughably polite and courteous, I'm talking of the early early days, errrrrrr, before I showed up, for one.

Whenever I search an old thread on a band, author or whatever, a lot of the comments seem really cruel and way more narrow minded in the earlier posts.
I was looking up posts on Poppy Z Brite and people were pretty nasty about the writing and the transgender stuff. Just one example of course but I wouldn't have wanted to join the place back then.

What you would get a lot in the early days was like three posts saying "X is a stupid ugly bitch" and then one long, thoughtful, nuanced post from Nabisco, and everyone remembers the fourth post rather than the preceding three when reflecting back on the sepia-toned early age of ILM.

But were there any posts about Kyle's mom?

I feel like mid-period ILX was the most dramatic tbh

rev are you in https://www.facebook.com/groups/ilxorsnowplaying/ lots of people joined the past few days but hopefully they might post in it

Do think of Twitter as a kind of downmarket version of ILX for people who never found their way to ILX.

Rev OTM up there BTW. Old ILX was sort of naive and exploratory with semi-regular tantrums, newer ILX is stable but unexciting middle age, all the craziness happened in between.

Message boards in general are in decline, right? If anything ILM is outperforming the rest of them.

reddit seems to be doing fine

Cosmic Slop: I think I'm a member of that group but I don't post. I don't really care for fb as a discussion platform and mostly use it for logistics and lurk otherwise.

So many message boards I've joined and participated in the past fifteen years have died. ILE/ILM is the last one I check with any sort of regularity.

My favorite thread have always been the ones covering the tentpole pop/indie/hip hop albums. There do seem to be less of those kinds of threads lately.

The fb listening group just makes it easier to post photos/images of album sleeves than uploading something to imgur and posting it here. It's the rare post there that gets more than a few likes or more than one comment. It's fun(ish), but not a replacement for this place.

I guess the main reason I view fb and twitter as secondary repositories of ILM-talk is that there's no good way to search the archives of either one. Here, if you want to go back and find what people were saying about Justin Timberlake between the breakup of NSync and the release of his first album, it's not too hard to find content if it's there. If you wanted to do that on fb or twitter, you a) couldn't, because those conversations would've happened before either service even existed and b) it would take you HOURS to locate it.

Twitter search isn't that difficult. Also at least 80% of my favorite Twitter users are non-ilxors.

https://twitter.com/reverenddollars/status/99276008250818560

Just took me ~hours~ to find my first tweet.

i hate twitter. but i get it. i guess. why people are there. i'm not a phone person.

Just took me ~hours~ to find my first tweet.

tbf, the advanced search feature is a lot more useful now than when I was a regular twitter user. I didn't realize they'd beefed it up. The same can't be said for facebook, however.

yeah facebook is a memory hole

Oh totally.

I've always wondered why they've never added a strong search function.

Because it's all about the RIGHT NOW, BITCHES!!!!!!

(not that you guys are the bitches; just sayin')

another reason it is quiet

because when one of my favorite posters asked for more women in the runaways thread she was derided and as a result of stupid japery she's left ilx altogether

that's why you cant have nice things

i plan on never leaving & making you all miserable as a result YOURE FUCKING WELCOME

you're one of the reasons i'm still even here. jbr too, but i can chat with her on facebook.

lol we'll be here at the end posting in the eagles thread like statler & waldorf

another reason it is quiet

because when one of my favorite posters asked for more women in the runaways thread she was derided and as a result of stupid japery she's left ilx altogether

that's terrible, i feel awful for contributing to any of the unnecessary noise in that thread, hope she has not really left ilx

the straight white male poll was the final straw i think :/

I find certain aspects of ILM really frustrating, and while I post a lot have on occasion tried to forgo due to perceived dickishness from some parties, but I always try to remind myself: don't take it personally, it's the internet, this is how it works, most of you I've never met, etc. I do miss some posters, some voices I looked forward to and/or respected. But by and large I don't find ILM hugely different from what brought me here a very long time ago, bar maybe more cartoonishly kneejerk negativity and sensitivity, which at least in the latter case reflects a general increase in awareness, imo, of how we use the internet and perhaps how we use the internet improperly (louder, faster!).

if an ilx beef threatens to take over a perfectly innocent thread you can politely direct people here.

if an ilx beef threatens to take over "if an ilx beef threatens to take over a perfectly innocent thread you can politely direct people here." you can direct people here.

if beef on an ilx trees thread get out of hand, come here to look at beef

if an ilx beef gets out of hand on the beef thread come here to look at trees

that was a rough july on ilx...

otm

when one of my favorite posters asked for more women in the runaways thread she was derided and as a result of stupid japery she's left ilx altogether

If by stupid japery you are referring to this stupid poll then I don't disagree, however I don't see any derision on the Runaways thread, unless it's being accused of being a man by another woman, but if that's how she interpreted it there's nothing anyone else can do about it.

Anyway, seems a pity to me, hopefully she'll be back.

now I feel like a heel -- again, I'm really sorry, I genuinely have no idea who anyone is unless they use their real names

do hope jbr will reconsider, won't go :(
made me happy to see her posting more lately & starting some excellent threads

jbl these days no? Anyway consign that

*cosign ffs

srsly

if this is the endgame of the culture wars then idk what to say or do

learn to do and say nothing.

also I dunno it's the (northern hemisphere) summer, aside from Ned my "friends" on fb are very quiet right now (like Ned had 20x the number of posts of my next closest "friend" last week), lots of people are on the road, or their brains are melting from the silly heat

seems like it could be a good time to run a retrospective ILM ballot poll though? I dunno I just want a place to shoot the shit about music once in a while, and fb mostly sucks for that

you need to get in a 2 year queue now for those, Euler. Johnny Fever said fuck it and was gonna jump it and start one but it never happened.
The all-time revisited poll was canned permanently I think.

I only have about 20 followers on twitter and most aren't interested in talking about music. Not to me, anyway. And obviously nobody ever sees my tweets so its pointless trying to start debate there

Johnny Fever said fuck it and was gonna jump it and start one but it never happened.

Nah, it had been planned from the beginning to happen in August/September, but if gr8080 and seandalai are available to move it up, I guess we can.

I cant even remember what the poll was going to be.

Albums & Tracks from the beginning of ILM thru the present. (aka 2000-2015)

oh yeah, the one that people will be campaigning for anything to stop Kaputt from winning

won't be won by a straight white man

(not saying this is a bad thing & in kaputt's case it is an excellent thing)

oh ffs

people will vote on the music not what kind of human (or robot) makes it.

imago with record time on that one, well done, why wait for the actual thread

won't be won by a straight white man

30 years ago a child would kick a ball on the street.

30 years ago a straight white man would kick a child on the street.

and he was never caught

lol

it was meant to be a combination of funny and true, ended up looking so much like piqued satire that I had to follow up with a disclaimer, shdnt try to jape about on these sensitive issues obv

you're a sensitive issue

music critics used to make lots of big posts here.. Now it feels they save that for the dayjob. Which is a loss to ilm

Wow, I've spent a lot of time lurking through past threads and thought it was a plus for this site that we'd been largely rid of that crowd... not that music criticism in general is a bad thing, but it's a magnet for snobs, and this site certainly got many of the worst of them. The DMB thread is a fucking embarrassment from this vantage point. Record store rats spewing causticity at 14yos sticking up for their favourite band with newly-enlightened 30somethings egging them on? Entertaining yeah, but in a car wreck sense, on both sides, no? Seems like putting ego before loving music.

Recently a former regular here tweeted '"The idea of musical 'authenticity' is certainly a suburban idea."--Frith'... from this Cambodian perspective where "early 70s rock was real music" is a resounding statement, I'm not even going to bother asking whether critics think it's pre- or post- khmer rouge suburbia, but rather why no one's calling them out on this bullshit. This reliance upon ready-made insults is typical from modern critics. The only real counterpoint used to come from Geir Hongro, who was unfortunately so simpleminded that he became a village muppet. At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night. It's really entertaining to read, yeah, but not worth shedding a tear over. Things are fine now.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

that's Pol Pot behaviour right there

xxp i must admit i have no idea what you're talking about here.

huh. yeah not my experience of ILM mainly. plenty of that around the edges but when i think music critics making "big posts" i'm picturing multi-paragraph usenet-type things where people are trying to figure something out, or people who know something are taking the time to explain it. i've learned a ton from long posts on this board and have mostly just skimmed past the admittedly abundant contemptuous rockist zingers (which, yeah, are definitely around, especially in the VERY early days).

Has the signal-to-noise ratio improved in recent years? Seems like it.

At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night.

well that's not sexist at all

what's wrong with being not sexy?

'a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night'

new board description please

here we go

this might be a case of 'too much time on ilx' but i can no longer read the phrase 'off-the-shelf' without thinking of german toilets

appropriate given the circumstances

music critics used to make lots of big posts here.. Now it feels they save that for the dayjob. Which is a loss to ilm

Wow, I've spent a lot of time lurking through past threads and thought it was a plus for this site that we'd been largely rid of that crowd... not that music criticism in general is a bad thing, but it's a magnet for snobs, and this site certainly got many of the worst of them. The DMB thread is a fucking embarrassment from this vantage point. Record store rats spewing causticity at 14yos sticking up for their favourite band with newly-enlightened 30somethings egging them on? Entertaining yeah, but in a car wreck sense, on both sides, no? Seems like putting ego before loving music.

Recently a former regular here tweeted '"The idea of musical 'authenticity' is certainly a suburban idea."--Frith'... from this Cambodian perspective where "early 70s rock was real music" is a resounding statement, I'm not even going to bother asking whether critics think it's pre- or post- khmer rouge suburbia, but rather why no one's calling them out on this bullshit. This reliance upon ready-made insults is typical from modern critics. The only real counterpoint used to come from Geir Hongro, who was unfortunately so simpleminded that he became a village muppet. At its height this site was a simmering pot for off-the-shelf arguments you could spew at the grad lounge to impress the bob marley/RHCP fan's girlfriend before retiring alone for the night. It's really entertaining to read, yeah, but not worth shedding a tear over. Things are fine now.

― Adam J Duncan, Friday, 17 July 2015 14:13

Not my experience at all.

if you want me to be loud i can be fuckin' loud

ILM had a lot of good threads and posts and put me onto a lot of good music but the good of the experience was always way outweighed by the nastiness and the culture of group policing of opinions that developed, so over time it just stoped feeling rewarding and I stopped visiting. I also just don't like the things ILM most often gets excited about all that much.

a pile-on is never a pretty sight but people who can't bear to get a bit of a zinging if they write something stupid or challopian shd probably go somewhere else on the internet where nobody ever says anything sarcastic

a pile-on isn't the same as a hivemind or groupthink or opinion-policing. i've rarely seen anybody get a real piss-taking on ILM who hasn't been posting in a style that suggests "challenge my forthright opinions if you dare"

Ok

i could be wrong! maybe there's a load of evidence out there of naive innocents getting a verbal mauling all unprovoked. maybe people shd give examples.

is off-the-shelf british for off the cuff?

Xp I don't really feel like it.

I don't really feel like presenting a case and an argument on this point. I'm sure you could even trudge up posts where I was doing exactly what you're talking about, but you'd in turn just be demonstrating exactly why I stopped enjoying ILM

i love ilm but i pretty much only post when i am fawning over something and i need to share my enthusiasm, i've never really had the heavyweight opinions that others bring but i appreciate them

*dredge not trudge

scott it's more like "off the peg", readymade

okay, got it. that would be off the rack here.

Btw I actually think it had been less nasty and polarized in recent years but I just already felt sort of fatigued of the experience by then. When I first came to ILM there was more of an overthrow-the-old-guitar-order/make-fun-of-post-rock vibe that I found off-putting and intriguing at the same time. Because I liked some post rock a lot and I didn't really see why it was so worthy of bashing but I also hadn't encountered anyone who so strenuously hated it before.

tortoise were no penguin cafe orchestra. that's right, i said it...

Scott you were always one of the posters who kept me coming back to ILM

2006-08 period was pretty volatile iirc, but that was mostly down to dom and the zing crew.

"Scott you were always one of the posters who kept me coming back to ILM"

i apologize...from the bottom of my heart...

penguin cafe orchestra is tight

The DMB thread is a fucking embarrassment from this vantage point.

Which thread is this, I'd like to read it!

some really horrible poster started it under an assumed name
Dave Matthews Band : Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

Oh right, have never thought about looking at that for even a nanosecond.

It was once the largest thread on ILX until registered log-ins came in. Random googlers were lols

Sounds good!

the legend is that Jon W posted links to it on DMB forums. I've always meant to ask him if he did (to say thanks)

that thread is 100% worth it IMO for this one googler post, i think about this all the time and not just for lolz (although mostly)

alright.. i only read the first bunch of postings.. and i dont know why there are so many haters out there.. dave is a great guy and does alott of work for charities.. pardon the spelling haha.. i dont know where you get corporate rock band from.. since hes libral as hell.. his lyrics are great.. just get beyond everyday and gravedigger.. his so smooth on the guitar its not even funny.. everyone in the band has incredible talent.. and i dont know how you can say its bland music.. some of the greatest artists ever are bland.. for example.. and keep in mind i love the beatles.. but "we all live in a yellow submarineee yellow submarinee.. la la la" its very boring as well.. oh and about his voice.. very few people have the range that dave has.. and what kind of music does everyone here listen too??.. besides britney spears and john mayer of course..
― CcchrissS, Friday, December 9, 2005 10:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's the legendary one.

oh and about his voice.. very few people have the range that dave has..

hahahaha this is one of the most insane claims anyone has ever made about music

Tina bringing the cliches lols

You need to stop the hatin' on Dave. DMB are a terrifially talented band who write great songs, play their instruments well , sing with passion and write about important issues. You 'music fans' here can keep your alternative rock rubbish like Nirvana , Pearl jam , Sonic Youth and Pixies and leave the genius of real music like Dave Matthews to the millions of real music fans worldwide. Thats why they've sold millions of albums and gigs sell out instantly.

― Tina R, Friday, 6 June 2003 16:06 (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Also why do some people keep going on about regular date rapes while listening to dave? Wheres the evidence to back this up?

― Tina T, Friday, 6 June 2003 16:08 (12 years ago)

h stencil had the best first reply, M@tt

The guy sings like a muppet.

― hstencil, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 19:34 (12 years ago)

otm

I think now that Doobie Bros. are hip maybe in 10-20 years DMB will get some kind of 90s classic rock revisiting.

they have a huge fanbase that's never gone away, and a mainstream 90s popularity that i doubt has turned to hatred in most of the people who bought the first two albums. they've got rock and roll hall of fame written all over them and yeah, no reason to think their hits and maybe even some album cuts will be huge on future equivalents of the classic rock format.

But not in the UK thankfully as nobody has ever heard of them over here

AJD has got a point, mind.

I used to be a music journalist and I started this thread:

Buckinghamshire

It wouldn't be a great loss if I went.

Best threadstart of 2015 imo.

Hi.

And after all that I have no idea what DMB are like.

I imagine if "Achy Nearly Heart" was a more serious song, that's what DMB would sound like..

i'm just going to keep starting threads about songs i like :))

^^ gets it

I book marked this thread a while back, only now reading it. Funny thing: some of my friends (lawyers, mind, but I love them nonetheless) went to see DMB a week or so ago. I didn't even know the band was still active. I just kept thinking, "you still like this band?"

As a lawyer I can say with confidence that being one is not an excuse.

it is, isn't it? Quiet, I mean. On ILM

music is quiet

except jute gyte, jute gyte is loud

the new ruth lake is a good quiet album

the new laura mvula is a good album that is neither quiet nor loud

i listened to a dif juz record yesterday. it was pretty quiet. it has the bird from the cockatoo twins on it singing in a banana suit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A8h-nrTRY0

I'm still plenty busy following ILM, but if there are legitimate concerns about the message board going down the drains I was thinking maybe we should try to... recruit new (young) posters?

see you in 600 posts

I was thinking maybe we should try to... recruit new (young) posters?

How?

i bet if you looked it up the 10th post on ILM was that it wasn't as good as the good old days

Since I've gone over to the SNAside, I have no idea what ILM looks like these days. Isn't it all rolling (micro)genre threads and the occasional enormo-poll?

I remember in like 2001/2002 there was complaints about nu-ilx but my op wasnt about not being as good as it was, just that it was quiet and had been for quite a while.

tom you traitor

would prefer to have new ppl come in organically, though i realize social media has made message boards like these a relic of the past

a more natural approach would be trying to get lurkers, of which there are supposedly many, to post more often

but FWIW i don't think this board is particularly close to 'going down the drains'

neither do i. its not what i meant in the OP.

SNA does seem to be a big reason for ILM being quiet as noone is starting many threads or reviving there.
Do lots of people exclude ILM from their SNA in settings?

I exclude ILE from my SNA and treat it like its own thing, works much better that way around imo

same here, I only look at ILE rarely, like once a day. obv have some ILE threads bookmarked.

I've been visiting this board on and off since 2001, and frankly, there's an insularity that makes it hard for newcomers to feel welcome here. And jesus christ, every thread turns aggro and combative for the most retarded reasons. I can't even keep track of the number of valuable and interesting posters who have been chased out of here for the silliest and most overblown of reasons

ahahaha

Will say that from the mod side, there are new registrations every day. I used to be eager to see these new names start posting, but it almost never happens.

^^ tried regging a sock account thrice for a single joke post last week during the top 77. Three diff addresses, never got the confirmation email in either three accounts. ILM is a hostile place for socks.

ilx is like the freemasons, used to be cool and elite and mysterious, now just a bunch of old dudes wondering why nobody wants to learn our secret handshakes anymore.

anyway I think trump / collapse of america has done some good things for the board after a few years of decline. the site is more dynamic when there's actual news.

i personally feel that i don't have a ton of interesting things to say. i like reading it all tho

ditto

For me, the search function being out of service has been pretty limiting on my use of the board.

what is SNA?

Social Nerd Asshattery

site new answers

I've been visiting this board on and off since 2001, and frankly, there's an insularity that makes it hard for newcomers to feel welcome here. And jesus christ, every thread turns aggro and combative for the most retarded reasons. I can't even keep track of the number of valuable and interesting posters who have been chased out of here for the silliest and most overblown of reasons

― Poliopolice, Monday, February 6, 2017 12:30 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahahaha

― I Am In Atlanta And Thug Is Young (imago), Monday, February 6, 2017 12:33 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and here it is, the reason we don't get new posters

Re: ILM specifically, I haven't listened to an album that was released in at least the past year (maybe the past two?) because oldness, and my thread revives about older stuff tend to dry on the vine. I like readin' y'all talking about stuff, though.

wait you mean my response xp

Would say that was obvious

not the guy turning aggro and combative and using the word 'retarded' while complaining about the site getting aggro and combative

lol

ILM has always been insular and prone to dumb aggro and that didn't stop it growing - it's much less unpleasant these days than it has been at times in the past. It's declining for the reason that message boards generally are declining - everyone's on social media instead. And it's a vicious cycle because even if you like the message board format better, there's not much motivation to put effort into a post when so few other people are. This isn't really a criticism or "we must do better", the board isn't dying yet and you can't artificially fix an organic decline.

There doesn't seem to be many new threads on ILM so perhaps we all should start new threads on new albums or bands rather than confine them to rolling threads?

Threads on new artists or singles (who aren't already very well known) get 5 answers max then die. This has been the case for years. If it weren't for rolling threads this place really would be completely dead (in terms of new music, I guess those infernal Old People Polls will never go away)

This reminds me, I have been meaning to start a poll: http://ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

nice. screwed up my joke with a bad copy/paste Vanilla Fudge: Classic or Dud?

I've been visiting this board on and off since 2001, and frankly, there's an insularity that makes it hard for newcomers to feel welcome here. And jesus christ, every thread turns aggro and combative for the most retarded reasons. I can't even keep track of the number of valuable and interesting posters who have been chased out of here for the silliest and most overblown of reasons

― Poliopolice, Monday, February 6, 2017 12:30 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ahahaha

― I Am In Atlanta And Thug Is Young (imago), Monday, February 6, 2017 12:33 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and here it is, the reason we don't get new posters

― a self-reinforcing downward spiral of male-centric indie (katherine), Monday, February 6, 2017 6:11 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've just been here a couple of years and yeah, it's not particularly welcoming, but it's more that unless you're talking about something like Afropop or old Arabic music there's going to be someone telling you whatever you like is shit and/or morally wrong in some way, and as a newcomer there's no way to judge how much of this is irony or performative hyperbole. I'm old enough now to not really care enough about this to storm off in a huff, but even five years ago I would've (mis)understood this to be some sort of personal animosity, and wouldn't have bothered any more. Also there is a lot of site-specific jargon.

As far as what keeps people reading... I mean deep conversations and insights are interesting but clusterfucks are so bright and glowing and the smoke rises up so high...

at this point I am FPing anybody who uses the r-word in this fashion so yeah I think Poliopolice's post was indicative of some problems.

I bet there are plenty of youth who wd dig the things we all dig abt ilx, maybe I should get twitter and start promoting it more or sth. Always feel a little weird linking back to this site, like the philistines will come storming our precious Paradise but that's probably not realistic.

sobering to think we could have inadvertently scared off the next poliopolice

Yeah seconding the general sentiment that tone of the board is pretty nasty. I joined I think in 2009 and after each of my first posts I was eviscerated for breaking thread etiquette I couldn't have possibly known about. (This may be part of why nobody starts new threads anymore, the second post is always some variation of "did we need a thread about this?")

I love this community because some of my favorite critics post here, and its a joy talking with most of you and getting new recommendations, but I don't post as often as I would just because there are also a lot of assholes here whose cattiness goes unchecked, and I just don't have the energy to get torn apart by strangers for voicing the most harmless opinion. Maybe it's fun for people looking for a flame war, but for those of us who just want to talk about music it isn't always worth it.

If it weren't for rolling threads this place really would be completely dead (in terms of new music, I guess those infernal Old People Polls will never go away)

you're not down with O.P.P.?

poliopolice is intimidating to young ones

http://c.tribune.com.pk/2013/01/491230-PolioPhotoonline-1357680121-543-640x480.JPG

What we need are YPPs.

I'm coming up on 9 years here, I post occasionally but there's been a decline in folks like Bimble who wore their enthusiasm on their sleeve and were equally excited to talk about young bands as well as old. It was contagious.

And speaking of old bands and old dogs, I'm not sure there's much more to be said on many long running threads. I can enthuse about band X or Y, or stand up and proclaim "I have discovered the greatness of so-and-so at this late date" but the response is understandably muted.

I still enjoy the places I dip into and love how ILM reminds me to play something old or check out something new. I tried using Facebook's "Present Listening" and similar groups but 1} the lack of easily viewed discussion history is a turn off and 2} you quickly see the same group of classic albums being extolled.

my reign of terror knows no limit. who is safe from the sting of derision

prince died and now there isn't music anymore

sometimes there is outright boneheaded meanness on ILX, like anywhere else on the internet, but a certain amount of piss-taking is never a bad thing if it makes people up their posting game compared to other internet forums.
you don't measure a site's goodness by the sheer volume of stuff being said, and what made ILX originally popular or attractive to most of its users was due to this quality control, however it might've hurt the feelings of people who feel like they ran foul of it.

tbh, pretty much every poster on the board has fallen foul of it at some point. cuddlier, more anodyne forums are available.

I don't buy the 'nobody joins because we're all assholes' theory cause ilx has always been full of assholes. if anything this place is less scary now that it's 40 y/o dads swapping PTA meeting notes and not 25 y/o hipsters.

doctor casino you're one of my favorite posters, i'd definitely follow you on twitter

I dunno. To illustrate, this is an exchange I had with somebody the one time I took the bait after years of ignoring their potshots and tried to figure out why they were being so aggro.

Man you really have it out for me lately, huh? Did I somehow offend you or something? You jump down my throat every time I post

― Evan R, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 02:12 Bookmark

man get a life. there is a discussion, you choose to contribute a point of view, i object to its flaccid suburban mediocrity, i pay you the courtesy of responding. that's how it works

Removing the poster's name as a courtesy, but their post went on like that. Why would anybody want to come back for more of that? The attitude here sometimes isn't just "I can be a raging asshole," but more often "I should be thanked and appreciated for having the courtesy to be a raging asshole." In what way does that facilitate conversation?

Who are all these assholes I'm hearing about?

http://s2.quickmeme.com/img/cd/cd1d8701698bb491cef51324437efb58847a3dfde23fbe152267200b771b61d4.jpg

LOL, but seriously, I could count them on the fingers of one hand.

yeah but you're Scottish so probably have 7 fingers

trying to find a non-asshole way to say "but what if your opinions are mediocre?"

aw thanks g.t. fortunately for my sanity my phone is way too primitive/dying for twitter to be a viable option. also have no idea wtf I would even tweet about. really I shd just revive my diaryland page or something - now that'll reach the kids!

xps that first response hall of fame thread is pretty... assholey

anyway, I don't think it's that bad, atm ilm new answers features threads on Julien Baker, Thundercat, Tinashe, Mitski, Grouper, Kehlani, Julia Holter, Stormzy... all the same it may be true that younger posters could add energy, new thoughts, perspective etc etc - quite a few discussions on ilm seem over, would be nice with somebody to take issue with consensus

as to how, well 1st off yeah, makes a lot of sense to just start plugging ilm on reddit/twitter/FB whatever, is there some kind of unofficial link ban? vaguely recall a thread abt smth like whether or not some ilxor needed a perm ban for quoting ilx on a popular blog

2ndly: I'm p sure there's a FAQ somewhere, but we could consider a sticky topic near the top of SNA that explains how the site works, what bookmarks are, what otm means etc. etc.

i stumbled across a bimble blog post the other day, raving about how great something was : /

ilm's taste in music is more or less aligned with acts that already get attention through more accessible mediums/media making ilm obsolete

would be nice with somebody to take issue with consensus

seriously, would this be nice? "that music you think is good, i think it's shit, but that shit music you hate is really good". the less of that stupidness the better imo.

the ideas of "the consensus", "the hive-mind", "why does nobody wants to dig my favourite band?" - these things are just daft, they have no place on an interesting forum, this is the kind of stuff you can wallow in everywhere

write interestingly about stuff that interests you or don't bother

I can only imagine that to a young music nerd who found this site there would be a bizarro world feeling when they encountered widely held ILM opinions that barely seem to exist outside of here--like that Kanye's MBDMST3K is a pile of shit or that the 1975 made one of the best albums of 2016. I know I felt it when I first stumbled on this place and people were talking about how much Radio Disney and Ashley Simpson rocked.

are there really any similar boards to this place? some of the SA forums approach this quality and metafilter seems pretty decent from what i've seen but ILX seems to be a unique place

does anyone ever put a link to an ilx thread on facebook or twitter? i never do. that might be another reason new people don't show up. how would anyone find it? every once in a while i will mention ilx somewhere on facebook and someone i don't know will say "ewww, that place is the worst". and that will be that.

Kanye's MBDMST3K

Now there's a crossover.

I've occasionally linked threads in the past on FB and Twitter. But since I've abandoned most posting on those two places...

I joined I think in 2009 and after each of my first posts I was eviscerated for breaking thread etiquette I couldn't have possibly known about. (This may be part of why nobody starts new threads anymore, the second post is always some variation of "did we need a thread about this?")

heh i got that in 2001 from people even though what I was asking had nothing to do with whatever was discussed on the thread. Plus when I did revive a thread then my point was ignored and a few people discussed the OP.
in 2017 nothings changed!

as for lex's " old peoples polls" there was not a lot of interest in a companion 2000-15 lifetime of ILM poll to the lifetime of ilm metal poll I ran (and enjoyed as big polls DO bring most of the board together with lots of great comments and insights). So I postponed it

does anyone ever put a link to an ilx thread on facebook or twitter? i never do. that might be another reason new people don't show up. how would anyone find it? every once in a while i will mention ilx somewhere on facebook and someone i don't know will say "ewww, that place is the worst". and that will be that.

Used to do it for metal poll and ilm eoy poll but its not like I have many followers. I think people prefer facebook groups

ilm is much easier to look at work than FB

but young people don't have jobs

or that the 1975 made one of the best albums of 2016.

from my pov not liking the 1975 is now the bizarro-world opinion

(very belatedly: I didn't see the slur in the post I quoted, if I had I probably would not have quoted the whole thing)

i was talking with a irl music friend about message boards and told him i had been posting to ilx/m for over 10 years and he was like huh, i look up stuff on there all the time (he does a lot of fact-checking)

he was surprised i had been around so long and remained so relatively quiet elsewhere on social media but there's something so wonderful and plain about talking about music on ilm because i am just a name and words on a screen. it relieves a lot of the things that make conversations about music fraught (can't think of another or more appropriate word) elsewhere. i think ilm needs more women but that time has probably come and gone? idk.

In...Christ, something like 13 or 14 years here, I've only personally had serious issues with like two posters, and one of them has turned out to be a cool dude in recent years. I have very little tolerance for assholes so I'm pretty okay with the asshole levels of this particular online haunt.

seems like most of us have gotten older and have other interests/responsibilities besides listening to a bunch of music and talking about it

guessing that dwindling numbers of young posters is less of a problem than dwindling numbers of female posters

agreed

Yes, 100% agreed on that, for sure.

Speaking as a white dude, we could use a lot more non-white dude voices here.

great discussions going on here
http://community.aarp.org/t5/Rock-N-Roll/bd-p/bg17

I can only imagine that to a young music nerd who found this site there would be a bizarro world feeling when they encountered widely held ILM opinions that barely seem to exist outside of here--like that Kanye's MBDMST3K is a pile of shit or that the 1975 made one of the best albums of 2016. I know I felt it when I first stumbled on this place and people were talking about how much Radio Disney and Ashley Simpson rocked.

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Monday, February 6, 2017 2:20 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally! It seems like you better be the most forward thinking, refreshingly innovative genre transcending and/or avant artist (preferably not overly hyped either), that is unless you do mainstream pop well. If you aren't mainstream pop, you better be thinking outside the box in a sophisticated way to get ILX approval.

I know I felt it when I first stumbled on this place and people were talking about how much Radio Disney and Ashley Simpson rocked.

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Monday, February 6, 2017 2:20 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://s30.postimg.org/tbgg0ys6p/Hanson_exploitable_fixed.png

Is that why the top 3 albums in our poll were art-soul, conscious hip-hop and art-rock xp

Oh, goddamn, you're taking me back with the Radio Disney. I listened to that nonstop back in '07 or so. It really was pretty much the best pop music outlet at the time.

Is that why the top 3 albums in our poll were art-soul, conscious hip-hop and art-rock xp

― I Am In Atlanta And Thug Is Young (imago), Monday, February 6, 2017 2:56 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"seems like" or "has seemed like" if you will

I massively enjoy all the music and other cultural things I'm exposed to through ILX, but I don't post that often because on the whole my voice here feels like this weird half-facsimile of itself and it just makes me feel so crushed. I feel like I'm offering around platters of meat in a room full of tenured professors, trying to convince them my new play is worthwhile, even though I don't believe it myself. And that's a difficult starting point. There's just so much information and I feel sick when I don't see all of it, which everyone else seems to be able to do effortlessly. You all are just too smart.

lol conscious hip hop

who gave them cpr

xp and then you realise the professors have just been making poop jokes for the last hour

Bowie was the conscious hip hop iirc

psst... ilx is bad because nearly all the good posters have left

the sheer force of habit/inertia/muscle memory/addiction is main thing keeping it together atp

another factor might be the movement of a lot of posters to professional writing jobs and the resulting exhaustion at the prospect of writing anything substantive, especially for free

who are these mythical departed good posters

name names

I suspect that the % of people on this site who make a living off writing is considerably lower than it was 16 years ago

i'm an admin on a FB music group and there are around 12,000 members world-wide and it is mostly the same american white dudes who post day in and day out.

JBR and roxy (not sure about roxy, i just haven't seen a new post from her in awhile)

xpost ilm would be way weird if our faces next to our posts

max was the last one to have cut and run (in understandable circumstances) i don't wanna name names but most of the posters I used to look forward to reading daily have now slowed output to a trickle

who are these mythical departed good posters

there's a v obvious answer being as how we lost our best poster by far in the last year

but i came back

do we have any Matts left?

we have the best matt

i can say honestly that i am not here to read anyone in particular -- i am here to talk/learn about xyz thing. the people individually and the idiosyncrasies of their opinions are not of interest to me really.

I'm mostly just hanging around waiting for Scott to post another Sweet Smoke for Hotheads mix.

I should just make you a tape. I made a good tape the other day.

xp - not to say that i haven't made friends! but i am not here for anyones hot or room temp take on ______

who are these mythical departed good posters

name names

― I Am In Atlanta And Thug Is Young (imago)

ta-nehisi coates

George Orwell

momus

1761 1598 24 139

nabisco was occasionally otm, iirc

does anyone outside of ilx listen to that King group that everyone loves here or is it strictly a hivemind obsession. or what's left of the hivemind during these sad waning days of the empire.

King p much sold out a medium to large venue in london

there's a lot of ilxors in london though

there's a v obvious answer being as how we lost our best poster by far in the last year

― Mordy, Monday, 6 February 2017 20:16 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I thought Frederik got unbanned?

audience was not rly the mostly white hipster crowd responsible for much of the visible crit discourse tbh

also nakh will return, have faith

maybe he has already

still miss a puppy

i can say honestly that i am not here to read anyone in particular -- i am here to talk/learn about xyz thing. the people individually and the idiosyncrasies of their opinions are not of interest to me really.

it's not so much being here to read so-and-so (i suppose when i was 17 it was exciting to me that Jess or Nabisco whoever wrote for p1tchf0rk), but over time certain voices limned from the chorus and grow on you. and i was being intentionally excessively glib upthread, obvs still many good voices that keep me coming back

Armpits don't draw any attention unless they happen to really stink. I think that describes my presence here.

there's a v obvious answer being as how we lost our best poster by far in the last year
― Mordy, Monday, 6 February 2017 20:16 (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't know who this is tbh

it's not clear to me whether people think that the quality of ILM posting has gone down, or if they think it just isn't active enough (as suggested by the original premise of this thread), or both

also nakh will return, have faith

doubt it; it's ok tho. this particular venue was just a constraint anyway. we lost drash too (who really was w/ us too shortly to be said to have really been here at all). idk, whatever. things die. there's a famous isaac bashevis singer quote about yiddish that works for ilx too (paraphrasing) - yes yiddish is dying and may it continue to die for many years to come.

A bit of both but a lot more of the second option.

I think a big part of it is that the sheer proliferation of blogs and social media posts and free file-sharing sites means that ILM in general is A LOT less Googleable than it used to be.

(xpost to NA)

i always figured u guys had some contact w nakh off-ilx? tell him i say 'hi' if so. i figured he was just on-and-off, hadn't noticed that this was an extended break for him? a talented writer and painfully knowledgeable dude

2088 1905 30 153

Drash was great.

i remember weeks when i was top of the statscock - dark days my friends

lex's point about threads dedicated to singles and albums getting 5 posts and then vanishing is weird to me - wasn't it always like that? too granular.

i still really, really value this place. i trust you guys! mainly. and i like the "old music" threads too.

It did use to be like that. I remember when it was a huge thing if a thread reached 100 posts. The nas thread and DMB thread where people were amazed at how many posts they had.

having to register did kill those threads. I miss the days of the random googler but the spam was getting too much so registration had to happen.

For me, the search function being out of service has been pretty limiting on my use of the board.

― Austin, Monday, February 6, 2017 12:52 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For me, too. But it also makes me wonder why I bother reviving old threads about some Krautrock band or some new thing I just discovered just to get one or two responses before the thread dies again (and yes, xp, in my experience, this does happen). Don't know what I'm expecting, necessarily--maybe nothing?--but yeah, I dunno. I hate the Rolling threads and I hate barrages of Youtube clips and I don't keep up with mainstream pop music.

But the absence of the search function has definitely kept me checking in less than usual this past week.

there used to be way more people. that makes a big difference. i remember when there were LOTS of threads with 100+ posts. but there aren't enough people around to make that happen now.

i'm not even around now...on ilm anyway. you're welcome.

the rolling threads seem like a direct response to the issue of "reviving old threads about some Krautrock band or some new thing I just discovered just to get one or two responses before the thread dies again"

ilx needs more clusterfucks

I never look at rolling threads tbh.

why do people hate rolling threads idgi

i never look at them either.

they're boring.

Donald Trump needs to start a music career.

The problem w clusterfucks is that if you're in any way an emotionally healthy person they are deeply unpleasant to be in the eye of which trains you not to start or participate in them again which winnows the field

i like rolling threads bc they let me find new music esp in genres that i don't know much about, i guess that's weird

Seems like they will be full of overly serious 'genre experts', could be wrong because I never look at them.