you're right, but I like to see my favorite artists do well, so that's one reason. when p4k (for an obv example) puts you in their top ten, sales and concert tickets are gonna swell, no?
xp jay
― k3vin k., Monday, 24 November 2008 17:53 (fifteen years ago) link
xxp:
I am happy! it's just weird I guess -- I haven't really listened to that much new music this year, but most of the stuff from these lists that I've heard is so dull that I wouldn't have even remembered it came out this year.
― With a little bit of gold and a Peja (bernard snowy), Monday, 24 November 2008 17:56 (fifteen years ago) link
when p4k (for an obv example) puts you in their top ten, sales and concert tickets are gonna swell, no?
Yeah, I guess I've never really understood why people are invested in their favorite bands getting popular, either. As long as they're doing well enough to keep putting out albums and touring on a semi-regular basis, I don't care how many units they shift.
― xpost haha (jaymc), Monday, 24 November 2008 18:07 (fifteen years ago) link
anyone else shocked to see this on the mojo list?...
37 - Gavin Bryars & Philip Jeck & Alter Ego - The Sinking of the Titanic [2007]
was considering this for my list, but who turned those guys on to something like this???
― psychgawsple, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:25 (fifteen years ago) link
no Blitzen Trapper
they're #1 on my list of bands who, from reading reviews, i think will be awesome, but are completely disappointing to listen to.
― Moreno, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:37 (fifteen years ago) link
i think it's entirely depressing that anyone would pick a fifth-wave freak folk act as their #1 album of the year. surely something original happened in 2008?
― psychgawsple, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:42 (fifteen years ago) link
i think it's entirely depressing that anyone would keep count of how many waves of freak folk there have been now
― dumb pseud (some dude), Monday, 24 November 2008 18:45 (fifteen years ago) link
whats the Don Cavalli album like?
― Michael B, Monday, 24 November 2008 18:48 (fifteen years ago) link
yes yes, i clearly have a tally on my wall. apparently it's the most relevant form of music in 2008 though, so...
― psychgawsple, Monday, 24 November 2008 19:09 (fifteen years ago) link
8 - The Week That Was - The Week That Was
glad this is getting props somewhere, i'm really into it at the moment
― ciderpress, Monday, 24 November 2008 20:27 (fifteen years ago) link
Do you mean Fleet Foxes psychgawsple?
I don't think they really sound like a freak folk group or even the descendants of freak folk (though they probably listened to the last Grizzly Bear album). Which is not to say they're doing anything new.
I like the album, but I'd be depressed if was number one on my list. Having said that, I think it's far more likely that it'll do well this year not because some people think it's the best thing of the year, but because heaps and heaps of people are ranking it about ten.
I kinda ruined my singles poll list for Pitchfork (in terms of expecting to have any effect on the outcome) by stuffing it with UK funky house tunes.
― Tim F, Monday, 24 November 2008 20:45 (fifteen years ago) link
indeed, it is not very 'freaky', but it is folksy psych-pop in that lineage (imo). and it seems to have a weird appeal to the more dance-music oriented set, which i simply don't understand (it looks like this'll be the #1 album over at djhistory!?!?!). it's easy to like but there's nothing exciting going on by any means.
and god bless you sir for bringing more funky UK house to the Pitchfork list
― psychgawsple, Monday, 24 November 2008 20:59 (fifteen years ago) link
I doubt any will make it into the final list though! This is the problem with these sorts of consensus lists, and exactly why something like Fleet Foxes tends to get overrated. In fact I think I'd say what Fleet Foxes have going for them is that they are a point where people with bad taste and people with good taste converge.
― Tim F, Monday, 24 November 2008 21:06 (fifteen years ago) link
yeah but you guys do show individual lists too, right?
that's where you find the real gold
― psychgawsple, Monday, 24 November 2008 21:21 (fifteen years ago) link
The inclusion of Staind, Trivium, and Slipknot all make me cringe, but still, Metal Edge's EOY list is better than Decibel's, I think.
― A. Begrand, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 03:51 (fifteen years ago) link
Without my vote I'm pretty sure Belphegor's Bondage Goat Zombie wouldn't have even made the Metal Edge top 50!!! (Also, my #1 vote for Equilibrium must have helped its placing.)
― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 04:19 (fifteen years ago) link
Tremendous variety in that Metal Edge list. I didn't vote for Equilibrium, but I sure as hell admire it. That album is nuts.
― A. Begrand, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 04:21 (fifteen years ago) link
21 Erykah Badu - New Amerykah: Pt. One (4th World War)19 Katy Perry - One Of The Boys
― Trik Turner Fan Club President (Tape Store), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 04:44 (fifteen years ago) link
the motherfuckers
― Mikaael Jackson (The Reverend), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 04:49 (fifteen years ago) link
yall didnt know matt armstrong was the editor of blender?
― racist (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 04:52 (fifteen years ago) link
was considering this for my list, but who turned (MOJO) on to something like this???
For all the Boomer Rock worship and Beatles covers the MOJO writers have actually been right there in terms of championing great bands early on.
― Cunga, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 05:15 (fifteen years ago) link
"One Of The Boys" is an abortion
― billstevejim, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 05:30 (fifteen years ago) link
No Gym Class Heroes, no dice
― Dimension 5ive, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 05:39 (fifteen years ago) link
yes but MOJO have never really been into experimental electronic or minimal composition in the past have they?
the bryars/jeck/alter ego project is not a band, it's actually jeck and alter ego re-working the classic bryars piece into something almost akin to 'the disintegration loops'
― psychgawsple, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 05:48 (fifteen years ago) link
this is starting to be like in high school when jocks would ask, "Wait, you like rap? I thought you were into alternative."
― Matos W.K., Tuesday, 25 November 2008 06:30 (fifteen years ago) link
it's just that that album, and maybe Peter Broderick as well, are far more experimental/esoteric than the rest of that list. no need to call names matos, just wondering if this type of dabbling was something MOJO did more often
the previous lists had a predictable aesthetic (at least with Paste and Blender), i thought this was part of why writers contributed different lists to different magazines?
― psychgawsple, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 06:57 (fifteen years ago) link
I have to recuse myself from commenting on the metal lists, but otherwise, Blender's is by far the best of these so far.
― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 06:58 (fifteen years ago) link
I don't know what the staff's iPod's look like but they seem to have an in-house expert on everything. (And if they don't have one for something they usually know where to find a good one)
Their canonizations and monthly covers can obscure that finer point though.
― Cunga, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 07:28 (fifteen years ago) link
It's probably a bit like Pitchfork's 2000 list where Gas' Pop stood out like a sore thumb amidst all the indie-rock (obv. Pitchfork's end of year lists are a bit different now). I queried this at the time and Mark Richardson (who obv likes a lot of electronic music) explained that he'd loved that album and converted several other writers. Pitchfork weren't trying to say this was the only good electronic album of that year, it's just that several writers happened to vote for it. I'm sure that Mojo has its equivalent or equivalents to Mark.
Which is totally fair enough. But it still points to the problem with tabulated lists generally: one reads meaning where in fact there is only statistical randomness.
Having said this, the "nine similar things plus one different thing" approach to individual end-of-year listmaking is always (to my mind) a sign that one should not take said list too seriously. The presence of the one different thing can only be seen as perplexing, ultimately meaningless - remember all those indie rock + Outkast album lists of 2003.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 07:35 (fifteen years ago) link
ultimately meaningless
No, not at all. All those indie rockers came to the album for that one song. I think it was "Ghetto Musick."
― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 07:51 (fifteen years ago) link
i mean, "hey ya" was no pushover either
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 25 November 2008 07:55 (fifteen years ago) link
I queried this at the time and Mark Richardson (who obv likes a lot of electronic music) explained that he'd loved that album and converted several other writers.
I think the exact same thing happened the next year with Fennesz's "Endless Summer" at #2!
I agree with Tim for the most part, but statistical randomness in poll results is somewhat dependent on the point tallying system for the poll (yeah, I harp on this every year) ... so for example, one person might convert a bunch of colleagues to something completely new (to them), but chances are they'll toss that album in at #8 or #9 on their list, not #1 or #2, so if pollmakers choose an unweighted (50, 49, 48, ... 3, 2, 1) point scheme or even a mildly weighted scheme, then they're opening themselves up to having a poll that's inexplicably dominated by a bunch of #9 throw-in votes.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 09:48 (fifteen years ago) link
The statistical-randomness bit is much closer to what I was referring to w/my high-school crack: it would be more unusual to not see those kinds of deviations on long lists like these ones.
― Matos W.K., Tuesday, 25 November 2008 11:28 (fifteen years ago) link
OTOH the very fact that a single record stands out as a "deviation" on a list tends to suggest that the reigning ideology at that publication is a little too well entrenched.
(metal mags tend to be more honest about this - no non-metal whatsoever)
― Tim F, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 11:33 (fifteen years ago) link
Surely Lil Wayne will be the main beneficiary of the 9th/10th votes this year. People who like hip hop but don't listen to it all the time tend to feel odd about not including at least one example in their top 10, even in a weak year, but what they intend to say - "I like hip hop even though I haven't heard much good stuff this year" - reads more as "I don't really like hip hop but feel obliged to include one album in order to seem eclectic", ie a sincere motive (at least in some cases) reads as a bogus one. Hence an album which even most Lil Wayne fans admit is patchy ends up, once the votes are tallied, looking like a masterpiece for want of any serious competition. Like Tim says, the same thing happened with OutKast in 2003, although I unfashionably still think that was genuinely deserving.
Anyway, the lists so far prove that my theory about Portishead placing highly in P&J obviously derives from hanging out with an unrepresentative number of Portishead fans.
― Dorianlynskey, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:52 (fifteen years ago) link
Q Magazine
1 Kings of Leon - Because of The Times2 Fleet Foxes - s/t3 Coldplay - Viva La Vida...4 Vampire Weekend - s/t5 Glasvegas - s/t6 Duffy - Rockferry7 TV On The Radio - Dear, Science8 Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid9 The Racontuers - Consoluers of The Lonely10 Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!11. Sigur Ros - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust12 Keane - Perfect Symmetry13 MGMT - Orcular Spectacular14 Kaiser Chiefs - Off With Their Heads15 Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III16 Hot Chip - Made In The Dark17 Adele - 1918 British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?19 Goldfrapp - Seventh Tree20 The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound21 Razorlight - Slipaway Fires22 The Killers - Day and Age23 Beck - Modern Guilt24 The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of The Understatement25 Metallica - Death Magnetic26 Conor Oberst - s/t27 Neil Diamond - Before Home28 Paul Weller - 22 Dreams29 AC/DC - Black Ice30 Portishead - Third31 Black Mountain - In The Future32 Oasis - Dig Out Your Souk33 Hercules & Love Affair - s/t34 Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago35 The Hold Steady - Stay Positive36 R.E.M. - Accelerate37 Lykke Li - Youth Novels38 John Mellencamp - LifeDeathLoveAndFreeedom39 Santogold - s/t40 My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges41 Lindsey Buckingham - Gift of Screws42 Liam Finn - I'll Be Lightning43 Joan As Police Women - To Survive44 Black Kids - Partie Traumatic45 Jack Johnson - Sleep Through Stattic46 Jenny Lewis - Acid Tounge47 The Verve - Forth48 Randy Newman - Harps and Angels49 Emmylou Harris - All I Indented To Be50 Dido - Safe Trip Home
― Mitchell Stirling, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:53 (fifteen years ago) link
How can all these mags release their best-of-2008 lists now, when there's still more than a month left of 2008?
― Tuomas, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:55 (fifteen years ago) link
Tradition
― Dorianlynskey, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:57 (fifteen years ago) link
wish these mags would show some balls for once and just do a Top 50 Albums We Feel Deserve More Love ignoring anything that went top 40 or sold over a certain amount. what is the point of a list like Q's? they could do something a lot more interesting and useful to their readers but no.
― GSOHSHIT (blueski), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 12:57 (fifteen years ago) link
32 Oasis - Dig Out Your Souk
http://sail-world.com/photos/Med_Marrakech%20souk.jpg
― GSOHSHIT (blueski), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 13:03 (fifteen years ago) link
what is the point of a list like Q's?
So that people who buy five albums a year and Q once or twice in a year can feel like they're catching up?
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 13:21 (fifteen years ago) link
Including The Killers (this week no doubt) 28 of those albums made the UK top ten.
― Mitchell Stirling, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 13:23 (fifteen years ago) link
why cater an EOY list for people who only buy your magazine once or twice a year? why fill it with best-selling albums when those same people could just go into Tesco and see the same albums there in the actual chart?
― GSOHSHIT (blueski), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 13:41 (fifteen years ago) link
On further analysis if The Killers make #1 this weekend the list will have 15 chart toppers. You can see 13 of those records in this weeks Top 75. I also don't see why have a top 50 like that, has they gone down to 100 and put something you might not see in Tesco it might have been worthwhile.
― Mitchell Stirling, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 14:05 (fifteen years ago) link
I hear Uncut went with Portishead, haven't seen it myself but that's good to hear.
― Mitchell Stirling, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 14:51 (fifteen years ago) link
why cater an EOY list for people who only buy your magazine once or twice a year?
"Cater" might be too strong a word, but there's def. a market for people who won't follow music all year-round but will pay closer attention at the end of the year because they know they everything they want to know will be condensed into convenient summaries. It's kind of the music equivalent of people who don't watch much sports, but stay glued to the TV during the Olympics, or even people who don't watch too many movies, but will watch the Academy Awards to check out the winners and make sure they haven't missed out on anything big.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 15:16 (fifteen years ago) link
Perhaps the Q list will convince them that they don't need to bother anymore.
― GSOHSHIT (blueski), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 15:23 (fifteen years ago) link
Those annual Q lists are the only ones which seriously raise my suspicions re. authenticity.
― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 25 November 2008 15:46 (fifteen years ago) link
mass outrage at middle aged music lists in magazines aimed at middle aged readers, News at Ten
― Brother Belcher (Marcello Carlin), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 15:54 (fifteen years ago) link
Before Paper Thin Walls shut down, we picked Portishead as our Album Of The Year...
So
Paper Thin Walls1. Portishead - Third
― i'm whine btw (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, 25 November 2008 16:05 (fifteen years ago) link