ILM Albums Polls POLLED

I'm still reeling from all that.

It was a transatlantic incident that threatened ILX's special relationship

Kaleidoscope Dream > Silent Shout > Arular > Third > Fever Ray >>> Sound of Silver > Sir Luscious Left Foot >>> Original Pirate Material >??>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Being punched in the face >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Kaputt.

I still don't think I've actually heard College Dropout from start to finish.

Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Portishead - Third
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
The Knife - Silent Shout

That's a hell of a run, right there. Don't know much about the rest of them.

If the 2011 poll had not been voted in by cloth-eared fools and Let England Shake had beaten Kaputt that might have taken my #1 vote, but I get more out of the Miguel album than anything else here by quite some distance. And I really like at least half of them.

iirc we claimed the moral victory for Let England Shake, either due to voting shenanigans or more first-place votes or just a very necessary deus ex machina

college dropout is actually really good matt

i keep seeing people who think i'm a kanye hater and i'm like no the only reason i hate on MBDTF is because i was a kanye FAN

Johnny Fever, pls update poll options to reflect moral victory. Thx.

I don't really like Kanye's voice, personality or on-record presence even when he's good so have never bothered to check out an entire album.

Destroyer is the only one of these I don't really love. It's between Sound of Silver and Third for me, it's a close call.

The only ones of these I can say I've really really enjoyed and played on several occasions are Big Boi, The Knife and The (LOL) Streets. The rest I've heard and enjoyed to differing extents, but I dunno.

Could go Kanye, could go M.I.a or big boi. Have to think on this.

I love LCD Soundsystem but never felt they released a consistently brilliant album in their career, Sound of Silver included. Always seems the highs are high and the lows are low with them.

Portishead by miles. Fuck the rest

I like Third and Fever Ray most of all but I voted Kaputt because I don't like whinging

It's not whingeing, it's the righteous fist of justice

I agree w you re: "Let England Shake" but every time I turn on the internet there's a "let's take him out back and"

Destroyer is the only one of these I don't really love. It's between Sound of Silver and Third for me, it's a close call.

― Kitchen Person, Friday, February 1, 2013 11:44 AM (1 hour ago)

Exactly how I feel. Sound of Silver hits so many of my sweet spots but Third is so high drama. The tours for both these records were two of my 00s highlights.

what is about destroyer particularly that everyone hates? is it the voice?

do all these people also hate roxy music and the psb?

kinda interesting that big boi was #1 here a few years ago and didn't even chart this year

obviously the album dropped really late and was pretty cruddy but still

You could always use this
ILx'ers Top Albums of 2003

xp I love PSBs and Roxy but I hate Prefab Sprout and that's what Kaputt sounds like.

I really dislike the Destroyer dude's voice, it reminds of some horrible slimy thing wheedling at me. The music has that awful cloying quality that you get from a lot of that sort of wide-eyed, brightly coloured post-Deserter's Songs North American indie. It feels plasticky but not in a good way. If it had just popped up at #9 I doubt I'd have cared but it beat the album I consider to be the best of the last five years at least, one whose emotional register Destroyer couldn't get anywhere near even if he wanted to.

If we'd held a poll for 2003, I imagine Speakerbox/The Love Below would've won. Or maybe Fever to Tell. Or Elephant? I dunno. 2003 was a pretty bountiful year.
Kish Kash would've won by a mile, based on the then ILM user base.

it's between Kaputt or Silent Shout

xxp I can see how you feel about Destroyer dude's voice is a big thing in how you feel about that record, but I think the production sounds a lot more like (and consciously tries to evoke) say Avalon-era Roxy more than recent US indie. But then I really like that record. Obv Bejar should be shot on Lex's command, though.

For me Portishead > The Knife > Destroyer > Fever Ray > Kanye > the rest.

what is about destroyer particularly that everyone hates? is it the voice?

do all these people also hate roxy music and the psb?

― monotony, Friday, 1 February 2013 13:25 (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's precisely because we like PSB and Roxy Music that we don't like Destroyer AFAIK.

yes, because it's not possible to like all three, is it.

also who is this "we"

I don't like Roxy Music either to be fair.

Peak-era PSBs are unique, no one who tries to sound like them is ever any good.

fair enough. I've never particularly heard a PSB influence in Kaputt, but there we go.

yes, because it's not possible to like all three, is it.

― Neil S, Friday, 1 February 2013 14:18 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You know what I mean.

Actually I don't hate Kaputt, but it def wasn't better than LES. Never mind.

I like PSB, but I've never heard Roxy Music, so I don't know what this Kaputt is supposed to be like..? Is it like synth-pop?

Some shocking Roxy Music ignorance OTB

Tuomas, Kaputt sounds like Neil Tennant singing on extended pure-pop songs that some say are labyrinthine and confessional, others say tedious and self-obsessed.

The idea "The Streets = the British Chief Keef" just popped into my head

I know that's not really accurate but still, lol

xp Except Bejar doesn't sound at all like Tennant. This is where I need DJP's vocal-technique expertise to explain why.

I don't get any PSB comparison to Destroyer at all, DL is correct, "Kaputt" sounds like Prefab Sprout
I love Prefab Sprout and love Destroyer but Kaputt is not even my fifth favourite Destroyer record

I haven't listened to much Destroyer but iirc I'd peg him as Tennantesque

yeah never heard that either. I can see how people might think he sounds smarmy, something I don't think Tennant could ever be accused of, intonation and vocal styling aside.

I don't really hear the PSBs in Kaputt either.

You can't swing a cat in London without hitting a British Chief Keef, half yr technically limited lumpen grime or road rap MCs would lay claim to that. I mean not to the extent that anyone buys their records but still...

on the subject of sounding like the pet shop boys
i quite like the sound of arrows, who mirror their peak work pretty much

big boi really sticks out here, other than that these are all pretty much awesome (i know i listened to the streets once in lolcollege but have no memory of them. don't care tbh)

1 third
2 college dropout
3 kaputt
4 kaleidoscope dream
other 3 i like pretty equally

Tennant is who I hear and who Bejar appears to be drawing much of his influence from on Kaputt IMO. He might not have quite Tennant's range, but I don't think you have to be an expert on vocal-technique to hear it in his inflections. It appears to be a very deliberate aping of Tennant's laryngeal English style. Even that "Sounds, Smash Hits, Melody Maker, NME" line not only sounds like Tennant in terms of tone and accent, but it also parodies the meta-pop tradition that PSB were good at (not to mention Tennant's association with Smash Hits itself). I can't remember if he sang like this on previous records or not?

i would be down for a 2003 poll, amazing year for music. didn't trap muzik come out in 03? that's my number 1

Doing a 2003 poll now would feel wrong, these things need to be contemporary, not just because the voter demographic has changed markedly.

ha, welcome interstate managers <3

Lets do the 10th anniversary of 2003 poll!

Can we, uh, give it a month or so, though? I think a bunch of us will wanna relisten to a bunch of things, plus I think a good number of us (just me? ok.) might be suffering from a bit of poll exhaustion. Either way, participation may be greater if there's some time to get it together.

make it stop

if there isn't a lot of popular support for this, though, we may as well stop it.

it all sounds amazing.

all sounds like a dream to me

only way to settle this thing. i don't think destroyer travelling up to meet big boi on a wintery sunday afternoon is an easy fixture in anyone's book

voted kaputt for a laugh. paid in full.

throwing this out there, would there be any interest in a favourite poll of 2012 poll?

i'd need about 50 votes to make it worth doing

What the fuck is this shit. What the shit