ILM Albums Polls POLLED

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.

Bejar has more bass in his voice than Tennant and phonates more, but there is a strong latter-era-PSB flavor to the way he is singing on "Chinatown"

I feel like I should vote for Kaputt just because it gets dumped on so much. I listened to "Blue Eyes" on the way home from work yesterday and it's still great!

Probably the album I've listened to the most on here is Arular.

Definitely a strong Al Stewart vibe with Destroyer.

Arular, but that's really a placeholder for the obviously-robbed Kala. In any case, it's the only one of the 10 that I really love. Like/respect many of the others.

xp Ok, maybe it's 50% Tennant and 50% something else that I can't stand. I think I resent this record exactly because it was pitched to me as PSBs + Avalon Roxy, which sounded fantastic, and then it wasn't that at all. But I'll stop dumping on it now.

I don't know what it is about the album that evokes this imagery but listening to Kaputt makes me think dude is singing to an audience of his stuffed animals

Kaputt makes me think dude is singing to an audience of his stuffed animals

This accounts for a lot of North American indie post-1998 or so anyway.

the rest is composed and played by the stuffed animals

Kaputt makes me think dude is singing to an audience of his stuffed animals

This accounts for a lot of North American indie post-1998 or so anyway.

― Matt DC, Friday, February 1, 2013 3:16 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't you mean ~childlike wonderment~, lol

and then they sent it to Pink Floyd

xp not much childlike wonderment with Kaputt FWIW, more enervated disillusion.

Silent Shout changed me.

i preferred you before

Third

In order of preference (top 5 was very, very difficult)

Portishead - Third
The Knife - Silent Shout
Fever Ray - Fever Ray
M.I.A. - Arular
Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot
Miguel - Kaleidoscope Dream
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Kanye West - College Dropout
Destroyer - Kaputt
The Streets - Original Pirate Material

only the combined power of the knife and fever ray puts kaputt in third place, but in any other decade...