ILM Top 100 2005-2009: ALBUMS

me of...

heard of moloko, but always assumed they'd sound like zygotic mynci or placebo or something. i guess not? haven't yet processed overpowered, but immediately blown away by "primitive" and "parallel lives", both of which, yeah, owe a huge debt to beloved eurythmics.

more so the latter, honestly

I remember Moloko - they were pretty popular for a while - but I was still in a rockist Experimental Music 4 Life phase around that time. I'm a better person now.

well shit, if moloko were popular, it wasn't here in the states. and i guess i'm a fan, in retrospect. love "the time is now", and "bring it back" is nice, if less distinctive. morcheeba?

They made a tiny blip in the US with their first album, when everything was all trip hop all the time, but after that I don't think they even had a US deal (and their first album is my least favorite).

Speaking completely from a UK/Ireland perspective here.

first moloko album do you like my tight sweater? - got lumped in w/trip-hop but wasn't really, it was a lot more playful than that - at its best this translated into fun, at its worst "wacky"
second moloko album i am not a doctor - kind of impenetrable and odd experimental, mostly tuneless electronic stuff, almost like a dry run for ruby blue in retrospect (tho obv it still spawned "sing it back", albeit in remixed form)
third moloko album things to make and do - their big pop move, though apart from "the time is now" still too off-kilter to work commercially; but probably their most varied, most confident album. pretty good!
fourth moloko album statues - their most essential album imo. straight-up ibiza disco, absolutely GORGEOUS strings everywhere. this single is amazing, as is the 10-minute "over & over" which concludes a) the album b) moloko's career c) róisín and mark's relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XVteRgZFkQ

heard of moloko, but always assumed they'd sound like zygotic mynci or placebo or something.

Um, you do realise that Gorky's and Placebo sounded NOTHING like each other, right?

(Moloko definitely had their moments but I could never get into their pop stuff - it seemed like a real watering down of talent.)

(Not because pop in itself = watering down, obviously, but rather their specific pop material.)

Um, you do realise that Gorky's and Placebo sounded NOTHING like each other, right?

yeah, i know - tongue in cheek

hey guys

today's countdown will start around 2:30 EST when i get home from work

congrats!

alright. wow. haven't looked at this in awhile. Sunn O))) made this list! my number 1! such an amazing beautiful album. I am now completely satisfied with this list.

sadly there's very little else here that regards music as unlimited art rather than sellable commodity

:D

Not sure the two are mutually exclusive, but...

but I'm being that guy you all love to love!

there's plenty of very good music in this list, shame that almost all of it is cherry-picked from a very, VERY limited swathe of (commercial) genres

One album that's impressed me the most has been the Sunn O))) one. I got into them a long time ago when they were still seen as an Earth tribute-band. "Interesting" is how I would have described it back then, but not really something you'd want to listen to for any extended period of time, unless played on an incredibly loud soundsystem, preferably live.

But this album shows what they've done with their template in the intervening years. I love the use of choirs and additional instrumentation to augment their drone-style playing. It sounds like they've really thought about how these sounds should embolden and complement rather than embellish it. The final track, Alice, works so well. I count this as a metal album - the aesthetic is there, but it's also meticulously tasteful.

I now associate it with reading books like Bram Stoker's Dracula on the train.

there's plenty of very good music in this list

you really should have stopped here

acoleuthic this whole "ART ROCK is whatever I listen to and any other weirdo unpopular indie rock that other people listen to is something else entirely" schtick is tiresome, let it go

I read Dante's Inferno with Monoliths in the background a few months ago. Worked so well. Great album to listen to late at night in a tired haze. I loved Black One as well but this was the album that put them over-the-top for me. Let the indie whatever the hell rain down on this list but at least Sunn left its mark.

but al, I listen to p much anything - that isn't remotely what I've been saying - if I have any schtick it's a sorta 'yeah having this stuff in our lists makes ILX great but maybe we overdo it a bit?' thing

at the same time as music announces exchange as the transformation of value into money, it designates this standard as indefensible, because music is outside all measure, irreducible to the time spent producing it.

but al, I listen to p much anything - that isn't remotely what I've been saying - if I have any schtick it's a sorta 'yeah having this stuff in our lists makes ILX great but maybe we overdo it a bit?' thing

― RIP la petite mort (acoleuthic), Monday, July 12, 2010 10:05 AM (2 minutes ago)

maybe ppl like this stuff? if the poll was made from 100 LJs someone could say the same thing about whatever it is you vote for

if the poll was made from 100 LJs someone could say the same thing about whatever it is you vote for

they could, and they'd have good reason.

however, if there was a good mix and spread of results, nobody would complain, and they'd be really happy to find out about all this awesome stuff they weren't aware of!

ah what the hell, it's a poll, popular winners are the whole damn point

Great list, needs more records that are just a one-note bassline and some ladies going 'oooooooooooooooooooo'.

with a cracking 2-step beat

i think that record you are describing will show up shortly tbh

at the same time as music announces exchange as the transformation of value into money, it designates this standard as indefensible, because music is outside all measure, irreducible to the time spent producing it.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_n71lIbSnKXc/SikXq7rnnhI/AAAAAAAABho/m3eBO3LXQ5Y/s400/Bugs_Bunny_Hare_Remover_Screwball.jpg

8-).

The reason I didn't vote in these polls is largely because I looked at the list, and while there were a lot of albums that I have enjoyed on there, very few of them made me wanna jump for joy on a personal level. So voting for, say, LCD Soundsystem as my number one wouldn't be doing justice to my own preferences - it would just bump LCD Soundsystem up a couple of notches.

There's a difference between an ilx-praised zeitgeist-shifting thing like "Silent Shout" or "It's Blitz" which are by all means fantastic records. But they only represent a miniscule proportion of what I listened to in the last five years, and aren't necessarily indicative of my own favourites, rather things that are ostensibly important to a bubble of internet people all over the world with a widely varying tastes that may only cross my own on the odd occassion and who are as many detractors as supporters of what I would call "great music".

Important records that came out in the last few years that have really made an impact on my life include Pere Ubu, My Toys Like Me and Nikokai which I'm sure none of which had a chance of placing. Not to mention the fact that about 50% of my music listening is about discovering music from the past (post-punk, mutant disco and new wave have played a more ubiquitous role in my music listening than probably anything in this top 100) Therefore expecting to know about, enjoy and agree on everything on this list is an unworkable concept.

The reason these lists exist, for me, is not because they really do represent what are and aren't the best albums/tracks, but as a snapshot of what other people have been listening to. It's like watching Top of the Pops on Thursdays when you were a kid- cheering for the tracks you like, booing the ones you don't, and looking out for new entries you hadn't heard before. But you can't bemoan TOTP for never playing any of the whatever personal favourites you have - this is why they're your personal favourites.

The reason these lists exist, for me, is not because they really do represent what are and aren't the best albums/tracks, but as a snapshot of what other people have been listening to. It's like watching Top of the Pops on Thursdays when you were a kid- cheering for the tracks you like, booing the ones you don't, and looking out for new entries you hadn't heard before. But you can't bemoan TOTP for never playing any of the whatever personal favourites you have - this is why they're your personal favourites.

tremendously otm

these lists are a bit of fun, they're not meant to be definitive.

As the poster boy of "dude who forgets to vote in these", can I just point out that intentionally not nominating/voting because of "my tracks/albums would never receive votes from anyone besides me" logic doesn't make any sense. Not only do people perk up and pour over the random tracks that get one or two votes after everything has been tallied, but also you have no idea if someone else out there would also vote for it. The lists are the truest reflection of what people are into when everyone nominates all of the stuff they like, and then from that list everyone votes for their top [x]. Strategically voting for things that you don't like all that much just to get representation or to bolster a consensus is quota-pandering bullshit, and not voting at all because you don't want to waste your vote wipes the music important to you off of the "official" record, making it truly invisible.

i've considered starting a thread abt what ppl "get" out of poll threads because there seem to be some wildly different strains.

Dan is 100% OTM - dude, my TOP 13 tracks failed to show, and I regret nothing :D

I always vote for stuff I think nobody else likes, and when I see 1 or 2 pop up I'm pleasantly surprised.

^^^this, except in this poll so far it's been 0 for me, of the things I REALLY wanted to see

i've considered starting a thread abt what ppl "get" out of poll threads because there seem to be some wildly different strains.

yeah, the gulf between "this is a big recommendation list" and "this is THE ILM CANON; YOU WILL OBEY" seems to be pretty massive

yeah and like you said don't get me started on the strategic voting crowd or the talk neg about half the list crowd.

I get to hear a pile of good stuff I wouldn't necessarily normally find. I'm pretty happy, consensus works fine for me.

^^^this, except in this poll so far it's been 0 for me, of the things I REALLY wanted to see

― RIP la petite mort (acoleuthic)

I'm at 1. My 32nd place vote showed up (School of the Seven Bells), and I'll be really happy if anything else squeaks in; if any of my top 20 show I'll be ecstatic.

I don't have beef with ANY of the individual albums so far, really (although a live album? hmph), but it's the collective consensus that irritates me. Am I really talking negative about half the list? I guess ILM is a stronghold of intelligent pop criticism so I'd do best to suck it up, really

no i wasn't talking about you

Another small problem I have with this list so far is that it hasn't really introduced me to anything awesome I hadn't heard before, although Ellen Allien wasn't bad - Imma go back at the end and relisten though in case I missed anything (Pantha Du Prince especially)

what i 'get' out of poll threads is mainly what dog latin described, the actual spectacle of rolling out the results is fun with everyone cheering for their own pet picks, and more importantly it helps me catch the best music that i missed out on the first time around, or prompts me to relisten to things that hadn't previously clicked for me

i don't really do 'strategic voting' except that occasionally i'll drop a really popular album that's guaranteed to place from my ballot to make room for something more unique (i.e. i think i left radiohead off my ballot in this one even though on most days i like it better than a few of my other picks)

xp i agree the albs list has been a snooze but since i've been reading ilm for like three of the five years being polled i'm not really surprised by this.