ILM Top 100 2005-2009: ALBUMS

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.

I'm listening to Studio right now because of the tracks list. Hopefully there will be something new and exciting in the top 40 but that does seem kind of unlikely...

xposts to Dan Perry - oh I'm not advocating strategic voting - no no no; it's just I did whittle my choices down to what I had and hadn't heard from the nominations and thought, well - I like a lot of these, but I'm not inspired enough to decide whether I prefer Merriweather Post Pavillion to Fever Ray, or whatever. Could've nommed, of course.

Studio was one of the best things in the tracks list and (I think) my second-highest vote to place after The Fall :D

tbh i think we got enough ballots this time around that #101-200 will be structured and interesting instead of just 'all the first place votes that didnt make it'

so i'm excited to see those at the end too

Even if the albums that you voted for don't show up. There are the full 1000 album lists that will show it placing somewhere. And the individual poster lists that will have these albums in your top 10. Somewhere at some point some young music nerd will come along and see that those meant something to someone and will them maybe possibly check them out. And that's why I vote in these things. Its for the kids. A few years ago I would just browse lists and check out a bunch of them. If you vote they will come.

totally agree w/dan re: why not voting b/c you think your stuff won't place is silly

what i get out of these polls: the pure pleasure of being prompted to listen to something i hadn't thought about in a while, thinking about new angles to old favourites, and of course it's amazing when other people discover for the first time stuff you're into.

and as far as the actual albums and artists that comprise these lists - obv it's not all to my taste but ilm's lists are ten BILLION times more interesting than any other site or publication's that i've ever seen, anywhere.

maybe some day someone who has trouble sleeping and drinks a lot of red wine and eats a lot of nyquil before bed will see that a bunch of people on this message board like Sunn O))) so maybe I should check them out.

IMO you can't expect too many new introductions in the top 100 (although I was turned on to M83 by the 2008 poll); that's what 101 - 200 is for

What you can expect from the top 100 are the albums/tracks that successfully reached the largest number of people, aside from the people trying to game a consensus.

xposts to Dan Perry - oh I'm not advocating strategic voting - no no no; it's just I did whittle my choices down to what I had and hadn't heard from the nominations and thought, well - I like a lot of these, but I'm not inspired enough to decide whether I prefer Merriweather Post Pavillion to Fever Ray, or whatever. Could've nommed, of course.

I don't know, I guess my take is the ballot is what we put together, so if there are albums on it that are among your favorites, there's no compelling reason NOT to vote for them regardless of how popular they are. Eclecticism for its own sake isn't interesting; leaving off something you really like for something you like less but want to see represented seems... I don't know, I guess it seems dishonest to me? Like, if you rank the albums and lesser-known stuff is among your favorites that's one thing, but if you want everyone to hear all of this stuff that you don't actually like as much as the stuff everyone else already knows about, the place to do it probably isn't a poll of your favorite tracks/albums...?

well my grouching is idealistic and a mite gratuitous - ILM's lists are still much more interesting than most others I see, yes - and there's a lot of good stuff, as I've already said!

gman that's a good point - and I do hope that sort of thing happens. who knows, they may discover some REALLY obscure stuff while they're about it ;)

and Dan you have my solemn word that I rank it by favourite, not by obscurity, hence why Portishead might well be doing quite well out of my vote in this poll (SPOILER lol)

Multiple xposts

yeah and like you said don't get me started on the strategic voting crowd

I don't get the strategic voting at all. Just vote for the albums/tracks you like best. If everyone did that the results could be surprising and very very good. No need to just vote for albums just so they might jump up from # 18 to #14 nor do you need to leave out stuff you feel embarrassed about voting for (like animal collective in the 2009 poll).
The polls should be fun and that's it.

what i get out of these polls: the pure pleasure of being prompted to listen to something i hadn't thought about in a while, thinking about new angles to old favourites, and of course it's amazing when other people discover for the first time stuff you're into.

Not discovering stuff you hadn't heard that others really really love enough to vote for in a poll?

And it's just fun to put together lists of music you like. At least it's fun for me.

xxp portishead's a serious #1 contender i think

The other thing about these polls is that the rolling discussion threads are all too massive for me to follow, so stuff that's been talked to death on them that pop up here are basically my crib sheet for catching up on them.