ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2012

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two things:

1) johnny fever, great job doing this poll!

2) i usually try to avoid meta-thread whining, and i won't mention this again, but man i fucking hate when everyone predicts the top five and the top ten way ahead of time. i guess it's fun for people who are intensely poll watching and are deeply interested in the tracking and predicting the ilx hivemind (i mean that seriously, it's an interesting thing to think about albeit not my thing), but for the rest of us, you just ruin the results. for example, i for one did not listen to any john talabot this year, and i know nothing about him really. it would have been so awesome to see him pop up at #3, such a surprise, and i'm sure i would have been very excited to go home and listen to his music immediately. instead, when his album was revealed it was like "oh there's the guy that i've seen on literally dozens of predicted ilx 2012 album poll top tens for the last week." i am sure there is -50,000 sympathy for this view, and it's not like i'd like to see all discussion of prospective top placers squashed, but man it totally draaaaaaaaains the fun out of it when you're repeatedly exposed to the top ten over and over before you ever get there.

bonus 3) j0rdan's trax poll was awesome too!. you both did rolled them out within a work week, using the same exact countdown schedule. sheesh, you guys are pros.

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:34 (eleven years ago) link

i done did don't know how to type so well good

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:35 (eleven years ago) link

why is it more fun to listen to john talabot today vs a week ago?

flopson, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:37 (eleven years ago) link

welp know what my first post to coint & plick's gonna be

katz itt (cozen), Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:37 (eleven years ago) link

hahaha

i don't think you'd be able to predict the top 5 in this year's coint & plick!

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:39 (eleven years ago) link

i kinda agree with you on the predictions Z S, i would never be able to guess everything myself if other people didn't all dump speculative lists into the thread starting around #20, and surprises are fun. i don't really like the idea of policing that though, it is what it is.

ciderpress, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:40 (eleven years ago) link

xpost yeah i know i'm alienating myself by criticizing something that 90% of the posters on this thread probably contributed to. and also there's no way to possibly stop it, so whatever.

*shouts at clouds*

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:40 (eleven years ago) link

it would have been so awesome to see him pop up at #3, such a surprise,

this is kind of stretching the concept of surprise...

flopson, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:41 (eleven years ago) link

no way, i would have been surprised for sure!

i would have been like "who the fuck is john talabot, #3, holy smokes, wow!"

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:42 (eleven years ago) link

but you could have said that three days ago when people were predicting him! ruining the surprise of being exposed to something you've never heard of before... by being exposed to it

flopson, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:43 (eleven years ago) link

i understand your point, z s. and i plead guilty. but at least my predictions were completely off the mark...

miesepeter (alex in mainhattan), Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:44 (eleven years ago) link

I love blondes but my favourite dance full-length this year turned out to be manuel tur's swans reflecting elephants, which apparently only I like. Fans of austerity should check it out imo

― castle grayscale (wins), Thursday, 31 January 2013 10:34 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wanted to hear this! Then forgot that it existed before actually tracking it down. I loved "Will Be Mine" a few years back.

Tim F, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:44 (eleven years ago) link

The Amanda Mair album must have been pretty popular with the three people who heard it - a first place vote, my #2 and one other vote to have it place at 122 in a 700-odd listing. I hope more people would hear it and love it.

Very pleased with the results, a good mix of stuff I loved and stuff I will no doubt end up loving, thanks everybody.

boxedjoy, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:47 (eleven years ago) link

yeah, but (god i can't believe i'm elaborating on my stupid opinion) it's the countdown that makes it fun and interesting! if all of the fun came from seeing a list of top albums, then we wouldn't do a poll or a countdown, we'd just bust out our top tens and move on with our lives.

then again, most would probably say that speculating on who will make the top 20 (or whatever) is part of what makes the countdown fun and interesting. so whatever, i get it.

sorry i brought it up.

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:47 (eleven years ago) link

sorry, xposts

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:47 (eleven years ago) link

i agree with you dude. but it is pretty funny when people make really obviously wrong predictions.

congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:50 (eleven years ago) link

haha, well like i said way upthread, i think we all stand behind johnny fever's decision to post the batch of failed some dude predictions immediately before the Frank Ocean

Z S, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:54 (eleven years ago) link

man i fucking hate when everyone predicts the top five and the top ten way ahead of time
i've gotten used to it, and i just quickly scroll past whenever i notice anyone doing this. it bugs me and i've complained about it, but there's ways to avoid it.

billstevejim, Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:54 (eleven years ago) link

would be nice if people who wanted to do that started a unique thread for it

congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 31 January 2013 22:55 (eleven years ago) link

ZS you could just skim the thread and zero in on each result

❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:00 (eleven years ago) link

this Goat album rules

❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:01 (eleven years ago) link

it's a shame kaputt wasn't eligible this year, i feel like its influence and charm carried over well into 2012 and likely into '13 as well. i will write in a vote for it next year.

christmas candy bar (al leong), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:03 (eleven years ago) link

yeah, but (god i can't believe i'm elaborating on my stupid opinion) it's the countdown that makes it fun and interesting! if all of the fun came from seeing a list of top albums, then we wouldn't do a poll or a countdown, we'd just bust out our top tens and move on with our lives.

i guess i had just assumed that you needed to have formed some type of expectation to be surprised about something... like, by your logic you could slowly scroll down a list of albums you are guaranteed to never have heard before and get the same effect. frank ocean being outside the top 5 was a surprise to me, but that's only because i had expected it to be #1, an expectation formed by reading ilm... tbf i did find this roll-out more boring than usual, so maybe that's why. it was really fun last year when gr80 and plaxico and Lamp were all posting throughout the results, documenting their horror at a lot of stuff. this year it seemed like most posts were run of the mill boundary policing

flopson, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:08 (eleven years ago) link

it was also a good year for ilm-type music, though

flopson, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:09 (eleven years ago) link

Preeeeeetty solid top 10 in my little universe, even if the order is a bit jumbled according to my personal preference. I liked Kendrick and the Chromatics albums even if both were a bit long and could have been improved with some editing - neither quite made my top 25. GOAT album is the only one I haven't heard, and I've been meaning to do so for a while.

saw jessie ware the other night in melbourne and i know people were talking about her quiet stuff being the highlights but seeing her live really reinforced what a belting, huge voice she has - if anything i would love to see her ramp up the bombast for future releases and perhaps even do something more uptempo.

don't get the farrah abraham thing. i suppose it is meant to be an "emotionally affecting" piece but i can barely make out any words amidst the vocodery garble. As far as warbling seal vox albums go i'll take future thanks. otherwise to me it just sounds like crystal castles which, of course, were nowhere near the top 77

frank was my number 1 and personally i feel like the songwriting is a huge part of what makes that album great, i'm going to need more expansive commentary on the subject to make me believe otherwise.

monotony, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:09 (eleven years ago) link

My favourite moment on Smalhans is on the final track when he reprises the main theme from I Feel Space and you realise he's doing a victory lap and how much fun it must have been to make this album.

This is the best.

Tim F the manuel tur album is on spotify! It just hits all my pleasure centres.

castle grayscale (wins), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:09 (eleven years ago) link

Voices From the Lake has been my best discovery from all this. What a great album

sonderborg, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:15 (eleven years ago) link

The Amanda Mair album must have been pretty popular with the three people who heard it - a first place vote, my #2 and one other vote to have it place at 122 in a 700-odd listing. I hope more people would hear it and love it.

when i made a top 50 late last year i had it at #49 or something. Lovely little thing, but it's no Lykke Li or whatever. Particularly liked the song where she was asking for a minute / hour / decade of one's precious time. She's extremely young so I think we'll be hearing a lot more from her.

monotony, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:19 (eleven years ago) link

farrah abrams is best appreciated as legit "outsider art" imo

❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:21 (eleven years ago) link

Okay, here's the full 77 album covers, in color:

http://imgur.com/a/HGHgu

pun lovin criminal (polyphonic), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:33 (eleven years ago) link

Is there a spotify list for top albums?

Moodles, Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:48 (eleven years ago) link

I loved "Will Be Mine" a few years back.

arto mwambé remix of this is an all-time house track.

Ballboy to Afghanistan (LocalGarda), Thursday, 31 January 2013 23:58 (eleven years ago) link

the last track on this Goat album is fucking awesome. i don't want it to ever end

☕ (diamonddave85), Friday, 1 February 2013 00:07 (eleven years ago) link

Xps, I was the Amanda Mair no. 1 voter.

Wonderful album.

Head Cheerleader, Homecoming Queen and part-time model (ShariVari), Friday, 1 February 2013 00:14 (eleven years ago) link

TS: Being surprised by the John Talabot vs actually having an informed opinion on John Talabot when he turns up visavis his position on the list.

(I have chosen neither because I'm still making my way down the Spotify list. Boy, those Dirty Projectors, huh? They really.. they.. man, fuck the Dirty Projectors!)

Andrew Farrell, Friday, 1 February 2013 00:31 (eleven years ago) link

congrats to the poll-runners

pffft to all the greyscalenaysayers

many thanks to the ppl who posted fave track youtube links, I listened to all of these. Goat sounds fantastic.

i fell asleep seeing spiritualized on the ladies and gentlemen tour, went w/my weed dealer big mistake

my housemate fell asleep in the Let It Come Down tour, "it was just so soothing!" she was v gratified at the Ladies & Gents full album show in the Opera House nine years later that multiple people in rows around us were snoozed out solidly when the lights came up

i'd invite most of these artists to a dinner party, even the ones whose music i wouldn't allow in the house

i <3 dinner parties

...what do you serve?

( ͡° ͜ʖ͡°) (sic), Friday, 1 February 2013 00:34 (eleven years ago) link

also wkiw DJP's dinner parties.

Andrew Farrell, Friday, 1 February 2013 00:36 (eleven years ago) link

I fell asleep standing up during Boris's set at portishead's atp. In my/their defense it was the 3rd day and I'd had like an hour's sleep all weekend.

I also know a guy who fell asleep at godspeed's reunion gig, lol

castle grayscale (wins), Friday, 1 February 2013 00:38 (eleven years ago) link

made a what.cd collage (everything except gunplay for some reason)

https://what.cd/collages.php?id=16998

http://i.imgur.com/fczJ4ef.png
http://i.imgur.com/Tc1edhm.png
http://i.imgur.com/ZARTj2f.png

❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Friday, 1 February 2013 01:09 (eleven years ago) link

I fell asleep during My Bloody Valentine at Primavera. No earplugs either. Comfy seats though

Number None, Friday, 1 February 2013 01:38 (eleven years ago) link

I know i'm late, but no Session Victim? cmon people that was the house album of the year.

Dick Townwolves (Captain Ahab), Friday, 1 February 2013 01:45 (eleven years ago) link

interestingly, i'll have a hard time coming round to both the Laurel Halo and Cooly G albums for the exact same reason: the vocals in each just seem to suck the life out of the intriguing developments and trajectories of the songs.

charlie h, Friday, 1 February 2013 03:01 (eleven years ago) link

my secret house/disco album love of 2012 was roberto rodriguez' dawn which some may find a little too trad but i thought was crazy melodic and the lushesht starriest beachiest thing i heard all year.

suze (Matt P), Friday, 1 February 2013 03:09 (eleven years ago) link

as far as bobbins go i would take untold's change in a dynamic environment over say voices from the lake (which i love). haven't been able to get into the andy stott record yet, it sounds sort of unnecessary to me somehow, i will probably change my mind though.

suze (Matt P), Friday, 1 February 2013 03:14 (eleven years ago) link

john daly's sunburst was my deep house LP of choice that no one else cared about, but i can see why people would find it boring if you aren't a total sucker for his sound like i am. kind of agree about the andy stott, i really liked it on my first listen and then it never really drew me in a again after that.

karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Friday, 1 February 2013 03:28 (eleven years ago) link

Thanks Johnny!

Raymond Cummings, Friday, 1 February 2013 05:03 (eleven years ago) link

Thank seandalai. I just made pictures. He crunched the data. <3

Johnny Fever, Friday, 1 February 2013 05:05 (eleven years ago) link

nice results. i am not much of an album listener -- i actually have never filled out the albums section of a ballot before, but this year i put farrah abraham as my sole vote because that one really blew me away when i first heard it (and probably even more as i kept listening to it).

but actually a lot of the albums i listened to this year did place so i guess i will tediously list my thoughts on the ones i know :)

66. KATY B Danger EP umm this was good i guess and it did brighten my day to get something of its quality for free but uhhh not exactly "memorable" or "something i would expect to see on one of these"
41. THE XX Coexist hugely disappointing and i'm not sure what else i could possibly say about it (which is basically its biggest problem)
39. NICKI MINAJ Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded this is an *interesting* album to me as a commercial phenomenon but overall it was too uneven for me to honestly say i liked it. "stupid hoe" is fucking amazing and i did come around to some of the tracks that i didn't like initially but i still can't get quite behind this one
37. ANGEL HAZE Reservation really strong -- kind of a breath of fresh air when i first heard it actually. she navigates many styles quite deftly, but also in an appealingly subtle and cohesive way. some really powerful songs here and she's also a pretty endlessly interesting person.
19. FIONA APPLE The Idler Wheelzzzz so fucking boring, can't sit up and tell myself to pay attn long enough to convince myself to pretend that i even remotely enjoy this. "every single night" is a great single though and "hot knife" is good (maybe partly b/c it follows a marathon of snoozers)
17. CARLY RAE JEPSEN Kiss good album, but hard for me to actually consume in one piece.
09. FRANK OCEAN Channel Orange i wanted to like this but i just couldn't. i just... got bored a lot. inaccessible? i don't know. my tastes aren't sophisticated and i need cheap thrills apparently (and i will admit that some momentary thrills do register in the first two singles). his previous album is much better to my ears, but even then he didn't have a very compelling persona
08. JESSIE WARE Devotion good album. was actually pretty put off by her when i first heard "running", but it's a good song and many of the others are even better. one day while i was swimming in the summer "110%" hit me like a ton of bricks and i haven't looked back since. the run toward the end is pretty fantastic but some of the tracks are legitimately mediocre/perplexing ("no to love"........)
06. TAYLOR SWIFT Red i am not very passionate about this album either way. it is "a good album"
05. GRIMES Visions idk. grimes seems cool and sometimes i really love amorphous dreamy/atmospheric albums but this really didn't do it for me. i couldn't bring myself to revisit it at all, basically, other than "oblivion" which was focused enough to come through to me in a big way
04. DAWN RICHARD Armor On this is a really impressive album, i actually think i much prefer it to her new one (which hasn't kept me that interested honestly). the cohesion and the relentless yet subtle rhythmic drive throughout the album are pretty amazing. the melodies took some time to catch on, and i would say overall that is not her strength, but they came and it was a gratifying album
03. JOHN TALABOT ƒin good album, certainly much better as a full experience than any of its individual tracks.
02. KENDRICK LAMAR Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City love this one. i read a number of ppl saying it's annoying how you have to buy into the story/context to really enjoy it or whatever, but i don't feel that way at all. i typically don't listen closely enough to albums to ever really tell what they're ~about~ or whatever, and this is certainly the case for me here, but enough interesting and occasionally arresting things/ideas happen throughout this one that i can experience it like a 12-year-old listening to some poem he doesn't really ~get~ and still get really affected
01. MIGUEL Kaleidoscope Dream i do enjoy this one a bit but overall i am clearly not as enthusiastic about miguel as most are atm. ("sure thing" is still my favorite song from him.) "use me" and "do you" are fucking great though. i've always really enjoyed "adorn" and i like it even more now that it's dominating radio (and still evading being tiresome) but it's not the life-changing thing for me that it evidently is for others.

and the one i voted for...
15. FARRAH ABRAHAM My Teenage Dream Ended simply a stunning album. i didn't listen to it for a long time b/c i didn't find "finally getting up from rock bottom" that interesting initially. some time later i heard "the sunshine state" and was pretty shocked at all the sounds (and to some extent the ridiculousness, which at the time did have some lulzy appeal to me). i was even more shocked to find when i listened to the album that it was actually some really powerful and pure catharsis. somehow the really fragmented and occasionally incomprehensible vocals drew me to listen to it as more of a story than most albums i hear. like idk, ppl are probably going to laugh at me for overanalyzing but i find it tremendously moving when i hear her surrender "i can only put so much into a song" at the end of the first track as the machinery collapses around her and settles into the dreamy, hazy flashback of "after prom" WHICH ITSELF is a super creepy, intriguing combination of her naive optimism and the harrowing sense that something terrifying and shameful -- his infidelity? her pregnancy? -- lurks in the shadows. a number of those early tracks continue in the sort of flashback-ish manner, but to me they always sounded like they're colored by her present sense of regret/denial that came from knowing he was no longer with her -- particularly "with out this ring...", which sounds at first like a recollection of her regret at having rejected his early marriage proposal, then soon reveals itself as much more as this mere recollection becomes her first cathartic expression of the isolation she feels

+ of course the album is really interesting in a cultural way, too -- the way it was attached to a book (which i purchased b/c of the album but couldn't finish), its reception over the months (from the earlier lolzy and uniformly negative gossip blog posts to the time the professional reviews starting coming out and people started editing amusingly arty music videos to her music. it's just hard to imagine that something like this could ever happen again, and it's shocking that it even happened once.

some people don't particularly like the suggestion that it has a partly camp appeal to it, but i'll honestly say that sometimes i still enjoy it in that way. i do grin when i hear "the sunshine state" and i have danced around in my bedroom to "after prom" (and played it at my new year's eve party) and in the car at night i would often mock-earnestly sing along to the "I MISS you / shoulda coulda woulda / i miss that FEELING / yes it's true" in "with out this ring". i do let out a few laughs at it sometimes. it's pretty amazing to me that one album can make me so happy and so sad and get me thinking about so much when on the surface it appears to be so limited in its expression. so yeah, that is basically why i voted for it despite not being "an album person"

ok anyway i'll stop with the incoherent rants now lol. these polls as usual have been so amazing, thank you j0rdan and johnny fever and seandalai for putting it together :)

teledyldonix, Friday, 1 February 2013 05:06 (eleven years ago) link

I'm disappointed at where Fiona finished - she was one of like two album votes of mine that placed - but gli maybe shouldn't be surprised. The curse of being a favorite for too long, etc.

Raymond Cummings, Friday, 1 February 2013 05:11 (eleven years ago) link


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