Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

- i think whokill is WAY preferable to nikki nakk, not a fan of the latter. Water Fountain deserves love on singles lists.
- Owen P's new album deserves a spot on most eoy lists; I'm afraid its long past release date tarnishes it for those who should show it the most love. it'll be on mine.
- surprised no one is pointing out the biggest reason publications print best of lists in early december: it's to help sell product, which helps sell advertising

Rustie's new one just died didn't it?
--Re-Make/Re-Model

I actually liked the new rustie a lot - to be fair a good amount of my initial attention came from the danny brown connection but I dug the whole thing.

I'll be perfectly content with DFA fading into critical irrelevance but still popping out a Juan Maclean album and a couple of singles on the regular.

But hats off, I guess, to anyone who can find more than 25 albums each year they actively love. I'd love to get a follow-up list of how many listed albums writers still regularly listen to in 2015.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, November 27, 2014 4:10 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree w/remake re: listening to albums the following year. my albums list tends to come to a natural close at 25-30, from the ones i obsess over to the ones i really enjoy to the ones that i feel have something about them that makes them worthwhile listening despite being either patchy or lacking in popthrill highlights

xpost It's the same for me with that Caribou album. I thought it was a pretty big step down from the last two. Can't really remember much about it now.

for me this year has been about trying to listen predominantly to the contemporary in as wide an array as I come in contact with. it's drinking out or a fire hydrant.

it's been as solid a year as ever for dance/electronic albums - francis harris/frank & tony, call super, kassem mosse, leon vynehall, mark barrott, young marco also in/around my final list - though zero of those are crossover-friendly AND BETTER FOR IT

lex pretend how about rock?

i don't care about rock

did you hear/like the Swans album this year, lex?

what - no Kiasmos?!

I didn't even know (or, tbh, care) that Caribou were still putting out records until they started showing up on these lists.

lol lex would hate swans so much

or not
ILM'S TOP 77 TRACKS of 2010

he liked the last album iirc

or a track then

the first of the EOTY "I know nothing about Lex's tastes but I know he'll think this is awful" posts is like the 23rd or so window on an advent calendar

lol given his feelings on rock and pompousness I can't see him getting into say "Bring the Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture"

The thing about Tune-yards for me is that whokill did that loop-thingy better than almost everyone - op excepted - and was definitely better at making it pop. Saw them live in 2012, was unlike anything I've ever seen, four people of which two played saxophone. Nikki Nack is a fine record, but it sounds much more conventional, synths and overdubs. But whokill sounded new.

I'm obviously in the minority in preferring Nikki Nack to whokill, though I'm not really sure I could articulate why. More percussion and less ukelele, maybe?

I prefer Nikki Nack to Whokill too. They don't really sound that different to me though, so I'm also a bit baffled about the stark difference in critical reception, but not that baffled, because critical taste is as fickle as anything.

the first of the EOTY "I know nothing about Lex's tastes but I know he'll think this is awful" posts is like the 23rd or so window on an advent calendar

next-to-last is everyone going "omg i actually agree with lex about something for once!!" all week in the countdown thread before it's revealed that lex is actually ranked first on the similarity metric

god forbid a year pass where we talk about any record as much as we talk about lex and/or louis in these threads

I don't believe in miracles.

lol

U sexy thang

What is and isn't a "crossover album" in dance terms is largely dependent on PR these days, particularly whether they bother to promote the record to non-dance journalists. There's no reason why someone like Mark Barrott couldn't generate a bit of buzz with the right climate and tailwind behind it, given how obviously accessible his music is. Frances Harris and Kassem Mosse less so, but hey if Andy Stott could manage it.

Very few of these albums actually cross over (ie sell records), even the ones that get rock press love.

Caribou certainly seems to appeal to a kind of listener who likes the emotional mooniness of post-Kompakt dance music but with a more organic sound palette. Personally I quite like that album but I can't imagine ever finding his drippy "I can't live without yooooooooooou" vocals emotionally moving.

I wonder what it's like being an artist whose last album was all over EOY lists and whose new one, which might be equally good or better, just evaporates eg Rustie and Tune-Yards this year. Not to overstate the importance of critics but it must be quite disorientating to lose their enthusiasm in that way. Meanwhile, average albums by Jack White and Damon Albarn (and arguably Beck, although some people genuinely think it's his best) are getting more praise than they deserve. Weird year.

The geek in me would love to read a behind-the-scenes story about how (a) an anticipated follow-up collapses and (b) a low-key record gathers crossover momentum. It's not solely about quality is it? Often there's some decisive factor - timing, marketing, whatever - that's not obvious to the listener.

You don't find Silver at all moving, Matt DC? It kills me.

i was quite surprised by the scale of rustie's crit-love last time - i loved glass swords but it never felt like a canon-friendly album (or sound) (or artist - rustie's never been marketed as a One Of A Kind Auteur). i think consensus is that the new one's a bit of a fall-off, the same formula but less good, and where other acts often get a tail of support for slightly-less-good takes on their formula (as a vote of support for the formula itself) it doesn't surprise me that rustie doesn't get that.

do music journalists even write about the importance of PR machines these days? not just offhand comments but actual detail about which artists get PRed to which journalists and in what terms. i'm pretty bad at predicting crossover artists based on music, but it's much easier if you base it on press releases

what are some recent low-key records that weren't heavily PRed/didn't get much attention on release that have crossed over?

I do like it but that's really in spite of the vocals - I really wish he'd work with more external vocalists because there's a chord change in that particular song that really does slay me.

People are less likely to tolerate a drop off in quality when the music is really brightly coloured and in your face and hyper. An average mopey album can usually get a free pass on atmosphere alone but having megacompressed sugary Nintendo synths flying at you is just going to be annoying if you don't have the tunes to back them up.

as much as i loved glass swords, it's a pretty exhausting listen and not really something i either need or want another helping of. possibly the same applies to tune-yards?

ha xp!

I mean in contrast to someone like Burial who people will probably end up dutifully voting for every single time he releases a record.

The Guardian so far...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicb ... ms-of-2014

40. Tricky - Adrian Thaws
39. Sharon Van Etten - Are We There
38. Toumani Diabate and Sidiki Diabate - Toumani & Sidiki
37. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib - Pinata
36. Ex Hex - Rips
35. Peggy Seeger - Everything Changes
34. Jamie T - Carry on the Grudge
33. Scott Walker and Sunn O))) - Soused
32. Shabazz Palaces - Lese Majesty
31. Leonard Cohen - Popular Problems

30. East India Youth - Total Strife Forever
29. Ariel Pink - Pom Pom
28. Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
27. Kindness - Otherness
26. Tinashe - Aquarius
25. Actress - Ghettoville
24. Banks - Goddess
23. Hurray for the Riff Raff - Small Town Heroes
22. Merchandise - After the End
21. Ratking - So It Goes

20. Owen Pallett - In Conflict
19. Jhene Aiko - Souled Out
18. Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
17. Young Fathers - Dead
16. Wild Beasts - Present Tense
15. Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
14. Future Islands - Singles
13. Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
12. Taylor Swift - 1989
11. Mac DeMarco - Salad Days

oops: http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/nov/26/-sp-the-best-albums-of-2014

really happy to see Angel Olsen doing well in lots of these

about time In Conflict showed up

lookin good that list
i did enjoy the jhene aiko record

Surprised Taylor didn't make the Guardian Top 10. Must be St Vincent, FKA twigs, Caribou, Aphex, Lana Del Rey and War on Drugs but I can never predict the whole thing.

did aphex fans like the aphex album? (i've never heard an aphex track and saw little reason to change that)

Run The Jewels surely, which will mean there's a lot more hip hop than most of the mainstream lists so far. xp

Lex I think there's actually quite a lot of Aphex stuff that you would really like (and a proportion you would hate) - a lot of the artists you've repped for in the last few years sound like one or another aspect of his sound.

Most Aphex fans were behind the album although there was also a proportion of people who were hoping he'd drop something totally out-of-the-blue like his best 90s albums. It's him doing what he does really well (ie 'ticks every box except make a completely new box').

did aphex fans like the aphex album? (i've never heard an aphex track and saw little reason to change that)

― lex pretend, Friday, November 28, 2014 11:59 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Big fan here, but after about a week of hoping Syro would somehow reveal itself beyond my first listen I found it didn't do much else to win me over; excellent sound design notwithstanding. I know a lot of people appreciated it as a no-nonsense Aphex album, but I happen to be quite a big fan of nonsense and this crystallisation of his sound just felt a bit tired-out to me. There are a couple of tracks that stand out but on the whole I couldn't really discern much between the individual tunes and the whole thing goes by in one superficially impressive blur. YMMV of course - if you've never heard Aphex at all and champion consistency over eclecticism, I'd say it was the one to check out simply because the production sounds more up to date than the older stuff. But it's not my favourite, no.

Havent heard the Aphex Twin record, like plenty artists he has some good records and some poor ones

Problem with people like him is preconception, people hear it differently because of the name on the sleeve so the music is judged differently. Of course this happens to most artists with any longevity, but more so those with a gap (real or imagined) - probably happens less with singles than albums though

Clever of him to make such a pleasurable, accessible album that, I reckon, will charm new listeners more than it impresses old ones.

No Neneh Cherry in the Guardian list, unless she's made the top ten which is far from impossible given some of the other albums in there.

I'm surprised Everyday Robots is sowing up in so many lists. I haven't bothered to listen yet. Is the rest much better than the horrid "Mr. Tembo"?