Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

You Americans have always loved turgid UK OI! type music, now the British are falling for this pub-rock crap as well. "wowsers he just fucking said jobseekers allowance! over a rumbling bassline, edgy!"

I forgot to submit a ballot for The Wire's poll this year, so it will probably have fewer metal albums buried in its lower reaches than usual.

YG album should get more love

― RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings), Friday, November 28, 2014 12:37 PM

You Americans have always loved turgid UK OI! type music

Yeah true it does rule

I can recall being in thrall to 70's US gutterpunk bands like The Electric Eels, Crime and DMZ in my youth that are so much better.

cntl+f Tinashe uhhh wtf

i will ride for 'bet on it' as a legit singles contender.

For serious tho lex you would totally love 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92'.

Please can someone link me to a thread which is just Americans doing outlandish impressions of British people?

keep the meme alive: Pippa's Arse

That's just British people arguing about Americans doing impressions of British people though

does like an oasis or stone roses fan forum count as americans doing bad impressions of brits? I mean I know that's a different #level but still

Offering a new target for your derision:

Telegraph: Best 50 albums of 2014

50 One Direction - Four
49 Bombay Bicyle Club - So Long, See You Tomorrow
48 George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage
47 Lily Allen - Sheezus
46 Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire For No Witness
45 Tom Hickox - War, Peace & Diplomacy
44 Sia - 1000 Forms of Fear
43 First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
42 Pharrell - Williams Girl
41 Coldplay - Ghost Stories
40 Simone Felice - Strangers
39 Thom Yorke - Tomorrow's Modern Boxes
38 Manic Street Preachers - Futurology
37 Rumer - Into Colour
36 Alt-J - This Is All Yours
35 Neneh Cherry - Blank Project
34 King Creosote - From Scotland With Love
33 Sam Smith - In the Lonely Hour
32 Teleman- Breakfast
31 Jessie Ware - Tough Love
30 Bryan Ferry - Avonmore
29 Jenny Lewis - Voyager
28 ?
27 Caribou - Our Love
26 Mary J Blige - The London Sessions
25 Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
24 Damon Albarn - Everyday Robots
23 La Roux - Trouble in Paradise
22 Robert Plant - Lullaby and... The Ceaseless Roar
21 Lia Ices - Ices
20 Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love
19 Lucinda Williams- Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone
18 Prince Art - Official Age
17 FKA Twigs - LP1
16 St Vincent - St Vincent
15 Royal Blood - Royal Blood
14 U2 - Songs of Innocence
13 Hozier - Hozier
12 Beck - Morning Phase
11 The Black Keys - Turn Blue
10 Future Islands - Singles
09 The War On Drugs - Lost In The Dream
08 Elbow - The Take Off and Landing of Everything
07 Damien Rice - My Favourite Faded Fantasy
06 Jamie T - Carry the Grudge
05 Taylor Swift - 1989
04 Jack White - Lazaretto
03 Prince and 3rdeyegirl - Plectrumelectrum
02 Leonard Cohen - Popular Problems
01 Ed Sheeran - X

Lots not great about that but you can't hate a list that has WoD at 9 and Prince at 3

they couldn't award just any album position no. 28

that 3rdeyegirl record is garbage so yeah i can

Prince Art at number 18 is a bold choice for a debut

lol uhhh is the ed sheeran album decent?

it has its supporters here, i found it very uneven if tolerable

is it just me or are the early return indie/pop mags disregarding hip hop even more than usual this year?

Prince! Lol Pharrell's Girl. Well, it is a fairly accurate picture of what's regarded in the mainstream pop world, with exceptions like Leonard Cohen. I'm can't get into Cohen's recent albums, but I did go see him with a friend a couple years ago, and he was pretty magnificent. He was a singin, dancin' machine for nearly four (4) hours, with only like a 10 minute break! We can only dream of having that kind of energy in our 70s.

xpost: yes

Sorry about a couple of misplaced hyphens in that Telegraph list. Shouldn't try to parse lists before caffeine kicks in.

oh don't mind me.

^^^^i was agreeing with you my bad if it seemed unclear

no, sorry - I meant don't mind my - pedantic hyphen call out

but yeah, not much hip hop anywhere to be seen here.

These lists are giving my dysentery

Not much hip-hop anywhere, but at the same time everyone seems to agree it was a lousy year for hip-hop albums, right? I'd rather them make the lists they believe to be correct than elevate a rap album for looks. (Not saying they shouldn't / couldn't have dug deeper into hip-hop.)

yeah, i don't agree with "it was a lousy year for hip hop"

i have several hip-hop albums i like, but everywhere I look ppl are saying it was a good year for songs, terrible for albums.

i dunno maybe i'm looking in the wrong places - and again, i don't necessarily agree - but i think i saw that discussion happening on ilm

also, you left off the word "albums"!

I'm a believer that unless you're a specialist in a musicological field (and likely not even then!), you're not in a good position to levy blanket judgment across an entire field of achievement. It's just too subjective unless you chop it up regionally (was it a bad year for New York-based hip hop artists?), stylistically (was it a good year for technical rap?) or financially (how were sales in Q4?).
A quick flip thru my best of for the year folder suggests at least twenty to thirty albums and at least a hundred singles that I consider hip hop and that I really enjoyed. Is that a bad year? It's not a bad year for me.

I'm gonna gank Spottie's hip hop playlists on Spotify (one for quality and for quantity) and post them here... I could easily take all of 2015 exploring this stuff alone!
http://open.spotify.com/user/theshipment/playlist/3vHZAnvl134kijHL5Z0roN
http://open.spotify.com/user/theshipment/playlist/2Hkan09bsPFtNN39CsAyki

xpost nope, not a bad year. just saying, maybe the lack of hip-hop on these indie/pop mag lists reflects the general consensus, that's all. i generalized too much in my initial post.

i get where you're coming from. I guess if there's less hip hop in the indie/pop world's end tally i might suggest that 2014 was a year where those worlds started to diverge more radically than in the past.

like pitbull, pharrell, iggy, juicy j and em were all absolutely at peak popularity and represented half of the year's #1 pop singles but, with the arguable exception of iggy, none of them really represent contemporary hip hop

Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Shabazz Palaces, Ratking and Young Fathers all in the Guardian top 40 so far with surely Run The Jewels to come, so that's not too bad for a newspaper list (whether you think those are the right records or not).

if you went by lists then it might suggest that its a weak year for lots of genres whether it be indie centric lists or the guardian or ilx eoy polls. They have never covered everything. You cant base the state of any music on these lists. They are snapshots of a small amount of voters.

the current top 25 R&B/hip hop list features a plethora of young breakthrough artists that i think a casual listener of rap (which i'm gonna strawman the average indie/pop type being) just won't be familiar with: bobby shmurda, i love makonnen, rae sremmurd, young thug, rich homie quan, dej loaf

i dunno, i think if the average indie/pop type being is on the internet, shmurda, thugger and rhq are pretty inescapable

i was gonna ask what "credible" rap album the big big outlets were gonna put in their top 10s this year, a la Kanye whenever he releases something or Kendrick in 2012 because I just don't see it being YG or Gibbs (or this particular Shabazz album, tbh) and then I remembered Run the Jewels. that solves everything.

I feel like one or both of the vince staples releases could make some lists (coldchain 2 and hell can wait)

In my top 30 there's maybe 3-5 rap albums that were solid or close to it, but none of them are consensus picks, and that MIGHT be the issue in 2014 - few consensus picks, even though critics have their favorites.

I'm thinking Kanye will either drop on Dec 25 or wait until next year. Nicki may wait too.

I think I wi spontaneously explode if ye drops on xmas day

*will

For real though anyone voting for that not-bad-not-great Jack White album isn't going to great lengths to disguise their fundamental disconnection from current music.

most popular rap sucks, most crit rap isnt that popular

Feel like Run The Jewels is a decent chance for a top 10 placing on the more indie oriented sites lists. If not top 5.

most popular rap sucks, most crit rap isnt that popular

Just like most genres then. They all seem to thrive without crossover success too