Year-End Critics' Polls 2014

i would push back a bit on tay - red made some best-of lists that you wouldn't expect IIRC - but can def agree re: their treatment of r&b. eric church is an interesting case as well tho. i haven't listened to the whole album but listened to the singles; happened to like them but did not expect him to be the critics' darling he's become outside of nashville

that eric church album sucks. any list that includes it especially as the highest placing country record is suspect/playing catch-up imo

cool to see nux vomica in a top 10 but weird to see it place several orders higher than triptykon

Yeah, the Church album is terrible. (I admit, my experience with him is limited to that one and the one before it, but holy shit what a dropoff in quality between the two.)

Stereogum has strong feelings about Deafheaven and Marrow of the Spirit, I can see how Nux Vomica would appeal.

i don't see a connection beyond long-ass songs

I don't honestly see the difference between the stereogum list and most of the other lists in this thread.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

glad someone said it.

keepin it 100, truth 2 power

The Babyface-Braxton album hasn't left rotation in my place; I'm tempted to put it at the top thanks to overplay.

I'm way more interested in singles/tracks list. Albums lists are pretty much always going to resemble each other unless it's from a specialty publication (even our ILM list will have a ton of what's in this thread). Song lists are where you can get into some real differences.

would like to see J-Hud's album on a few lists.

preset values, imagine

I wouldn't bother reading it but the headline made me laugh:

9 albums from 2014 that blow U2's Songs of Innocence out of the water
http://www.vox.com/2014/12/2/7319253/best-music-2014

9 whole albums!

one of them is the Foo Fighters though so it's technically only 8

I would rather listen to Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever: Official Soundtrack than the new U2 album

Metacritic aggregates the EOY lists: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/critics-pick-top-10-albums-of-2014

Stereogum has strong feelings about Deafheaven and Marrow of the Spirit, I can see how Nux Vomica would appeal.

just realized you were talking about the post-rockiness of these records, so yeah, otm. haven't listened to the nux vomica in a few months and it's considerably grindier in memory

Textura Top 40
http://www.textura.org/reviews/2104top10s.htm

01. Julia Wolfe: Steel Hammer (Cantaloupe Music)
02. Maria Schneider Featuring Dawn Upshaw: Winter Morning Walks (Artistshare)
03. Lenzman: Looking At The Stars (Metalheadz)
04. Brooklyn Rider: The Brooklyn Rider Almanac (Mercury Classics)
05. CYNE: All My Angles Are Right (Hometapes)
06. Vicky Chow: Tristan Perich: Surface Image (New Amsterdam Records)
07. David Lang: Love Fail (Cantaloupe Music)
08. yMusic: Balance Problems (New Amsterdam Records)
09. Maya Beiser: Uncovered (Innova Records)
10. Wadada Leo Smith: The Great Lakes Suites (Tum Records)
11. Michael Nyman: Symphony No 11: Hillsborough Memorial (Mn Records)
12. Christopher Tignor: Thunder Lay Down In The Heart (Western Vinyl)
13. Michael Robinson: Lucknow Shimmer / Hummingbird Canyon (Azure Miles Records)
14. Alexander Turnquist: Flying Fantasy (Western Vinyl)
15. Jane Ira Bloom: Sixteen Sunsets (Outline)
16. Marvin Ayres: Ultraradian Rhythms (Wall Of Waves / Market Square)
17. Brock Van Wey: Home (Echospace Detroit)
18. Octet Ensemble: Scatter My Ashes (Belarca Records)
19. Hammock: Oblivion Hymns (Hammock Music)
20. Emilia Martensson: Ana (Babel)
21. Stein Urheim: Stein Urheim (Hubro)
22. Death Blues: Ensemble ( Rhythmplex )
23. Ken Thomson: Thaw (Cantaloupe Music)
24. Bruno Sanfilippo: ClarOscuro (Ad21)
25. Mary Halvorson: Reverse Blue (Relative Pitch Records)
26. Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: Intergalactic Beings (FPE Records)
27. 36: Dream Tempest (3six Recordings)
28. Maxwell August Croy And Sean Mccann: I (Students Of Decay)
29. Robert Hood: M-Print: 20 Years Of M-Plant Music (M-Plant)
30. Ken Thomson And Slow/Fast: Settle (NCM East Records)
31. Dday One: Dialogue With Life (The Content (L)Abel)
32. Mark Lomax Trio: Isis And Osiris (Inarhyme Records)
33. P.J. Philipson: Peaks (Little Cracked Rabbit)
34. Ian William Craig: A Turn Of Breath (Recital)
35. Mark Templeton + Kyle Armstrong: Extensions (Graphical)
36. Grouper: Ruins (Kranky)
37. Neil Leonard: For Kounellis (Gasp Records)
38. Girma Yifrashewa: Love And Peace (Unseen Worlds)
39. Carl Hultgren: Tomorrow (Blue Flea)
40. David Pritchard: Among The Missing (Morphic Resonance)

...and compilations

01. VA: Platinumbreaks Vol 4 (Metalheadz)
02. VA: Emerging Organisms Vol 5 (Tympanik Audio)
03. VA: Aphelion (Token)
04. VA: Total 14 (Kompakt)
05. Maya Jane Coles: Fabric 75 (Fabric)
06. VA: Future Disco 7 (Needwant)
07. VA: 7 Years Of Outcross Records (Outcross Records)
08. VA: Anomalie3 (Gravite)
09. VA: 15 Shades Of White (Dronarivm)
10. VA: The Silence Was Warm Vol. 5 (Symbolic Interaction)

that Hammock album is great but I never listen to it

I think part of the clickbait strategy is picking a random number (9, 13, 28) so it feels less like a curated list and more like a conversation.

xposts

I thought Spoon would be much higher on all the indie leaning lists.

that Hammock album is great but I never listen to it

Just relistened the other day. Still great, they remain an astoundingly underrated act.

26. Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble: Intergalactic Beings (FPE Records)

oooh, wanna hear this

I thought Spoon would be much higher on all the indie leaning lists.

― Evan, Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:10 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i found myself nonplussed by it aside from the first single and "rent i pay"

I'm not particularly invested in the album myself either. I was just expecting it to show up more often.

gotcha. yeah it is definitely catnip to those people, what gives

"those people"

I could support marginalizing Spoon fans in 2014 with total derision.

ilx jumping over itself to make sure everyone knows it doesn't have indie cooties: an xmas tradition since 2001

"those people"

― i did it all for the 'nuki (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:44 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

are you seriously gonna zing me for this jesus fucking christ

wait, i already know the answer to that

chill out man

but in the interests of not being a glib total dick, i'll clarify: I meant more the editors/listmakers/whatever who would include that record on a list just to check off a box even if it was meh (which it isn't in this case, just wasn't something i loved like previous spoon records)

CTRL + F: Isaiah Rashad "not found." What gives?

released early in the year, easily forgot (tbf i haven't listened since it came out) but it was pretty impressive! i feel the same way about oxymoron but that was underrated from the jump imo

...would include that record on a list just to check off a box even if it was meh

― hanley ramirez ordering a pizza (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:50 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is what I'm talking about. I feel like I'm seeing other albums that I suspect are in lists for this reason, yet not Spoon who I'd expect.
But maybe that whole premise is pure cynicism about the list making process.

It's kind of exciting that I haven't even HEARD of anything on that Textura list

I thought Spoon would be much higher on all the indie leaning lists.

― Evan, Tuesday, December 2, 2014 12:10 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i found myself nonplussed by it aside from the first single and "rent i pay"

― hanley ramirez ordering a pizza (slothroprhymes), Tuesday, December 2, 2014 11:28 AM (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Isaiah R will get a slot in my top singles, but the album...eh. Bad year for Black Hippy.

I didn't really like These Days... but I feel like I'm one of the only ones who remembers that Oxymoron even came out this year and still bangs, despite that painful Prescription-Oxymoron to The Purge stretch.

Oxymoron did have a couple bangers, didn't it? But maybe it tried to be too many things to too many audiences.

It's kind of exciting that I haven't even HEARD of anything on that Textura list

have heard quite a few of them but yes, i do like lists where it feels like you've just lifted up a rock and found umpteen new species of fauna below

OTM

btw Nicole Mitchell rules, all 3 albums I've heard are great AACM-influenced psychedelic jazz

it's heartbreak when you find out they're all actually spoon spin-offs xp

these days was wild boring, if not abjectly bad. Oxymoron is really, really good. it's got holes ("studio," the bonus tracks) but it works across the 12 proper tracks more or less.

i actually like "prescription" as far as intense personal black hippy tracks go it's no "sing about me" or "m.A.A.d city", but i bought it.

I loved Oxymoron a lot and played "Los Awesome" to death this year