2017 end of the year lists

lol at "goomiverse"

what do the *** signify?

oh, heh, that was a "things likely to be in the top ten" signifier; this is rough draft stuff. I would tentatively call this a top 11 but things are moving around... I'm sure I've forgotten at least twenty other albums that should be in there and i've got a backlog of another hundred "i should listen to this first"

***Alice Coltrane - World Spirituality Classics
***Bicep - Bicep
***Daniel Caesar - Freudian
***Gabriel Garzò-Montano - Jardin
***Ibeyi - Ash
***Kendrick Lamar - DAMN.
***Mount Eerie - A Crow Looked At Me
***Prince - Purple Rain Deluxe
***Stokley - Introducing Stokley
***Syd - Fin
***SZA - Ctrl

one album i haven't seen in any of these is the jonny nash record, passive aggressive. prob one of my favourites this year.

that was the collab with suzanne kraft right? still haven't got round to getting that but his other album, eden, is really good. also gaussian curve obviously! that guy's been a regular brian ebow this year

there's a couple tacks on that i really love but it's not a patch on his album Eden from this year, imo

xp ha yes

I know it's niche music pandering directly to my musical interests but I hope The Demonstration by Drab Majesty makes an appearance somewhere

Good luck with that. As I was ranting in the psych thread, it appears, not necessarily ILMers, but the yobs making most of these lists, have settled into very limited range of genres and rarely venture outside of their comfort zones. All I'll say here is it's unhealthy in a variety of ways.

i would like to see more ibeyi in these lists! second album was a quantum leap forward imo

Folks are pigpiling on Pop Matters, but this is one of the best metal lists I've seen so far:

https://www.popmatters.com/the-best-metal-of-2017-2513310213.html

New to me:
5. Rebirth of Nefast: Tabernaculum (Norma Evangelium Diaboli)
6. Endon: Through the Mirror (Hydra Head)
13. Aosoth: V: The Inside Scriptures (Agonia)
18. Succumb: Succumb (The Flenser)

Listening to the Best of episode of Sound Opinions, and while there a few okay choices, probably the best recommendation was from their producer Ayana Conteras (39 minutes into podcast):
http://www.soundopinions.org/show/627

Bottle Tree - Bottle Tree (International Anthem)
https://intlanthem.bandcamp.com/album/bottle-tree

"Bottle Tree is a new collaboration conjured from the Southside Chicago storefront chapel of singer/scholar A.M. Frison and composer/cornetist Ben Lamar Gay (AACM). With Italian expat Tommaso Moretti on traps, the sound-rendered folklore of Bottle Tree embodies a heart beating to West African mutated funk with the spirit of avant-garde jazz and a Motown-molded melodic mind — like a futuristic fantasy of Stevie Wonder backed by Don Cherry and Novos Baianos in the early 1970s."

Listened to the Daniel Brandt album that was listed in, I think, the Norman Records list (or was it the Bleep list?) - it's terrific. Now I've gone back to discover his group Brandt Bauer Frick. All of which has a strong Dawn of Midi vibe.

Nearly every year there's an album that's grossly overrated because it's an uncomfortably personal moment of oversharing by someone who is grieving. The untimely loss of a loved one is an experience many of us will unfortunately have to endure much sooner than others. I listened to A Crow Looked at Me, and it's a plodding, maudlin, terrible album. I can't imagine listening to this again in any circumstance. It doesn't seem like it would be cathartic while going through a similar experience, just soul-crushing. Perhaps some masochists would choose to wallow in this. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been released, as it was apparently therapeutic for the artist, who I empathize with. But perhaps even his wife might have preferred he made something that had a least a little joy and humor in tribute to her, and would have preferred this had stayed in the vault.

well that is a take

i feel like the straight-forward rawness would def appeal to ppl but i personally feel the same way that it's just too much for me.

I can see why one can't stomach it, but this:

But perhaps even his wife might have preferred he made something that had a least a little joy and humor in tribute to her, and would have preferred this had stayed in the vault.

is in extremely poor taste.

"I, the person who did not know the deceased, think her husband should have put more humor in his tribute to her. I'm sure she'd agree with me."

Yeah, your wording is so much better. Go with that.

It bothers you that much, huh?

I thought it was an excellent evocation of grief and a decent album, in that order. I've heard his subsequent material is sounding better

Maybe feeling the intensity of it is a legitimate reason to be moved enough to rate it highly, despite how boring the songs might be without that context? Whether or not your cynicism is correct just doesn't seem worth the energy putting sad artists in their place because you're angry at the reception they get. And maybe you seem angrier than you are. It's the internet so I'm not sure.

i don't think it's particularly maudlin or plodding. its straightforwardness feels unsentimental to me, in a way, and musically it really doesn't plod much. have you been holding yourself back from telling your truths about this album about intense grief all year or what

Nearly every year there's an album that's grossly overrated because it's an uncomfortably personal moment of oversharing by someone who is grieving.

I'm almost curious as to what the other ones that fn'b is thinking of here

also "when real death enters the house / all poetry is dumb" is pretty humorous and also harrowing and piercing and true in the way humor can occasionally be

Nearly every year there's an album that's grossly overrated because it's an uncomfortably personal moment of oversharing by someone who is grieving.

I'm almost curious as to what the other ones that fn'b is thinking of here

― Simon H., Friday, December 1, 2017 2:44 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sun Kil Moon - Benji?

maybe the sufjan album?

those and Nick Cave came to mind, but none deserve blanket dismissal

grief only makes up a portion of the substance of benji, there are also songs about sex and prog

how soon we forget the old taylor

there is room in art for all varieties of expression. it may be a bummer, but there are all these quotidian details that really take me to a world of grief I haven't quite heard before. that may not be what you look for from an album, but saying it never have been released, and ventriloquizing a dead body to say it, is some bs

it's uncomfortable [for me] to listen to in the way that it's uncomfortable to visit someone who is grieving or observe someone's grief at a funeral. i don't think this makes it a lesser piece of art tho - if anything being able to capture this sensation in an album is an achievement imo.

otm xp

sufjan is certainly more overrated than the mt eerie album. for example on rym 'a crow looked at me' is #4 on the 2017 chart, which feels fine tbh, but #1 is fuckin 'carrie & lowell live' -_-

OK I guess I'm thinking the albums in question all have a notable mix of (varying degrees of) grief + "confessional"

xp to Brad

yeah i get why it came up in the discussion

the sufjan album is beautiful to this particular non-sufjan-believer but i think talking about these albums in terms of how "overrated" they are is misguided and uninteresting

well fine. just illustrating the point that ACLAM isn't as, um, acclaimed as fnb is saying

what does checking "live" mean on the rym search?

results will include live albums, which RYMers LOVE

oh that makes sense. that's crazy!

I get why someone might find Crow gauche and awkward because it feels like an intrusion on someone processing grief, and I've listened to it and thought it might be evidence of someone not thinking straight and making an odd decision to release it. But I'm drawn to it, and for the same reasons. Its awkwardness and nakedness are structural and what makes it such a powerful statement. I can't think we'll ever see the likes of it again; that's a good enough reason to salute it.

One of the producers of today's Sound Opinions picked it as his choice for album of the year, and suffering through the clip brought me flashbacks of the album. It's currently #32 in the AOTY aggregate, which seems quite high, given the hundreds and hundreds of albums out there.

"Ventriloquizing a dead body" seriously? It's pretty clear that I was not doing that. No one knows what the dead would have thought, but it was certainly a possibility. That's all I said. Raise your hand if you'd like to be eulogized that way.

Yes, the album at times accurately captures harrowing moments of despair, hollowness, and endless mundanity. I just disagree that it's good music. I'm not going to spell it out for you all beyond the fact that some people will be going through a similar experience sooner than most. I believe there are many better options that deal with grief that are more balanced and healing, that's all.

Raise your hand if you'd like to be eulogized that way.

I for one cannot imagine giving a fuck though admittedly I am not dying, to my knowledge

having a poet describe some of the things that i could never put into words with such directness has definitely helped me view my own grief in a different way. and for that alone it is an excellent piece of art, whether you want to call it "music" or "spoken word poetry with accompaniment"

I for one cannot imagine giving a fuck though admittedly I am not dying, to my knowledge

At least you know what should go on your tombstone.

a tombstone? in this economy?

In bas-relief using your ashes? That would be pretty metal.

thanks fnb for inspiring me to relisten to A Crow Looked at Me and reminding me that it needs to be on my eventual ballot

Is Arcade Fire's Funeral one of these grief albums?

to go way back - that Ibeyi album is a HUGE leap forward and I was really surprised by how good it was.

Jonny Nash has been a hero this year - the Gaussian Curve album, his solo album and the collab with Suzanne Kraft as mentioned, but he's also got a new one recently out with Lindsay Todd called Fauna Mapping. I think everything the label Melody As Truth is releasing just now is flawless.