ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2017

talking about U2, obv

this feels low for the hype it got

really cool record, they remembered to write songs this time

this is a slot U2 stole from Algiers.

They're stealing it back.

lmao omar

lol i think someone a few years back put a fake for my dick p high which i for some reason believed

actually loling

my dick actually placed iirc???

lol real talk when i decided to do a fake somewhere in the middle i was like ok i'm going to check two things 1) where the U2 album place, and 2) which album came in dead last.... lo and behold they were one and the same :)

lmao

Hahahaha but I'm still sad there was never a My Dick II.

hopefully!

good choice for u2 gr8080

Japanese Breakfast was my #2 but I'd pretty much given up on it placing.

underside of power was a ridiculously impressive and dense project. my #12. it's exhausting to listen to in the best way. it's a good soundtrack for when you want to channel your general rage about our crumbling society.

this NPR piece was excellent, unpacking a lot of the less obvious references: https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2017/06/23/532904335/algiers-unpacks-its-kaleidscopically-dense-the-underside-of-power-track-by-track

Halftime, sort of. Based on both repeated and cursory listens, my faves so far are: L'Rain, Elder, Playboi Carti, Young Marco, Tornado Wallace, Ex Eye, Visible Cloaks, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Japanese Breakfast.

Losing hope of seeing Shabazz Palaces place :-/

Losing hope anything I voted for will place, other than Paramore.

had my best EOY showing today by a huge margin, I think it was five: wiley, colleen, laurel halo, karen gwyer, mono no aware

most of the rest looks quite unappealing but I will endeavour with a few

i wonder who is the ilxor who likes the most stuff

U2 was not 78'd so much as 780'd

Ultraviolence has stronger songs, but this has fewer cringe-worthy lyrics.

― Moodles,

she's consistently been a superb lyricist. This is her least essential album though.

she rules

hah, just one entry of mine so far and it's the last one.

That was a good run today. I voted for Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey, Japanese Breakfast and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Happy to see Alvvays and Wolf Alice make it too.

yeah idk what everyone saw in this year’s ldr album

overall it inspired me to listen to ultraviolence a lot this year

I didn't see much, but Radiohead saw dollar signs

Ultraviolence has stronger songs, but this has fewer cringe-worthy lyrics.

― Moodles,

she's consistently been a superb lyricist. This is her least essential album though.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

Oh, come on. That one about the Brooklyn hipsters is not superb.

As with Honeymoon I mostly listen to my 10-track edit of Lust for Life

Algiers was the only band I put on my singles and album list, which I never do. I must have been one of the #1 voters. I've blathered on about it enough. Everyone check out the NPR piece already linked.

I am intensely curious as to if or where Reputation placed

I think it has a decent shot

Oh, come on. That one about the Brooklyn hipsters is not superb.

― Moodles, Tuesday, January 30, 2018

she's written 20 of these

i was surprised to see wolf alice miss the top 50

Lots of things listed today that fell off my ballot or felt very overrated and formulaic to me. I find the Colleen album boring and it sounds like so many other modular synth records of late. Laurel Halo always sounds good in theory to me, but never really scratches any itches when I put her on. Ryuichi Sakamoto's async was an agonizing decision to leave off, it's lovely.

moodles - are you referring to brooklyn baby? that one's superb

Yes, and I disagree.

But she definitely has lots of songs like that. Some work, some don't.

The world needs "I Still Haven't Found My Dick".

49 JULIEN BAKER "Turn Out the Lights"
this was ok but i still can't really get into her, the arrangements are a little too bare? i much preferred the Phoebe Bridgers album which is in a similar sort of vein but has more going on

43 JAPANESE BREAKFAST "Soft Sounds from Another Planet"
incredibly disappointing album that abandoned everything i liked about Psychopomp. nothing on this comes close to the gorgeous dream pop of In Heaven

42 LANA DEL REY "Lust For Life"
another really inconsistent album from her, Ultraviolence is still by far her best. Love is really good but Coachella - Woodstock On My Mind was so dire

41 ALGIERS "The Underside of Power"
wow this is way too low, i thought this was a lock for top 20. probably my favourite post-punk album this decade?

incredibly disappointing album that abandoned everything i liked about Psychopomp. nothing on this comes close to the gorgeous dream pop of In Heaven

I'm surprised you see such a gulf really. I like Psychopomp a lot but I came to it through the new one, and I'm curious as to what that album has that Soft Sounds doesn't, other than a kind of lower-fidelity pallour.

If you told me at the start of the year that my #2 album would have been a US indie record setting itself up somewhere between shoegaze and Pacific NW I wouldn't have believed you. Usually stuff in that vein is characterised by a slavish, over-cautious recreation of a particular sound at the expense of songwriting, whereas this record takes that sound as a starting point and pulls it in multiple different directions. It's the ballads in the second half that really slay me, 'Boyish' especially.

hmm, i didn't reach the second half in my listen yesterday, will try now

'be my baby' beat goes a long way huh

otoh i like a harpsichord

Listened to some more of the Colleen record and its quite a mixed bag. I only like.2 of the tracks on it, the rest wasn't very enjoyable. Having said that, 2 good tracks is still alright, but shows the problem with judging albums!

One of my favourite records I never got as far as the one good track because the rest of it is rubbish. Found out later one of the tracks I'd been wondering about for ages was on there. I don't care if the rest of it isn't any good!

Unfortunately I can never remember the name of the artist now and Ive no idea where I put the record, but trust me, its very good and I can imagine it a little bit in my head and thats the main thing

I think its from 2002 and has a grey and yellowish cover with a really forgettable name and a car on the front, looks like it might be used in a film about the rozzers

I love that album too.

I'm also in the underwhelmed-by-the-new-Colleen gang. I discovered Captain Of None during the 2015 rollout, and it's been one of my most played records of the past couple of years. Alas, this one doesn't come close.

Tornado Wallace is a great find; it joins Visible Cloaks in the most-likely-to-buy pile.

Only two of my votes have placed thus far: Laurel Halo (although the vinyl pressing is a murky dud) and Wolf Alice (which I didn't see coming AT ALL, what a massive leap forwards).

I did have an initial wave of excitement about the new colleen record, just the sound of it, but it has grown on me over time. the highs of captain of none are something else but I keep being drawn to the more lonely, starkly poised mood of the new one

https://i.imgur.com/LFEDnBo.jpg

40 BLANCK MASS "World Eater" (292 points, 8 votes, 2 first place votes)
spotify

oh cool!