2015 was a really, really bad year for music

How many albums did you hear this year that you would call "amazing"

I count maybe 2 or 3.

tbf that's about the number I usually arrive at

i heard some really amazing albums this year -- some totally kick-ass sonatas and partitas by Bach.

in which case this year is no different (I don't hear as much new music as a lot of you other guys do tho)

xp

some reissued stuff by Mars and Inflatable Boy Clams

there's a TON of 2015 albums i want to hear but haven't gotten around to yet

music is great. I love music.

I got so much music that I always got something new and generally interesting to listen to. For me, Finding new bands and recently released records is kind of a random chance thing, especially with so much more being documented now.

Finding new bands and recently released records is kind of a random chance thing, especially with so much more being documented now.

^^^ I care less and less about *when* something came out these days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBBMds9cP6Y

the comic-book-bold emphasis fantano puts on literally all his cliches is the weirdest post-post-post version of scare quotes

I heard at least 12 albums this year that I would call amazing (as in, totally didn't expect them to sound the way they did or be as good as they were, and expect to continue listening to them for pleasure for years to come). One of those was a Sonny Rollins box set recorded in 1962, but even that was 90 percent previously unreleased material, and all the others were brand-new.

more amazing albums than usual for me

it's never a bad year for music, c'mon

tbf that's about the number I usually arrive at

like M.E.S.H., milo, Kid Smpl, Vince Staples, Percussions, and a bunch of records i just really like. and there are a bunch more that i'm interested in but haven't had a chance to hear yet.

xp previous two posts otm

feeling Whiney on this tbh

Whiney what was yr favorite year for music

i dunno seems pretty dece

idk how u can figure this out. is it this year's best album v last year's best album? this year's top 10 or top 50 v last year's top 10 or top 50? just a general sense of disappointment?

besides Jazmine Sullivan, Sleater-Kinney, fka twigs, Kelela, Grimes, Godspeed, Waxahatchee, Kendrick, Jlin, Dan Deacon, Bjork, Viet Cong, Panda Bear, Boof, Jamie XX, Shamir, Screaming Feemales, Marvin & Guy, and Carly Rae Jepsen, NOTHING great came out this year, ugh!

i'll admit that the 1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music are too clever & sophisticated for me

God, I am SO done with [current year]! can't wait for the new year!!

my "amazing" might be your "boring" and vice versa, but here are 10 2015 albums i thought were great
Joan Shelley – Over and Even
Blank Realm – Illegals in Heaven
Daniel Bachman – River
Meg Baird – Don’t Weigh Down The Light
Sir Richard Bishop – Tangiers Sessions
Tom Carter – Long Time Underground
Ryley Walker – Primrose Green
75 Dollar Bill – Wooden Bag
Chuck Johnson – Blood Moon Boulder
Yo La Tengo – Stuff Like That There

1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music

agree this is the most boring aesthetic going at the moment

like I get it you're scared and TECHNOLOGY also irony! I'm bored now.

I find myself listening to cheatahs and oddisee a lot, and I dig the new lone record, and that julien baker album that there's the thread on, and oh yeah, the internet record is the jammmm I think it def qualifies as c'amazing'

oh yeah, forgot about Kelela. and Shamir and Jamie Woon, sure.

1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music

i can't really listen to 0PN, but that's probably the most high-profile digital nightmare music of the year and he's old.

Felt the opposite. Impossible to parse down my list. Beautiful treasures everywhere this year. This is where I ended up with my rankings...

Tier 1
1. Jim O’Rourke - Simple Songs
2. Royal Headache - High
3. Destroyer - Poison Season
4. U.S. Girls - Half Free
5. Helen - The Original Faces
6. Palmbonen II - Palmbonen II

Tier 2
7. Little Wings - Explains
8. Franz Ferdinand Sparks - FFS
9. Sir Richard Bishop - Tangier Sessions*
10. Pile - You’re Better Than This
11. Raica - Dose
12. Auscultation - L'étreinte Imaginaire

Tier 3
13. Dungen - Allas Sak
14. Blank Realm - Illegals In Heaven
15. Mammatus - Sparkling Waters
16. Ryley Walker - Primrose Green
17. Chastity Belt - Time To Go Home
18. Rizan Said - King of Keyboard

This was my long list which is v. sloppy and has like 100 records on it (and reissues) and there are more I should add honestly (for instance, just starting to feel the Ian William Craig LP...)

http://pastebin.com/KH7kfJ2y

Whiney what was yr favorite year for music

― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 2:50 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1988 duh

So, MFB, you have three different tiers that all mean "amazing"?

Because, I heard a lot of "great" stuff this year, for sure. But amazing?

Like I refuse to believe you were simply AMAZED by a Pile record

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

It was still a lot better than last year.

I don't know what a melodic motif is. Good album.

One persons amazing, etc.

Like "This is only a good year if there were 20 amazing albums" seems to be a silly way to face music, especially in the current overwhelming/access to everything climate.

huh, yeah, i mean i don't know if i could hum a riff from that SRB thing, but i really enjoy listening to it...
i guess we'll have to define terms here -- "amazing" = ... what? like something that is "new" or "progressive" or "important"? I don't even know if I believe in those words mannnn.

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

this is otm total snoresville

What albums amazed you this year Whiney?

http://crushed.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/katy-hepburn.png

xxp lol well see my caveat - my "amazing" might be your "boring" and vice versa

Concept of "If you can't recall a melodic motif from this album, you definitely didn't dig it." is just plainly LOL to me.

I'd say around 10 but they're probably just boring really

"This year really sucked for music" is probably the most boring and pointless opinion one can hold - measuring the quality of a year by how many albums (out of the .1% of music released that year that you've actually heard) that you would give some arbitrary distinction to seems like aimless whining, or just wanting to kick shit up at the very least

BTW there probably 10 or so records this year I would say are at least "great" and many more I have yet to hear so I dunno, it's been pretty good to me

What albums amazed you this year Whiney?

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 3:35 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kendrick, Kamasi and Death Grips

2015 was a good year for music imo, maybe not a good year for whiney music? iirc your eoy lists are usually noise, metal, retail hip hop albums, and a bit of critically discussed pop & indie rock. this year was good for retail hip hop w ds2, summertime 06, kendrick (although you said compton ost as your fav so) but maybe not as good for noise or metal.

i was thinking what a good metric of "was [x] a good year for music" would be and came up with

- did critically acclaimed artists' follow-ups meet or exceed expectations? it seems by this measure the answer is 'yes.' just quickly looking thru p4k BNM and bjork, grimes, dre, aphex twin, sleater kinney, etc etc all passed the test
- did the year produce any new artists of acclaim? i think by this measure, the answer is 'no.' i didn't see any debuts scanning the p4k BNMs, and off the top of my head can't think of any new artists i hadn't heard of before 2015 that i fell in love with.

Concept of "If you can't recall a melodic motif from this album, you definitely didn't dig it." is just plainly LOL to me.

― Badmotorfinger Debate Club (MFB)

considering that the entire album is literally somebody playing musical notes on a single guitar, I think it's a pretty valid metric to judge it with.

YMMV, obviously

Kendrick, Kamasi, Father John Misty = that's all I got

I'd argue that any year with even just one AMAZING album can't be called a bad year. Less so if you got three.

This was a brilliant year for my taste with numerous amazing albums. I'll even give Whiney both Kendrick and Death Grips (are we voting for The Powers That B or just Jenny Death in the EOYs?) but there's plenty more besides

So, I presume Whiney's not one of the ILXors that fell in love with the Susanne Sundfor album.

How many albums did you hear this year that you would call "amazing"

not sure why this matters? Sometimes I'll hear at most a couple of great albums (I guess my "great" is your "amazing") and at least twenty good ones. What else you want?

his youth back?

XD

The exercise I offered my friend the other night was the question: what current band or act, if they were to break up or disappear today, would you be most excited to have return in 10 years?

The exercise I offered my friend the other night was the question: what current band or act, if they were to break up or disappear today, would you be most excited to have return in 10 years?

Sleater-Kinney

Can we go back to where Whiney said that there were a lot of "great" albums released in 2015 and therefore 2015 was a terrible year for music because none of them were "amazing"?

theres a new enya album btw

I don't really get "amazed" by new music but it's cool. Best wishes to you all.

Get it together musicians

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13pMFya2ilA

amazing's kind of a high bar, no, a superlative that shouldn't necessarily be used every year?

I've bought like 3,454,354 dope metal albums this year....

the Tribulation album, the new Hate Eternal, the new Satan, the new Iron Maiden.

hey guys where are you g-...

last year was probably worse for new music imo

still waiting for that Martika comeback album

If I wanted to hear some 1997-baby digital nightmare music, like, just to have heard it, what's "best"/most representative?

^

Is this referring to vaporwave? Feel like that peaked a year or two ago

2015 was a great year for music, and i can't even remember anything about it.

Come to think of it, amazed is the right word to describe my experiences with the Swervedriver, Dawn Richard, Bjork, Girlpool and Joanna Newsom albums.

Holly Herndon's take on digital nightmare music was my initial reaction to the phrase

I think it's been a great year but I think I've been very lucky because I found albums I liked a lot fairly early on and got to spent time with them exploring their charms. I've found a lot of stuff I've really loved this year but I've had a lot of commuting time in a new job which has afforded me the luxury of time to spend with my headphones, I think this is an input:output situation

you didn't listen hard enough

this year was way better than last year

theres a new enya album btw

otm

i'm very alone in finding the janet album amazing but: it's amazing. same for crj and susanne sundfør (which is like such a stunning piece of work, idk). whiney will be unconvinced about these prob. terrible criteria anyway

how's the new enya album? seriously.

dawn richard is surely the one everyone on ilx could agree on

it's great, her best songs in years imo. beyond that it's really thoroughly an enya album

xpost

ah, glad to know she's still chugging along. i hadn't checked in with her in years, and i only have a couple of her old/acclaimed albums.

hearing there's a new, good, album of hers is kind of like seeing a really old friend on facebook and learning that they're doing pretty well, kind of.

this has been a fun year for music, i've really enjoyed it. i've come around to something like the opposite of the "there is nothing new under the sun" worldview, there's just tons of terrain that hasn't been explored yet in sound art and the people that are stumbling onto it are doing it in really strange surprising ways.

i'll admit that the 1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music are too clever & sophisticated for me

― welltris (crüt), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 11:55 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what is this, it sounds cool

oh do you mean PC Music?

whiney's 1997-baby digital nightmare music is

my

digital "new breed"
http://www.last.fm/tag/newbreed/wiki

indicative artists

Iglooghost is a 1st student at University of Bath, still only 18 signed to the esteemed Brainfeeder label

interview
http://www.dummymag.com/features/iglooghost-interview-chinese-nu-yr

spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/album/1DYZmRfJOALk8MpQbWfyyx

indicative track:

Iglooghost - Gold Coat
https://open.spotify.com/track/0PNPNtb6hAQ9nEyh1jVaRn

slightly older,

salute, is 19 a uni student in Brighton (so either University of Sussex or University of Brighton), originally from Austria

salute - Diamond
http://www.dummymag.com/news/salute-diamond

A grandiose and inspired track from highly lauded newcomer, salute.

has over 177k plays on spotify and is one of my fav tracks of the year

salute - Diamond
https://open.spotify.com/track/0Grn7wxEEq4m3ALcEVUoE9

spotify artist: salute
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1np8xozf7ATJZDi9JX8Dx5

also known as

Futurewave
http://www.last.fm/tag/futurewave

chillwave, vaporwave, seapunk, witch house, trillwave, future garage, psychedelic, gothic, ambient, neoclassical, dream pop, lo-fi, new wave, chopped and screwed, drone, juke, footwork, grave rave, cyberpunk, outrun, coldwave, nu gaze, slutwave, broken-clash, avant-garde, sissy bounce, zombie rave, aquacrunk, warlock, oceangrunge, icepunk, post-punk, post-chillwave, post-futurepop, post-dubstep, eccojams, etheral, industrial, electro, shoegaze, laptopgaze, cloud rap, trap

xxp: some dude: i think i agree? well, i'm not sure how much i fully agree, but i definitely agree with your attitude. i would expect most on I LOVE MUSIC to agree with yr 'tude, unless they're just feeling a little burnt out on a particularly, personally, bad day. ugh. if someone thinks it's a bad year for music, then they just didn't/wouldn't/chose not to really love music (especially the music of) that particular year, basically. it's easy to love music, of any year, if you actually love music. the premise of this thread is slightly troubling for me, and hell, i don't even seek out -that much- new music.

I'm not super enthusiastic abt 2015 in general at this point due to the fact that I mostly follow a few dozen "lifer" artists and then dabble in as much other stuff as I can at random. The lifer artists have not generally done much this year that inspires me, for whatever reason (see: Tangier Sessions). I play 8-10 fairly random new tracks every week on a CMJ core radio station, and I feel like it's been a weird year for music on that end. I sure played a ton of releases that were what I would call "pretty good."

That being said, the Bomba Estereo album is legit "great" for sure, every track takes a different approach. Sleater-Kinney record is awesome, maybe my favorite? Bachman's River is impressive.

in conclusion, flopson otm - not a good year for me so far, but maybe for others. I have been digging forks' Latin ILX playlist and should probably spend more time with the post-Fahey one. best thing about this end of the year time is that ILX reminds me about a bunch of stuff that I might need to hear. so I might change my tune in a month once I catch up with all the stuff I missed.

i shd check out the new enya

Music hasn't been the same since Randy Rhodes died IMHO.

a lot of albums i anticipated a lot were kinda garb

action bronson
ellie goulding (mostly)
best coast
grimes imo
1/2-ish of ldr
sleater-kinney

Can we go back to where Whiney said that there were a lot of "great" albums released in 2015 and therefore 2015 was a terrible year for music because none of them were "amazing"?

this was what is known as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tell_(poker)

i did not hear any albums that really resonated w/ me this year but i guess that was mostly my fault -- i didn't listen to very many albums in general and more than usual were released over a year ago

albums

heard a lot of good songs this year

Ridiculous conceit for a thread. Don't give it oxygen. You can't ever say empirically, objectively that a year was 'good' or 'bad' for music, obviously. Just Whiney whining.

I've had t he busiest work year ever and been raising a baby and I've still found more than enough really good / great / amazing music to listen to. And now I'm not even trying to write about music anymore I'm completely free to ignore and explore as I wish, rather than trying to keep up with trends or developments or scenes or whatever.

history getting written by the whiners

Cardinal Fuzz still seem to be delivering the goods.
I got Minami Deutsch through them too, though i think it originates elsewhere. & that is pretty great
Was Kikagaku Moyo this year or last year?

& there have been some awesome reissues. Astral Weeks remaster widespread availability for the first time in 28 years.
The Velvet Underground stuff is great too.

I think there are a lot of others I''m not immediately thinking of too

feeling what the frogs wrote e.g. I heard at least 3 or 4 records from africa alone that I would call amazing, and I know that as a dilettante who's basically being spoonfed the stuff that I'm not even scratching the surface there

obviously a troll thread but even aside from my usual view that there's no such thing as a good or bad year, there are just years where the best stuff aligns with where you're already looking and years where you have to look around and maybe fail...even aside from that i'm pretty comfortable saying 2015 has been one of the best years for music in my lifetime. maybe even the best. this after 2014 which was maybe the first year i felt disappointed at the time.

a lot of artists really stepped it up or brought their best selves to the game this year, and many of them did so in ways which wrongfooted and, yes, amazed me - the feeling of an artist i already lived being even greater than i thought they were has happened several times in 2015.

- did critically acclaimed artists' follow-ups meet or exceed expectations? it seems by this measure the answer is 'yes.' just quickly looking thru p4k BNM and bjork, grimes, dre, aphex twin, sleater kinney, etc etc all passed the test
- did the year produce any new artists of acclaim? i think by this measure, the answer is 'no.' i didn't see any debuts scanning the p4k BNMs, and off the top of my head can't think of any new artists i hadn't heard of before 2015 that i fell in love with.

this is a pretty ~scientific way of looking at it (and ignores the vast swathe of artists between "critical consensus picks" and "brand new artists" which is usually where the amazing stuff happens) but re: the latter, i thought the debuts from years & years, abra, rae sremmurd, helena hauff, nozinja, flava d, jlin and natasha mosley were all really great (first five "amazing").

if any area was disappointing it was mainstream pop tbh, lots of big pop stars took the year off and the gomez/lovato/bieber generation didn't exactly step up to make statement albums (great singles from selena and demi though). years & years was a great mainstream pop album but they're hardly global megastars yet and i never emotionally clicked with CRJ as much as most (i find it easier to admire than love). still, hyped for rihanna tomorrow!

and obviously there was a lot of bad music released, much of which is dominating the EOY lists, but i didn't feel like i was severely disappointed by many artist i had high expectations for in 2015 - kacey musgraves and ciara, i guess

I've felt a bit 'this year wasn't as good as last year' since about 2013, but I always seem to come round by the time the EOY lists are out. In fact, a good chunk of 2015 was spent discovering things I'd missed from 2014. 2015 has been alright though - CRJ, Susanne Sundfor, Vince Staples, Miami Horror, Algiers, Fetty Wap and a bunch of others have released music that's really blown me away, which is a good amount. Elsewhere people like Future, John Tejada, Jlin, Young Thug, Nozinja have released stuff that simply reinforced and bettered their previous work in my eyes.

I haven't quite felt the rush of 'OHMIGOSH there are so many great albums coming out, how am I going to afford them all??' since about 2011/2012 but who needs that?

every year is both a great and a horrible year for music!

i mean, there's the music you've heard, and then there's 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the music that was recorded (let alone made) this year. and even if we're just talking about albums that were widely reviewed, there's no way to take it all in; i'm still catching up on interesting classical music released in 2011, 2012, etc. that i'm only just now finding out about. hell, i'm still discovering great things made in 1925, 1955, or 1985 that almost nobody heard at the time.

i guess it just seems like a weird form of tunnel vision or hubris or delusion or something to make pronouncements about how "bad" or "good" a month, a year, a decade was for "music."

sometimes there are years when i find a great deal of engagement and enjoyment out of new, fairly popular music. (like this year!) then i can go for three, four years being mostly disengaged with the stuff that most other people are listening to. but that reflects upon me and the stuff i choose to spend my time (and money) on, rather than any inherent property of the "year in music," a concept that i really have never thought to me of any use. (for example i always felt bad for robert christgau who had to write those essays for the pazz&jop poll in which he had to pithily and wittily summarize the year in music.)

sorry for being a literalist killjoy.

#traffic

There's something to be said for the fact most music fans don't listen exclusively to new music from the current year, and also that everything is subjective. If there are multiple banner releases in, say, metal, then it can feel like an especially great year to some and not to others.Sometimes I do catch myself thinking 'It's been a while since something I really like came out'. Equally, I can look at upcoming releases lists and feel disappointed, but it never stops me listening to music and trying to find out about new (to me) things - I'll just look in a place other than the big albums of the current year, and I think that goes for most people.

So what I mean is that it's a bit weird trying to define one's listening year simply by the music that came out during it. In 2014 and 2015 I continued checking out modern jazz, delved into the afrobeats tracks from the last 3-4 years, enjoyed a lot of 70s and 80s radio pop, sought comfort in Joni Mitchell, rambled through a lot of old Latin American music in my mum's record collection, was forced to endure the Tame Impala and Other Lives albums thanks to my band mates, listened to all the EOY 2014 stuff I'd missed, downloaded a shit-ton of hip hop mixtapes, saw a lot of my friends' bands play local gigs etc - all of which have defined my year just as much as albums by D'Angelo, Kendrick Lamar and Courtney Barnett.

2014 was a bad year for music, I heard the end of year poll, an elaborate practical joke I wont fall for this time around.

2015 was much much worse, a colleague playing what literally sounds like capitalists ripping trees out of the ground with their bare hands and replacing the serene restorative canopy with strip lighting and hectoring voices.

2013 and 2014 were the first years where I felt: shit, I'm getting too old, I don't understand, etc. But I've had a great 2015 for new music, my best in many years. That said, my last good year for mainstream Top 40 pop was 2010, and perhaps that's never going to reverse.

2015 was a really, really bad year for music: an autobiography

haha

there are definitely years where I feel more musically inspired than others, if I catch a lot of great shows, fall in love with some new/old style/genre, feel like I'm taking part in a "scene"...

2015 hasn't been too special for me but tons of great stuff all the same

glad this thread brought out tylerw's top10 :P

xps lex- true i forgot about years&years and srems

so since people are still taking this thread seriously, i wanna talk about a year which crit consensus says is one of the worst years for music: 1975 (with a brief nod to 1962).

first is that there was amazing music that came out during both of these years- telstar in '62, mothership connection in '75, both of which were not only fabulous but which redefined what listeners believe music is capable of (my personal criterion for "amazing music").

second is that the relative perceived weakness of these years is very much culturally relative- the dominant music of the previous years had passed its peak, and the dominant music that would emerge in the succeeding years had yet to be fully formed.

third is that this model is fundamentally inapplicable to the music of 2015, because it assumes the existence of a popular music monoculture, or at least a technologically limited polyculture. new music of worth simply takes longer to get filtered through the landscape. this phenomenon existed in 1975- we can see this by looking at, for instance, "paebiru", which i would wager appeared on relatively few year-end charts in '75- but is much more pronounced today.

fourth is that this filtering process means that we discover every year great records from the past, to the apparent detriment of contemporary music. i will readily grant that the record i heard this year that blew my mind most is arthur miles' "the lonely cowboy", from 1929. this does not by any means make 2015 a "bad year" for music; it simply means that past and present are no longer as clearly separable as they were in previous years. novelty is less of a key criterion than recombinatorial expertise is.

conclusion: it no longer truly makes sense for someone who spends any significant amount of time listening to music to talk about the present year as a "good year" or "bad year" for music. in addition, it barely makes sense to talk about the music of "2015" as distinct from the music of "2014" or "2016". we will have no more 1977s in the foreseeable future, but we will also have no more 1975s.

unfortunately, we will have a 1975 early next year ;)

- did critically acclaimed artists' follow-ups meet or exceed expectations? it seems by this measure the answer is 'yes.' just quickly looking thru p4k BNM and bjork, grimes, dre, aphex twin, sleater kinney, etc etc all passed the test
- did the year produce any new artists of acclaim? i think by this measure, the answer is 'no.' i didn't see any debuts scanning the p4k BNMs, and off the top of my head can't think of any new artists i hadn't heard of before 2015 that i fell in love with.

I can appreciate the grasping for some kind of schema here, but this is a really limited approach. Maybe it was a great year for music not covered by p4k? I don't think my favourite records for this year will have been covered by them, and even if they have they're probably so niche that they won't have got publication-wide push behind them come end-of-year or whatever. That's fine.

2008 was the only year I've felt was 'bad' straight from the off, but it was also a really crappy year for me personally and professionally - job was crap, I was really ill, Stylus had shut down so some of my musical networks and support systems had collapsed - and I have no doubt that my personal situation massively influenced my perception. As it happens, when p4k (hypocrite alert) did that 'vote for your favourite albums of our lifetime' thing a couple or more years later, 2008 was a definite trough year in terms of the number of albums included, which is about the closest thing I've seen to (in any way satisfactory) 'objective' evidence that it was a poor year as far as everyone is concerned. (When I've mentioned thinking 2008 was crap on here people have generally, and rightly, disagreed.)

I like EPs. What EPs this year have amazed people?

i really loved the dej loaf ep but have seen hardly a mention of it elsewhere

if you like pc music (lol) the new danny l harle ep is great, and if you like doom metal the king woman ep is a doozy

would say the danny l harle is 'amazing' but few others probably would

I like EPs. What EPs this year have amazed people?

― nashwan, Thursday, November 26, 2015 1:31 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sevyn streeter, honey cocaine, maxsta, geko, annie

I like EPs. What EPs this year have amazed people?

― nashwan, Thursday, November 26, 2015 1:31 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Szjerdene, IamTruStarr, The Japanese House (x2), Salomon Faye, Bosco, Kissey, Tei Shi, Polygrim, Vicktor Taiwò, and probably 5 or 10 more I can't even think of atm.

i like the laurel halo ep

I need to check out that Dej Loaf EP

same

her mixtape from last year was really great

it's pretty good

I can appreciate the grasping for some kind of schema here, but this is a really limited approach. Maybe it was a great year for music not covered by p4k? I don't think my favourite records for this year will have been covered by them, and even if they have they're probably so niche that they won't have got publication-wide push behind them come end-of-year or whatever. That's fine.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Thursday, 26 November 2015 13:23 (58 minutes ago) Permalink

you could do it for other publications. they all seem to write about the same music though IMHO. as someone has probably already said itt no one is really talking about the totality of music released in 2015 when they say 'this was a bad year for music.' no metric will correspond to everyone's idiosyncratic taste, you have to be your own BNM, but IMO people tend overestimate how idiosyncratic their tastes are.

It depends on the company you keep.

I think the two most popular/populist album I rode for this year were Carly Rae's and Kendrick's, one of which was a commercial flop and the other seems to have installed itself in the canon in no time.

autismwave > futurewave

So, so many of these artists I've never heard of, nor seen any discussion of on other ILM threads. Where do I start?

Mr. Snrub,

Are you aware of Fresh Finds on Spotify?

Spotify - Every Fresh Find
https://open.spotify.com/user/predict0/playlist/6Rz1nHuFleZtPxcdy9rFlB

roughly 25 tracks a day to christmas, so would be achievable

Subscribe for weekly updates (updated wednesday)

Spotify Fresh Finds
https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/3rgsDhGHZxZ9sB9DQWQfuf

that's cool. how does it work out what a 'fresh find' is?

organic, locally produced, not creted w/ antibiotics

go to the spotify thread on ilm, search for fresh finds, there are several links to describe the methodology. basically its part human curation by internal spotify staff, part data analysis by monitoring a select group of spotify users that are leading curators and external monitoring of blogs.

Who the fuck is Gaz Coombes?

― Mr. Snrub, Monday, November 16, 2015 3:36 PM (1 week ago)

fourth is that this filtering process means that we discover every year great records from the past, to the apparent detriment of contemporary music.

this is what I think happened to me this year

completely - I spent more time digging up past nuggets than seeking out new stuff

feel like music collections can be more surgical now, they're less based on what you stumbled across in the racks at Sam Goody and more meticulously picked. good and bad to that approach - some of my favorite albums were "oh hey this look interesting" moments browsing in a store. but there's something to be said for reading about an amazing album that's quite obscure and being able to legally purchase it and download it moments later from even a large big box like Amazon (as opposed to when I was in college and going to Napster or Dalnet to find shit).

no idea how you sick fuckers do this every year

This is the first year I've properly ducked out of writing about music, and I've been insanely busy, but, despite feeling like I'm totally out of touch, I've still managed to pick up on at least 10 great-to-amazing albums. SO THERE.

Not writing about music hasn't helped my garbled syntax any.

It was a perfectly fine year for music, but it was a pretty rough one for the pop charts, sure.

two AFX eps, 200 + tracks soundcloud ODYSSEY.. Orphaned Deejay Selek is endlessly playable. 4 hours of AE_LIVE, high quality autechre music. Cylob put out a frikkin ace album. tons of low key bandcamp releases of varying quality. Graham Lambkin was really active, as was Michael Pisaro. Schwarze Riesenfalter is top 5 Erstwhile material. several high quality releases on Another Timbre (Fraufraulein, two Jurg Frey albums, the upcoming Joseph Kudirka album), and then there's the four cd Rowe-Tilbury document on SOFA... this year is a fucking dream come true. fuck the pop charts!?!@

Lowell, one of my biggest regrets/misses this year is somehow not getting to those AE live recordings yet

feel like music collections can be more surgical now, they're less based on what you stumbled across in the racks at Sam Goody and more meticulously picked. good and bad to that approach - some of my favorite albums were "oh hey this look interesting" moments browsing in a store. but there's something to be said for reading about an amazing album that's quite obscure and being able to legally purchase it and download it moments later from even a large big box like Amazon (as opposed to when I was in college and going to Napster or Dalnet to find shit).

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Thursday, 26 November 2015 16:01 (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

One of my highlights this year was during the first few days of moving into our new house. Didn't have a telly and no computers, just a record player and a load of vinyl, including a lot of random jazz, French pop and Latin folk music that had once belonged to my grandparents. We spent the first few days choosing records based entirely on their front covers. Found loads of stuff I wouldn't have discovered any other way.

this might be the best thing i heard all year. but it's old. my friend ted put out a reissue of it. #NWWList

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW7pubvcw_0

also kinda hard to rave about to most people who come in the store...omg, you HAVE to hear drinkin my own sperm!

just a little sample

If you're not impressed anymore you're probably old.

How many albums did you hear this year that you would call "amazing"

I count maybe 2 or 3.

― bricc baby hitlo (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, November 25, 2015 2:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ftfm. the kinda-great courtney b over the adequate sleater-kinney, and maybe something i'm forgetting - bassekou kouyate?

youtubed a track/performance or two from kamasi washington, whose non-jazzer bandwagoneering i find slightly suspicious, half/vague-acquaintances el vy, and maybe shamir? tame impala but maybe that was just the last one? also heard a few new tunes live from tamikrest, rudresh mahanthappa, maria schneider's orchestra, dave and phil alvin, daniel romano, kacey musgraves, ashley monroe whose opening set i unfortunately missed most of (still into miranda's from last year), kiran ahluwahlia if she counts as this year, maybe yo la tengo though i think they were just doing covers, will probably get around to nellie m, and quite possibly others though the many shows i went to were probably more catalog-oriented; don't think beethoven has any release dates coming up (neither do ornette coleman, whose last performance i saw in 2014, or allen toussaint, who i'd hoped to see more of, or sonny rollins, who i saw speak this year but no longer performs; lou donaldson and jimmy heath, among other very senior citizens i saw this year, did both), and not sure if my more contemporary friend's composition i heard the other night will be recorded.

do need to get around to jazmine sullivan, more interesting than any other contemporary r&b i'm acquainted with. not unwilling but have yet to be convinced that time spent listening to the dre protege or virtually any other contemporary hiphop other than heems (in whom my interest has declined, though the tv show may be interesting) would not be wasted - maybe i'm less interested in the experience i lack than i should be, but have yet to be convinced that there's sufficient intelligence or art in the commentary; J Cole, who didn't release this year, may or may not be another story. is there somewhere else i would start? not sure about rae sremmurd either. no, i don't want no young thugs.

singles-wise, i kinda like that major lazer/bieber song, even if i still find at least half that team - the half that doesn't include sonny - a little icky. also became vaguely aware of and didn't completely hate something called "uptown funk", and saw part of a video from some more-stupid-than-anti-semitic white rappers if that's the word that seemed to be trying to copy it. "hotline bling", like "blurred lines" and "royals" among others before it, are just words to me, as are whatever "fetty wap" may be, and i won't mention the awful one i know only from the commercial (not the drake one, though i didn't know that either). i am also studiously avoiding anything involving the great white industry hope, whose vocal affectations (and i don't mean just her accent) i find unpleasant upon limited exposure, and doing the same with the guy with the hit about his coke habit, whose haircut i suspect supplies much of his marginal distinction.

"1997 babies making cut-up digital nightmare music"

yup. i am entering musical decrepitude. even listened to and went to see keith richards and his xw's this year.

probably should have gone back to the tuomas handle for this one

jazmine sullivan album is legit fantastic - not top 10 for me but def top 20

also finally got to see kinski live. that was fun.

2015 was a bad year for food

a really, really bad year for food

Only had three amazing Teriyaki subs

you guys need to start eating sandwiches that aren't reviewed by pitchfork

This is looking like a good week for sandwiches, despite the greenmarket-missing-out debacle. Max Zucker, Pret cheddar, and Friday I may do one of those pulled bbq squash things from Charleston.

"that major lazer/bieber song"

jack ü, that is. i can't keep these kids straight.

Has there been an official statement from Sonny Rollins that he's no longer performing? Just wondering 'cause I've seen a few people mention that recently.

this Girls in Airports album is great thnx

last year: https://twitter.com/foxesinfiction/status/545923290834169856

ƒø×€§ îπ ſị©†ı◊ŋ ‏@foxesinfiction 19 Dec 2014

year x sucked for music! everything i heard = all the music that came out!!!! my subjective experiences are your absolute realities!!!!!

Lowell, one of my biggest regrets/misses this year is somehow not getting to those AE live recordings yet

― RAP GAME SHANI DAVIS (Raymond Cummings)

they're not going anywhere, as far as i know. i'd be curious what people thought of this stuff, if anybody's familiar yet

This was a great year! Epic bombastic albums from Kamasi Washington, OPN, Chelsea Wolfe and Kendrick Lamar. Two beautiful Beach House albums that will likely both make my EOY list. Great comebacks from Bjork and The Orb. The Floating Points debut is really amazing. Autechre's live set dump is incredible. Jacco Gardner's sophomore record is a step up and wonderful, and Ricardo Tobar's Collection completely caught me by surprise. Godspeed You Black Emperor killed it again. Jlin, The Internet, HEALTH, Blanck Mass, I could go on and on. And don't forget the year started with RDJ dropping like 200+ tracks onto soundcloud (dozens of which are instant classics)!!!!!!

I was just thinking to myself how solid 2015 has been musically, and with a lot of surprises to boot!

I'm starting to think this thread is an attempt to fish for some material to listen to before the EOY polls

where do i get the ae live stuff again?

have also been noticing that people with very different tastes have been saying this year has been great

2015 was a bad year for blood

Decent year imo, not quite on a par with 1721 but much much better than 1416. Any year featuring Ten Love Songs has to have something going for it.

This year has been better than 2014 but not as good as 2013, which has been the best year for music so far this decade IMO.

pretty great year for metal imo. I pretty much only listened to metal so I believe you if you say it was a bad year for other stuff

funnily enough I think this thread spun off from the eoy metal poll nominations thread where whiney said 2015 really sucked for metal - but nobody agreed with him (yet)

smithy what do you think was the best metal album of 2015? I'll give it a listen

there are three albums i really enjoyed this year up to now. which is quite a lot for me. the number of albums i loved in a certain year have decreased over time. which seems normal. the older i get the more difficult and the more demanding i became. on 1991 i was amazed by at least ten albums. My taste was still formed in 1991 whereas it doesn't change a lot these days. but i still like to think that 1991, when i was young was a better year for music than 2015. around 1989/90 i knew a guy my age at university who thought all the music post 1973/74 was rubbish. at the time i understood what he meant but i didn't believe in it. as e.g. i loved the smiths. i think he did not consider them proper rock music or something.

Finally for anyone who is interested. My top 3:
1 the apartments - no song, no spell, no madrigal
2 julia holter - have you in my wilderness
3 destroyer - poison season

every Jute Gyte album is amazing.

somewhere around mid-november the year always feels incomplete to me. but then the voids usually get filled up as i discover some missing pieces via EOY lists. plus the past 2 decembers have had some really good surprise releases. my top 20 of the year definitely feels incomplete right now, but i'm not too worried.

that's the thing though... you know it was a really awesome year when your top 10/20/30 feels complete earlier in the year, and you become forced to have stuff spill over as more amazing releases just show up out of nowhere. and i can't really recall one instance throughout this decade when this has happened during late-november.

Any year that sees the release of a new Killing Joke album and a live SWANS e.p. can't be all bad.

What are people feeling as the metal releases of the year? Other than SunnO))) and Gnaw Their Tongues I'm not going back to anything. Really struggling with metal for the last 14 months.

If Sunn O))) (which I pre-ordered) and Gnaw Their Tongues are your idea of exemplary metal, I doubt you'd take my advice, as I've been mostly listening to melodic stuff like Huntress, Luca Turilli's Rhapsody, Iron Maiden (I don't love the new album, but it's got a few great songs), Visigoth, and Blind Guardian, but those are the ones I'd recommend.

I don't think of them as exemplars of metal at all. In fact I see it as a bit of problem, that they're barely even metal at all in my view but do just about fit under the umbrella. I normally love Iron Maiden and think A Matter Of Life And Death is one of their best to date, so don't have anything against new material, but can't get on with the new one for some reason. Again, the Blind Guardian, I thought was OK but, as always with these things, I think it's more likely to be me than the genre.

I like Death Karma and Autokrator.

New Iron Maiden
Tribulation
Satan
Cattle Decapitation
High on Fire
Piss grave
Cryptopsy

The new Maiden was the only post reunion Maiden that I think is awesome. Liked the one before it, didn't like Matter of Life and Death, HATED Dance of Death, liked BNW but thought it was lazy autopilot Maiden.

Ah, now... Pissgrave, yes, they're superb. I'd forgotten about that Suicide Euphoria album. High On Fire an Maiden, two of my favourite metal bands... really disappointing to me.

And Satan make me want to actually decapitate cattle.

as i said to you on fb but maybe others might care to check them out

Shape Of Despair
Thy Catafalque
Panopticon
Mgla
Death Karma
Myrkur
Ghost
Skepticism
Myrkur
With The Dead
and yes, Deafheaven

Useful guide I suppose
http://tinyurl.com/RYM-Metal-Albums-of-2015

Jute Gyte in at 632! The 632nd-best metal album of 2015!

I think it is probably the best metal album ever made, myself, but different strokes and that

I was able to come up with 25 good-to-great metal albums this year, but won't be rolling out my list for another week (12/7-11).

XP: I'm up for checking it. Wanted to love Myrkur... really tried with it but to no avail. I hate Deafheaven. Ghost have really lost it since the first LP.

The windhand album was great too

the Ghost album is even better than the 1st! every track is a belter of an earworm

id recommend that Ghost album to anyone who likes rock music but doesnt like metal.

Some wise soul has nominated Stara Rzeka in the EOY metal thread. It's my album of the year but I don't think it's metal any more than I think it's neo folk or cosmic synth or post Takoma guitar album or what have you. Good choice though.

I appreciate that one of these 2015 threads has evolved into a discussion of the state of metal and the other one the state of jazz.

Save Us Nick B!

oh yeah Stara Rzeka is great but it's closer to…idk, Richard Dawson backed by a really awesome psych band or something

Every year has good music, and if you're lucky its in genres that you're paying attention to.

I think 2015 was a good but not great year. Albums by: Mbongwana Star, Algiers, Susanne Sundfør, Irfan, Holly Herndon, Mutamassik, Kate Boy, Auscultation, EEK!, John Tejada, Escort, Tamaryn, Gretchen Peters
Beach House (x 2), Colin Stetson & Sarah Neufeld, Chvrches, & Chelsea Wolfe; EPs by: FKA twigs, Laura Groves, Lotic, Kaleida, and Cosmo Sheldrake, and tracks by: Grimes, Makthaverskan, Soko, Neon Indian, Shura, Soap&Skin, The Bird and the Bee, Emilie Nicolas, George FitzGerald, LA Priest, Young Galaxy, Dead Sara, Iris, Absofacto, Rangleklods and Nicole Sabouné have all struck my fancy.

tracks by: Grimes

harsh :(

A metal record I'd add to the list above is Obsequiae, one of the most gorgeous records I heard this year.

Bjork, Beach House, Kendrick Lamar, Arca, Mgla, Lotic, OPN, Rabit, Le1f, Aphex, Max Eilbacher, M.E.S.H., Odwalla88

smithy what do you think was the best metal album of 2015? I'll give it a listen

Sarpanitum, Blessed Be My Brothers

cosign ^^

https://willowtip.bandcamp.com/album/blessed-be-my-brothers

Max Eilbacher, M.E.S.H.,

seeing these two either Tuesday or Wednesday, probably Tuesday, because it's free (for me), and Weds. show is out in buttfuck SF might as well be the suburbs

Sarpanitum, Blessed Be My Brothers

fuck I forgot about this record. it is extremely powerful

it's good

id say its a rebuilding year

smithy what do you think was the best metal album of 2015? I'll give it a listen

Sarpanitum, Blessed Be My Brothers

― tremendous crime wave and killing wave (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi),

is it free of those awful typewriter drum sounds?

lol no it's the mithras dudes. if you need something organic try the abhorrent album, that's top ten for sure

I started playing it but the typewriters got to me. Who invented that? needs shooting!

Will try Abhorrent then instead!

there is great metal every year.

lots of it!

and a lot of it ruined by clicky typewriters

I've always blamed Pantera for that but I'm probably wrong

that drum sound I mean

More a death metal thing I think?
I blame Pantera for shitty guitar sounds!

which is controversial since DD is sainted now

lame year for music.

on the plus, discovered some new old stuff. luckily there is always good old stuff to discover.

Like the Louvin Brothers

new IWC is tops!

Ian William Craig - A Turn Of Breath

lol typewriter drums, is there metal that has drums so fast it's like a continuous tone?

Liturgy drummer has that as a stated ambition

blast beat drone: https://rhythmplex.bandcamp.com/album/metals

if you had enough real life drummers, isolated from each other, and an accurate timing device....

rhys chatham needs to get on this

brimstead its clicky drums and I believe it involves something to do with click pad drum triggers? i'll let someone who understands the technical side to explain what it is etc

to me its typewriter drums and smithy knows what i mean! Its a scourge of modern extreme metal production and has ruined so many albums.
No idea who invented it.

Some wise soul has nominated Stara Rzeka in the EOY metal thread. It's my album of the year but I don't think it's metal any more than I think it's neo folk or cosmic synth or post Takoma guitar album or what have you. Good choice though.

― Doran, Sunday, November 29, 2015 6:39 PM (Yesterday)Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol this was me, I struggled for a while on whether I should nominate it or not, but ultimately a) I've voted for way less-metal albums in the poll in the past, and b) I figured this was a good way to get some recognition for the album. It will probably end up as my album of the year as well, plus I figure visionary/deliriant folk music p much deserves a spot on the 'metal' spectrum just on principle.

Also, Doran, imago's right about Jute Gyte's Ship of Theseus, which is a lock for my top 5 and probably the most batshit album I've ever heard

Very solid points and thanks for the recommendation - will give it a spin now.

Oh yeah. This is great.

Fucking bananas.

hah i recommended jute gyte to you last year john! I just assumed you didnt care for it so didnt bother this time

brimstead its clicky drums and I believe it involves something to do with click pad drum triggers?

Interesting, I love the idea of using tech when to make up for the limits of pure human strength and endurance

Tho I can understand not liking the sound

when

It's not so much about making up for human strength and endurance as it is an engineering issue. When you've already got so many low frequencies emanating from the guitars, the bass, and the guttural vocals, it's tough to find room in a death metal mix for a really big, booming drum sound. Also, too much reverberation from the drums at high speed just sounds like a blurry mess. So you wind up with an ultra-crisp, and yeah, clicky sound, because that's what's gonna be clearly audible despite everything else going on all around it. The fact that the drums are triggered has nothing really to do with it; a triggered drum can be programmed to sound like anything at all.

Thanks, I could honestly read about this kind of recording stuff all day

Engineering metal albums does seem like it would present many unique challenges

I'm really Not being sarcastic now but it's not reading that way :/

man I wish I had ready access to this mini-speech I filmed Rutan doing where he describes mic'ing drums and spending a whole day getting tones and tuning the individual drums, and then he turns to the camera and concludes "and then we just trigger everything"

Some wise soul has nominated Stara Rzeka in the EOY metal thread. It's my album of the year but I don't think it's metal any more than I think it's neo folk or cosmic synth or post Takoma guitar album or what have you. Good choice though.
― Doran, Sunday, November 29, 2015 6:39 PM (Yesterday)Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol this was me, I struggled for a while on whether I should nominate it or not, but ultimately a) I've voted for way less-metal albums in the poll in the past, and b) I figured this was a good way to get some recognition for the album. It will probably end up as my album of the year as well, plus I figure visionary/deliriant folk music p much deserves a spot on the 'metal' spectrum just on principle.

― Drugs A. Money, Monday, November 30, 2015 8:16 PM (Yesterday)

Okay, is it just me who listened to this album and thought "if I want a not-really-metal record that is influenced by kraut and psych and folk, I'd just go back to Sylvester Anfang"?

man I wish I had ready access to this mini-speech I filmed Rutan doing where he describes mic'ing drums and spending a whole day getting tones and tuning the individual drums, and then he turns to the camera and concludes "and then we just trigger everything"

One of the things I was proudest of when I was running MSN's daily metal blog was an interview I did with him where I asked him about 10 albums he'd produced; he explained how re-amplifying guitars works, how to get drum sounds, all that stuff. He seemed to really enjoy explaining it all. I wish they hadn't zapped all their content when they fired the freelancers—I mean, there was no archiving done at all. Everything me and Adrien did over there for like five, six years just vanished in a blink.

businesspeople are barbarians

I like Sylvester Anfang. Went to Belgium to watch them live. Did a feature on them for Plan B about a decade ago etc. But Stara Rzeka - to me - is far superior. And they're not entirely the same thing anyway. One's (essentially) a lo-fi jam band, the other is well recorded and based round solo compositions etc.

i like having this embedded amidst all the 2015 genre threads.

Thanks to Drugs A Money, Imago and Cosmic Slop and anyone else on ILX who has recommended Jute Gyte... it's truly foul. Really above and beyond the call of duty in terms of unpleasantness and innovatively disgusting guitar work.

And thanks also to Lex for reminding me about Dawn Richard's Blackheart (either here or on the EOY thread)... what an amazing album.

i'm easily excited but Kendrick Lamar, Jazmine Sullivan, Dawn Richard, D'Angelo (fuck u, it covers both years) are tip of the tongue.
Ashley Monroe, Baby Dee, Bicep, EARL, Erykah Badu, Fetty Wap, Holly Herndon, Laura Cannell, Maxo, Sam Lee, Vince Staples on an alphabetical scan as sorta cusp of amazing
i have the feeling that Art Melody, Zomba Prison Project and Dele Sosimi are gonna jump in there after a few more listens.
and i'm sure i'll find two dozen more over the next year of 2015 pillaging as I slowly sift through the detritus. Something to look forward to!

oh yeah and Aphex Twin's Soundcloud flood! Bulk and quality!

and maybe shamir and kehlani and roman flügel and janet

I still haven't been able to bring myself round to the Apex soundcloud material properly. Guess it's just so much of a lo-fi mountain, it feels like work to me. I listened to the Orphaned thing yesterday and enjoyed that.

re: metal, damn, willowtip killed it this year

we had 50+ shows at my store this year so i heard lots of good stuff. anne-f jacques and tim olive. guerilla toss. bill nace. jake meginsky. noise nomads. vanishing dmc (supergroup of matt formerly of speedy ortiz, bob fay formerly of cardinal, and danny cruz of flaming dragons of middle earth), sediment club, gluebag, tony pasquarosa, angela sawyer, p.g. six, dredd foole and sunburned hand of the man (featuring j. mascis on electric sitar), 23 ensemble, gastric lavage, offal, palm, bromp treb, warehouse, gay mayor, isa x, urochromes, two tents, old pam, (new england) patriots, curse purse, secret boyfriend, thee arcadians, sam gas can, company fuck, estey field organ tone archive, father murphy, chain and the gang, embarker.

and that's just the tip of the iceberg. we had a noise fest one day that had 40 acts play. 10 am to 1 am. i saw everyone play. and i'm 47 years of age!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXskInnB7U

company fuck was great!!! thanks for the reminder

where do i get the ae live stuff again?

― canoon fooder (dog latin)

https://autechre.bleepstores.com/

c'mon, dood

this was a terrible year for music media, IMO

music was fine

jute gyte release too much stuff. i can't keep up with it. like i listened to them last year and was all "this is good stuff" and they've released three fucking albums since then.

D-40 otm

What about music media is worse than any other year? Legit question. I haven't paid enough attention.

Young Thug and Jute Gyte locked in an escalating arms race of who can release the most in one year. They should work together.

To Live and Shave in L.A. released a bunch of stuff this year. Some of it was pretty amazing ... didn't download/listen to everything.

Ppl who say shit like this should just have babies and become foodies already and leave the music to us

. . .

Four releases I really like from local bands here in Vancouver. Feels like a bit of a renaissance in the local scene. All great live bands and I even bought physical copies of all of these and don't regret a cent. Indie-shmindey warning but whatever. Supermoon-Comet Lovejoy, Thee Ahs-Names, TV Ugly-UCLA Yankee Cola and Fake Tears-Nightshifting.

Sadly no Japandroids :(

I'd be surprised if either tyler of MFB can recall a single melodic motif from Tangier Sessions without listening first, that thing is a major disappointment imo

― sleeve, Wednesday, November 25, 2015 3:17 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Really late on this but congrats for apparently proving Tangier Sessions is a shit pop record?
I can't recall any melodic motifs of plenty of experimental records but I enjoy them, too!

Young Thug and Jute Gyte locked in an escalating arms race of who can release the most in one year. They should work together.

They have nothing on this guy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckethead_discography#Studio_albums

Look at that discography! You can almost pinpoint the exact moment he came out of rehab* and realised he had a lot of time to fill.

(*This is a joke, in case Mssrs Grabbe, Sue & Runne are reading.)

i can't help but wonder how r. stevie moore feels about this

wait, buckethead has released over a hundred albums this year?

he was putting out about one a day. but they are basically half hour guitar solos. so, you know...

even more impressive, he has made like 10 albums with viggo mortensen that nobody has ever heard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0EwWq5FRss

Buckethead. Has made like 10 albums. With Viggo Mortensen. That nobody has ever heard.

Was that somehow ported into our reality from the most interesting pieces of pop music trivia that you know (that are 100% false) thread?

didn't viggo used to be married to exene cervenka?

Check out his top three! You two should collaborate or something!

https://youtu.be/X0UtPI9Jp2Y

Is that guy Whiney then?

Shit the Kamasi album on vinyl is pre-selling at $36! Anyone knows why so expensive? Is it a special edition? Can I find it cheaper elsewhere? I loved it and would buy it in a heartbeat but not with that price tag.

it's a triple album! that is a totally reasonable price.

I got mine several months ago. is this a repress?

initial run might've sold out? and yeah, in this wacky vinyl world, $36 for a three-LP set is not bad. if we were talking about a three-LP neil young thing, it'd be at least $150.

its worth the money if its any consolation moka

Sheesh ok ok I'll pay for it. And yes, apparently it's a repress. Comes out in a few days in amazon. No idea if this one will have the same posters and custom artwork.

Meanwhile:

Okay, is it just me who listened to this album and thought "if I want a not-really-metal record that is influenced by kraut and psych and folk, I'd just go back to Sylvester Anfang"?

― emil.y, Monday, November 30, 2015 8:19 PM (1 month ago)

emil.y I suspect that the Alameda 5 album might be more your thing...? It's the same guy that did Stara Tzeka, but another one of his projecrs. No sign of an acoustic guitar anywhere, nothing but drifting, mutating soundscapes

https://alamedacountydeathcult.bandcamp.com/album/duch-tornada-instant-classic-milieu-lacephale-2015

No sign of an acoustic guitar anywhere

Ok dont listen to Farmakopea

http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2015316/rs_1024x759-150416095706-1024-john-krasinski-lip-sync.ls.41615.jpg

i was looking for the thead about if music was starting to suck compared to the past. i think in any other decade people would think Lip Sync Battle is a joke.

i'm pretty sure that it IS a joke?

i was looking for the thead about if music was starting to suck compared to the past.
you already started that thread. it's really good.

i apologize, looks like that was someone called "The Once-ler."

there are dozens of us. dozens.

How we doin'?

probably the best year for music ever

I don't think it's been particularly good or bad. I always find plenty of stuff to enjoy and even love, there's been some nice surprises and a lot of mediocre crap I've tried to avoid. Business as usual.

last year was great, which meant I was expecting this year to be a let down. It has far and away exceeded my expectations, fantastic year for music!

just normal.

then again, i find about a quarter of the stuff i like from any given year, i discover at the time of EOY, so looking forward to that.

It didn't top 2013.

Better than 2014 and 2015, though.

it's been a pretty decent year for music but it's been such a weird year in terms of my own consumption of the music - almost constantly against this backdrop of cumulatively fatiguing political anxiety. which makes the usual EOY ranking games a bit harder to do

Possibly stupid question but I'm newish to ilxor - are people posting their individual lists at some point or just in the 2016 voting thread? 2016 was definitely best year since 2014 I think.

2016 was a p good year for albums and a terrible year for singles

Ross - personal lists can go here (if you want)

Rolling Favorite Tracks + Albums 2016

i pretty much listen to new house music singles (12") and a mix of all sorts of old music (CD reissues)

feel like i've personally reached a point of fatigue / saturation w/r/t reissues of old music. i'm still buying reissues but fewer and fewer every month.

as far as house music goes i have pretty traditional tastes (i like classic 80s / 90s stuff from chicago / detroit / new york) and the past few years have been really really excellent in terms of a lot of new music in that tradition and a lot of great reissues but it seemed like this year was a bit of a slowdown from previous years in terms of really essential stuff

Thanks Jeff :)

fantastic year for electronic music

I've barely been keeping up on electronic music this year, what's good?

(other than Marfox)

some things that I liked (out there but heavy on rhythm, for the most part):

SHALT - Acheron EP
M.E.S.H. - Damaged Merc EP
Air Max ‘97 - HPE EP
TSVI, Sacred Drums EP
LOFT - Turbulent Dynamics EP
Kid Smpl - Privacy
Ash Koosha - I AKA I
Arca - Entranas
Eaves - Verloren
Second Woman - s/t
Kablam - Furiosa

probably the best year for music ever
― imago, Friday, December 16, 2016 8:58 AM (eleven hours ago) Bookmark

just lol'd at this pretty hard. i liked 2013-2015 a lot better i guess bc i'm more singles-minded. i agree with 2016 being a decent albums year but not so great for singles.

Ross, after the ILM end of year countdown everyone tends to post their ballots

Thanks Moodles, good to know :)

I feel like a lot of the big music celebrities that I usually roll my eues at did a pretty good job of releasing singles that I didn't hate, so there's that