ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

Albums playlist at Spotify

http://i.imgur.com/zxPyngW.jpg

77 BABYMETAL Babymetal [236 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]

haha perfect

man troll gas beany jim-jam

I liked 'Gimme Chocolate' well enough but not sure I have the stamina for a whole album tbh

Is it actually metal, or is that name "ironic"?

Iconic start!

k-pop female vocals over rock (based on gimme chocolate the rest may be different)
xp

why 77 for albums & tracks?

77 is a sacred number on this forum

okay 'line' has some metal growling backing vox going on

it's metal + j-pop, more or less

8 votes w roughly 30 points per vote is not a huge hurdle to clear

I half-feel like seeing the rest of the rollout will spoil the perfectness of Babymetal being the first album revealed on the countdown

(btw I stand by "perfectness")

a low hurdle...for Menace Ruine!

If you like your female-sung metal actually written by a woman, that is ;)

77 is the number of times Tom Ewing chanted "rockism" in front of a mirror to wish ILX into existence.

This is p cool obv, listening now :)

haha this is so ilm

BABYMETAL, yes! Gimme Chocolate is not representative of the whole album (and imo is one of the weaker tracks). I agree it's not a records you can digest easily all in one go, rather like a 1LB chocolate bar in fact. Great in small doses though.

dun get baby metal. sounds like the internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsBF_QLDK6w

Isn't this the band that Marty Friedman is the music director for or something? I just remember seeing him and Paul Gilbert together for that Cacophony album in guitar magazine ads back in the 80s. (I know he went on to play in Megadeth, but I'd already stopped listening to them by the time he got there.)

There's a fun novelty aspect to Gimme Chocolate I guess, but I can't say I'm really enjoying this.

no, he does a different band

can we have youtubes be linked and not embedded in this thread? otherwise it gets more and more taxing to load as it expands

yes plz

Gimme Chocolate just missed the top 77 tracks (84)

Surprisingly good album the Babymetal one. Doki Doki Morning still rules 3 years on.

This other track I'm listening to now, Megitsune, is much better

http://i.imgur.com/esEEHHs.jpg

76 CHER LLOYD Sorry I'm Late [239 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]

i liked the album but i just didn't feel compelled to revisit it when i was putting together my EOY lists

BABYMETAL is better than this

Wow, shocked but delighted to see Cher Lloyd make it. Such a shame what a flop this album was, lots of potential hit singles just wasted.

CL in the 40s on my EOY list. Bought the CD on the strength of stanning here. Not as likeable as her debut, but s'alright.

Thought it was a lot better than her debut even though there isn't anything as amazing as Superhero on there.

Need beta blockers to listen to BABYMETAL while working.

Cher Lloyd looks dreadfully ill/existentially null. What's the best/most representational track from this album?

babymetal - the first i heard of this band was when a civil servant friend who gets more drunk than almost anyone i know casually mentioned them. i'm intrigued by the concept despite metal not being for me (not even kitty), will probably check this out when i'm not in a café

cher lloyd - YESSSSS so happy this snuck in. it's been noted a lot that pop discourse in 2014 increasingly seemed to only revolve around the same 5 names over and over again, and non-megastar pop artists feel like they're all in limbo to an extent - this vicious cycle of their irrelevance making them irrelevant in a lot of critics' eyes, their music having nothing to do with any of it.

cher lloyd has surprised me several times in her career - her sugary bubblegum debut had nothing to do with the hard-ass swagon lightning bolt i first loved on the x factor and this depressed, despairing album of emo ballads (leavened with a few bratty party songs, sure) has nothing to do with either (i guess you could link it back to her x factor cover of "stay"). she sounds so weary on it all - "human" is a highlight here - and even though hardly anyone bought it and no critics cared, it was an album i kept returning to in 2014

also, "sweet despair" co-written with beth ditto, and "bind your love" as an example of a non-downer.

i thought this album was leagues better than the actual crowning-a-new-megastarlet move of ariana grande's second album

Yeah, Bind Your Love is the one I'd go with. Should have been the third single (She didn't even make it to a third single)

lex this music is definitely not for me, but I really appreciate you putting this album into context

i thought this album was leagues better than the actual crowning-a-new-megastarlet move of ariana grande's second album

― lex pretend, Monday, January 26, 2015 10:50 AM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that i will agree with

yeah i made the comparison bc more than once that opinion has been scoffed at as just unthinkable because ariana sold a shit ton of records so how could cher lloyd possibly have made a better album

The main thing I get from Ariana Grande is an overwhelming desire to apologize to Toni Braxton and Anita Baker for ever saying they didn't enunciate enough.

oooh what’s WRONG with you / no the problem is not my ATTitude / but you’re EW / just not my type / and the next time I won’t be so polite!!!!!!!!!!

and "alone with me" being the best closing song of all time <3

album's like 70 positions too low

http://i.imgur.com/85lDQkc.jpg

75 MICA LEVI Under the Skin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack [242 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]

Is that the first film soundtrack ever to have placed?

listening to cher lloyd, really digging "bind your love"

wooooo under the skin!

Mica (chu) is one of my favourite musicians currently operational and everything she* touches turns to sonic ecstasy, including that recent Feeling Romantic...mixtape she* did. Haven't heard this yet as I'm waiting to see the film. Soon, though. I'm sure this is fucking brilliant.

*not sure which gender pronoun Mica is currently using so correct me if this is wrong! :)

A surprise, but we all seem to have loved the kubrickian/tarkovskian film. Eerie drones and thumps leavened with strident insistent string motifs, but stands surprisingly well outside the films context. Particularly on Halloween.

Does anyone have an opinion on: Micachu & The Shapes & London Sinfonietta - Chopped and Screwed (2011)?

the non-hipster indies western us version i'm thinking of are over 40, worked in a record store or were in a industrial / neo folk / post punk band in the 90s, love the stooges and nick cave, opposed to hippies and prob. can now just be described as "conservative, eccentric"
― languagelessness (mattresslessness), Friday, January 30, 2015 2:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh man neofolk... That's a whole can of worms on its own, I fell into a wiki/Spotify hole one day trying to understand who was racist & who was into gay Nazi kink & who was just singing about sad trees and snowball

Lol snow not snowball

hah i read through the wikis for those guys every so often too just because i don't relate to them in any way

Stop reading magazines and just see what you find in the woods

what if you find a magazine in the woods

sad trees and snowball i expect

what if you find a magazine in the woods

then you won't have to wipe with leaves

And don't just look in one place, I often venture out of the woods, and sometimes I got right up on top of the old abandoned viaduct and see whats there too

pro tip: magazines under old board in vacant lot

contendo check yr webmail

Have you ever found porn in the woods?

areweoutofthewoods yetareweoutofthewoods yetareweoutofthewoods

woodsporn

best thread ever

did & done, cs

argh you can't keep the "fascist themes unspoken". are you singing about forests?? you are a nazi!! this is crystal clear.

― goole, Friday, August 17, 2012 1:57 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Got a copy of Workshop 19 from Hardwax yesterday!

Being untied to scenes and genres is exactly what would cause you to lose touch with them

― lex pretend, Saturday, January 31, 2015 1:35 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

dog latin maybe it's time you started following those scenes then. Every year you say you are disconnected but never try to alter that!

― Eric Burdon & War, On Drugs (Cosmic Slop), Saturday, January 31, 2015 3:34 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Reading The Wire will widen the schism too.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, January 31, 2015 3:49 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Uh... isn't this what I'm saying?

ah never mind, who cares...?

I guess what I mean is, who's got the time? If I had more than 2, maybe 3 hours worth of music listening time a day then maybe I'd be able to check out all the latest things I'd like to, but I don't. And I don't see the point in specialising in just one style at a time. I have to be in a specific mood to listen to hip hop or metal, so it would be unnatural to spend a week just listening to one style unless I really wanted to. So I'm pretty happy being a dilettante in that respect.

You dont have to follow anything, its not a test!

and theres no need to put things in boxes and think i must listen to something in category 7 today.

yes. but this is all in relation to flopson and lex talking about archetypes and how we see ourselves fitting into those.

I worry about being a cherry picker sometimes but ultimately I know I'm culturally a UK DIY indie/experimental plugged-in guy over and above anything else. We're all here bcs we have our specialisations to some degree and want to benefit from the wisdom and research of others with different specialisations imho. Here as in this thread.

Man I'd love to have 2-3 hours music listening time a day.

I have a lot more than that...work with headphones on + travel

xpost yeah, it's a stretch at that

most of my music time is done on my commute, with train carriage noise and traffic to contend with. these last couple of years, i've been busy writing and producing my own music as much as listening to others', so obsessively listening to demo versions and mixdowns eats into that time, as well as effecting my listening habits to some extent as well.

In theory I have an entire waking day of music listening time available to me, most days, because I work from home. But a lot of the time - not all, but some - I find myself wanting to listen to news radio or blessed silence. As I get older, I feel less guilty about that.

I love silence!

tennis tends to be the biggest interference with my listening time - fitting new music around the matches when there's a slam on is a struggle - and even then i have no idea how some people find time to listen to as much as they do. tim if you have so little time how do you hear so many long hour-plus radio sets?!

it's also having, say, two uninterrupted hours - if i know i'll have to stop in 45 minutes there's no point starting a mix that lasts longer...

I'm pretty used with sets to listening to them across the day - commute / gym / commute for example.

Yeah I can remember the last time I had the opportunity to stream a dj set for example. No wifi on the train makes for endless buffering. Shame really, because obvs this is one of the best ways to hear and appreciate new dance music.

*Can't remember

You can download a mix and put it in your bag

I have a bag of mixes somewhere here, near the old barn

You dont have to follow anything, its not a test!

best you come over to us on ile we'll look after you

lol at ppl who just filled out ballots with 25 ALBUMS of music released in 1 year being all "where might i find the time to listen to a dj set?"

NB i don't think it's important to follow scenes or listen to dj sets in fact its often really boring i think dog latin missed my pt upthread, all i meant was its fun to talk in a reductive way about music & culture more generally

also people who are like i don't see colour I ain't got no type are usually kidding themselves a bit.

I'll happily admit that given my taste in music and general ~listening history~ I think about music in fairly predictable ways.

I will certainly allow biases - mainstream country production tends to grate on me (the Lee Ann Womack album itt being a happy exception) and being a person who fears clubs, straight-up dance music tends to leave me cold. But I do make an effort to broaden my tastes a little every year. I can definitely thank ILM for getting me into balearic house, and helping me to get in touch with my emo-loving side.

from the other thread - "Genres - never deny their existence if someone else says them, never use their names yourself"

I dont think its about saying you dont have a type, its more that it fades into the background, its not important because its implicit, people are too hung up on it, border-policing, this isnt that genre, yes it is, its not the real kind - its all missing the point, shutting things down, another chapter in the anthology, another section in the record shelves

Difference between not border policing and pretending you're a totally unbiased all gates open listener in the face of clear evidence to the contrary IIRC

Oh no, I'm definitely not that, believe me, you wouldn't believe some of the things Ive heard in the last couple of weeks!

Saer you transcend all categories trust me

category: woodland fauna

I wish i could get out of my comfort zone. Want to be blown away by something NEW but nothing doing whenever i listen i just feel let down. I dont think im close minded but maybe i am with new music? (new as in current not new styles)

as nakh says 90% of my listening appears to people as metal but that is because i feel it is offering something new whilst rock/indie/electronic stuff that was always my bread and butter hasnt been offering as much to ME in recent years. I know these things can change as I went off metal in the late 90s and things turn around and good things can start happening again. As long as I keep looking. I'd hate to be one of those people who only likes old music.

NB i don't think it's important to follow scenes or listen to dj sets in fact its often really boring i think dog latin missed my pt upthread, all i meant was its fun to talk in a reductive way about music & culture more generally

― flopson, Monday, February 2, 2015 6:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also people who are like i don't see colour I ain't got no type are usually kidding themselves a bit.

I'll happily admit that given my taste in music and general ~listening history~ I think about music in fairly predictable ways.

― Tim F, Monday, February 2, 2015 8:05 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Bit past the point now, but for the record, yes I'm agreeing with both these points.

This Steve Gunn album is pretty good.

It is! I'd recommend his album "Time Off" slightly above that one though. Both are fantastic.