ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

33 THE SOFT PINK TRUTH Why Do the Heathen Rage? [426 points, 16 votes]
32 ARIEL PINK Pom Pom [430 points, 15 votes, 1 first place vote]
31 JESSIE WARE Tough Love [431 points, 17 votes, 1 first place vote]

two in the pink, one in merry old england

Fuck, I hadn't seen that quote xps. Hardman bullshit narcissism. Yuck

lot of folks seemed to hate "say you love me" off tough love, which i didnt understand, thought it was lovely in spite of the slightly schmaltz adult-contemp vibes

ugh, I remembered AP saying nonsense about beta males but forgot he said that.

Jessie Ware tho!

'The Doldrums' is one of my five favourite records of all time, it pains me he's the way he is now because it makes me averse to listening to him.

― All The Craigers Gonna Craig Craig Craig Craig Craig (Craigo Boingo), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 7:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree with everything in this post.

Yeah, Say You Love Me is in the upper third of songs on Tough Love imo. I wish Midnight Caller had been on the album proper.

i didn't hate 'say you love me'. i think she's great on the song, i just think it's really generic and the shit at the end is all wrong.

Tough Love, Kind of...Sometimes...Maybe, Keep On Lying and Champagne Kisses are the keepers on the album for me. I can't really remember any of the other songs apart from Say You Love me which I really disliked. I probably listened to the album about eight times to try and get it into it more but it just wasn't happening. Hopefully I'll go back to it some point and it will just click. I really love Devotion.

it took me a few times but then i "got" it

"say you love me" was a major grower for me, it kinda ended up being the emotional high point for me on the record

just checked out 'Say You Love Me' and I'm sure Jessie's a real talent but to me this is the Sound of BBC Love Actually Saturday Kitchen Jools Holland AOR banality that's been shitting up UK music for just too fucking long.

ariel pink as a person turns me so off that i have 0 desire to engage w/ his music at this point

jessie ware i adore but that album i wasn't super in2

that's the wrong song to check out, DL

Today is full of great entries! I personally loved the Ariel Pink, though truthfully this was prior to the context of misogyny... I figured the problematic album lyrics sounded far more deconstructive than celebratory of patriarchal values and masochism etc. But if he's a dick in interviews then it's sort of unforgivable... The art world is still way too beleaguered with pretentious arseholes masquerading as infants terribles, espousing dubious politics under the spurious disclaimer of being whimsically noteworthy. But oh Ariel Pink...such wonderfully grotesque sounds...

Generally of the SPT 'make no concessions' camp myself. A wonderful album and explication of its ethos!

dog latin, try "Keep on Lying" which makes good use of a polka preset
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP0YFbnF7Mk

er, sorry that was just meant to be a link

http://i.imgur.com/In27WzI.jpg

30 FUTURE ISLANDS Singles [432 points, 15 votes]

i exclusively listen to pre-pubescent ariel pink:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SYvSRXVW2o

Appreciate whoever is updating the Spotify as we go. Made it through about :43 seconds of Ariel Pink. Just awful, and I like Oar.
I thought I would like the Barrott more than I did, as I liked everything in the singles poll described as Balearic.

re: Ariel Pink's asshole bleedover into the music - while there isn't really one particularly objectionable lyrics I can point to in "Black Ballerina", the whole song just comes across as so icky, given his recent interviews. maybe just the creepy way he crams "Condoleezza..." in is enough.

xpost good album

i am the ghost of spotify present these days
or maybe glenn is. i'm more like marley

i hate a.p.'s music enough that i've never had to care about what he thinks about anything

oh cool watch this thread blow up

Thanks forks!

http://www.songlyrics.com/ariel-pink/black-ballerina-lyrics/

I don't think this song requires terrible interviews to come across as icky.

ariel pink is very icky but the music is hit or miss excellent imo

This Future Islands album is really good. Even though not a single other song was nominated for the tracks list almost every song on there is great.

black ballerina is a good example of all the above pureed

Jessie Ware album is gorgeous. "Say You Love Me" is the best song on it. Anyone who says otherwise is condemned to eternal wrongness.

good album. a big prt of me expects the next one to be even better. Sam T Herring is a legend in my eyes and deserves the highest of praises. I'd like to see FT go to grander heights, maybe become like a sort-of 21st century Moody Blues or do a conceptual prog record or something. His range and expressiveness feels a bit too contained by their current indie-synth style.

My chair is feeling very creaky atm.

I'll take all of that you got.

Yeah, as I meant earlier, AP is right to consider challenging consensus right up to the point where he's being an empathy-bereft asshole & talking stupid macho nonsense about beta males & women as prey. Comes across not as intelligent consideration but deeply stupid posturing. Will have a hard time listening to him now.

forks you the real mvp (of spotify curation)

"A Song For Our Grandfathers" a very good song from Singles.

Just now giving the Mark Barrott. Will have to file this away for when I buy some binoculars and go bird watching.

Just now giving the Mark Barrott a listen.

I'll take all of that you got.

― campreverb, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 12:36 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao

Also idg ppl saying the Az. Banks album was surprising. It sounds like all her other music? I think it was the last thing I shaved from my ballot for Arca, who I'm guessing isn't going to make it now. :(

"A Song For Our Grandfathers" a very good song from Singles.

― gr8080, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 1:37 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i love that one. i get why "Seasons" has kinda gone above and beyond the album's rep but any number of songs on the album are just as good.

or, Kitchen Person otm

a song for our grandfathers is tremendous, love the lyrics

This Future Islands album is really good. Even though not a single other song was nominated for the tracks list almost every song on there is great.

― Kitchen Person, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 12:35 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't be the only one who went the whole year without knowing that people liked anything other than Seasons. Was surprised to see the album so high on so many lists...still need to check it out.

Also idg ppl saying the Az. Banks album was surprising. It sounds like all her other music? I think it was the last thing I shaved from my ballot for Arca, who I'm guessing isn't going to make it now. :(

What was surprising to me wasn't the album itself, it's that I hated/didn't care about all of AB's other music but did like BWET. I only listened once so I don't know why.

Pretty sure Arca will place, we're in the underwhelming-but-with-large-audience bit of the list now.

a song for our grandfathers is tremendous, love the lyrics

― call all destroyer

Yes! Beautiful song.

I wanted to love the Babyface/Toni album but I really hate the production on that album. The sound of the record gives them none of the nuance the deserve.

one flight later and catching up in a different city

azealia banks - my last vote; if i was making my ballot today theo parrish would kick her out. i appreciated that, after all the antics and such, she made an album that was so idiosyncratically her, and also a better version of her than anything she'd previously done. there's a nonchalance to this album that by rights shouldn't exist - grabbing all these fun housey/garagey beats and doing her thing pretty casually over them. oddly for someone with so much, er, personality online, she takes back seat to a lot of the beats, though her voice as pure instrument is pretty cool. "desperado" and "heavy metal and reflective" and "miss amor" are highlights

toni braxton & babyface - YASSSSSS one of my favourite albums of the year. "i wish" as previously mentioned is a real highlight, "roller coaster" has such a gorgeous melody, "heart attack" really works as the token disco track...production and vocals so rich and generous, i feel like the wizened middle-aged divorce album is a very under-represented thing

andy stott - i was besotted with his last album but this never made it beyond pleasant background music for me

the soft pink truth - i do not know this album

ariel pink - fuck are you thinking of voting for this cunt? i find nothing to praise about his contrarianism, i couldn't give a shit how playful or wacky you think he's boring and his music is so terrible

jessie ware - of the two "sophomore slump albums by fêted female singers to emerge from the british dance scene" i found this really was a disappointment, compared to katy b's which was merely a botch job of the sequencing etc. "tough love", "kind of..." and "champagne kisses" are the keepers, peak jessie ware, but the rest of it sags in between those highs - little outright terrible (except "say you love me" obv, what a hideous song) but a lot that's just adequate. playing it back to back with devotion does it no favours at all

I think I like Tough Love more than Devotion, honestly.