ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

DJ Quik still in my 'to play' pile

me too, looking forward to it

lol sorry Matt (I was the other #1 vote for Popcaan if that helps)

the title track makes my heart soar every time I hear it

yes! you need the whole album to establish context, but the title track is my favorite

Popcaan album was alright but smh at an album entirely devoid of bangers being the crossover

There was a time when you'd have blown a gasket with rage at anyone making this argument about an R&B album.

why did popcaan crossover to hipster audiences? is there an answer besides "new PR company"

quik album has like 5 or 6 incredible songs, but some of the other ones are outright bad instead of merely listenable

Quite a few asshole musicians in this run, it seems. What is Quik's monster deal?

...And if you keep annoyin me
I'ma pump your pussy full of lead and poison both your ovaries

Some introduction...

xp
the no-bangers argument is also puzzling in that WWCF is so clearly part of the reggae tradition, lyrically and thematically

I'd be lying if I said I was a fan of today's batch so far

"that n****rs crazy" "puffin the dragon" "pet semetary" "life jacket" "bacon's groove" "why'd you have to lie" & "fuck all night" stand up with most of his last album imo, but the real hard stuff is bad imo

jesus fkn christ xps

anyone gonna defend that

Quil good not great, which the last album waa.

Some good stuff on The Midnight Life but it's a big step down from his previous two albums which really deserved their top 10 placings on here.

http://i.imgur.com/g3z1SMG.jpg

27 GAZELLE TWIN Unflesh [469 points, 19 votes, 2 first place votes]

YESSSSS

Gazelle Twin album rules super hard, strong shades of Pankow all over it.

xps imago

I guess not. Praying for some Menace Ruine or something to blast away the lingering rape apologism going on with some of today's artists...

Oh and with that...this will do!

http://www.gazillionmovies.com/Actor/J/Jo/Pictures/john-pankow.jpg

Album cover by work experience design student

this is good stuff. didn't expect it to be so high up.

Pankow huh? will listen.

dj quik is definitely threatening to shoot a woman in her vagina and then poison it

ILM has a somewhat lengthy fascination with Gazelle Twin. I liked the earlier stuff, but I couldn't get into this one. Anyway, not surprised at all that it's here.

someone must stop this monster

Yes! My #24! We can all ignore DJ Quip and his terrible lyrics - here's something fairly grand - hellish but in all the right ways

someone must stop this monster

― J0rdan S., Wednesday, January 28, 2015 2:36 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ira from "Mad About You"? i dunno, i always liked him

Given how formative I suspect body horror is for many (most?) of us, its surprising there haven't been more concept albums.

The cover's a straightforward Bacon rip, but fits the material

Gazelle Twin is more abstract than Pankow but I get a similar vibe from the sound palette/arrangement

love this album! great creepy videos too:

Anti Body
Exorcise
Belly Of The Beast
Guts

cover connection: Gazelle Twin and Ghostface, conveniently side by side in my Spotify saved albums folder

imago metal bands lyrics are just as bad and I dont see anyone demanding metallers to defend it.
They just handwave away the cop out of not listening to lyrics so why should rap get picked on?

from the video I felt like I was watching some Goldsmiths art student project, it left me completely cold

hey i remember Pankow

someone tell me if i would like this

Have you ever looked at a mirror in disgust/revulsion?

Gazelle Twin was one of those albums I listened to once and meant to go back to before voting but ran out of time to do so. I liked it but definitely need to spend way more time with it to make more sense of it.

Need to check that GT out, didn't get around to it last year. I've definitely felt unmoved by little bits I've heard in the past, but the reaction to this has piqued my interest. Also would fit nicely with my mini '2014 albums about bodies' list.

i wasn't much of a fan before this record tbh, this one is a bit more focussed i think

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

26 SWANS To Be Kind [481 points, 16 votes]

I liked bits of the Gazelle Twin record but it's industrial-lite pop didn't really stick with me beyond a couple of songs. It slips into trip-hoppiness on occasion in a way that just didn't really grab me. Would like to how they work live, I can imagine that might get rid of my reservations about the limpness.

Listening to this and Pharmakon a lot around the same time probably entrenched those feelings tbh, the latter being way more satisfying (not that they're necessarily trying to do the same thing).

Overall vibe of Unflesh to me is like a version of Fever Ray more indebted to 80s industrial dance music

liked this album. didn't vote for it.

huh was expecting this to be higher based on the last couple ones placing top 10 or w/e. still haven't heard it though

it's not as good imo

Quik was my third vote to place (and likely the last) after Azaelia and Lana

Swans I bought but was bored by

adam summed it up well, I think:

swans tonight an endless dull churn, felt kinda bad for gira et al as they seemed to be working really hard to achieve very little. tho honestly that's basically how i feel about post-reformation swans on record too.

― adam, Friday, December 12, 2014 8:49 PM

a bit more purposeful than the nearly-as-good Young MArco album IMO

― Ratt in Mi Kitchen (Neil S), Wednesday, January 28, 2015 9:52 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

agree that it does a lot of what the young marco album did but with more purpose

― lex pretend, Wednesday, January 28, 2015 9:57 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i actually disagree with this, i don't think the mark barrott and young marco albums are all that comparable. mark barrott is very balearic in that it is quilted from several balearic touchstones, but only in a few of it's best moments becomes more than pastiche. i love it and voted for it, but besides "deep water" i don't think it becomes all that much more than the sum of it's really awesome parts. the young marco is less immediate, but despite being a humble little album, it is really not quite like much else i've heard. marco carved out his own sound using a relatively simple palette of synth and drum machines and gets tagged balearic because of the feeling he inhabits rather than the usual earmarks that code as balearic. young marco is more larry heard's 'sceneries not songs' whereas mark barrott is more wally badarou's 'echoes.' i also find the construction of marco's tracks, with elements shifting and gradually piling on, is itself more 'purposeful' than the lazily (pleasurably) drifting mark barrott, but i'm not sure if that's what lex and neil s. meant by purposeful.