ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

just a great combination of YG's massive personality coupled to a producer at the top of his game. perfect storm really

i don't think it's a particularly rare occurrence - i mean, there's still the owen pallett and st vincent albums to come in this poll for instance

― why you gotta be so rmde (NickB), Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:59 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm idk i guess those are 2 exceptions. i haven't listened to st v so i don't know how skilled the playing on it is, what i've heard of hers was just quirky indie pop tho. indie is not really a sick chops genre though, it grew out of the jangly halfassed post-punk tradition & even if some acts have shed that attitude and make slick music it doesn't necessarily mean their playing is at such a high level. the twin sis album sounds extra studio-skilled because of the style they play, though

matt dc otm

flopson, StV is a legitimately talented guitarist--must see her live to appreciate her chops

personally speaking i don't feel smug towards YG. i think he's obv a force of nature in terms of his personality + charisma and his songs are brilliant. but bc of my rarified hoity-toity cultural background i can't really play any of the songs off this album in front of ppl w/out offending delicate upper class sensibilities so i don't really get to enjoy it very much. fwiw i do think that white dress line is kinda hot idk. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If I stay too long in Canada, I'll hear something like Bobby Schmurda and feel like I can't turn off my moral compass, lib feelings like "I understand that it's impossible to fully extract gun culture from all of American art but this is too much for me #Ferguson". But then I come back to the States and it's maybe on the second or third rest stop in rural upstate New York that I hear a white gas station attendant grumbling about the "n****r work" she's doing as she's mopping up spilled coffee and I basically shut my mind off, forget that I'm a faggot and press play on all rap

i've seen st. v live at least twice, it ain't for everyone

have read and loved plenty of books containing unconscionable shit, on a par with or worse than some of rap's more objectionable perspectives

I'd be very frustrated if Aphex won, but I doubt he will. My bets are on #6

― diss strychnine (dog latin), Monday, January 26, 2015 3:54 PM (3 days ago)

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

6 APHEX TWIN Syro [1,035 points, 43 votes, 2 first place votes]

::wrings hands about problematic Aphex Twins lyrics::

lol we could talk about the Windowlicker video if you want

I was gonna say

or his prior use of the c-word.

c-word? crut?

There are lots of lines on that album I wish didn't exist but the combination of YG and Mustard together is just electric on a purely musical level. A track like Left/Right is one of the most exciting noises I heard last year.

actually there was some chatter about a problematic sample on this one

I would like some milk from the milkman's wife's tits

id like taylor to win but i think dangelo will

was that boards of canada album '14 or '13?

haha nobody remembers

"Left right" is probably the greatest thing i heard all year

2013

boc placed in the top 20 last year

Let's all just be smug about how much more liberal and progressive we are than black people who grew up in deprived circumstances.

― Matt DC, Thursday, January 29, 2015 1:36 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well that and let's be get all queasy and handwringy about songs written for a club environment where people are upfront about wanting to fuck

i've never liked mustard much tho :(

I believe the problematic tune that I can't play to my liberal friends is "Produk 29 [101]"

goon tie for #1

"she like the duk"

ppl using dire straits as generic dad rock stand in smh they sound nothing like the WOD and are so >>>>>>

For most of this year I thought my interest in techno had faded but Syro is pretty much the album that reignited my love for it, I just caned so many mixes new and old from September onwards. Just such a gorgeous, playful, endlessly involving record. It's not as good as his best ones, but it's better than a lot of electronic releases from this year.

imago riding a feminist high horse after this unremarked-upon post in the tracks thread has been v entertaining:

Love for the Gs in the ends
We don't love no girls in the ends
Last time I fell in love with a sket
But trust me, I will never do that again

Urban Dictionary: sket
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sket
Definition of a young girl late teens or 20's who sleeps around willingly and without worry.

so he's a ho-shaming cunt as well? hate this now

I know UK passports come with a special dispensation from the queen pardoning you of any misogynistic intent while using that word, but so much lol at this

kidzbop take on "Produk 29 [101]" is classic

dire straits are legendary, dire gr8s imo

really need to get the WoD album

one day i might listen to aphex twin, blue nile, all these old canonical acts that seem to belong a few decades ago

one day

I've only ever heard WoD when a friend takes me out to a restaurant that has single squiggly filament bare bulbs and giant oak tables and "hen of the woods" on the menu. They play the entire album one repeat. I've heard it three times in that environment and it is virtually indistinguishable to my ears from the Wilco that I used to hear in that environment. There's a cool song that sounds like a Silver Apples rip and I sing Silver Apples along to it. The rest of it sounds like Tom Petty and like all generic indie it seems extremely inoffensive and super-functional, I mean, it does go well with "hen of the woods". But with all generic indie it seems that the metric in which it is measured is 'competence' instead of 'genius', like, "no no this is in fact the Most Competent album by The New Pronographers" but I cannot fathom anybody getting either super-excited or super-pissed off about it, both sides of the fence are alien to me. Sounds good when a friend is buying you a hangar steak, that's pretty much how I break WoD down to an extent.

― sonny and sber (fgti), Thursday, January 29, 2015 2:19 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

props to the cute & evocative framing of this post but i think i disagree with the point. i relate to the feeling but i distrust it. like, does genius have to be controversial? does it have to make people super excited or super pissed? it's an album of slow paced rock songs, i don't think the intended effect was to make people flip over tables or shave WoD into the sides of their heads. but i think an album of amazing slow paced rock songs can be genius (even if this one is not). i think this use of "competence" is kind of condescending. the first new pornographers album is definitely a work of genius imo. but it's... also competent?

dire straits are legendary, dire gr8s imo

― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Thursday, January 29, 2015 2:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I love that shopping @ mid-market fashion stores and bougie restaurants have become so entwined with music discussion for these polls

I just want to know how to keep it real at the j crew outlet store

fgti, I just think that there's a tipping point beyond which regardless of background, certain macho codes become repulsive - perhaps that is personal aesthetic - certainly I let problematic stuff go if it isn't too emphatic. I would have to listen to YG before deciding if it's too much for my obviously so goddamn effete tastes (n.b. I like, say, Foetus, but he's playing the part of evil - is YG? If it's an act I could see a defence of it - I could see a purpose for it.)

I have no wish to restrict expression. YG can tell his stories, I don't care. But if I pick up attitudes I can't stomach, it's just so sad coz he's clearly talented and capable in the struggle to overcome the evils of institutionalised racism and racialLy-enforced poverty.

I'm really trying to engage here. Please don't rip me to bits.

where we publicly happen upon the music we hear is obviously as important as the content of the music itself. also the band name (see: spoon)

xp: maybe don't say incredibly fucking stupid things, then

hey imago just because you have opinions about every piece of music you hear doesn't mean all said opinions are worth a shit

Before someone hoists themselves on their own petard:

Save us Johnny Fever!

there's nothing wrong with saying the misogynistic or aggro lyrics make u queasy its just you chose to go about it by adopting a tut-tutting tone

like your attempt to morally justify your repulsion & implicate the ppl who like it

Personally, I think you're all racists.

the whole omniscient "i can accurately objectively judge every song i hear" thing is not annoying at all

there's nothing wrong with saying the misogynistic or aggro lyrics make u queasy its just you chose to go about it by adopting a tut-tutting tone

― flopson, Thursday, January 29, 2015 8:05 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yup and as though they're brand new valuable insights, completely ignorant of the conversations rap fans have been having about these subjects for so long now

Imago, the problem is not that you're repulsed. Lots of people including people who actually love rap music are repulsed by some of the attitudes contained within it and grapple with that contradiction constantly, including vocally on a shedload of rap threads. So it's galling for someone to come in with zero contextual awareness and say things along the lines of 'you lot will forgive anything if there's a good beat' or 'how can anyone defend this?' when most people here aren't interested in validating or defending anything of the sort.

Everyone has a line they draw wrt repellant lyrics and sentiments and I wouldn't judge anyone for drawing that line way before the YG album, but maybe don't make it sound so much like you're the only one speaking truth to power every time you comment on it?

my main problems w louis feminism itt isnt the moral high horsing so much as its typical entry level male feministing, like using gendered insults in yr violent power fantasies is nbd but gnarly sexual come ons are the height of offense, sry for piling on louis i support yr right to free speech btw!