ILM's Top 77 Albums of 2014

Here's the imgur album with all the covers, btw: http://imgur.com/a/rU6gz#0

Depends whether Fisher Price version of Eddie and the Cruisers is supposed to be (a) competent (b) something more

johnny fever you still planning to do a 2000-2014 tracks/albums poll in the summer?

Yeah, penciling it in for August/September-ish.

Tim I like that, and I would submit that the "something more" or twisting/making-strange quality of "indie" has slowly disappeared, not just from the music itself (see Alfred's comment about "boring roots rock" above), but from the genre/concept as a whole - it's no longer oppositional, it's the norm, so what used to be a funhouse mirror reflection of the dominant culture now comes across as navel-gazing or water-treading as opposed to twisted or strange.

lets do it now xp

just start reveling the results itt

obv we will all have competing definitions of what is just competent/functional and what is the ~twist~ and I'm not denying that TWOD are distinctive, more that at a very broad social dialogue about music level an album of equivalent "something more"-ness in any almost other genre would really struggle to build that level of consensus support (Rolling Stone love of U2 etc. aside).

The use of the world "functional" in fgti's description is, I think, key. No one gets too sneerily dismissive about purely functional dance music. Everyone accepts Music for Airports. But the suggestion that this year's sacrifical indie album is simply a noise interval well-crafted to suit certain environments is supposed to arrive as a knockout punch. A great deal more music is functionally ambient than is often supposed, and ambient music is as worthy as any other sort, imo. It seems that The War on Drugs construct a sonic environment that many find especially appealing, welcoming, chill or whatever.

Agree with this, but the caveat might be that indie's trend towards pure functionalism is in many senses self-denying - it is part of indie's narrative that it is never purely functional, it's always (to use nabisco's formulation) a twisting or making-strange of available archetypes. And I think that if an album of "purely functional dance music" was considered album of the year by music critic consensus a lot of people would be very sneerily dismissive (albeit more on RYM than on ILM), most people would conclude that such an album does not deserve to be album of the year without something more going on.

So I think that in a lot of ways the consensus support for The War On Drugs is actually the best demonstration of the kind of critical double-standard that still remains in the wider world of music crit and fandom: we don't ask for demonstrations of something beyond competence from indie because the assumption of that "something more" is already built into our understanding of the genre as a whole.

― Tim F, Thursday, January 29, 2015 4:55 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

once again glad it's not my job to care about this kind of stuff
record is nice imo

and honestly i think it is unique in its own way (vile being a close comparison obviously but they are so interconnected it's hard to separate, i personally rate vile higher), it's weird to me as someone who engages in a lot of rock music to hear people writing this off as "generic" indie because i don't consider this trad indie at all, and honestly i put it more in the classic rock zone than indie anyway

definitely

Depends whether Fisher Price version of Eddie and the Cruisers is supposed to be (a) competent (b) something more

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 29, 2015 4:57 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i disagree, there's no elements of rock 'n roll (in the 50s sense) in this as there are in eddie in the cruisers, it has elements of springsteen but not the elements that connected springsteen to the 50s or spector

haha it's great how we're arguing about conventional the purported influences can be

*about HOW

I guess the point I was trying to make is that what was once considered "indie" is now almost literally classic rock

WOD being exhibit A in this transformation

everywhere ya go
kids wanna rock

yep

A+ display name btw

ty :)

i wonder to what extent availability on spotify played into the results? it seems like a very high % of these albums were easily accessible (obv taylor swift a big exception)

In the 80s/90s "indie" to me meant the self-denial of the guitar-bass-drums lineup, only they couldn't get on the redio.

^ er radio. The biggest distinguishing mark was cheap production and guy-next-door vocals.

+ i've noticed the fact that she writes the songs herself seems to have become a big bonus point in her favour to regular ppl.

Except that the fact that she shares writing credits on most of 1989's tracks is a reason for people like Sady Doyle to keep dismissing her.

(Actually, this tweet prob more relevant to that point.)

i wonder to what extent availability on spotify played into the results? it seems like a very high % of these albums were easily accessible (obv taylor swift a big exception)

If people had to PAY for an album they sure as hell were gonna vote for it!

I pay for access to about a gazillion albums each month

1989 def would have made my top gazillion

How much of the Taylor narrative is really based around "writes all her own songs"? She hasn't exactly been reclusive about the fact that she did this album with Martin and Antonoff. I also recall reading a very lengthy and frank post from Imogen Heap as to how they came up with "Clean".

there's a weird "one drop" rule when pop stars' songwriting ability is being questioned where if any collaborator did anything, they did everything.

one weird drop rule to determine songwriting credits

Change some names and words around and that Bjork quote applies:

I have nothing against Kanye West. Help me with this—I’m not dissing him—this is about how people talk about him. With the last album he did, he got all the best beatmakers on the planet at the time to make beats for him. A lot of the time, he wasn’t even there. Yet no one would question his authorship for a second. If whatever I’m saying to you now helps women, I’m up for saying it. For example, I did 80% of the beats on Vespertine and it took me three years to work on that album, because it was all microbeats—it was like doing a huge embroidery piece. Matmos came in the last two weeks and added percussion on top of the songs, but they didn’t do any of the main parts, and they are credited everywhere as having done the whole album. (Matmos’) Drew (Daniel) is a close friend of mine, and in every single interview he did, he corrected it. And they don’t even listen to him. It really is strange.

the 'narrative' of her being a songwriter meant more when she was a full-on country artist and people who write all their stuff and get nothing from the Nashville song factory are a relatively small minority. to say nothing of the fact that most people who become stars in their teens don't start out with all self-written material.

...it is part of indie's narrative that it is never purely functional, it's always (to use nabisco's formulation) a twisting or making-strange of available archetypes...

So I think that in a lot of ways the consensus support for The War On Drugs is actually the best demonstration of the kind of critical double-standard that still remains in the wider world of music crit and fandom: we don't ask for demonstrations of something beyond competence from indie because the assumption of that "something more" is already built into our understanding of the genre as a whole.

― Tim F, Thursday, January 29, 2015 2:55 PM (16 minutes ago)

I'm not sure how crucial a role this kind of thinking plays when it comes to the critical success of acts like The War on Drugs, The New Pornographers and Spoon. As sleeve suggests, while assumptions about indie's inherent and elevated otherness may residually attach to the genre, they're nowhere near so dominant as they were in the 80s and 90s. Besides, fans of practically every musical genre promulgate self-validating specialness narratives of this or that sort. Metalheads nurse a sense of defiant alienation far more profound than any found in indie. Dance partisans valorize electronic music's (by now surely vestigial) futurist cred. Rap fans champion street-level authenticity. If you spend a lot of time dwelling in any genre, you'll likely find some way to pat yourself on the back for doing so, and will also come to wholeheartedly adore music that those with no taste for the genre view as merely "competent" or "functional".

A lot of the acrimony in the polls towards War on Drugs has less to do with the WoD album per se, or even the genre, and more to do w the frustration where Iit seemed like 17 out of the first 20 lists on the Year End Critics thread tagged as album of the year a project that could charitably be described as "white hipster channels VH1" when it seems that even withim the genre ppl like St Vincent and FKA Twigs were doing things more formally interesting and having to settle for second- or third-best or a/e

None of this has to do w people who acyually enjoy Lost in a Dream

ok, that makes sense. having a really hard time wrapping my head around the idea that WoD and FKA twigs share a genre tho.

why is "formally" interesting or genre breaking all of a sudden applied to WoD when ILX likes tons of stuff from other genres that sticks within genre convention and formulas

They don't share a genre just a demographic

It's a stick to be used to beat things in genres one doesn't like.

xpost

^^ez otm

it's craftsmaship when you want to like it and not innovative when you don't

I'm no saint here, as I've been known to wield the club against programatic dance music. We all do it to some extent.

I'm not sure how crucial a role this kind of thinking plays when it comes to the critical success of acts like The War on Drugs, The New Pornographers and Spoon. As sleeve suggests, while assumptions about indie's inherent and elevated otherness may residually attach to the genre, they're nowhere near so dominant as they were in the 80s and 90s.

I think it's less obvious in what indie music music crit discourse valorises now, but it's still painfully obvious in what non-indie music that discourse valorises. Which is my entire point.

Besides, fans of practically every musical genre promulgate self-validating specialness narratives of this or that sort. Metalheads nurse a sense of defiant alienation far more profound than any found in indie. Dance partisans valorize electronic music's (by now surely vestigial) futurist cred. Rap fans champion street-level authenticity. If you spend a lot of time dwelling in any genre, you'll likely find some way to pat yourself on the back for doing so, and will also come to wholeheartedly adore music that those with no taste for the genre view as merely "competent" or "functional".

― A Severus of Snapes (contenderizer), Thursday, January 29, 2015 11:45 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, the only difference is that indie dominates general music crit discourse - this is pretty much always the only difference in these debates, really.

why is "formally" interesting or genre breaking all of a sudden applied to WoD when ILX likes tons of stuff from other genres that sticks within genre convention and formulas

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, January 29, 2015 11:54 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I dunno if this is directed at me but if so you're misreading me. I have no issues with music not being "formally" interesting or genre breaking (in fact I've devoted a lot of time on ILM arguing against that requirement) and I have no issues with people liking WOD. I'm commenting on the fact that WOD has become the consensus choice for indie discourse notwithstanding that indie discourse still habitually looks down on music that "sticks within genre convention and formulas".

The idea that, say, K Michelle gets rewarded for being devoted to R&B genre tropes while The War On Drugs get punished for being devoted to certain rock genre tropes can only be possibly true in respect of ILM - the reverse is true almost everywhere else.

indie discourse still habitually looks down on music that "sticks within genre convention and formulas".

idk, this isn't as true as it used to be IME

I think it's less obvious in what indie music music crit discourse valorises now, but it's still painfully obvious in what non-indie music that discourse valorises. Which is my entire point.

...the only difference is that indie dominates general music crit discourse - this is pretty much always the only difference in these debates, really.

― Tim F, Thursday, January 29, 2015 4:05 PM (7 minutes ago)

i don't think this has much to do with indie, per se, except in that indie is quite popular with mainstream critics. by which i mean that point one above extends almost automatically from point two. those immersed in a genre will tend to notice other genres primarily when something in them seems to "stick out" of the general run. they will champion only that which strikes them as ~extraordinary~ in less familiar genres while more passively accepting and even celebrating their home genre's formal conventions.

i don't think this has much to do with indie, per se, except in that indie is quite popular with mainstream critics. by which i mean that point one above extends almost automatically from point two. those immersed in a genre will tend to notice other genres primarily when something in them seems to "stick out" of the general run. they will champion only that which strikes them as ~extraordinary~ in less familiar genres while more passively accepting and even celebrating their home genre's formal conventions.

― A Severus of Snapes (contenderizer), Friday, January 30, 2015 12:22 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right, but your "except in that" is doing a lot of work here. Sure, it's an entirely arbitrary fact that indie is the 'center' of music crit discourse but it's still a fact, and it shapes how critical discourse as a whole talks about music.

It goes without saying that these things are almost never a direct consequence of the music itself.

idk, this isn't as true as it used to be IME

― example (crüt), Friday, January 30, 2015 12:10 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd be interested in what you'd point to here. I think the fact that Pitchfork, say, has moved from being basically all-indie-all-the-time to more of an equivalent of Spin circa 1997 is not really indicative of a shift in the discourse so much as a shift in the magazine's positioning of itself within that discourse.

seems like all indie kids like new R&B and Fleetwood Mac now

d'uh

well the cool ones at least

at some point they all started dressing like the mom on beverly hills 90210 too, brave new world imo

seems like all indie kids like new R&B and Fleetwood Mac now

― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

if the complaint proceeds from the idea that indie receives too much cheerleading attention from mainstream critics who don't venture far beyond the shire, then i tend to agree. i see the cultural dominance of indie not as the simple and direct "fault" of indie-centric publications and critics, however, but rather as the product of larger social dynamics. pitchfork caters to an audience it not only grew with, but helped cultivate. it dictates to some extent, but in order to do this effectively, it must also reflect. pitchfork is only as influential as its audience, and it commands cultural power by virtue its editorial congruence with that audience's tastes & values. its primary obligation is therefore to its audience.

at that point, the complaint shifts to something like "the consumers of ostensibly generalist music publications should be less interested in reading about and buying indie crap", and i begin to disengage. i don't disagree, necessarily, but it's not a fight i have a stake in.