In Hindsight -- Worst Top 3 ILM EOY Album 2008-2023

Feel like that Big Boi album has aged worst out of these, but tempted to vote for 1989.

Hmmm

few that i outright dislike but plenty where i don't get the massive hype (looking at you, the year 2013)

a lot of these people missed the critical acclaim trick by not dying

Haven’t heard all of these. Voted for one which isn’t … terrible, but weirdly overrated IMO.

Haven’t heard all of these. Voted for one which isn’t … terrible, but weirdly overrated IMO.

i love soooo many of these records. reflexively voted for ram

such a strong list of albums... at least until recently

big boi obv stands out. i might be a little nervous to go back to the hercules & love affair album but i do hear "blind" still every once in a while and it still hits

my vote is for jessie ware though. always found her dinner party disco turn to be especially regrettable given how good she was at making other better kinds of dance music, to say nothing of R&B. this is a very minority opinion i know and even more so amongst gay men you really can become a pariah by speaking this truth to power but yeah... that shit is a snooze

caroline polacheck is also another one where i am an outcast in my community for saying that her music is typically extremely mid

reflexively voted for ram

― ivy., Thursday, February 27, 2025 1:52 PM (seven minutes ago)

i used to be in this camp but then i heard the album on vinyl on great speakers at a friend's house and i now of am the extremely corny opinion that RAM is a classic if you're listening to the vinyl

i think in terms of the disco revival stuff of 2020, Jessie's album is very strong but a couple cuts below r01s1n murphy's album in retrospect, and honestly i predictably listen to the Kylie disco/infinite disco twofer more. i think the "mid" Jessie album is her last one though, it was stiff and a bit clunky whereas WYP was smooth and silken.

my favorite albums here from the 2025 perspective are Fever Ray, Robyn, the Kendrick albums, Portishead, Katy B, Low, ATCQ, LDR, and obv Destroyer. the first two are among my favorites of all time, front to back.

also tempted to vote for RAM which may just be as a corrective since these days my preferred Daft Punk is Homework, but i'm not sure that's fair.

don't love ram but it is over-hated at this point. any album with "fragments of time" and "contact" on it can't be so bad

jessie ware is a consideration, feel similarly to jordan. also folklore

I can hang with the poptimist stuff here but not mopey Mr. Destroyer, so I voted for that

mbv. Admit it, you haven’t played it since 2013.

untrue, I just listened to it within the last month!

and it ruled

I think I was cooler on that big boi album than most when it came out but yeah that’s the obvious one that sticks out

1989 has a bunch of duds on it

Genuinely bad: Big Boi, Daft Punk (their whole legacy for me is the 2007 live album)
Don't like, but understand why other people do: Kendrick Lamar
Don't like, don't understand why anyone does: Low, Tribe Called Quest, My Bloody Valentine (I've tried and tried)
Just kinda boring: Portishead

Lots of stuff here I've never heard and have zero interest in checking out. Probably gonna vote Big Thief because I hate her voice.

I've only heard eight of these, which I don't feel is sufficient to vote.

Of those, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City was the least to my taste, but I acknowledge it's well done. Kaputt and Let England Shake were actual disappointments, though, and as a fan of the earlier records, to my mind Destroyer hasn't righted the ship yet.

iirc i liked the talabot at the time but i put it on and it’s tasting pretty bland

this board should really dive in to rock 'n' roll music sometime

it's out there, and some of it is pretty cool

I still think Damn is a boring album but I voted for something else.

Most of these I either like or have never really listened to. RAM is the one that's aged the worst for me. I went from listening to it all the time to pretty much not wanting to hear it all, but I don't completely hate it.

I admit the goons may have gone a little overboard saying the Big Boi was better than My Dark Bloody Twisted Fantasy, but it's still great you weirdos

I'm fine with poptimism and all but Taylor Swift was running out of ideas after Red.

leaving out the things here that are not to my taste and never will be, i was all primed to enjoy that big boi album and it was a huge miss for me from the jump

Wtf Big Boi album still great

I didn't like the Jessie Ware album at the time, but I heard her live last summer, and it was amazing, so can't vote for that.

So it's Real Lies. A lot of this is old sounding music for old people, but Real Lies doesn't just sound old. It's also a concept album about sounding old. Complete waste of time.

voted Norman Fucking Rockwell, just don't get the level of LDR love

The XX. Fucking useless

people better not be slating the Big Boi album, it's great!

That Robyn album is landfill

aw i think it's really moving and one of my favs here.

floating points and pharoah sanders. i don't hate it or anything, floating points just annoys me and i've never found anything interesting in what he does. that john talabot album is probably in a similar vein tbh.

I went back to the Big Boi album when it placed in our retrospective 2010s poll, enjoyed it a lot.

Would probably vote for The xx, they've always left me completely cold.

this is a good list of albums! it's embarrassing to realize how much my taste has been shaped by ilm.

Real Lies doesn't just sound old. It's also a concept album about sounding old.

i love this album but this made me lol, it's pretty otm.

Concept albums about sounding old are fine, it's only old people angry at their oldness that would object.

Voting for The-Dream on general principle

yeah if we're taking into account the overall midness of lucious left in hindsight, then the-dream's stuff is REALLY out of place in this context.

i voted ldr because nashawn otm.

So much to choose from

getting in early on the-dream is one of ILM’s crowning achievements imo, considering his influence on the industry over the following decade or so and the fact that those first two records still sound like they’re from the future

i remember the-dream being a thing here as one of my first tastes of contemporary r&b. i was such a pop baby in 2010!

i can't help looking at a poll like this and getting a little journalistic. those lindstrom joints still hold up.

My objections to The-Dream are moral, not musical, to be clear. Love vs. Money in particular was a major album.

i think it's a high point that ctrl made the top 3, though if it had switched places with damn that would have been cool.

voted Norman Fucking Rockwell, just don't get the level of LDR love

oh i didn't see that but it's not a bad vote, first three tracks are great and then the rest is just fine

I still listen to many of these. I guess FKA Twigs?

Kaleidoscope Dream, We are KING, What's Your Pleasure? -- my favorites released ther respective years.

Nothing here I have strong aversion to besides FKA Twigs.

Never Heard - will check out because of this:
Katy B - On A Mission (#3, 2011)

Albums I loved then and still love:
The xx - xx (#3, 2009)
Lindstrom & Christabelle — Real Life Is No Cool (#2, 2010)
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (#2, 2011)
MIGUEL Kaleidoscope Dream (#1, 2012)
D"Angelo and the Vanguard - Black Messiah (#1, 2014)
Taylor Swift - 1989 (#2, 2014)
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly (#1, 2015)
Susanne Sundfor - Ten Love Songs (#2, 2015)
Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion (#3, 2015)
A Tribe Called Quest - We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service (#2, 2016)
Kendrick Lamar - DAMN. (#1, 2017)
Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour (#2, 2018)
Robyn - Honey (#3, 2018)
Weyes Blood - Titanic Rising (#1, 2019)
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! (#2, 2019)
Purple Mountains - Purple Mountains (#3, 2019)
Jessie Ware - What's Your Pleasure? (#1, 2020)
Sault - Untitled (Rise) (#2, 2020)
Taylor Swift - Folklore (#3, 2020)
Low - HEY WHAT (#1, 2021)
Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince (#2, 2021)
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra ‎ - Promises (#3, 2021)
Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You (#2, 2022)
Sudan Archives - Natural Brown Prom Queen (#3, 2022)

Albums that I like well enough but, let's be honest, ILM probably overrated:
Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair (#2, 2008)
Fever Ray - Fever Ray (#1, 2009)
Daft Punk - Random Access Memories (#2, 2013)
King - We Are King (#1, 2016)
Real Lies - Lad Ash (#1, 2022)
Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want To Turn Into You (#1, 2023)
Sofia Kourtesis - Madres (#2, 2023)
Avalon Emerson - & the Charm (#3, 2023)
Susanne Sundfor - Music For People In Trouble (#2, 2017)

The rest I am indifferent to or don't have a strong opinion on.

There are parts of RAM that hold up and parts that are among the worst music of their career.

That Katy B is a banger.

I still rate the H&LA album but they really fell off after it (a few decent tracks more recently tho including the new versions of some of those first LP tracks).

I just listened to RAM for the first time in a while but skipped 'Get Lucky' :)

Enjoyed Katy B at the time but never really feel like going back to it and haven't noticed any 2020s stuff by her.

FWIW, here are the 10s albums that didn't make the ILM 10s Top 100:

Katy B - On A Mission (#3, 2011)
John Talabot - ƒin (#3, 2012)
FKA Twigs - LP1 (#3, 2014)
Susanne Sundfor - Music For People In Trouble (#2, 2017)
SZA - Ctrl (#3, 2017)
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! (#2, 2019)

i'm also not big on fka twigs

I can't remember much about the Katy B album apart from the excellent title track, I should give it another chance.

if the same people who were around voting in 2011 also had voted in the 2010s poll katy b would not have been left out believe that

not only does the first album still hold up, but so many artists are still trying to do this general thing -- pop music rooted in specific dance scenes/sounds that can function in the mainstream and the specific scene at the same time -- and doing it worse or more cynically than she did at the time 'on a mission' feels like more of a triumph or a miracle as time passes. her second record is pretty great too, underrated album

katy b should totally have the sustainable mid tier niche legend career that artists like carly rae, caroline polacheck, jessie ware etc have but american gay guys don't know about funky house and katy never made a disco album w/ a rainbow flag and a tip jar attached to it so it feels like she kinda fell thru the cracks. but like, she's made several albums that are >>> any fka twigs album and she had real actual chart hits. there's no reason for an entire generation of gay music nerds to know who shygirl is but to have never heard of katy b in their lives except that she didn't try and do the specific things one needs to do to cultivate the fanbase that hold up these other artists

Katy B is such a distinctive artist who wouldn’t fall into the homogenized sounds of any middle of the road set, I think I really would probably have to slot that album in with Fever Ray and Robyn as a particular favorite to this day.

Not that lyrics matter in dance tracks, but she tells stories. The song I go back to on On a Mission is "Easy Please Me," where and her friend drink at a bar and catch up while the music whistles and hoots around her. I like Red slightly less but put this pair and the 2016 album in sequence and it's as strong a run as anybody's.

it's not available on US streaming nor have i been able to find it on youtube but the "continuous mix" of little red -- which re-sequences the entire album to play out as a DJ set w/ transitions -- was a revelation, in my memory

I think for all the talk about Katy B and her strength in terms of the music, she’s a phenomenal singer too. She does some thrilling vocal work particularly on that debut album.

like a broh-ken reh-coooooord

1989

Albums that I like well enough but, let's be honest, ILM probably overrated:
Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair (#2, 2008)

― Indexed, Friday, February 28, 2025 10:11 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Relistening to this for the first time in a long while and wish to retract my overrated comment. Probably should do the same with that Fever Ray.

+ We Are King

Fever Ray rules, yes

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

huh

I wonder how many of these are votes from people who liked the records at the time, and how many from people who never liked them.

+ We Are King

― nashwan, Monday, March 3, 2025 4:36 PM

a fucking insane opinion

Saying that it shouldn't be called overrated?

My #1 of 2016 but it's not an album made to be overrated: it's a modest thing by good songwriter-singer-producers.

deserving winner. undeserving no. 2, that record is still like amazing lol

Think nashwan was retracting his overrated opinion xps

yeah xx is still good wtf

indeed, "on hold" is a twee new standard imo. that's their best album.

i'm entirely displeased that pj got a vote. what the hell is wrong with you, friend?

forgot to vote. add one to Sault

lol I assumed the 1 vote was yours