2008

Disappointing.

every year is average

every year is awesome

Good. Several great releases but not a groundbreaking year like....

Great. One of the very best, a landmark year with too much to keep on top of.

This has been my most enjoyable and exciting year for music this decade (although 2007 comes close). But that's as much to do with the shows I've seen, as the records I've listened to. Very tempted to say that every year since 2002 has been an improvment on the year before it.

oh wait this is music?

average, but with a lot of 'dunno' being applicable.

write in: unicorns

Barbeque Sauce instead of:

Dunno, average I spose.

Good or bad, this means you guys heard EVERY album put out this year. Congrats on your hard work.

I love music.

Au contraire, it's asking what your take is based on what you've heard this year. Even if you've only heard a handful of tracks that's fine. Not looking for an olympian overview as to its place in history, more interested in the personal response.

i hav heard every album and single as well as 85% of remixes

for music, awesome, for not music, wretched

There's nearly always fantastic music simmering under in genres that this forum never seemed to embrace (folk, ethnic pop, critically reviled electronic subgenres like psy and downtempo, stuff the Wire files under Out Music and Modern Composition). For the genres it collectively likes (slightly leftfield pop in english and whatever electronica flavor is hip this month), there's been a lack of emergent directions/narratives for a few years. So on the whole its been average.

To my ears, its been sometime since I've come to like a genuinely new genre with a strong identity (and attendant rules & culture). At least nothing with the magnitude these breakouts (things I like, there is no objective taste): 1969-funk, 1971-krautrock, 1975-post-Philly disco, 1977-punk, 1980-post-punk/proto-goth, 1983-new wave singles, 1986-American noise indie, 1990-shoegaze, 1993-drum & bass, also IDM, 1994-triphop, 1999-microhouse, 2000-electropop revival, 2003-disco punk. Mind you I wasn't around for the first 6 of those "epochal" years, but I can sort of reconstruct a narrative of highs and lows (ala the stoned Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People) with a well-tagged mp3 library.

I am hearing a more musical use of samples in indie pop this year (not as novelty, not as layered noise, and not as theft of an original's context or melody), but its diffuse and no scene has coalesced yet. Maybe next year.

good

this was the year I reediscovered pp music...so it was GREAT for me! :D

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probably no worse than last year IF I'd been quite as excited by the whole conglomeration of Funky/Wonky/Dubgrime as some seem to be.

I think it's exciting that those kind of genres have finally begun to bump and grind into each other in a more organic, fluid and plain more productive/exciting way than we've been used to recently (there's a damn good reason I've left Dubstep-Techno off that list zzzz), kind of an old-school.

If I'd cared about Balearic at all (I might yet, but honestly not given it any attention).

But without that, or anything much of interest happening in regular electronic/dance I've gotta go with WRETCHED.

On the upside, I've not seen a LOT of live gigs this year, but when I have a couple have absolutely floored me, and unexpectedly. So I haven't quite lost the faith just yet.

to be honest i think every year is good! Guess I'm optimistic.

Majority of my listening this year though, apart from Lil Wayne and some other big albums, was old stuff. Lots of Hank Williams, Caetano Veloso, Woody Guthrie, Violeta Parra, etc.

and jazz.

more old-school pre acid-house, pre "strict genre" (but scaling back a little from the obnoxious artificial crayzy early 00's "eclecticism") that's meant to say. Sorry I don't rate The Avalanches ILM lol

A lot of bands whose albums I was anticipating turned in lemons (Mercury Rev, Wedding Present - to name two off the top) and it was hard to remove the bad taste of so many disappointments for a while, but there was a lot of great stuff now that I'm looking back and hearing other people's best of's. 2007 was better though.

There's nearly always fantastic music simmering under in genres that this forum never seemed to embrace (folk, ethnic pop, critically reviled electronic subgenres like psy and downtempo, stuff the Wire files under Out Music and Modern Composition). For the genres it collectively likes (slightly leftfield pop in english and whatever electronica flavor is hip this month), there's been a lack of emergent directions/narratives for a few years. So on the whole its been average.

This paragraph goes from OTM to OffTM so quickly.

I think you wanted me to choose "Disappointing" even though I don't think 2008 could be accurately labeled as such (if we're talking about music).. I wanted to choose "below average" above "disappointing" but that wasn't an option.

There were a handful of very good albums from 2008, but jesus what a horrible year for singles.. (whereas 2007 was the opposite, making them pretty much equally below average).. For the world at large 2008 was several steps down from last year.. for personal business it was a minor step up... but I'll just stick to ranking music to keep it easier.

Disappointing-to-wretched

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