TOP 10 NOW: \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\shawty got poll poll poll poll poll poll poll (part II: 2008 ALBUMS)/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Here we go:

85 ballots received (75 received last year)
1 tie
more stats to come (i haven't done lots of the bonus calcs yet)

can i just say this now and never say it again: fuck TVOTR

also there are some things that didn't make the top 50 that made me go omgwtf, like, search my spam folder to make sure that i didn't lose some ballots kind of omgwtf.

50 - Boris - Smile
80 points, 11 votes
201 in P&J

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/6937/borissmileir5.jpg

I just got this and love it. It's a lot better than Pink, which was great but the production was sometimes over compressed especially on the drums, and lacked the sense of dynamics this album has.

A lot of the shoegazing from Pink is gone replaced with a few straightforward nuggets psych ballads. The first song has either sampled drums or drums clipped to sound like samples with sweet minimal synth and vocals like pharell made it or something. One song has the garage punk plus detached talking and kind of reminds me of The Wipers and MX 80 sound.

They have always seemed more metal like Blue Cheer than Metal like Black Sabbath to me, even if their name is a Melvins nod, maybe because they bang so fast. There are some awesome gnashing of teeth 4 horseman army of the dead in valhalla guitar solos a few times over some pretty much straight forward Alchemy Records style noise that only comes after jamming with Merzbow. And there's some sweet low end samples/synth banging plus soloing on a few tracks.

I'm going to listen to this a bunch more times. It seems like 2/3rds of the album is super awesome things I've heard before done really well and 1/3rd totally new original stuff done really well.
― filthy dylan

nice start, even though i didn't vote for it since i hadn't heard it yet when i made up my list.

Hold on, that is a metal album?! It looks like a 90's rave compilation.

I only heard it after voting thanks to ILX METAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2008 RESULTS (NOW COUNTING DOWN THE TOP TEN, BTW) but that Boris album is super.

haha otm xp

so excited!

lol i remember being similarly confused by their "Pink" record.

w00t! And away we go!

god spotify is actually useless - fired it up to investigate this "boris", nothing there

That's the album cover to the Japanese version. The Southern Lord version is a different cover (and different mix) The japanese version is superior btw. (as are older Boris albums!) But yes I voted for it as I do like it. There's as much shoegaze/stooges influences in Smile as there is doom/drone/sludge.

you would hate them xp

you might like some of the shoegazy stuff on pink (e.g. "Farewell"), but i don't think you'll like smile.

xxp

Lex> Boris have a female guitarplayer! It's not boyz with geetars

The first song has either sampled drums or drums clipped to sound like samples with sweet minimal synth and vocals like pharell made it or something.

^^this is what made me curious. also they're instrumental right? metal vox aren't my thing but if this doesn't have them...

they have non-metal japanese vox.

49 - Arthur Russell - Love Is Overtaking Me
82 points, 6 votes
85 in P&J, 34 in p4k

http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/1406/51j33bkvjlss500nt2.jpg

It's brilliant, and a real grower--21 tracks, and though I prefer the slightly more organic avant-country-folk-singer-songwriter first half to the somewhat more familiar Casio-pop second half, it's remarkable that literally ever song is memorable. Definitely some of his strongest, most traditional melodies, and the lyrics are often quite beautiful and unabashedly romantic. It's obviously very compilation-y, not much aesthetic/production value consistency, but that's not a bad thing. Amazingly, half the tracks are from 1973-1975, and truly reveal an entirely unknown side and period for him. A lot of it feels a little Dylan-The Band, or Modern Lovers, or John Prine, but every bit is indelibly Arthur, even as unexpected as the context sometimes is. The only real downside is that some of the material is so strong, it makes me wish that an entire release had been made from that particular source (for example, the Flying Hearts/Ernie Brooks era stuff, if more of it exists.

There really seems to be no bottom of the barrel for Mr. Russell, which isn't really a surprise. I imagine that for many people, this will be a surprise fave amongst his oeuvre, even those of us who prefer his more avant-garde work.
― Soundslike

They aren't strictly "metal" either in the traditional sense.

lex i still don't think you'd like them. but what the hell give it a shot.

just got that arthur russell album and it's pretty cool.

i never got to the end of that arthur russell album...dunno wtf was up with his voice on it but i thought it sounded terrible.

Way too low... but glad to see it on the list regardless

It's on Spotify so I'll give it a go.

48 - School Of Seven Bells - Alpinisms
83 points, 11 votes
298 in P&J

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8633/schoolofsevenbells01bigbm5.jpg

Sometimes one wants comfort and familiarity. Or a perfected version of something that seems like your own private world. This album sounds like the inside of my head. I'm going to shut up now.

...

It's funny, I was just thinking this morning, how good Half Asleep is. I've had it stuck in my head all day. But then I got distracted by the video and forgot to say.

No, this album really really *is* a grower.

It's also weirdly sequenced, like, it's *really* back-loaded - that the poppy upbeat songs are towards the end. But Benjamin probably did that on purpose coz he is perverse like that. That you have to listen to the whole thing to get to the poppy bits, and that makes you do multiple listens to the earlier songs and then you get sucked into them and you realise every time you listen to them you notice something different and then one day you wake up and realise you cant' live without hearing the album again and again and again.

it's not an immediate high. But it gets better and better every time you listen.
―Masonic Boom

I love that cover on the Arthur Russell, it's like he's stood there gazing longingly at his neighbour's new tractor. Didn't vote for it though, cos I'm a kerrank and just stuck with new new stuff.

x-post

On paper, the School of Seven Bells album seems like something I'd eat right up. Sadly, it wasn't the case.

I cooled on it a bit after I'd gorged myself silly on the obvious standout tracks.

heard that for the first time this weekend as my friend wants me to see them. itsokigues

Yeah the School of Seven Bells album really didn't stand up to how great the descriptions made it sound. It was just sort of flat and lifeless.

arthur russell's posture is terrible on that cover. why would you stand in a way that makes you look like you have a huge pot belly when you're obviously really skinny??

alpinisms is the first of my votes to show up. still love that its first mention on ilx (that i saw) was kate repping for it on the "albums of the year" thread and saying how it proved how far she'd gotten from the ilx hivemind b/c no one else had mentioned it. a month and a bit later, enough people love it to get it in here!

It is a fantastic album, and unusually "complete" for a debut.

Actually this list is going to annoy me more than the other one because it's much harder to hear everything on it. Downloading the Boris album now, which I actually think I'll really like.

I would link to Spotify or something but I am cursed to being an American so that's a no-go. If it's available on last.fm I'll try to provide a link.

If anyone wants to chime in with recommendations for particular tracks to download on any of these or with youtube links or whatever, then I'm all ears.

arthur russell's posture is terrible on that cover. why would you stand in a way that makes you look like you have a huge pot belly when you're obviously really skinny??

Oh, lexpaws... I suppose you're going to comment negatively about everything you either don't know or don't like on this list, just as on the traxx list. Sigh.

You're being silly just to be silly are you not? Did it ever occur to you that there are actually some people out there who don't give a damn about that? And "huge pot belly"... give me a fucking break.

don't give a damn about appearance that much, is what I meant

should have done a reshoot of the cover but...o wait

lol

Here are two albums so far that are available for full streaming on last.fm, I will make sure to provide these down the line:

Smile - http://www.last.fm/music/Boris/Smile

Alpinisms - http://www.last.fm/music/School+of+Seven+Bells/Alpinisms

ugh, i know there's a dutch online shop which has full streams of loads of albums but i can't remember what the URL is.

Oh, lexpaws... I suppose you're going to comment negatively about everything you either don't know or don't like on this list, just as on the traxx list. Sigh.

i have heard (most of) the arthur russell album and i like him generally, just not these badly sung acoustic demos. and if people really don't care about appearance why bother posing for a photo in the first place.

WTF? I didn't vote on anything, how did I get in here?

Or was I just the first ILX mention for the album?

And Matt DC, pffffttt, I think you're flat and lifeless for hating Justice, so we're even. :-P

They pose for a photo for other people who don't care as much about it. Not for, say, people who are obsessed with it. Both see different things in the same photo, apparantly. You see a man who's stupid enough to pretend to have a big put belly. I see a beautiful man totally in character, looking very confident and glowing like his best music does.

Oh, by the Dutch shop, did you mean http://3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/ ? It's from a radiostation. They do stream lots of albums in full, but only new ones I think.

xp

Most of the blurbs are from existing ILX posts, and aren't sent in specially for the poll

47 - Sébastien Tellier - Sexuality
84.5 points, 11 votes
447 in P&J

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1331/41ikgnyc03lss500eh5.jpg

this album is great. i didn't expect something so minimal, the synths and drum machines just glisten. it's kinda like italians do it better for people who go to dinner parties. think 'elle' is my favourite at the moment, but it seems like the kind of album where every song is a potential favourite, i love records like this

― r1o natsume

i think this is my favorite album of the year so far. that fucking glistening sound is just wonderful. it seems to build on discovery's whole 80s aor thing really well, these song forms offer more room to play around in that area. like the over-the-top supertramp-ness of the 4th track (even down to that damn wurlitzer sound). and i've been listening to van halen a lot lately so those "jump" synths in "kilometer" really hit me (especially since it's such a killer tune anyway).

― winston

forgot about that one

My first vote to place. XD

new Secret Machines >>>>>> School Of Seven Bells album

(I am the only person who thinks this)

i think my favorite thing about the Tellier album is the cover

i'll talk about them all because i love them all

http://www.obb1.com/images/EasyLife_04-11-08.jpg

ok everyone lol @ me etc, but i slept on that portishead record all year, and it's fucking me up something fierce right now

silly kevin

*points finger, lols*

*points finger, lols*

I would like it if the people who hadn't heard many of the "obscure" picks of 50-21 would check them out.
I'd like to hear that Alex Moulton. Every link I find online has expired/been taken down.

― The User Formerly Known As Pfunkboy Latterly Known as.. (Herman G. Neuname), Friday, February 13, 2009 8:38 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

maybe buy it?

lol u old

srsly

u can buy mp3s u goofs

e.g. emusic: http://www.emusic.com/album/Alex-Moulton-Exodus-MP3-Download/11202674.html

amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Exodus/dp/B001BVTAKI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1235016881&sr=8-2

sorry for double-lol

ya it made me double :(

:((

it's a doublole surely

i linked to the last.fm streaming link for Exodus in the original post

I'm most likely to talk about c) tbh, but then I'm certified insane

― Mequophidiophobia: fear of the beer snake (country matters), Wednesday, 18 February 2009 18:01 (Yesterday) Bookmark

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39073000/jpg/_39073630_hunt_bbc203.jpg

maybe buy it?

Unfair target, maybe: HGN probably shells out the cash for more music than a lot of ILX0rs (see posts passim) and I get the impression he's a try-before-you-buy kind of dude ... as indeed am I, unless a recommendation is spectacularly glowing, and comes from someone I'd trust with my life/first-born/etc.

THAT SAID ...

i linked to the last.fm streaming link for Exodus in the original post

:)

Grimly is right. I check out stuff I don't know on mp3 then buy if I really like it. In this case I do and I will when I can afford it.

boy did i sleep on gang gang dance. would've made my top 5 for sure had i heard it in time.

are their earlier stuff any cop?

The earlier stuff is more straight-up experimental rock, less influence from hip-hop, dance/house, etc.

I'd check out God's Money, their previous album, and delve deeper if you enjoy that one.

will do, thanks.

If I had heard this album in time, I would have nominated it:

e.s.t. (Esbjorn Svensson Trio): Leucocyte

re: purchases vs nicks, my search for d.lissvik via a 'studio' search brought wolfgang voigt's studio 1 comp which relates i believe to the gas entry on the list. haven't heard gas but this studio 1 is bringing a great deal back home right now.

should have added i bought the voigt.

I'd check out God's Money, their previous album, and delve deeper if you enjoy that one the parts that are much harder to enjoy

pleased to see gang gang dance polled so high. deserves many further listens.

boy did i sleep on gang gang dance. would've made my top 5 for sure had i heard it in time

Co-fucking-sign. This is fantastic. How in fuck's name did I miss it?

You were too busy listening to Keane

Yeeees. That'll have been it.

He's not even lying.

Gang Gang Dance really could've challenged Portishead on this evidence

But that's the joy of these things, isn't it? There are three records on this list -- GGD, School of Seven Bells and Grouper -- that I'm pretty sure would have made my list had I heard them. Hey ho.

school of seven bells sounds pretty good. they're playing glasgow on the 24th so i might pop in if it isn't sold out. Grouper would have definitely been top 10 if I had heard it in time.

Yeh, I'm working the night of the 24th which is a massive, massive, massive pain in the bollocks. I could try haring down straight from work but I doubt I'll make it in time :(

grimly look at the metal poll thread

Heard the other day that School of Seven Bells are also supporting Bat For Lashes on her UK tour in April.

i might pop in if it isn't sold out.

Nice Wet Wet Wet reference there BTW.

grimly look at the metal poll thread

Yeh, that sonic adventure is coming, worry not.

Gang Gang Dance really could've challenged Portishead on this evidence

It would've been in my top 5, likely top 3, if I'd voted.

not totally positive it would have made my top 20 but it is definitely a great album, and props to ILM for the heads up on it.

Yeah, exactly (xp). I think GGD has picked up well over 100 phantom points since coming 4th, maybe more like 200. Big props to ILM.

It was actually the Gang Gang Dance thread a few months ago that turned me onto it, rather than this poll, but yes: big props to ILM.

ha well otoh portishead would have picked up at least 12 points from me

xpost

And so they should have.

More stuff from these polls up on Spotify (Grouper)

argh these threads are pretty hard to find/scan for in search (maybe just because there's a close bracket right after the word ALBUMS in this case). might be worth editing the titles to make them a bit easier to find (ie come up top in search results for '2008 albums poll results' or whatever).

yeah...all due respect to musically but i much prefer the more straightforward thread titles under the johnny/j0rdan regime