The Fly's Top 50 LPs of 2012 (I haven't heard any of them. Gonna listen. I don't know what The Fly is...) PART TWO!

embeds slowing stuff down considerably. top 25 hits here!

25 Melody's Echo Chamber - Melody's Echo Chamber

i'm all for girly blisspop and everything - sugar plant one of my fave bands of the 90's - but someone get these gals a sandy denny record or something. or play them crass's penis envy. there's a war going on! somewhere. i'm probably the last person who should rail against escapism actually. but for real we get it you can do ethereal. not really well but you can do it. this doesn't thrill me. sorry, melody. listen to some melanie, melody. "leftover wine" kicks ass! it wasn't all animal crackers and wanting to be a farmer. hell, even animal crackers was crustpunk-friendly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5xIpbIjRQA

different members of this community (what do y'all call yourselves, ilxers?) should do this for different 2012 lists they're mostly unfamiliar with. would be fun, i think. or is that stealing from scott? i mean he is good at it, if he wanted he could do more

This is a great public service Scott. Thanks!

different members of this community (what do y'all call yourselves, ilxers?) should do this for different 2012 lists they're mostly unfamiliar with.

I'm waiting until I see lex's Guardian ballot. I'll decide whether or not to proceed pending content.

You should annotate to Scott's year end list, were it to actually exist.

(what do y'all call yourselves, ilxers?)

ilxorzs, i believe.

but if we did it in true ilxor fashion each list would have a build up that lasted 3 weeks, followed by 2 weeks of wandering in the forest, concluding with a rundown that takes 5 weeks and mysterious ends about halfway through, followed by the occasional apologetic revive

24 Daughn Gibson - All Hell

is this witch house r&b? i kinda hate it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFevvzP_VQA&feature=related

i fucking love that record, first half in particular is killer

"Rain on a Highway" in particular, fuck yeah

Lookin' Back on '99 makes a bit more sense within the context of the record, i think. it would be pretty weird to come to it out of nowhere. almost all of his songs are like that, come to think of it, which is probably why it seems to have baffled the critics

holy shit, only 400 LPs printed, i am buying that shit up right now!

yeah I would start w/ something more like "A Young Girl's World"

23 Twin Shadow - Confess

really thought the long intro was a Vevo commercial. anyway, this is not for me but what i like about it is its NOW. its NOW music. it was made this year. or last year. for better or for worse. and i would probably like chillwave r&b if i didn't already own so many Midnight Star albums. but i repeat: A+ for effort. you sound like the world we live in. you deserve some sort of medal for that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiC9XNQSxFQ

Twin Shadow is a phenom live.

22 Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

this is like if the coldplay dude did an "arty" side-project. have people with neglible voices ever been so eager to highlight said voices? ever? in history? somebody write a book about what sharing means in a post-internet world. is this a result of "everybody is a winner and gets a trophy" parenting? amateurism used to at least have the charm of naivete or energy or cultural forward momentum going for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_qFaFl7JVc

That Twin Shadow track seems much better than what I heard from their first record, which I remember kind of dismissing.

21 The Cribs - In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull

someone's got a case of the 90's. check out that album cover! hey, i like buddy holly and sweaters a bunch. if the whole song sounded like the first seven seconds of the song it would great. but then we get to the 8th second...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uofLuW53SE

20 King Tuff - King Tuff

more 90's action. on sub pop even. not bad. if you are gonna call yourself king tuff you better bring the guitars and they do. bet they are pretty good live, right? even the blah-fi production works for them in a weird way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpCMo8Z4r98

19 Diiv - Oshin

pleasant revivalism. they get the echo down. like the guitars. would listen to more. has that slightly breathless urgency that was the calling card of good 80's jangle action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnV-uhvOA5A

18 Pond - Beard Wives Denim

for ultimate frisbee buffs and snowboarders. did these guys meet in college? are they still in college? are they considering business school? fyi: biomedical engineering tops the forbes list of hottest college majors - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/05/15/best-top-most-valuable-college-majors-degrees/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdzNEFDyzkk

Pond was already a 90s Portland band on Sub Pop. Find new name pls.

17 The xx - Coexist

they made a video for this? for real? it looks like it cost money too. is it even technically a song? maybe they are so avant garde they are beyond actual song! if this is the atypical song on the album and the rest is amazing i apologize. but i ain't gonna listen to anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeWxEH9tb0c

They should be Beardo Pond.

16 The Vaccines - The Vaccines Come Of Age

i was really excited when i saw the cover of this and thought it was a little kid band. now i'm all :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYs8W5avFnQ

diiv is pretty dope@@

^^^ yeah I liked that one too.

15 Purity Ring - Shrines

more baby doll electro. kinda yawning but i guess i see the appeal. just not made well enough to be great. i got like 500 kewpie doll-voiced latin freestyle singles that make this sound like the afterthought that it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETbGpGJNVLM

glad you liked diiv. top 10 for me.

wish i liked that king tuff album more than i actually do.

Beardo Pond = lol

14 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Mature Themes

debbie gibson has ariel beat by a mile. i'm just not a fan. its tedious music to me. just like sic alps that everyone loves. i like uh power pop and all that. eh, can't like everybody. i like a lot already!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiBVGHigpTk

13 Grizzly Bear - Shields

i would like it to be known that i wrote a RAVE review of Grizzly Bear's Yellow House album for the now defunct Knoxville Voice newspaper. I was living on Marthas Vineyard and i wanted to slit my wrists and they recorded the album on a small island nearby and i dug the forlorn island ambience. i was living that shit! haven't had to play that album since, i'm happy to say. this song is kinda cool. they are good with textures. i would buy an instrumental grizzly bear album probably. the vocals aren't so hot but they go to interesting places sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bteY_fs3Y18

Diiv has a connection to some other big name band right? Someone remind me...

Oh, it's the guy from Beach Fossils, I'm misremembering things here...

12 Alt-J - An Awesome Wave

they made a video for this song? looks like it cost money too. this is a song? etc, etc, zzzzz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNYjOVo5IEw

Wow yeah, Alt-J does nothing for me. And yet read this hypemonger:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/may/24/new-band-alt-j

11 Lana del Rey - Born To Die

see thread for details: Lana Del Rey

i spent a long winter month debating this woman. may god have mercy on my soul.

hey small world my pal danny is here now - danny's dad helped revolutionize comic books with swamp thing - and he said my pal abby has been touring with king tuff. one of the guys from king tuff is from brattleboro up the road.

His dad Steve blew my mind as a teenager.

10 Tame Impala - Lonerism

has a certain woozy charm. and again it sounds current. dunno if that means it will sound like yesterday's meatballs by next year but who cares about that? there are obviously limitless possiblilities with cut & paste/mix & match pastiche and digital hijinx and i can give the beachwavers a list of a dozen amazing experimental examples of genre-fuckery that could be applied to the pop context. or a list of dance artists and producers who could turn this stuff out in their sleep. these guys seem like they are trying at least.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZOhNigdUSo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZOhNigdUSo

oops, sorry, double the fun of music that visually steals from old doublemint ads.

i am having trouble getting a grasp on what scott will call 80s revivalism and what he will call current. i mean i know he'll use one of those two descriptions but the allotment seems random. tame impala is straight up psych-pop revivalism with some "modern" production (i.e. sounds like a dave fridmann production from 2000)

09 The Maccabees - Given To The Wild

more coldplay. jesus...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HaW5alLnC0

you mean like an old mercury rev album or something? they don't sound like that to me at all.

08 Kindness - World You Need A Change Of Mind

this is interesting...i listened to a couple of tracks and this dude has the poMO pastiche thing going full force. a little bit of this and a little bit of that. this one is funny though. like a bad late-80's arthur baker big label remix for some movie soundtrack song by someone who wasn't quite janet jackson. which is a pretty specific homage! (f. trouble funk)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uakYO-o9_84

i was thinking more like a less goofy flaming lips

07 Field Music - Plumb

the XTC thing is kinda fun. the production is horrible but that might just be youtube's fault. every track i sampled had the grainy muffled drum sound. would like it a ton more if it were loud and clear and precise. more snap. but that's a personal preference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NnH3FFKSJI

06 Django Django - Django Django

fun! i mean its not gonna light the world on fire but let's hear it for a little fun. if i saw them on the sidestage at the summer shed festival and i was 19 and with my mates having a laugh and an argy-bargy about which birds we wanted to pull i would totally buy a django django t-shirt or something. plus just fucking with their voice a little bit is like throwing this old dog a bone. you have a computer and it can do anything! not just create woozy smears, anything! i need one teeny tiny risk/happy accident/drunken lark per song to be truly happy. at least one. what have you got to lose?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDjpOrlfh0Y

05 Jessie Ware - Devotion

i'd like to hear this on cd. it sounds pretty deluxe. was she in girlstown or some other brit group? i really like the beats. would buy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THPTu43Afrc&feature=relmfu

the sound of that stuff - even on youtube - kinda blows away everything else i have heard so far. the actual production/sound. though her voice sounds nice too.

devotion is incredible

04 Cat Power - Sun

pretty cool. i don't listen to her but i think she's really good at what she does. good bid for $$ without pissing off the faithful. always a tricky tightrope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nl3Oo4-IQ4

did devotion come out recently? i think i might actually go buy the cd tomorrow. if they have it at the lame store across the street.

came out in august

there are obviously limitless possiblilities with cut & paste/mix & match pastiche and digital hijinx and i can give the beachwavers a list of a dozen amazing experimental examples of genre-fuckery that could be applied to the pop context.

this should be the next ilx compilation

03 Frank Ocean - Channel Orange

this is a long one...this is the album people love to either love or not love. i would need more than a quick youtube listen to really have any kind of opinion. sounds okay but now i'm excited to buy that devotion cd. that's some state of the art stuff right there!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfyWQ2AEBic&feature=related

"like a bad late-80's arthur baker big label remix for some movie soundtrack song by someone who wasn't quite janet jackson"

words of a true dollar-bin digger

02 Grimes - Visions

queen of the kewpie dolls? i really want to hear some cranes albums after listening to all this stuff. gaga should sue! at least for the fsshion. it's okay by me. nothing i need to hear more of though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FH-q0I1fJY

01 Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

now that cat power has graduated to latin-inflected npr pop there is a new sadsack in town! i wish her the best of luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqYzCUflBtM&feature=related

maybe they are so avant garde they are beyond actual song!

Says the person who put Anthology of Chinese Experimental 1992-2008 on his EOY list a few years back. Not defending xx (who I don't care about much one way or another).

Just pointing out the obvious faux–naïf tone of your comment.

link to first thread:

The Fly's Top 50 LPs of 2012 (I haven't heard any of them. Gonna listen. I don't know what The Fly is...)

and i'm done.

yeah but the xx aren't experimental electronic music? i mean they are indie pop.

That Grimes still looks like a nightclub extra escaped from the set of a cyberpunk movie and went to hang out at Burning Man.

aye, Devotion is very good

kindness are super fun live

DIIV are super awful live

The Field Music album is produced beautifully on CD, ftr.

i think even most people who loved the xx's first album think that the songs are just not there on the new one

kindness is fucking dreadful arch nonsense, he knows a lot of people in the music scene though. twin shadow is fucking abysmal for many similar reasons.

the jessie ware album is very good indeed, in my top 20 but possibly not top 10

thought you are free was a much better big pop move from cat power, i've never been a superfan but sun just seems like a mess - although this remix of "cherokee" is one of my favourite of the year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFGdfgUbLvQ

If Twin Shadow sounds like it was made this year, we must be in 1982!

Field Music album is really turgid, they're not good enough songwriters to pull off the the kind of Abbey Road vibe they're going for. I wouldn't call it "beautifully produced", there's a kind muddy browness to the whole sound.

I listened to the Sharon Van Etten album the other day and her voice is gorgeous and her songs are good but the arrangements are so leaden and uninspired. She needs to lose the backing band altogether, or get a better one.

Kindness = wank.

This was kind of a bad list to do in its entirety but I'm impressed you managed it Scott.

would really love specific examples of things from 1982 that sound like that twin shadow song i posted above.

don't really understand why more of the atmospherica-wave indie people don't just cover great forgotten songs that nobody remembers. nobody would even know they were covers. this is like the 4000th best song of 1981 but its better as a song than most of what i heard yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-0rNzpaxzg

The second XX album is making my top 10

"This was kind of a bad list to do in its entirety but I'm impressed you managed it Scott."

it was slow at the store yesterday and i've been working a lot and i needed a break from cleaning records. maybe i'll try and tackle pitchfork's list when they do one.

more of the atmospherica-wave indie people don't just cover great forgotten songs that nobody remembers

works for Ariel Pink

The second XX album is making my top 10

Yeah, I like it more now than when it first arrived. There are some great songs buried in there that aren't immediately engaging, but open up with repeated listens. Dunno if it's in my top 10, but it's not the sophomore slump it's been made out to be.

She needs to lose the backing band altogether, or get a better one.

Seek out her two previous albums, esp. Epic.

^^

her new one is so boring compared to that, I blame the National dudes