...but most of all you've let ILX down: What are the most disappointing records of 2013?

What have you been really looking forward to this year that's turned out to be massive letdown?

YYYs - Mosquito

laura marling, yeah yeah yeahs, lady gaga and young dro were probably the albums i was most excited by and most disappointed on actually hearing

to a lesser extent, hyetal and guido both followed up incredible debuts with kinda-dull retreads

I didn't know there was a new guido album!

don't be too excited apparently

it's not bad as such it's just...not grabbing me like the first one did

sort of three-star disappointment rather than "oh wow this is a turkey"

actually, glasser fits in there too :/

Polica - Shulamith (review here) I loved the first album so much - totally grew on me since it appeared in the lower regions of EOY2012. Then Tiff came out and I was totally psyched for this new album, but Shulamith just doesn't have the tunes, I'm very sad to say.

Donato Dozzy's Plays Bee Mask... After the previous two albums, I was super excited to hear some more dubbyt ambient techno from him, but PBM turned out to a be pretty conservative and somewhat dull ambient piece. (Okay, I admit that when I bought, I didn't know it's actually remix album based on someone else's work, but that still doesn't excuse the dullness.)

I quite liked that one, but I'm more familiar with Bee Mask's work than DD and yeah I prefer BM's work on his own to that one. It's not terrible though and it's quite interesting to think about how all the remixes are different takes on the same original track IIRC.

Danny Brown (sorry)

Boards of Canada

^

My answer is probably Kayo Dot. It has some great moments (mostly the first two tracks) but it also has about an hour's worth of what I'd describe as fairly ineffectual widdling. Most fans have really liked it though, so what do I know?

black hearted brother. disappointing considering the high points of those involved

The Knife - Shaking The Habitual. Three or four killer tracks and a lot of stuff that just isn't as interesting as it thinks it is.

I'm going to go with the Dawn Richard album as well, a few incredible moments but as a whole it's such a leaden trudge. Whatever alchemy existed in the studio last year made Armor On seem light and effortless whereas this is just weary sounding.

The Knife - Shaking The Habitual. Three or four killer tracks and a lot of stuff that just isn't as interesting as it thinks it is.

― Matt DC, Friday, November 15, 2013 11:37 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For me it's the best thing they've ever done. My album of the year so far.

Boards of Canada

― gotta lol geir (NickB), Friday, November 15, 2013 11:28 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Someone had to say it!

I didn't have great expectations for the BoC album is the first place after The Campfire Headphase. In the end it turned out slightly better than I expected - ie a pretty good but completely unsurprising listen.

i like both the knife and dawn richard albums even more now than i did when i first heard them - dawn is almost certainly my year-end #1, the knife in the top 20 probably

I must confess I was a little taken in by all the hype around BoC and after all that wait too. Was really hoping they'd developed in a more interesting way.

I like BoC album as a kind of background-listening experience. Most of their best stuff takes a few revisits to totally sink in and I've noticed a lot of tracks work especially well in isolation, as part of a comp or whatever. Otherwise when I listen tot the album I hear it as more of an OST to a post-apocalyptic documentary or something, and in that respect it works out a well for me.

even i will say that BoC are one of the most overhyped acts out there, and i'm a big fan.

I quite liked that one, but I'm more familiar with Bee Mask's work than DD and yeah I prefer BM's work on his own to that one. It's not terrible though and it's quite interesting to think about how all the remixes are different takes on the same original track IIRC.

I didn't mean to imply the album is bad (it's an enjoyable enough, but IMO it's lacking of any sonic innovation), just that it was a big disappointment, because I really really liked the previous two DD albums (Voices from the Lake was my #1 album of last year). And yeah, different remixes of the same track is a cool idea, but I think that too has been done more interestingly by other artists. (Pole's R is the first example to come to mind, that's a top-notch experiment, that one.)

The stupid hype-and-faff around the still non-existent Beyonce album probably more disappointing than anything here. Except maybe Mosquito.

I'm only familair with the last YYY's album really. What was disappointing about Mosquito just out of interest?

YYYs, Gaga, QOTSA and - after a long period of trying to convince myself I liked it - the Knife. The BoC album, surprisingly, has ended up in my Top 20.

Good thread idea.

was worried this thread might be construed as being a bit negative but seems okay so far

famous last words right?

The Pistol Annies album was rather terrible - which is strange given that Ashley Monroe's solo record was great.

I almost said Magna Carta but that would imply that I expected a great Jay-Z album in 2013.

magna carta failed to meet even my low expectations of it

Polica - Shulamith (review here) I loved the first album so much - totally grew on me since it appeared in the lower regions of EOY2012. Then Tiff came out and I was totally psyched for this new album, but Shulamith just doesn't have the tunes, I'm very sad to say.

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin), Friday, 15 November 2013 11:03 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep, this is my biggest disappointment of 2013

Donato Dozzy's Plays Bee Mask... After the previous two albums, I was super excited to hear some more dubbyt ambient techno from him, but PBM turned out to a be pretty conservative and somewhat dull ambient piece. (Okay, I admit that when I bought, I didn't know it's actually remix album based on someone else's work, but that still doesn't excuse the dullness.)

― Tuomas, Friday, 15 November 2013 11:14 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really like this album! I'm a fan of Bee Mask but hadn't heard any previous Dozzy.

Also disappointing in a three- rather than five-star way: Paavoharju Joko sinä tulet tänne alas tai minä nousen sinne - it's a decent album but nowhere near being as life-changing as the first two.

Haven't got round to hearing the Paavoharju yet, but there have been a few things on Fonal in the last couple of years that didn't quite live up to previous records.

like half my top 10 is in this thread, what the hell

(the knife, laura marling and dawn richard, mainly. I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say next month, but The Knife is a victim of everyone thinkpiecing it to death and abandoning it, Laura Marling is a victim of no one actually paying attention to the narrative, and Dawn Richard is a victim of it coming out in like January. I'm reserving a few albums in my top 10 because I'm sure they'll show up here eventually.)

disappointment from me probably icona pop, although I sort of called it around "Nights Like This"

I like the Knife album just fine when I listen to it but it feels to big and unwieldy that I almost never do.

Some calculated list of the worst albums of the year:
http://www.albumoftheyear.org/ratings/worst/2013/

...I totally missed the Wolfgang Voigt one.

That Delphic record was a total stinker though.

Voigt record was so unexpectedly horrible, like a bad joke.

black hearted brother. disappointing considering the high points of those involved

Gotta disagree, Jim. I've found this gets better with repeated listens so if you've only given it a couple of spins, try again.

They Might Be Giants - Nanobots would be my pick, though I wasn't really expecting all that much to be honest.

YYYs, co-sign.
I didn't get particularly excited about the David Bowie either, but I know I'm the only one.

Snoop Lion :(

Phoenix

oblivians, danny brown, beautiful swimmers

all of those go in the just-ok-not-mindblowing category for me

hunx and his punx new one was bad although I wasn't a mega-fan before (looove shannon and the clams though)

I liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album ...

i know ppl love it but i've been unable to get into doris

Oh yeah, I second Danny Brown.

Danny Brown record is alright, did you really have such high expectations?

yeah I loved XXX. this one's a fall-off. I do listen to it still but I skip a bunch of tracks.

looking fwd to the new dawn richard, gauging from the singles

hope it's a bit leaner than this years tho calling PWT a clunker is o_O to me

Speaking of heavy-handed nonsense, I gave the new Arcade Fire album another play today and that definitely belongs here as well, although I don't think that even counts as a disappointment after the last album.

a lil mad @ u for slagging off 'wonder 2' upthread

"Wonder 2" does sound kind of like a discarded track from Third Eye Foundation's Semtex so I get not being blown away by it

yeah I made the 3EF comparison myself as soon as I heard it! but that doesn't make it any less awesome imo

'in another way', 'only tomorrow' and 'wonder 2' justify the 20-year hiatus & unlimited when's-he-coming-back hype tbh, those three songs are absolutely phenomenal & no album containing them can be a disappointment

"Only Tomorrow" is one of my favorite songs of the year, yeah

the only disappointing thing about the justin timberlake record was that, after the first singles appeared, anyone still expected it to be good

definitely feel disappointed by the weeknd album, but that could also just be a feeling of exhaustion at his aesthetic - he made four albums this year and last. the new album does sound different than his older stuff, but kind of just more radio-ready, less singular than the best parts of his mixtapes.

Mosquito is the one that comes immediately to mind. Absolutely loved It's Blitz!, and I was hoping the new YYY's LP would grow on me, but it didn't. The Neon Neon album Praxis Makes Perfect is the only other one that springs to mind, I found that one incredibly bland. There are albums that came out this year (such as Flaming Lips' The Terror and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories) that I liked at first but gradually found myself listening to less and less, but I got no feeling of "disappointment" from them. As for the stuff I do like, well it's very fair to say there's a lot of that. It's been a good year for music for me.

would say daft punk except i could tell very early on in the hype cycle that it would be shit http://www.wyonation.com/forum/images/smilies/jack.gif

daft punk is definitely the most disapointing, i mean come on

I find it kinda sad if the Daft Punk album isn't good; I dug "Get Lucky" and was meaning to check out the album one of these days. But if it really samples "Clair de lune", that sounds like the worst thing ever! Songs like that shouldn't be sampled by anyone except melodramatic rappers.

can't believe someone would sample one of the most recognizeable melodies in music despite not being a rapper

Daft Punk didn't sample CDL. That was Dawn Richard.

Ah, okay. I thought Matt DC's post was about Daft Punk, since it was in the middle of DP discussion.

can't believe someone would sample one of the most recognizeable melodies in music despite not being a rapper

Of course you can sample anything you want, but my point was that classical piano samples rarely (if ever) work, except in melodramatic rap tunes (like "Für Elise" in Nas's "I Can").

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfvtBNtT6F0

tuomas you have intrigued me enough to start a classical piano samples thread, there must be plenty of good non-rap examples

I don't think the Holy Ghost! album s a disappointment, though I had expected it might be given how much I love the first one and how I wasn't sure where they could go from there.

Phoenix album was a little disappointing. Drake album very disappointing. I liked the Knofe a little more than I expected to, but don't exactly get an urge to listen to it often/at all.

The issue is less with Dawn sampling Clair de Lune and more that she is content to wander around within a miniscule part of its melodic range so she just sounds tiny and lost.

Daft Punk was the least disappointing album of the year for me, in the sense that I didn't expect much and discovered it was really really good.

I think the Daft Punk album is a remarkable achievement but I'm saving my apologia for the EOTY poll.

It's fun(ny) to watch the hype and backlash cycles for Daft Punk. Just like Human After All people went from "yay! Daft Punk is back" to "this is pretty terrible" in, like, four months. Though that was completely justified in the case of Human.

is it really a hype/backlash cycle or just different groups of people to start with?

Some of both. I've definitely noticed people who've gone from one extreme to the other, though not necessarily around here.

from the Holy Ghost! album I've kept "Bridges and Tunnels," "It Must Be the Weather," and "You and Your Hand," all three as solid as any track on the debut.

I liked YYYs album a lot but haven't played it since May; I suspect it'll sound fresh when I relisten to it in December.

I really, really, REALLY like the YYYs album

It's a good album, but I was expecting MAGNIFICENT things from When Saints Go Machine this year and instead I got a few good tracks and a little too much extraneous fannydangle from them. System Of Unlimited Love is still superb and there are a few others, but it's just not as good as Konkylie.

I think the YYYs is only a disappointment in that it's so terribly patchy when compared to It's Blitz. I like the Holy Ghost album, but it's pretty patchy too.

(xpost)

re WSGM, I love love LOVE "System of Unlimited Love" but it's... weird? telling? creepy? that they chose to do that video for it in The Year of Blurred Lines controversy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cug2qoJpMX4

can't watch the vid at work - what happens?

sexy strippers grind on poles, quite quite hot tbf

All the videos I've seen have centred around movement of the human body - parcours, ballet etc... maybe this is an extension of that?

feel like the directors of that vid (two women i think) went all out to make the dullest pole-dance vid possible

The Uncle Acid album wasn't anywhere near as good as their initial two. I went from all-out loving them to seeing them live to hearing the newest record to complete indifference within a matter of months.

Yeah, second the Uncle Acid. What a drag.

^ cosign

So fannydangle is happening eh

it's happening.

Another minor disappointment: Jonathan Wilson Fanfare, not bad, just not as amazing as the last one.

I was huge fan of Husbands when it came out and the Savages album never really lived up to that.

uncle acid is a good answer, i don't generally get so attached to anything good anymore that i believe there has to be MORE of it to come. but since their last album came out of nowhere i did feel like that.

i think 'mind control' would have benefited from a different mix. i was listening to it the other night and picking up more on the smearier guitar bits, if they were more prominent then maybe the backing-off on the monster riffs would have seemed like less of a disappointment. it still sounds good, it's just not compulsive like the last one.

mano le tough, yyys, koze initially kinda (just absurd expectations on my part in retrospect), dawn richard (ditto), goodie mob, timberlake 2, factory floor, kimye video

It's a good album, but I was expecting MAGNIFICENT things from When Saints Go Machine this year and instead I got a few good tracks and a little too much extraneous fannydangle from them. System Of Unlimited Love is still superb and there are a few others, but it's just not as good as Konkylie.

― Pingu Unchained (dog latin)

Yeah I haven't gone back to this one as much as I thought I would. Konkylie is pretty my favourite album of the decade so far and at first I though they'd almost equaled it. Now apart from a few tracks (Mannequim, System of Unlimited, Iodine and Slave to the Take in Your Heaven) I really can't remember a lot about the album. Probably need to give it another play soon but when I got Konkylie I just could not stop playing it.

Pixies

i don't generally get so attached to anything good anymore that i believe there has to be MORE of it to come.

I have finally started to be more like this. If there has been a spate of good x for a couple years, I now tend to think: this will probably dry up soon. (That doesn't mean I don't keep looking for more of whatever it is, but my expectations are low.)

The new Audacity record - on paper it shouldn't be much different than "Mellow Cruisers" but for various reasons I can play that one endlessly and the new one is gathering dust.

Sadly, No Age.

Phoenix, YYYs, BOC already mentioned.

Justin Timberlake in a way, glad he is doing what he wants to and it's actually good but part pf me wanted the same amount of single material as the last albums.

Mannequin, System of Unlimited, Iodine and Slave to the Take in Your Heaven

Yeah, exactly the same ones I go back to. They're all incredibly strong tracks that rival even the best bits on Konkylie but WSGM seem to be suffering from the same 'all surface no feeling' disease as Poliça this year.