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2014 FBG Album Poll - Countdown Thread (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Northern Voice
- Start date
Northern Voice
Footballguy
No family is safe, when I sashay
#11
Perfume Genius - Too Bright
66 Points, 5 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider
Album Review: Beginning with his desultory 2010 debut Learning, Perfume Genius has delivered bedroom tales of sparse frankness. The back story of Mike Hadreas has been documented with each release. A gay man grappling with emotional and physical insecurities, such demons serving as muse, music as catharsis. With his latest, Too Bright, Hadreas has left those confines for a gleaming cabaret. This is not to say he’s gone pop; rather, the sheen of Too Bright is a facade that veils and drapes the unleashed torment of his latest collection of songs, his best yet as Perfume Genius.
Opening ballad “I Decline” neglects to hint at the lyrical rawness that follows. “Queen”, the album’s preening first single, bluntly plays upon heterosexual society’s fears of being taken to the homosexual woodshed and having asses broken and brought “into the fold”. A grandiose warning, Hadreas proclaims, “No family is safe when I sashay.” For such outward bombast, personal insecurities remain. Hadreas sings on “My Body”, “I wear my body like a rotted peach / You can have it if you can handle the stink / I’m as open as a gutted pig.” Asking how love can be found amongst such decrepitude, he posits on “No Good”, “Am I meant to fray the edge? / On the outside looking in / All used up / But never used enough.”
The body as golden bauble belies the penetrable shell incapable of hiding internal doubt on “Don’t Let Them In”: “Don’t let them in / They’re well intended / But each comment rattles some deep / Ancient queen.” Rejecting the position of platonic pawn on the two-act doo-*** drama of “Fool”, first fawning “like a cartoon”, Hadreas disrupts domestic stability in the second verse: “I made your dress / I’m bleeding out / On the couch you bought / That I picked out.” This paradox of subordinate versus equal plays out on the album’s final two songs. Having succumbed to being “laid upon … each night” on the whimsical title track, Hadreas finally vocalizes his discontent on “All Along”, the album’s pleading closer where he delivers his rebuke: “I don’t need your love / I don’t need you to understand / I need you to listen”.
Often criticised for the brevity of songs on Learning and Put Yr Back N 2 It, Hadreas and co-producer Adrian Utley (Portishead) wisely do not address this matter on Too Bright. It’s 11 songs—none reaching four minutes in length—are given a largesse and volatility thanks to Utley’s studio grafting of textures and layered vocals that both expand Perfume Genius’ sonic pallet with throbs and horrific shrieks as on “Grid” and muddle lyrics as on the hellish drone of “I’m a Mother”, which could double as an Angelo Badalamenti score for a David Lynch film.
Equal parts lyric and mood, the two create a dynamic tension on Too Bright that, regardless of sexual orientation, should be taken as a treatise on human frailty and the need for reciprocity in life and love. Glittered with transcendent brilliance, gilded shadows do not hide the empowered dramatic turn of Perfume Genius’s Too Bright.(PopMatters)
#11
Perfume Genius - Too Bright
66 Points, 5 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider
Album Review: Beginning with his desultory 2010 debut Learning, Perfume Genius has delivered bedroom tales of sparse frankness. The back story of Mike Hadreas has been documented with each release. A gay man grappling with emotional and physical insecurities, such demons serving as muse, music as catharsis. With his latest, Too Bright, Hadreas has left those confines for a gleaming cabaret. This is not to say he’s gone pop; rather, the sheen of Too Bright is a facade that veils and drapes the unleashed torment of his latest collection of songs, his best yet as Perfume Genius.
Opening ballad “I Decline” neglects to hint at the lyrical rawness that follows. “Queen”, the album’s preening first single, bluntly plays upon heterosexual society’s fears of being taken to the homosexual woodshed and having asses broken and brought “into the fold”. A grandiose warning, Hadreas proclaims, “No family is safe when I sashay.” For such outward bombast, personal insecurities remain. Hadreas sings on “My Body”, “I wear my body like a rotted peach / You can have it if you can handle the stink / I’m as open as a gutted pig.” Asking how love can be found amongst such decrepitude, he posits on “No Good”, “Am I meant to fray the edge? / On the outside looking in / All used up / But never used enough.”
The body as golden bauble belies the penetrable shell incapable of hiding internal doubt on “Don’t Let Them In”: “Don’t let them in / They’re well intended / But each comment rattles some deep / Ancient queen.” Rejecting the position of platonic pawn on the two-act doo-*** drama of “Fool”, first fawning “like a cartoon”, Hadreas disrupts domestic stability in the second verse: “I made your dress / I’m bleeding out / On the couch you bought / That I picked out.” This paradox of subordinate versus equal plays out on the album’s final two songs. Having succumbed to being “laid upon … each night” on the whimsical title track, Hadreas finally vocalizes his discontent on “All Along”, the album’s pleading closer where he delivers his rebuke: “I don’t need your love / I don’t need you to understand / I need you to listen”.
Often criticised for the brevity of songs on Learning and Put Yr Back N 2 It, Hadreas and co-producer Adrian Utley (Portishead) wisely do not address this matter on Too Bright. It’s 11 songs—none reaching four minutes in length—are given a largesse and volatility thanks to Utley’s studio grafting of textures and layered vocals that both expand Perfume Genius’ sonic pallet with throbs and horrific shrieks as on “Grid” and muddle lyrics as on the hellish drone of “I’m a Mother”, which could double as an Angelo Badalamenti score for a David Lynch film.
Equal parts lyric and mood, the two create a dynamic tension on Too Bright that, regardless of sexual orientation, should be taken as a treatise on human frailty and the need for reciprocity in life and love. Glittered with transcendent brilliance, gilded shadows do not hide the empowered dramatic turn of Perfume Genius’s Too Bright.(PopMatters)
Northern Voice
Footballguy
I don't really like the term grower, but Elbow definitely took a few listens for me to latch on to it.
El Floppo
Footballguy
went opposite for me- completely dug at first listen, and preetty much until I started making my list.
Northern Voice
Footballguy
#10
Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
67 Points, 6 Votes
Ranked Highest By: pettifogger
Album Review: With the exception of a few artists, modern country has taken a hard left turn for the worse over the past two decades. Ask some people, and they might even say country’s become a shell of its former self. Sturgill Simpson is not one of those people—mostly because he doesn’t seem to care what is happening within the confines of the country music world. Instead the Kentucky-born singer looks to more far-out places on his second full-length, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music.
One of the first things you’ll notice is Simpson’s voice, which conjures the ghost of Waylon Jennings. In fact, that’s how I discovered him. I was walking outside a small venue at Portland’s Pickathon music festival last summer, and Simpson’s burly baritone stopped me in my tracks. Once I saw the stripped-down trio—Simpson on acoustic guitar, Kevin Black on electric bass and drummer Miles Miller—I was immediately on board with their classic leanings, but also with how unforced and real it sounded.
Those same musicians, with the addition of spitfire guitarist Laur Joamets, are the building blocks for this collection. But Metamodern Sounds In Country Music expands on their live performances with the help of producer Dave Cobb, who recorded Simpson’s excellent 2013 debut, High Top Mountain. This time around the songs owe as much to Carl Sagan as they do Merle Haggard, most notably on the almost seven-minute “It Ain’t All Flowers,” which takes ’70s outlaw country on a sizzling acid trip. Chemicals have their place on this record. “Every time I take a look inside that old and fabled book/I’m blinded and reminded of the pain caused by some old man in the sky/Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT, they all changed the way I see/But love’s the only thing that’s ever saved my life,” Simpson sings on opener “Turtles All the Way Down,” a song inspired by psychiatrist and psychedelic drug proponent Rick Strassman.
Simpson finds balance on the barroom crawl of “Living the Dream” and “Life of Sin,” which yanks a page from the Bakersfield Sound songbook. He even manages to turn When In Rome’s 1988 one-hit wonder “The Promise” into a tender (and barely recognizable) ballad. You won’t hear any pedal steel this time around, but you will hear mellotron on “Just Let Go.” Those touches are noticeable, but Cobb’s warm production can’t be overstated—it holds the entire thing together and also makes Metamodern Sounds a shelf-worthy addition next to the greats.
If you don’t like country music, don’t bother. But if you do have an ear for Waylon and Willie and the boys, then you’ll find plenty to love. Simpson may reside in Nashville these days, but he’s operating on a completely different plane. Here’s hoping his own mind-expanding experiments will expand the minds of listeners as well.(Paste)
Sturgill Simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
67 Points, 6 Votes
Ranked Highest By: pettifogger
Album Review: With the exception of a few artists, modern country has taken a hard left turn for the worse over the past two decades. Ask some people, and they might even say country’s become a shell of its former self. Sturgill Simpson is not one of those people—mostly because he doesn’t seem to care what is happening within the confines of the country music world. Instead the Kentucky-born singer looks to more far-out places on his second full-length, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music.
One of the first things you’ll notice is Simpson’s voice, which conjures the ghost of Waylon Jennings. In fact, that’s how I discovered him. I was walking outside a small venue at Portland’s Pickathon music festival last summer, and Simpson’s burly baritone stopped me in my tracks. Once I saw the stripped-down trio—Simpson on acoustic guitar, Kevin Black on electric bass and drummer Miles Miller—I was immediately on board with their classic leanings, but also with how unforced and real it sounded.
Those same musicians, with the addition of spitfire guitarist Laur Joamets, are the building blocks for this collection. But Metamodern Sounds In Country Music expands on their live performances with the help of producer Dave Cobb, who recorded Simpson’s excellent 2013 debut, High Top Mountain. This time around the songs owe as much to Carl Sagan as they do Merle Haggard, most notably on the almost seven-minute “It Ain’t All Flowers,” which takes ’70s outlaw country on a sizzling acid trip. Chemicals have their place on this record. “Every time I take a look inside that old and fabled book/I’m blinded and reminded of the pain caused by some old man in the sky/Marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, DMT, they all changed the way I see/But love’s the only thing that’s ever saved my life,” Simpson sings on opener “Turtles All the Way Down,” a song inspired by psychiatrist and psychedelic drug proponent Rick Strassman.
Simpson finds balance on the barroom crawl of “Living the Dream” and “Life of Sin,” which yanks a page from the Bakersfield Sound songbook. He even manages to turn When In Rome’s 1988 one-hit wonder “The Promise” into a tender (and barely recognizable) ballad. You won’t hear any pedal steel this time around, but you will hear mellotron on “Just Let Go.” Those touches are noticeable, but Cobb’s warm production can’t be overstated—it holds the entire thing together and also makes Metamodern Sounds a shelf-worthy addition next to the greats.
If you don’t like country music, don’t bother. But if you do have an ear for Waylon and Willie and the boys, then you’ll find plenty to love. Simpson may reside in Nashville these days, but he’s operating on a completely different plane. Here’s hoping his own mind-expanding experiments will expand the minds of listeners as well.(Paste)
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Run them jewels fast
#9
Run the Jewels - RTJ2
68 Points, 6 Votes
Ranked Highest By: wazoo11
Album Review: Nearly two decades after rocking the underground realm with Funcrusher Plus, El-P has cut down on his dense cultural references and mile-a-minute musical approach to make way for accessibility. This gave Killer Mike enough room to slip in and form the much lauded bad-guy duo Run The Jewels. Instead of hustling to catch up to El-P’s sonic debris, Mike’s booming voice positions itself in the center of the maelstrom. His aggressive assonance (especially in standout cuts like “Blockbuster Night, Part 1”) is an instrument in itself—a percussive one.
And Run The Jewels 2 is concussive. The sequel takes the simplistic thrills of the debut and expands the duo’s natural chemistry. With Killer Mike grounded at the album’s emotional core, El-P is free to indulge in his intrepid production tendencies. The first half comes stocked with bass-heavy, high-tempo sonic backdrops as restless as its creators—specifically “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry” and “Jeopardy.” On the second half, El-P impresses with the heart-palpitation-inducing, Travis Barker-assisted “All Due Respect,” a high-tension number that gives way to bacchanal on the hook. The slimy creep of “Love Again (Akinyele Back)” right after just spoils the listener.
Again, ####-talking is the new gift of gab here, from Killer Mike’s over-the-top threats (“Top of the morning, my fist to your face is ####### Folgers” on “Blockbuster Night”) to El-P’s snide stabs to the ego (“I’m a thrill killer, I will test you / Just like daddy ####in’ left you” on “All Due Respect”). But isn’t braggadocio the easy route with what’s been a middling year in music, and with failures like Michael Brown’s death and the NFL’s domestic violence issues still fresh on people’s minds? Not so. Let’s take a step back from El-P’s futuristics. Hip-hop praises competitiveness; this culture rose out of social decay, when drugs, poverty, and the overtone of death were epidemic. With those three things and more threatening to suffocate, hip-hop was a means to breathe and defy the limiters it was cursed with. Run The Jewels’ brand of chest bumping isn’t vapid; it’s a form of subsistence. “Lie, Cheat, Steal” forms the crux of this argument. In the thematic centerpiece, Killer Mike’s breathless run through another Donald Sterling evisceration to conspiracy speculation is done at a pace that hits close to a very instinctual level of survival.
Run The Jewels 2 is still aware reality can’t be rapped away. On “Crown,” Killer Mike gives an emotional account of selling drugs to a pregnant woman before El-P ponders the catharsis of gun violence. Killer Mike also delivers a hyper-detailed visual of a run-in with the police that involves a gun being shoved in his spouse’s face. Whether causing trauma or using hip-hop as blues, Run The Jewels 2 is aware that society may be teetering at the edge of its sagacious period. If “murder, mayhem, melodic music” isn’t the only answer, the duo’s latest triumph is too endlessly playable to seek alternatives.(AV Club)
#9
Run the Jewels - RTJ2
68 Points, 6 Votes
Ranked Highest By: wazoo11
Album Review: Nearly two decades after rocking the underground realm with Funcrusher Plus, El-P has cut down on his dense cultural references and mile-a-minute musical approach to make way for accessibility. This gave Killer Mike enough room to slip in and form the much lauded bad-guy duo Run The Jewels. Instead of hustling to catch up to El-P’s sonic debris, Mike’s booming voice positions itself in the center of the maelstrom. His aggressive assonance (especially in standout cuts like “Blockbuster Night, Part 1”) is an instrument in itself—a percussive one.
And Run The Jewels 2 is concussive. The sequel takes the simplistic thrills of the debut and expands the duo’s natural chemistry. With Killer Mike grounded at the album’s emotional core, El-P is free to indulge in his intrepid production tendencies. The first half comes stocked with bass-heavy, high-tempo sonic backdrops as restless as its creators—specifically “Oh My Darling Don’t Cry” and “Jeopardy.” On the second half, El-P impresses with the heart-palpitation-inducing, Travis Barker-assisted “All Due Respect,” a high-tension number that gives way to bacchanal on the hook. The slimy creep of “Love Again (Akinyele Back)” right after just spoils the listener.
Again, ####-talking is the new gift of gab here, from Killer Mike’s over-the-top threats (“Top of the morning, my fist to your face is ####### Folgers” on “Blockbuster Night”) to El-P’s snide stabs to the ego (“I’m a thrill killer, I will test you / Just like daddy ####in’ left you” on “All Due Respect”). But isn’t braggadocio the easy route with what’s been a middling year in music, and with failures like Michael Brown’s death and the NFL’s domestic violence issues still fresh on people’s minds? Not so. Let’s take a step back from El-P’s futuristics. Hip-hop praises competitiveness; this culture rose out of social decay, when drugs, poverty, and the overtone of death were epidemic. With those three things and more threatening to suffocate, hip-hop was a means to breathe and defy the limiters it was cursed with. Run The Jewels’ brand of chest bumping isn’t vapid; it’s a form of subsistence. “Lie, Cheat, Steal” forms the crux of this argument. In the thematic centerpiece, Killer Mike’s breathless run through another Donald Sterling evisceration to conspiracy speculation is done at a pace that hits close to a very instinctual level of survival.
Run The Jewels 2 is still aware reality can’t be rapped away. On “Crown,” Killer Mike gives an emotional account of selling drugs to a pregnant woman before El-P ponders the catharsis of gun violence. Killer Mike also delivers a hyper-detailed visual of a run-in with the police that involves a gun being shoved in his spouse’s face. Whether causing trauma or using hip-hop as blues, Run The Jewels 2 is aware that society may be teetering at the edge of its sagacious period. If “murder, mayhem, melodic music” isn’t the only answer, the duo’s latest triumph is too endlessly playable to seek alternatives.(AV Club)
dal_boys_phan
Footballguy
I feel this way about Parquet Courts as well. How did that album get only three votes?
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Heartbreak hurts but you can dance it off.
#8
The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams
70 Points, 4 Votes
Ranked Highest By: kupcho1, dal boys phan
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Heaven is Whenever (41st in 2010), Stay Positive (#1 in 2008), Boys and Girls in America (#1 in 2006)
Album Review: There’s a point about halfway through “Oaks”—the “holy ####, it’s nine minutes long” closing song of The Hold Steady’s sixth album, Teeth Dreams—where everything drops out except for the guitar and vocals. Space opens up. Echoes swirl. Craig Finn sings about “mountains all covered in oaks.” Yes, sings. The frontman who’s made a career out of monotone poetry recited over catchy rock hooks has somehow reversed his band’s polarity. He, not his band, carries the melody. As the instruments inch back in like sheepish pets, a guitar solo straight out of Crazy Horse or Lynyrd Skynyrd pulls the rug out from under them all. The song hits free fall. The sun sets. Fade to black.
The Hold Steady has always trafficked in melodramatic, capital-R rock gestures, but at the same time it always held back. Finn’s refusal to conform to pop-singer expectations, along with the rollicking keyboard of Franz Nicolay, seemed to admit that the zone between indie rock and arena rock was a no-band’s land. Over the past few years, that reality has changed—and it’s to The Hold Steady’s credit that Teeth Dreams reflects it. Nicolay has been gone for years now, but Teeth Dreams is not only the group’s first album written without either his presence or palpable absence, it’s the first with second guitarist Steve Selvidge—formerly of country- and roots-rock powerhouse Lucero—as a full participant. It’s a new band for a new world, and Teeth Dreams might as well be a debut.
Only it’s full of scars and shadows of the past. If there’s one thing The Hold Steady holds dear, it’s the way history twists, taints, and haunts us. “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You” comes on like vintage Finn, all staccato chants and coded accusations about the old punk days and the bruises they’ve left. More than ever, coming of age in a circle pit isn’t a requisite for getting it; “For me it was mostly the music,” he damn-near croons over the tangled jangle of Selvidge and founding guitarist Tad Kubler. The latter seems liberated, not hemmed in, by the addition of a fulltime six-string partner, especially one as handy at classic, FM-era songcraft as Selvidge. Tradition—or at least traditionalism—was once held at arm’s length by The Hold Steady. But there’s not only a hint of Green Mind-era Dinosaur Jr. to songs like “Spinners,” there’s a more full-throated fulfillment of the Bruce Springsteen/Thin Lizzy flirtation of the band’s prior peak.
Above it all—on the balladic “The Ambassador,” the ####-rocking “Big Cig,” and the Selvidge-riffed “Runner’s High,” whose twangy, ringing intro sounds like The Eagles’ “Already Gone” and won’t stoop to acknowledge a need to apologize for it—Finn is on fire. But it’s a simmering inferno. “Almost Everything” is Teeth Dream’s acoustic breather, and he’s never sounded so delicate or vulnerable. “I can hear you breathe / I can feel almost everything,” he sings with the softest rasp, doing his best to return the favor. There’s a reliance on grunt-work over wordplay, a struggle to do more on his end to lend his lyrics grace, and to coast less on turns of phrase, as complicated and clever as he can make them. Finn has slowed what rolls off his tongue, just as The Hold Steady as a whole has at last jelled into a rock band—nothing more, nothing less, and nothing held back.
#8
The Hold Steady - Teeth Dreams
70 Points, 4 Votes
Ranked Highest By: kupcho1, dal boys phan
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Heaven is Whenever (41st in 2010), Stay Positive (#1 in 2008), Boys and Girls in America (#1 in 2006)
Album Review: There’s a point about halfway through “Oaks”—the “holy ####, it’s nine minutes long” closing song of The Hold Steady’s sixth album, Teeth Dreams—where everything drops out except for the guitar and vocals. Space opens up. Echoes swirl. Craig Finn sings about “mountains all covered in oaks.” Yes, sings. The frontman who’s made a career out of monotone poetry recited over catchy rock hooks has somehow reversed his band’s polarity. He, not his band, carries the melody. As the instruments inch back in like sheepish pets, a guitar solo straight out of Crazy Horse or Lynyrd Skynyrd pulls the rug out from under them all. The song hits free fall. The sun sets. Fade to black.
The Hold Steady has always trafficked in melodramatic, capital-R rock gestures, but at the same time it always held back. Finn’s refusal to conform to pop-singer expectations, along with the rollicking keyboard of Franz Nicolay, seemed to admit that the zone between indie rock and arena rock was a no-band’s land. Over the past few years, that reality has changed—and it’s to The Hold Steady’s credit that Teeth Dreams reflects it. Nicolay has been gone for years now, but Teeth Dreams is not only the group’s first album written without either his presence or palpable absence, it’s the first with second guitarist Steve Selvidge—formerly of country- and roots-rock powerhouse Lucero—as a full participant. It’s a new band for a new world, and Teeth Dreams might as well be a debut.
Only it’s full of scars and shadows of the past. If there’s one thing The Hold Steady holds dear, it’s the way history twists, taints, and haunts us. “I Hope This Whole Thing Didn’t Frighten You” comes on like vintage Finn, all staccato chants and coded accusations about the old punk days and the bruises they’ve left. More than ever, coming of age in a circle pit isn’t a requisite for getting it; “For me it was mostly the music,” he damn-near croons over the tangled jangle of Selvidge and founding guitarist Tad Kubler. The latter seems liberated, not hemmed in, by the addition of a fulltime six-string partner, especially one as handy at classic, FM-era songcraft as Selvidge. Tradition—or at least traditionalism—was once held at arm’s length by The Hold Steady. But there’s not only a hint of Green Mind-era Dinosaur Jr. to songs like “Spinners,” there’s a more full-throated fulfillment of the Bruce Springsteen/Thin Lizzy flirtation of the band’s prior peak.
Above it all—on the balladic “The Ambassador,” the ####-rocking “Big Cig,” and the Selvidge-riffed “Runner’s High,” whose twangy, ringing intro sounds like The Eagles’ “Already Gone” and won’t stoop to acknowledge a need to apologize for it—Finn is on fire. But it’s a simmering inferno. “Almost Everything” is Teeth Dream’s acoustic breather, and he’s never sounded so delicate or vulnerable. “I can hear you breathe / I can feel almost everything,” he sings with the softest rasp, doing his best to return the favor. There’s a reliance on grunt-work over wordplay, a struggle to do more on his end to lend his lyrics grace, and to coast less on turns of phrase, as complicated and clever as he can make them. Finn has slowed what rolls off his tongue, just as The Hold Steady as a whole has at last jelled into a rock band—nothing more, nothing less, and nothing held back.
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Hey Shady baby, I'm Hot.
#7
Alt-J - This is All Yours
71 Points, 4 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermiel, Iluv80s
Previous Albums on our Countdown: An Awesome Wave (#16 in 2012)
Album Review: The 2012 Mercury Prize winners begin their sophomore outing with the subversively titled "Intro," a four-and-a-half-minute highlight reel of what's to come that pairs the monastic chanting that prefaced An Awesome Wave's first single, "Fitzpleasure," with a pastiche of new age and worldbeat-blasted ambient pop that suggests Mogwai by way of Peter Gabriel's Real World studios circa 1990 -- it's both planetarium laser light show and art installation ready. The muted yet equally heady "Arrival in Nara," all fingerpicked electric guitar and diffusive synths, and its more muscular yet no less monkish second half, "Nara," do little to rein in the holistic atmosphere that's so decisively laid out in the remarkably potent This Is All Yours' opening moments, which makes the arrival of the punchy, carnally minded "Every Other Freckle" and the meaty, Anglo-Motown thump of "Left Hand Free" so thrilling, but hardly unexpected. After all, this is a band that proved with its debut that it can go from icy, distant, and often excruciatingly beautiful to downright feral at the crack of a snare drum (or pots and pans, as the group's humble, dorm room beginnings often required), and This Is All Yours does little to tarnish their reputation as choirboys with dark passengers. That penchant for edgy refinement, along with frontman Joe Newman's elastic voice, remains the band's most effective weapon, but it's hard to pinpoint where and when that magic occurs, as it's so effortlessly woven into the group's sound. It's somewhere in between the autumnal and apocalyptic, Miley Cyrus-sampling "Hunger of the Pine," the bucolic, recorder-led "Garden of England," and the oddly soulful, midnight-black posturing of "The Gospel of John Hurt," and it gets under your skin, where it somehow manages to both hurt and heal.(AllMusic)
#7
Alt-J - This is All Yours
71 Points, 4 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Nick Vermiel, Iluv80s
Previous Albums on our Countdown: An Awesome Wave (#16 in 2012)
Album Review: The 2012 Mercury Prize winners begin their sophomore outing with the subversively titled "Intro," a four-and-a-half-minute highlight reel of what's to come that pairs the monastic chanting that prefaced An Awesome Wave's first single, "Fitzpleasure," with a pastiche of new age and worldbeat-blasted ambient pop that suggests Mogwai by way of Peter Gabriel's Real World studios circa 1990 -- it's both planetarium laser light show and art installation ready. The muted yet equally heady "Arrival in Nara," all fingerpicked electric guitar and diffusive synths, and its more muscular yet no less monkish second half, "Nara," do little to rein in the holistic atmosphere that's so decisively laid out in the remarkably potent This Is All Yours' opening moments, which makes the arrival of the punchy, carnally minded "Every Other Freckle" and the meaty, Anglo-Motown thump of "Left Hand Free" so thrilling, but hardly unexpected. After all, this is a band that proved with its debut that it can go from icy, distant, and often excruciatingly beautiful to downright feral at the crack of a snare drum (or pots and pans, as the group's humble, dorm room beginnings often required), and This Is All Yours does little to tarnish their reputation as choirboys with dark passengers. That penchant for edgy refinement, along with frontman Joe Newman's elastic voice, remains the band's most effective weapon, but it's hard to pinpoint where and when that magic occurs, as it's so effortlessly woven into the group's sound. It's somewhere in between the autumnal and apocalyptic, Miley Cyrus-sampling "Hunger of the Pine," the bucolic, recorder-led "Garden of England," and the oddly soulful, midnight-black posturing of "The Gospel of John Hurt," and it gets under your skin, where it somehow manages to both hurt and heal.(AllMusic)
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Seasons Change....
#6
Future Islands - Singles
90 Points, 7 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Abraham, Steve Tasker
Album Review: Dealing with the most obvious title reference: these ten songs certainly sound like the top ten songs of the year. They breathe catchy hooks and pop riffs that effortlessly roll of the band’s instruments. Future Islands is able to focus their essential, clever compositional skills onto pop in its most direct format. Each instrument playing an integral part towards the album’s spirited, almost new wave vibe. Herring is, in turn, allowed to jitterbug his way in and out of traffic like some kind of mad genius. And perhaps the most endearing aspect about Singles isn’t just the sheer flawlessness of the album’s music but quite possibly, the fact that Herring is finally the true star of the show.
The immediacy of the songs is the kind of instant gratification many of us so desperately need: songs pound with a glittered, streamlined sound that is both captivating and mesmerizing. “Light House” is an equally swift track that captures a sparkling guitar counter melody, while the bass furiously glides away. It’s a stark example of how the immediate impact is where the song beguiles but the ensuing ride is where it rises. As everything gathers pace, Herring’s voice is another instrument – aching, bristling, chilling – he sings about how he’s been away for too long.
And of course, it’s hard to argue with how gorgeous the whole thing starts. “Seasons (Waiting on You)” is driven by pulsating gears as the guitar and bass propel forward. Herring sounds afraid about what the outcome might inevitably be and still, he holds out hope. The whimsical synths charge with energy as yet another perfect love song is added to Future Islands’ playbook. It’s one of the many keys to victory for the band – energy, pulse, drive – on an album that is absolutely stunning from top to bottom.(Adequacy.net)
#6
Future Islands - Singles
90 Points, 7 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Abraham, Steve Tasker
Album Review: Dealing with the most obvious title reference: these ten songs certainly sound like the top ten songs of the year. They breathe catchy hooks and pop riffs that effortlessly roll of the band’s instruments. Future Islands is able to focus their essential, clever compositional skills onto pop in its most direct format. Each instrument playing an integral part towards the album’s spirited, almost new wave vibe. Herring is, in turn, allowed to jitterbug his way in and out of traffic like some kind of mad genius. And perhaps the most endearing aspect about Singles isn’t just the sheer flawlessness of the album’s music but quite possibly, the fact that Herring is finally the true star of the show.
The immediacy of the songs is the kind of instant gratification many of us so desperately need: songs pound with a glittered, streamlined sound that is both captivating and mesmerizing. “Light House” is an equally swift track that captures a sparkling guitar counter melody, while the bass furiously glides away. It’s a stark example of how the immediate impact is where the song beguiles but the ensuing ride is where it rises. As everything gathers pace, Herring’s voice is another instrument – aching, bristling, chilling – he sings about how he’s been away for too long.
And of course, it’s hard to argue with how gorgeous the whole thing starts. “Seasons (Waiting on You)” is driven by pulsating gears as the guitar and bass propel forward. Herring sounds afraid about what the outcome might inevitably be and still, he holds out hope. The whimsical synths charge with energy as yet another perfect love song is added to Future Islands’ playbook. It’s one of the many keys to victory for the band – energy, pulse, drive – on an album that is absolutely stunning from top to bottom.(Adequacy.net)
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Second top 5 finish for them in past three years.
#5
Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
94 Points, 8 Votes
Ranked Highest By: wazoo11, El Floppo
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Attack on Memory (#4 in 2012)
Album Review: The entirety of the album is spent in the fast lane—perhaps a reflection of Baldi writing the songs while touring relentlessly for a year and a half, penning each song in a different city. The result is a fast-paced, convulsive collection that has all the intensity of its predecessor but with an elevated dose of urgency. While tracks on Attack On Memory sometimes had the luxury of meandering and brooding, the songs on Here And Nowhere Else sound like there isn’t time for that. Instead, the album sounds like time is running the #### out. Each track contains a powerful level of immediacy, hurling forward as if shot out of a cannon. With Baldi’s ferocious, throat-shredding vocals, Gerycz’s spastic and sophisticated drumming and Duke’s hammering bass lines anchoring Baldi’s frantic, uncoiling guitarwork, Cloud Nothings chug through songs as though their lives depended on it.
While the songs might not feel as instantly accessible as those on Attack On Memory, the hooks are still omnipresent, and the band’s amplified exigency on Here And Nowhere Else only perpetuates them. From the time-signature shifts of “Psychic Trauma” to the anthemic chorus of “I’m Not Part of Me” to the fluctuating, thrusting noisescapes of “Pattern Walks,” the album takes all of the talent and craft cultivated from Attack On Memory and pairs it with even more melody-minded mannerisms. For all the hard-hitting arrangements and thrashing instrumentation taking place on an album clocking in at just over a half hour, the songs still take the time to rope you in with ease and poise.
If Cloud Nothings’ excellent follow-up tells us anything, it’s that the band can hold its own. In the uphill battle of balancing success, artistic vision and mounting pressures, the trio could’ve fallen flat with a follow-up to a critically acclaimed masterwork—but they didn’t. Instead, with Here And Nowhere Else, they’ve thrown the first punch, and it hits you square in the jaw.(Paste)
#5
Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else
94 Points, 8 Votes
Ranked Highest By: wazoo11, El Floppo
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Attack on Memory (#4 in 2012)
Album Review: The entirety of the album is spent in the fast lane—perhaps a reflection of Baldi writing the songs while touring relentlessly for a year and a half, penning each song in a different city. The result is a fast-paced, convulsive collection that has all the intensity of its predecessor but with an elevated dose of urgency. While tracks on Attack On Memory sometimes had the luxury of meandering and brooding, the songs on Here And Nowhere Else sound like there isn’t time for that. Instead, the album sounds like time is running the #### out. Each track contains a powerful level of immediacy, hurling forward as if shot out of a cannon. With Baldi’s ferocious, throat-shredding vocals, Gerycz’s spastic and sophisticated drumming and Duke’s hammering bass lines anchoring Baldi’s frantic, uncoiling guitarwork, Cloud Nothings chug through songs as though their lives depended on it.
While the songs might not feel as instantly accessible as those on Attack On Memory, the hooks are still omnipresent, and the band’s amplified exigency on Here And Nowhere Else only perpetuates them. From the time-signature shifts of “Psychic Trauma” to the anthemic chorus of “I’m Not Part of Me” to the fluctuating, thrusting noisescapes of “Pattern Walks,” the album takes all of the talent and craft cultivated from Attack On Memory and pairs it with even more melody-minded mannerisms. For all the hard-hitting arrangements and thrashing instrumentation taking place on an album clocking in at just over a half hour, the songs still take the time to rope you in with ease and poise.
If Cloud Nothings’ excellent follow-up tells us anything, it’s that the band can hold its own. In the uphill battle of balancing success, artistic vision and mounting pressures, the trio could’ve fallen flat with a follow-up to a critically acclaimed masterwork—but they didn’t. Instead, with Here And Nowhere Else, they’ve thrown the first punch, and it hits you square in the jaw.(Paste)
Northern Voice
Footballguy
I Just get loaded and never leave my house
#4
Strand of Oaks - Heal
95 Points, 5 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, Eephus, Kenny Powers
Album Review: “I was born in the middle, maybe too late, everything good had been made,” begins “Shut In,” a mid-album track on Strand Of Oaks’ Heal that sounds like Jim James doing an impression of Bruce Springsteen. The artist behind the project, Tim Showalter, thankfully doesn’t still believe this line. His fifth album as Strand Of Oaks functions as an argument against the idea, citing specific examples of great contemporaries and influences while simultaneously revealing itself to be far beyond good.
Heal’s backstory is intriguing, and so is the way Showalter doesn’t rely on interviews and press releases to convey it. The lyrics are honest and direct, filled with self-deprecating admissions and delivered with the steady hand that can make simplicity sound like poetry. With his love of music tying the songs together (“Goshen 97” shouts out The Smashing Pumpkins and features J Mascis; “JM” is a tribute to the late Songs: Ohia songwriter Jason Molina; the title track riffs on Sharon Van Etten’s “Give Out” while name-dropping The Tallest Man On Earth), Showalter hops from rock genre from song to song in an effort to exercise demons of self-hate, substance abuse, alienation, and heartbreak. It would all be very bleak if the ultimate effect wasn’t catharsis, and if the music wasn’t so jubilant and full of life.
One moment can see Showalter “lose his faith in people” and “just get loaded and never leave the house,” but this is balanced by rock ’n’ roll that is rarely seen so exuberant and emotionally unshackled. Only a person who’s seen how dark things can really get could make something so positive out of a personal nightmare.
Previous Strand Of Oaks albums had settled into a folk niche that is all but abandoned on Heal, with big rock moments basked in without any irony, as if Showalter was the only inhabitant in an alternate dimension where Coldplay was cool. But on “Mirage Year” and “Wait For Love,” Showalter does Coldplay better than Coldplay has in a long time, delivering an invitation into his world through this profoundly affecting work of artistic necessity. Heal might have saved its songwriter’s life in the creation process, and better yet, it sounds like it did.
#4
Strand of Oaks - Heal
95 Points, 5 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, Eephus, Kenny Powers
Album Review: “I was born in the middle, maybe too late, everything good had been made,” begins “Shut In,” a mid-album track on Strand Of Oaks’ Heal that sounds like Jim James doing an impression of Bruce Springsteen. The artist behind the project, Tim Showalter, thankfully doesn’t still believe this line. His fifth album as Strand Of Oaks functions as an argument against the idea, citing specific examples of great contemporaries and influences while simultaneously revealing itself to be far beyond good.
Heal’s backstory is intriguing, and so is the way Showalter doesn’t rely on interviews and press releases to convey it. The lyrics are honest and direct, filled with self-deprecating admissions and delivered with the steady hand that can make simplicity sound like poetry. With his love of music tying the songs together (“Goshen 97” shouts out The Smashing Pumpkins and features J Mascis; “JM” is a tribute to the late Songs: Ohia songwriter Jason Molina; the title track riffs on Sharon Van Etten’s “Give Out” while name-dropping The Tallest Man On Earth), Showalter hops from rock genre from song to song in an effort to exercise demons of self-hate, substance abuse, alienation, and heartbreak. It would all be very bleak if the ultimate effect wasn’t catharsis, and if the music wasn’t so jubilant and full of life.
One moment can see Showalter “lose his faith in people” and “just get loaded and never leave the house,” but this is balanced by rock ’n’ roll that is rarely seen so exuberant and emotionally unshackled. Only a person who’s seen how dark things can really get could make something so positive out of a personal nightmare.
Previous Strand Of Oaks albums had settled into a folk niche that is all but abandoned on Heal, with big rock moments basked in without any irony, as if Showalter was the only inhabitant in an alternate dimension where Coldplay was cool. But on “Mirage Year” and “Wait For Love,” Showalter does Coldplay better than Coldplay has in a long time, delivering an invitation into his world through this profoundly affecting work of artistic necessity. Heal might have saved its songwriter’s life in the creation process, and better yet, it sounds like it did.
Northern Voice
Footballguy
My daddy's got a 12 gauge... I hope I don't find it.
#3
The Orwells - Disgraceland
152 Points, 7 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Brony, JZilla, Northern Voice, kupcho1, Abraham, Kenny Powers
Album Review: Straight outta high school, straight onto the road, come The Orwells. They're here to drink your beer, eat your crisps and make a godawful mess of your sofas. More than that, they're out to make men of themselves. Maybe even legends.
Where these Chicago reprobates differ from their icons – MC5, The Stooges, Led Zep, The Doors – is that they’re much better on record than on stage. Ironically for a band that recently dissed Arctic Monkeys for playing predictable shows, The Orwells' own gigs, though rowdy, are laboured in their stage-managed, fan-snogging ‘wildness’.
The real party is here, in ‘Disgraceland’. Just a swig of the Strokes-sounding ‘Southern Comfort’ leads to all manner of chaos: a tempestuous tumble in ‘Dirty Sheets’, a dizzy rock’n’roll case of ‘Bathroom Tile Blues’. The Orwells embrace a lusty life on the lash with the devotion of self-immolating monks. “Give me a smile and then take off your pants!” yowls mini-Morrison frontman Mario Cuomo, totally and utterly seriously.
Unusually for an album – their second – that's so desperate to party, there are already signs of unravelling. “My daddy’s got a twelve-gauge/I hope I don’t find it,” yelps the other voice in Cuomo’s head on the Pixies pastiche ‘Gotta Get Down’. ‘Norman’, meanwhile, is a Wall Of Sound portrait of a serial killer on the rampage that resembles Phil Spector’s lost soundtrack to Psycho, while ‘Blood Bubbles’ appears to be a detailed description of a suicide pact. Thematically, they’re equal parts Mortiis and Motley Crue, with a touch of Manics thrown in - “You wanna join the army?” Cuomo bawls on the USA-bashing ‘Who Needs You’, the sound of The Libs firebombing a draft office, “I said ‘no thank you dear old Uncle Sam’”.
Morrison, Spector, Doherty, Cobain; The Orwells know their roots and they know how that story plays out. Hence ‘Disgraceland’ reads like a premonition of their own burnt-out, psychopathic breakdown, their rock’n’roll joyride swerving off down dark, deadly roads. If you’re riding shotgun, hold tight, it’s all downhill from here.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-orwells/15350#hJCkdbimIxvldSjB.99
#3
The Orwells - Disgraceland
152 Points, 7 Votes
Ranked Highest By: Brony, JZilla, Northern Voice, kupcho1, Abraham, Kenny Powers
Album Review: Straight outta high school, straight onto the road, come The Orwells. They're here to drink your beer, eat your crisps and make a godawful mess of your sofas. More than that, they're out to make men of themselves. Maybe even legends.
Where these Chicago reprobates differ from their icons – MC5, The Stooges, Led Zep, The Doors – is that they’re much better on record than on stage. Ironically for a band that recently dissed Arctic Monkeys for playing predictable shows, The Orwells' own gigs, though rowdy, are laboured in their stage-managed, fan-snogging ‘wildness’.
The real party is here, in ‘Disgraceland’. Just a swig of the Strokes-sounding ‘Southern Comfort’ leads to all manner of chaos: a tempestuous tumble in ‘Dirty Sheets’, a dizzy rock’n’roll case of ‘Bathroom Tile Blues’. The Orwells embrace a lusty life on the lash with the devotion of self-immolating monks. “Give me a smile and then take off your pants!” yowls mini-Morrison frontman Mario Cuomo, totally and utterly seriously.
Unusually for an album – their second – that's so desperate to party, there are already signs of unravelling. “My daddy’s got a twelve-gauge/I hope I don’t find it,” yelps the other voice in Cuomo’s head on the Pixies pastiche ‘Gotta Get Down’. ‘Norman’, meanwhile, is a Wall Of Sound portrait of a serial killer on the rampage that resembles Phil Spector’s lost soundtrack to Psycho, while ‘Blood Bubbles’ appears to be a detailed description of a suicide pact. Thematically, they’re equal parts Mortiis and Motley Crue, with a touch of Manics thrown in - “You wanna join the army?” Cuomo bawls on the USA-bashing ‘Who Needs You’, the sound of The Libs firebombing a draft office, “I said ‘no thank you dear old Uncle Sam’”.
Morrison, Spector, Doherty, Cobain; The Orwells know their roots and they know how that story plays out. Hence ‘Disgraceland’ reads like a premonition of their own burnt-out, psychopathic breakdown, their rock’n’roll joyride swerving off down dark, deadly roads. If you’re riding shotgun, hold tight, it’s all downhill from here.
Read more at http://www.nme.com/reviews/the-orwells/15350#hJCkdbimIxvldSjB.99
rockaction
Footballguy
Ton of suspense here, frankly. Can't believe Perfect ##### didn't even crack the top fifty. Argh. Oh well.
Feels like the Miss America pageant in here.
Feels like the Miss America pageant in here.
El Floppo
Footballguy
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Both #1 and #2 received 14 votes (no others more than 8) and both were well over 200 total points
I was on 45th, I was half out of a bag.
#2
Spoon - They Want My Soul
218 Points, 14 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, Karma Police, Nick Vermiel, Fly, ericttspikes, Northern Voice, kupcho1, The Dreaded Marco, rockaction
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Transference (5th in 2010), Ga Ga Ga Ga (1st in 2007)
Album Review: With 10 songs that clock in at just under 40 minutes, Spoon's eighth studio release, "They Want My Soul," is a rock record to admire, and not just for the way its melodies and textures wheedle their way into the head.
One of the most acclaimed rock bands of the last decade, Spoon is returning from the longest hiatus of its career, a time that saw leader Britt Daniel teaming with Canadian avant-pop singer Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade to explore dance-punk joy with Divine Fits. Like an architect who understands form and engineering so well that he seems able to bend the laws of physics while using them to the fullest, Daniel designs songs that waste little space and have a grand, undeniable logic, filled with volumes of mesmerizing curves and accents.
Much of the album's success comes from a tension between experimentation and allegiance to form, dueling reflexes highlighted through its two producers. Early on, the band, which has always produced its own albums, went in the studio with the Grammy-winning Joe Chiccarelli, whose list of collaborators include the White Stripes, Tori Amos, Elton John and U2. But halfway through, Daniel and company split to record with Dave Fridmann, known for his work with Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse and others.
The latter ended up mixing the entire album, and you can hear the Fridmann flag flying all over "They Want My Soul." It's in the frantic high-hat, the odd bursts of strings, the ghostly wails and the electrifying guitar lines on "Knock Knock Knock." "Inside Out" floats in like a dream and hints at Sparklehorse's "Rainmaker" before going all in on a midtempo, blue-eyed soul song. It features what sounds like a harp solo.
There's nothing cheap or flimsy about "Soul." Each song seems constructed from the finest notes, honed to their perfect shapes. Each round of measures in "Rainy Taxi" shines, rotating loops of echoed guitars, an R&B-suggestive bass line, a bouncy-ball glockenspiel and an infectious backbeat. Even the silence packs a punch, the proof being brief moments of stop-start quiet in "Let Me Be Mine."
Through it all is Daniel, protesting and proclaiming. He's baffled on "I Just Don't Understand," a song made famous by Ann-Margret 50-plus years ago. He's a man obsessed on "Rainy Taxi," and so desperate that he'll forsake his very voice: "If you leave, I'll never sing another tune," he sings. For music's sake, here's hoping his lover stays.(LA Times)
I'm in my finest hour... Can I be more than just a fool?
#1
The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream
237 Points, 14 Votes
Ranked Highest By: pettifogger, Karma Police, Fly, wazoo11, kupcho1, Abraham, The Dreaded Marco, Steve Tasker, Kenny Powers
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Slave Ambient (12th in 2011)
Album Review: Lost in the Dream continues down the Slave Ambient route of bridging polar-opposite strains of 1980s rock—namely, the tremulous haze of late-era Spacemen 3 and the sort of flyover-state Americana anthems used to sell pick-up trucks. But even in the album’s opening seconds, the new album asserts itself as a more urgent affair—overtop the blurry, break-of-dawn guitar ripples of “Under the Pressure”, a stuttering drum machine sounds off like an alarm clock coaxing you out of bed and prodding you out the door. And if the steady-pulsed melody that emerges initially positions “Under the Pressure” as the most placid song about anxiety ever, by the third chorus run—at which point it’s amassed a swirl of dueling guitar solos, starburst synths, and brown-note saxophone swells—you feel the full weight of this nine-minute track bearing down on your chest.
This tension is inescapable. Whether it’s the hair-raising, Autobahn-blazing charge of “An Ocean In Between the Waves” or the Positively South Street sway of “Eyes of the Wind”, Granduciel’s litany of worries are laid bare here, free of any textural interference or obfuscation. And the comparatively direct lyrics mirror the new approach to incorporating some of Granduciel’s more unfashionable influences. As ever, totemic figures like Dylan and Springsteen cast a long shadow over the War on Drugs’ terrain, but Granduciel is the sort of classic-rock purist who wore out the grooves of those artists’ most canonical albums so long ago that he now finds fresher inspiration in their less lauded 80s discography.
Period sounds abound: “Red Eyes” is what would happen if Springteen’s simmering “I’m on Fire” was actually set aflame; “Burning” finds its fuse in the buoyant keyboard riff to Rod Stewart’s 1981 new-wave novelty “Young Turks”; the melancholic mid-album meditation “Disappearing” sounds like the synth-powered rhythm track of Tears for Fears’ “Pale Shelter” on a codeine drip. And the preponderance of glistening piano chords on this record suggests Granduciel is not one to touch his dial whenever Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is” pops up on his local oldies station.
But if Lost in the Dream is unapologetic in its dad-rock reverence, it’s dad-rock for people who are too ####ed up and broken to even think of having kids. (As he sings on “The Ocean In Between the Waves”: “I’m in my finest hour/ Can I be more than just a fool?”) In sharp contrast to, say, recent efforts to liberate Dylan’s 80s output from its dated production, Granduciel’s songs are left to fidget and squirm within the claustrophobic sonic confines and synthetic sheen. In his hands, these echoes of the past ultimately emphasize the uncertainty of his future, those shiny surfaces representing the good life that seems forever out of reach.
And besides, on Lost in the Dream, the most crucial details are found in its structural mutations. The album is loaded with songs whose greatness is revealed slowly, where the simplest, most understated chord change can blow a track wide open and elevate it from simply pretty to absolutely devastating. Note the shift that occurs two minutes and 50 seconds into “Suffering”, where the pent-up despondency heard in Granduciel’s state-of-his-union address (“Why we here when we’re both gonna fake it?”) is unleashed in a crying jag of drizzling piano chords and gently weeping White Album-like guitar slides. Or in the midst of the album’s epic break-up-ballad finale, “In Reverse”, you realize that all of the angst and ache that went into the song, and the album’s creation as a whole, is just building to the moment of release provided by the big, shoulder rub of an acoustic-guitar riff that appears out of nowhere at the 5:13 mark. They’re the sort of perfect little touches that effectively translate Granduciel’s private hurt into communal catharsis—and reify Lost in the Dream as an immaculately assembled portrait of a man falling apart.
I was on 45th, I was half out of a bag.
#2
Spoon - They Want My Soul
218 Points, 14 Votes
Ranked Highest By: E-Z Glider, Karma Police, Nick Vermiel, Fly, ericttspikes, Northern Voice, kupcho1, The Dreaded Marco, rockaction
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Transference (5th in 2010), Ga Ga Ga Ga (1st in 2007)
Album Review: With 10 songs that clock in at just under 40 minutes, Spoon's eighth studio release, "They Want My Soul," is a rock record to admire, and not just for the way its melodies and textures wheedle their way into the head.
One of the most acclaimed rock bands of the last decade, Spoon is returning from the longest hiatus of its career, a time that saw leader Britt Daniel teaming with Canadian avant-pop singer Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade to explore dance-punk joy with Divine Fits. Like an architect who understands form and engineering so well that he seems able to bend the laws of physics while using them to the fullest, Daniel designs songs that waste little space and have a grand, undeniable logic, filled with volumes of mesmerizing curves and accents.
Much of the album's success comes from a tension between experimentation and allegiance to form, dueling reflexes highlighted through its two producers. Early on, the band, which has always produced its own albums, went in the studio with the Grammy-winning Joe Chiccarelli, whose list of collaborators include the White Stripes, Tori Amos, Elton John and U2. But halfway through, Daniel and company split to record with Dave Fridmann, known for his work with Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips, Sparklehorse and others.
The latter ended up mixing the entire album, and you can hear the Fridmann flag flying all over "They Want My Soul." It's in the frantic high-hat, the odd bursts of strings, the ghostly wails and the electrifying guitar lines on "Knock Knock Knock." "Inside Out" floats in like a dream and hints at Sparklehorse's "Rainmaker" before going all in on a midtempo, blue-eyed soul song. It features what sounds like a harp solo.
There's nothing cheap or flimsy about "Soul." Each song seems constructed from the finest notes, honed to their perfect shapes. Each round of measures in "Rainy Taxi" shines, rotating loops of echoed guitars, an R&B-suggestive bass line, a bouncy-ball glockenspiel and an infectious backbeat. Even the silence packs a punch, the proof being brief moments of stop-start quiet in "Let Me Be Mine."
Through it all is Daniel, protesting and proclaiming. He's baffled on "I Just Don't Understand," a song made famous by Ann-Margret 50-plus years ago. He's a man obsessed on "Rainy Taxi," and so desperate that he'll forsake his very voice: "If you leave, I'll never sing another tune," he sings. For music's sake, here's hoping his lover stays.(LA Times)
I'm in my finest hour... Can I be more than just a fool?
#1
The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream
237 Points, 14 Votes
Ranked Highest By: pettifogger, Karma Police, Fly, wazoo11, kupcho1, Abraham, The Dreaded Marco, Steve Tasker, Kenny Powers
Previous Albums on our Countdown: Slave Ambient (12th in 2011)
Album Review: Lost in the Dream continues down the Slave Ambient route of bridging polar-opposite strains of 1980s rock—namely, the tremulous haze of late-era Spacemen 3 and the sort of flyover-state Americana anthems used to sell pick-up trucks. But even in the album’s opening seconds, the new album asserts itself as a more urgent affair—overtop the blurry, break-of-dawn guitar ripples of “Under the Pressure”, a stuttering drum machine sounds off like an alarm clock coaxing you out of bed and prodding you out the door. And if the steady-pulsed melody that emerges initially positions “Under the Pressure” as the most placid song about anxiety ever, by the third chorus run—at which point it’s amassed a swirl of dueling guitar solos, starburst synths, and brown-note saxophone swells—you feel the full weight of this nine-minute track bearing down on your chest.
This tension is inescapable. Whether it’s the hair-raising, Autobahn-blazing charge of “An Ocean In Between the Waves” or the Positively South Street sway of “Eyes of the Wind”, Granduciel’s litany of worries are laid bare here, free of any textural interference or obfuscation. And the comparatively direct lyrics mirror the new approach to incorporating some of Granduciel’s more unfashionable influences. As ever, totemic figures like Dylan and Springsteen cast a long shadow over the War on Drugs’ terrain, but Granduciel is the sort of classic-rock purist who wore out the grooves of those artists’ most canonical albums so long ago that he now finds fresher inspiration in their less lauded 80s discography.
Period sounds abound: “Red Eyes” is what would happen if Springteen’s simmering “I’m on Fire” was actually set aflame; “Burning” finds its fuse in the buoyant keyboard riff to Rod Stewart’s 1981 new-wave novelty “Young Turks”; the melancholic mid-album meditation “Disappearing” sounds like the synth-powered rhythm track of Tears for Fears’ “Pale Shelter” on a codeine drip. And the preponderance of glistening piano chords on this record suggests Granduciel is not one to touch his dial whenever Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is” pops up on his local oldies station.
But if Lost in the Dream is unapologetic in its dad-rock reverence, it’s dad-rock for people who are too ####ed up and broken to even think of having kids. (As he sings on “The Ocean In Between the Waves”: “I’m in my finest hour/ Can I be more than just a fool?”) In sharp contrast to, say, recent efforts to liberate Dylan’s 80s output from its dated production, Granduciel’s songs are left to fidget and squirm within the claustrophobic sonic confines and synthetic sheen. In his hands, these echoes of the past ultimately emphasize the uncertainty of his future, those shiny surfaces representing the good life that seems forever out of reach.
And besides, on Lost in the Dream, the most crucial details are found in its structural mutations. The album is loaded with songs whose greatness is revealed slowly, where the simplest, most understated chord change can blow a track wide open and elevate it from simply pretty to absolutely devastating. Note the shift that occurs two minutes and 50 seconds into “Suffering”, where the pent-up despondency heard in Granduciel’s state-of-his-union address (“Why we here when we’re both gonna fake it?”) is unleashed in a crying jag of drizzling piano chords and gently weeping White Album-like guitar slides. Or in the midst of the album’s epic break-up-ballad finale, “In Reverse”, you realize that all of the angst and ache that went into the song, and the album’s creation as a whole, is just building to the moment of release provided by the big, shoulder rub of an acoustic-guitar riff that appears out of nowhere at the 5:13 mark. They’re the sort of perfect little touches that effectively translate Granduciel’s private hurt into communal catharsis—and reify Lost in the Dream as an immaculately assembled portrait of a man falling apart.
Northern Voice
Footballguy
rockaction
Footballguy
Wow. Fun day. Thanks to the curator and review finder. Nice work, NV, as always. Kind of cool to participate this year. I look forward to another year and sort of learning from the threads.
Peace.
Peace.
E-Z Glider
Footballguy
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Full results:
1 - The War on Drugs - Lost in the dream - 14 - 237
2 - Spoon - They want my soul - 14 - 218
3 - Orwells - Disgraceland - 7 - 152
4 - Strand of Oaks - Heal - 5 - 95
5 - cloud nothings - Here and Nowhere Else - 8 - 94
6 - Future Islands - Singles - 7 - 90
7 - Alt - J - This is all yours - 4 - 71
8 - The hold steady - Teeth dreams - 4 - 70
9 - Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2 - 6 - 68
10 - sturgill simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music - 6 - 67
11 - Perfume Genius - Too bright - 5 - 66
12 - D'angelo - Black Messiah - 4 - 60
13 - Royal Blood - Royal Blood - 2 - 57
14 - Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal - 3 - 56
15 - Benjamin Booker - Benjamin Booker - 2 - 55
16 - Hookworms - The Hum - 3 - 53
17 - The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers - 4 - 50
18 - Alvvays - Alvvays - 3 - 47
19 - The Rural Alberta Advantage - Mended with Gold - 2 - 45
20 - Beck - Morning Phase - 3 - 43
21 - Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lose - 4 - 43
22 - St. vincent - St. Vincent - 4 - 43
23 - Hiss Golden Messenger - Lateness of dancers - 3 - 41
24 - Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun - 3 - 41
25 - Nude Beach - 77 - 3 - 40
26 - Elbow - The take off and landing of everything - 4 - 39
27 - Ty Segall - Manipulator - 3 - 38
28 - Sharon Von Etten - Are We There - 2 - 37
29 - Hospitality - Trouble - 3 - 36
30 - The Gaslight Anthem - Get Hurt - 2 - 35
31 - Taylor Swift - 1989 - 2 - 33
32 - Merchandise - After The End - 2 - 33
33 - Protomartyr - Under Control of Official Right - 3 - 33
34 - Wild Beasts - Present Tense - 2 - 31
35 - Cole Swindell - Cole Swindell - 1 - 30
36 - The Pretty Wreckless - Going to Hell - 1 - 30
37 - Iceage - Plowing Into the Fields of Love - 1 - 30
38 - Mr. Little Jeans - Pocketknife - 1 - 30
39 - Dierks Bentley - Riser - 1 - 30
40 - Death From Above 1979 - The Physical World - 2 - 30
41 - Real Estate - Atlas - 2 - 27
42 - Delta Spirit - Into the Wide - 1 - 27
43 - Tom Vek - Luck - 2 - 27
44 - tune-yards - nikki nack - 2 - 27
45 - Ex Hex - Rips - 2 - 27
46 - Shellac - Dude Incredible - 2 - 25
47 - Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways - 1 - 25
48 - Total Control - Typical System - 2 - 25
49 - Foxygen - …And Star Power - 2 - 23
50 - The Men - Tomorrow's Hits - 2 - 23
51 - broken bells - After the Disco - 2 - 21
52 - Twin Peaks - - 2 - 21
53 - Broncho - Just Hip Enough - 1 - 20
54 - The Preatures - Plain Blue Eyes - 1 - 20
55 - J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hill Drive - 1 - 20
56 - Tyncho - Awake - 2 - 20
57 - Big KRIT - Cadilactica - 1 - 20
58 - Jamie T - Carry on the Grudge - 2 - 20
59 - S - Cool Choices - 1 - 20
60 - Miranda Lambert - Platinum - 1 - 20
61 - Ray Lamontagne - Supernova - 2 - 20
62 - Kenny Chesney - The Big Revival - 1 - 20
63 - TV on the Radio - Seeds - 2 - 19
64 - King Tuff - Black Moon Spell - 1 - 18
65 - Arkells - High Noon - 2 - 18
66 - Killing Joke - In Dub - 1 - 18
67 - Joe Henry - Invisible Hour - 1 - 18
68 - Hooray For the Riff Raff - Small Town Heroes - 2 - 18
69 - Against Me - Transgender Dysphoria Blues - 2 - 18
70 - Flying Lotus - You're Dead - 2 - 18
71 - fear of men - Loom - 1 - 17
72 - mac demarco - Salad Days - 2 - 17
73 - Priests - Bodies and Control and Money and Power - 1 - 17
74 - Matthew Ryan - Boxers - 1 - 17
75 - Interpol - El Pintor - 2 - 17
76 - Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso - 1 - 17
77 - Purling Hiss - Weirdon - 1 - 17
78 - Bahamas - Bahamas Is Afie - 2 - 16
79 - Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness - 1 - 16
80 - Ingrid Michaelson - Lights out - 2 - 16
81 - Christopher Owens - The New Testament - 1 - 16
82 - Lake Street Drive - Bad Self Portraits - 1 - 15
83 - Sun Kil Moon - Benji - 1 - 15
84 - Robert Plant - Lullaby And… The Ceaseless Roar - 1 - 15
85 - Ariana Grande - My Everything - 1 - 15
86 - Withered Hand - New Gods - 1 - 15
87 - The Coathangers - Suck My Shirt - 2 - 15
88 - roseanne cash - The River & the Thread - 1 - 14
89 - Together Pangea - Badillac - 2 - 14
90 - Goat - Commune - 1 - 14
91 - The Bronze Medal - Darlings - 1 - 14
92 - Ought - More Than Any Other Day - 2 - 14
93 - secret sisters - Put Your Needle Down - 1 - 13
94 - White Lung - Deep Fantasy - 1 - 13
95 - Lykke Li - I Never Learn - 2 - 13
96 - Owl John - Owl John - 1 - 13
97 - Bass Drum of Death - Rip This! - 1 - 13
98 - Perfect ##### - Say Yes to Love - 2 - 13
99 - nikki lane - All or Nothin’ - 1 - 12
100 - Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love - 1 - 12
101 - FKA Twigs - LP1 - 1 - 12
102 - Stephen Malkmus &The Jicks - Wag Out on Jagbags - 2 - 12
103 - Warpaint - Warpaint - 1 - 12
104 - Modern Baseball - You're Gonna Miss It All - 1 - 12
105 - Horsefeathers - - 1 - 12
106 - Kelis - Food - 1 - 11
107 - ####ed Up - Glass Boys - 1 - 11
108 - Blank Realm - Grassed Inn - 2 - 11
109 - PUP - PUP - 1 - 11
110 - A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Sea When Absent - 1 - 11
111 - Ryan Adams - 1984 - 1 - 10
112 - lucinda williams - Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone - 1 - 10
113 - Caribou - Our Love - 1 - 10
114 - first aid kit - Stay Gold - 1 - 10
115 - Courtney Barnett - A sea of split peas - 1 - 10
116 - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Days of Abandon - 1 - 10
117 - Drowners - Drowners - 1 - 10
118 - Mac Miller - Faces (mixtape) - 1 - 10
119 - Tokyo Police Club - Forcefield - 1 - 10
120 - Hozier - From Eden - 1 - 10
121 - LVL Up - Hoodwink'd - 1 - 10
122 - Amos Lee - Mountains of sorrow, rivers of song - 1 - 10
123 - Lorde - Pure heroin - 1 - 10
124 - The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Revelation - 1 - 10
125 - Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust - 1 - 10
126 - So Cow - The Long Con - 1 - 10
127 - Woods - With Light and With Love - 1 - 10
128 - Obituary - - 1 - 10
129 - Sanctuary - - 1 - 10
130 - Thee Oh Sees - Drop - 1 - 9
131 - MONEY - The Shadow of Heaven - 1 - 9
132 - Afghan Whigs - - 1 - 9
133 - sunny day in glasgow - Sea When Absent - 1 - 8
134 - Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit - 1 - 8
135 - United Nations - The Last Four Years - 1 - 8
136 - Phantogram - Voices - 2 - 8
137 - Bob Mould - Beauty & Ruin - 1 - 7
138 - Natural Child - Dancin With Wolves - 1 - 7
139 - Plague Vendor - Free to Eat - 1 - 7
140 - Rival Sons - Great Western Valkyrie - 2 - 7
141 - Fink - Hard Believer - 1 - 7
142 - Wussy - Attica - 1 - 6
143 - Slow Club - Complete Surrender - 1 - 6
144 - Radio Moscow - Magical Dirt - 1 - 6
145 - Cayetana - Nervous Like Me - 1 - 6
146 - EMA - The Future's Void - 1 - 6
147 - New Bums - Voices in a Rented Room - 1 - 6
148 - Gruff Rhys - American Interior - 1 - 5
149 - Woods of Desolation - As the Stars - 1 - 5
150 - The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Between Bodies EP - 1 - 5
151 - Jack White - Lazaretto - 1 - 5
152 - Posse - Soft Opening - 1 - 5
153 - Lana Del Ray - Ultraviolence - 1 - 5
154 - drive by truckers - English Oceans - 1 - 4
155 - Eagulls - Eagulls - 1 - 4
156 - Timbre Timbre - Hot Dreams - 1 - 4
157 - Phil Ajjurupu - Sing Along Until You Feel Better - 1 - 4
158 - Todd Congelliere - Wrong Side - 1 - 4
159 - Dean Blunt - Black Metal - 1 - 3
160 - Adam Faucett - Blind Water Finds Blind Water - 1 - 3
161 - old 97s - Most Messed Up - 1 - 3
162 - Jenny Lewis - The Voyager - 1 - 3
163 - The Muffs - Whoop De Do - 1 - 3
164 - Joe Bonamassa - Different Shades of Blue - 1 - 2
165 - You Blew It - Keep Doing What You're Doing - 1 - 2
166 - Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again - 1 - 2
167 - The Twilight Sad - Nobody Wants to be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave - 1 - 2
168 - Opeth - Pale Communication - 1 - 2
169 - Ariel Pink - pom pom - 1 - 2
170 - La Dispute - Rooms of the House - 1 - 2
171 - Landlady - Upright Behavior - 1 - 2
172 - bruce robison and kelly willis - Our Year - 1 - 1
173 - The Fat White Family - Champagne Holocaust - 1 - 1
174 - Young Fathers - Dead - 1 - 1
175 - Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden - 1 - 1
176 - Stars - No One is Lost - 1 - 1
177 - Mogwai - Rave Tapes - 1 - 1
178 - Charli XCX - Sucker - 1 - 1
179 - Wake Owl - The Private World of Paradise - 1 - 1
2 - Spoon - They want my soul - 14 - 218
3 - Orwells - Disgraceland - 7 - 152
4 - Strand of Oaks - Heal - 5 - 95
5 - cloud nothings - Here and Nowhere Else - 8 - 94
6 - Future Islands - Singles - 7 - 90
7 - Alt - J - This is all yours - 4 - 71
8 - The hold steady - Teeth dreams - 4 - 70
9 - Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2 - 6 - 68
10 - sturgill simpson - Metamodern Sounds in Country Music - 6 - 67
11 - Perfume Genius - Too bright - 5 - 66
12 - D'angelo - Black Messiah - 4 - 60
13 - Royal Blood - Royal Blood - 2 - 57
14 - Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal - 3 - 56
15 - Benjamin Booker - Benjamin Booker - 2 - 55
16 - Hookworms - The Hum - 3 - 53
17 - The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers - 4 - 50
18 - Alvvays - Alvvays - 3 - 47
19 - The Rural Alberta Advantage - Mended with Gold - 2 - 45
20 - Beck - Morning Phase - 3 - 43
21 - Cymbals Eat Guitars - Lose - 4 - 43
22 - St. vincent - St. Vincent - 4 - 43
23 - Hiss Golden Messenger - Lateness of dancers - 3 - 41
24 - Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun - 3 - 41
25 - Nude Beach - 77 - 3 - 40
26 - Elbow - The take off and landing of everything - 4 - 39
27 - Ty Segall - Manipulator - 3 - 38
28 - Sharon Von Etten - Are We There - 2 - 37
29 - Hospitality - Trouble - 3 - 36
30 - The Gaslight Anthem - Get Hurt - 2 - 35
31 - Taylor Swift - 1989 - 2 - 33
32 - Merchandise - After The End - 2 - 33
33 - Protomartyr - Under Control of Official Right - 3 - 33
34 - Wild Beasts - Present Tense - 2 - 31
35 - Cole Swindell - Cole Swindell - 1 - 30
36 - The Pretty Wreckless - Going to Hell - 1 - 30
37 - Iceage - Plowing Into the Fields of Love - 1 - 30
38 - Mr. Little Jeans - Pocketknife - 1 - 30
39 - Dierks Bentley - Riser - 1 - 30
40 - Death From Above 1979 - The Physical World - 2 - 30
41 - Real Estate - Atlas - 2 - 27
42 - Delta Spirit - Into the Wide - 1 - 27
43 - Tom Vek - Luck - 2 - 27
44 - tune-yards - nikki nack - 2 - 27
45 - Ex Hex - Rips - 2 - 27
46 - Shellac - Dude Incredible - 2 - 25
47 - Foo Fighters - Sonic Highways - 1 - 25
48 - Total Control - Typical System - 2 - 25
49 - Foxygen - …And Star Power - 2 - 23
50 - The Men - Tomorrow's Hits - 2 - 23
51 - broken bells - After the Disco - 2 - 21
52 - Twin Peaks - - 2 - 21
53 - Broncho - Just Hip Enough - 1 - 20
54 - The Preatures - Plain Blue Eyes - 1 - 20
55 - J. Cole - 2014 Forest Hill Drive - 1 - 20
56 - Tyncho - Awake - 2 - 20
57 - Big KRIT - Cadilactica - 1 - 20
58 - Jamie T - Carry on the Grudge - 2 - 20
59 - S - Cool Choices - 1 - 20
60 - Miranda Lambert - Platinum - 1 - 20
61 - Ray Lamontagne - Supernova - 2 - 20
62 - Kenny Chesney - The Big Revival - 1 - 20
63 - TV on the Radio - Seeds - 2 - 19
64 - King Tuff - Black Moon Spell - 1 - 18
65 - Arkells - High Noon - 2 - 18
66 - Killing Joke - In Dub - 1 - 18
67 - Joe Henry - Invisible Hour - 1 - 18
68 - Hooray For the Riff Raff - Small Town Heroes - 2 - 18
69 - Against Me - Transgender Dysphoria Blues - 2 - 18
70 - Flying Lotus - You're Dead - 2 - 18
71 - fear of men - Loom - 1 - 17
72 - mac demarco - Salad Days - 2 - 17
73 - Priests - Bodies and Control and Money and Power - 1 - 17
74 - Matthew Ryan - Boxers - 1 - 17
75 - Interpol - El Pintor - 2 - 17
76 - Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso - 1 - 17
77 - Purling Hiss - Weirdon - 1 - 17
78 - Bahamas - Bahamas Is Afie - 2 - 16
79 - Angel Olsen - Burn Your Fire for No Witness - 1 - 16
80 - Ingrid Michaelson - Lights out - 2 - 16
81 - Christopher Owens - The New Testament - 1 - 16
82 - Lake Street Drive - Bad Self Portraits - 1 - 15
83 - Sun Kil Moon - Benji - 1 - 15
84 - Robert Plant - Lullaby And… The Ceaseless Roar - 1 - 15
85 - Ariana Grande - My Everything - 1 - 15
86 - Withered Hand - New Gods - 1 - 15
87 - The Coathangers - Suck My Shirt - 2 - 15
88 - roseanne cash - The River & the Thread - 1 - 14
89 - Together Pangea - Badillac - 2 - 14
90 - Goat - Commune - 1 - 14
91 - The Bronze Medal - Darlings - 1 - 14
92 - Ought - More Than Any Other Day - 2 - 14
93 - secret sisters - Put Your Needle Down - 1 - 13
94 - White Lung - Deep Fantasy - 1 - 13
95 - Lykke Li - I Never Learn - 2 - 13
96 - Owl John - Owl John - 1 - 13
97 - Bass Drum of Death - Rip This! - 1 - 13
98 - Perfect ##### - Say Yes to Love - 2 - 13
99 - nikki lane - All or Nothin’ - 1 - 12
100 - Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love - 1 - 12
101 - FKA Twigs - LP1 - 1 - 12
102 - Stephen Malkmus &The Jicks - Wag Out on Jagbags - 2 - 12
103 - Warpaint - Warpaint - 1 - 12
104 - Modern Baseball - You're Gonna Miss It All - 1 - 12
105 - Horsefeathers - - 1 - 12
106 - Kelis - Food - 1 - 11
107 - ####ed Up - Glass Boys - 1 - 11
108 - Blank Realm - Grassed Inn - 2 - 11
109 - PUP - PUP - 1 - 11
110 - A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Sea When Absent - 1 - 11
111 - Ryan Adams - 1984 - 1 - 10
112 - lucinda williams - Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone - 1 - 10
113 - Caribou - Our Love - 1 - 10
114 - first aid kit - Stay Gold - 1 - 10
115 - Courtney Barnett - A sea of split peas - 1 - 10
116 - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Days of Abandon - 1 - 10
117 - Drowners - Drowners - 1 - 10
118 - Mac Miller - Faces (mixtape) - 1 - 10
119 - Tokyo Police Club - Forcefield - 1 - 10
120 - Hozier - From Eden - 1 - 10
121 - LVL Up - Hoodwink'd - 1 - 10
122 - Amos Lee - Mountains of sorrow, rivers of song - 1 - 10
123 - Lorde - Pure heroin - 1 - 10
124 - The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Revelation - 1 - 10
125 - Chad VanGaalen - Shrink Dust - 1 - 10
126 - So Cow - The Long Con - 1 - 10
127 - Woods - With Light and With Love - 1 - 10
128 - Obituary - - 1 - 10
129 - Sanctuary - - 1 - 10
130 - Thee Oh Sees - Drop - 1 - 9
131 - MONEY - The Shadow of Heaven - 1 - 9
132 - Afghan Whigs - - 1 - 9
133 - sunny day in glasgow - Sea When Absent - 1 - 8
134 - Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit - 1 - 8
135 - United Nations - The Last Four Years - 1 - 8
136 - Phantogram - Voices - 2 - 8
137 - Bob Mould - Beauty & Ruin - 1 - 7
138 - Natural Child - Dancin With Wolves - 1 - 7
139 - Plague Vendor - Free to Eat - 1 - 7
140 - Rival Sons - Great Western Valkyrie - 2 - 7
141 - Fink - Hard Believer - 1 - 7
142 - Wussy - Attica - 1 - 6
143 - Slow Club - Complete Surrender - 1 - 6
144 - Radio Moscow - Magical Dirt - 1 - 6
145 - Cayetana - Nervous Like Me - 1 - 6
146 - EMA - The Future's Void - 1 - 6
147 - New Bums - Voices in a Rented Room - 1 - 6
148 - Gruff Rhys - American Interior - 1 - 5
149 - Woods of Desolation - As the Stars - 1 - 5
150 - The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Between Bodies EP - 1 - 5
151 - Jack White - Lazaretto - 1 - 5
152 - Posse - Soft Opening - 1 - 5
153 - Lana Del Ray - Ultraviolence - 1 - 5
154 - drive by truckers - English Oceans - 1 - 4
155 - Eagulls - Eagulls - 1 - 4
156 - Timbre Timbre - Hot Dreams - 1 - 4
157 - Phil Ajjurupu - Sing Along Until You Feel Better - 1 - 4
158 - Todd Congelliere - Wrong Side - 1 - 4
159 - Dean Blunt - Black Metal - 1 - 3
160 - Adam Faucett - Blind Water Finds Blind Water - 1 - 3
161 - old 97s - Most Messed Up - 1 - 3
162 - Jenny Lewis - The Voyager - 1 - 3
163 - The Muffs - Whoop De Do - 1 - 3
164 - Joe Bonamassa - Different Shades of Blue - 1 - 2
165 - You Blew It - Keep Doing What You're Doing - 1 - 2
166 - Joyce Manor - Never Hungover Again - 1 - 2
167 - The Twilight Sad - Nobody Wants to be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave - 1 - 2
168 - Opeth - Pale Communication - 1 - 2
169 - Ariel Pink - pom pom - 1 - 2
170 - La Dispute - Rooms of the House - 1 - 2
171 - Landlady - Upright Behavior - 1 - 2
172 - bruce robison and kelly willis - Our Year - 1 - 1
173 - The Fat White Family - Champagne Holocaust - 1 - 1
174 - Young Fathers - Dead - 1 - 1
175 - Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden - 1 - 1
176 - Stars - No One is Lost - 1 - 1
177 - Mogwai - Rave Tapes - 1 - 1
178 - Charli XCX - Sucker - 1 - 1
179 - Wake Owl - The Private World of Paradise - 1 - 1
Steve Tasker
Footballguy
Great stuff as always NV.
Back-to-back years my #1 vote was the #1 overall.
This was my list in its entirety:
Back-to-back years my #1 vote was the #1 overall.
This was my list in its entirety:
1. The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream - 30 points
2. The Men - Tomorrow's Hits - 20 points
3. Hospitality - Trouble - 20 points
4. Future Islands - Singles - 17 points
5. Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso - 17 points
6. Ariana Grande - My Everything - 15 points
7. Tycho - Awake - 12 points
8. Real Estate - Atlas - 12 points
9. Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else - 11 points
10. D'Angelo - Black Messiah - 10 points
11. Arkells - High Noon - 8 points
12. Spoon - They Want My Soul - 7 points
13. TV on the Radio - Seeds - 5 points
14. St. Vincent - St. Vincent - 5 points
15. Run the Jewels - RTJ2 - 3 points
16. The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers - 2 points
17. Flying Lotus - You're Dead - 2 points
18. Phantogram - Voices - 2 points
19. Charli XCX - Sucker - 1 point
20. Stars - No One Is Lost - 1 point
2. The Men - Tomorrow's Hits - 20 points
3. Hospitality - Trouble - 20 points
4. Future Islands - Singles - 17 points
5. Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso - 17 points
6. Ariana Grande - My Everything - 15 points
7. Tycho - Awake - 12 points
8. Real Estate - Atlas - 12 points
9. Cloud Nothings - Here and Nowhere Else - 11 points
10. D'Angelo - Black Messiah - 10 points
11. Arkells - High Noon - 8 points
12. Spoon - They Want My Soul - 7 points
13. TV on the Radio - Seeds - 5 points
14. St. Vincent - St. Vincent - 5 points
15. Run the Jewels - RTJ2 - 3 points
16. The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers - 2 points
17. Flying Lotus - You're Dead - 2 points
18. Phantogram - Voices - 2 points
19. Charli XCX - Sucker - 1 point
20. Stars - No One Is Lost - 1 point
Steve Tasker
Footballguy
Whoever voted for Warpaint, that was a 2013 album. Big fan 
Northern Voice
Footballguy
I'd still like to do something song related, be it song draft, mixtape draft, just post mixtapes, make a communal mixtape, I'm open to suggestions, but would love to hear some others favourites that I may have missed.
Nick Vermeil
Footballguy
Nice work NV. Really glad that Benjamin Booker made the list.
Check him out if you haven't!
Check him out if you haven't!
Eephus
Footballguy
And now for another countdown. The top ten flowery, self-indulgent music critic phrases in this year's countdown:
10. motor oil-soaked backwash-pop.
9. Pinocchio-style transformations
8. slipping easily down your earholes as if aural ambrosia
7. dad-rock for people who are too ####ed up and broken to even think of having kids
6. dredge the slacker-as-profound-poet motif
5. Renaissance paintings appearing in television static
4. jitterbug his way in and out of traffic like some kind of mad genius
3. deluge of frothy, bubble-bath timbres
2. as transgressive as a block of mild cheddar
1. embrace a lusty life on the lash with the devotion of self-immolating monks
10. motor oil-soaked backwash-pop.
9. Pinocchio-style transformations
8. slipping easily down your earholes as if aural ambrosia
7. dad-rock for people who are too ####ed up and broken to even think of having kids
6. dredge the slacker-as-profound-poet motif
5. Renaissance paintings appearing in television static
4. jitterbug his way in and out of traffic like some kind of mad genius
3. deluge of frothy, bubble-bath timbres
2. as transgressive as a block of mild cheddar
1. embrace a lusty life on the lash with the devotion of self-immolating monks
Pitchfork
Footballguy
Brony
Footballguy
Great work NV - really appreciate you doing this each year.
Not surpised that War on Drugs won - I liked it OK, but it never wow'd me. Didn't help that someone doosh'd it up by proclaiming its best album of last 20 years.
Here's my list. I only had 3 albums that I really, really liked this year and they are my top 3.
Not surpised that War on Drugs won - I liked it OK, but it never wow'd me. Didn't help that someone doosh'd it up by proclaiming its best album of last 20 years.
Here's my list. I only had 3 albums that I really, really liked this year and they are my top 3.
Mr. Little Jeans - Pocketknife 30
Beck - Morning Phase 25
Orwells - Disgraceland 25
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Mended with Gold 20
The Preatures - Plain Blue Eyes 20
Future Islands – Singles 20
Broncho - Just Hip Enough 20
War On drugs – Lost in the dream 10
Ray LaMontage - Supernova 10
Caribou - Our Love 10
Perfume Genius - Too Bright 10
Beck - Morning Phase 25
Orwells - Disgraceland 25
The Rural Alberta Advantage - Mended with Gold 20
The Preatures - Plain Blue Eyes 20
Future Islands – Singles 20
Broncho - Just Hip Enough 20
War On drugs – Lost in the dream 10
Ray LaMontage - Supernova 10
Caribou - Our Love 10
Perfume Genius - Too Bright 10
E-Z Glider
Footballguy
Surprised that I gave the only nods to Jack White and Sun Kil Moon. I didnt love the whole Jack White album, but there were a couple songs on there that I really did like. I also liked the Sun Kil Moon album a lot better before you guys made me actually listen to the lyrics. 
Eephus
Footballguy
The poor showings of White, the Black Keys and the Afghan Whigs were surprising to me. None were their strongest efforts but I thought they'd get some votes based on name appeal.Surprised that I gave the only nods to Jack White and Sun Kil Moon. I didnt love the whole Jack White album, but there were a couple songs on there that I really did like. I also liked the Sun Kil Moon album a lot better before you guys made me actually listen to the lyrics.
Caveat: I didn't vote for any of them myself but I remember being the only person who voted for Bowie's album last year.
El Floppo
Footballguy
there were a handful of albums by return good/great artists that I liked, but couldn't find myself bringing in to this vote: afghan whigs, bob mould, tv on the radio, interpol, jack white. spoon was the outlier for me in that regard.The poor showings of White, the Black Keys and the Afghan Whigs were surprising to me. None were their strongest efforts but I thought they'd get some votes based on name appeal.Surprised that I gave the only nods to Jack White and Sun Kil Moon. I didnt love the whole Jack White album, but there were a couple songs on there that I really did like. I also liked the Sun Kil Moon album a lot better before you guys made me actually listen to the lyrics.
Caveat: I didn't vote for any of them myself but I remember being the only person who voted for Bowie's album last year.
what's cool, despite the overlap of picks with a lot of other voters and more access to "similar artists" with spotify, I'm still seeing a bunch of albums on the top 50 that I haven't heard of. really looking forward to going through it and giving everything a good listen.
Brony
Footballguy
I had a similar opinion. I liked Jack White, SKM, Interpol, Bob Mould and I'd add Parquet Courts, J Mascis, Pains of Being Pure and Smashing Pumpkins. All were good albums, but didn't give me anything new. Also look forward to checking out some new music which is half the fun of this poll.
Northern Voice
Footballguy
Spoon are the ####### best. By this time you would think they would be vulnerable to some of the same backlash or fatigue (or mediocrity) that so many of these other bands that have been around for 15+ years have suffered from, but they just make great albums again and again and again. I may have looked forward to They Want My Soul a bit less than some past albums of their, for reasons above and because Transference may be my least favourite of theirs, but it won me back in right away. I think I listened to "New York Kiss" 30 times or more one weekend, and I'm not even sure it's my favourite song on there.there were a handful of albums by return good/great artists that I liked, but couldn't find myself bringing in to this vote: afghan whigs, bob mould, tv on the radio, interpol, jack white. spoon was the outlier for me in that regard.The poor showings of White, the Black Keys and the Afghan Whigs were surprising to me. None were their strongest efforts but I thought they'd get some votes based on name appeal.Surprised that I gave the only nods to Jack White and Sun Kil Moon. I didnt love the whole Jack White album, but there were a couple songs on there that I really did like. I also liked the Sun Kil Moon album a lot better before you guys made me actually listen to the lyrics.
Caveat: I didn't vote for any of them myself but I remember being the only person who voted for Bowie's album last year.
El Floppo
Footballguy
did you listen to Landlady? I got a genuine Spoon vibe from them... albeit, poor-man's Spoon.Spoon are the ####### best. By this time you would think they would be vulnerable to some of the same backlash or fatigue (or mediocrity) that so many of these other bands that have been around for 15+ years have suffered from, but they just make great albums again and again and again. I may have looked forward to They Want My Soul a bit less than some past albums of their, for reasons above and because Transference may be my least favourite of theirs, but it won me back in right away. I think I listened to "New York Kiss" 30 times or more one weekend, and I'm not even sure it's my favourite song on there.there were a handful of albums by return good/great artists that I liked, but couldn't find myself bringing in to this vote: afghan whigs, bob mould, tv on the radio, interpol, jack white. spoon was the outlier for me in that regard.The poor showings of White, the Black Keys and the Afghan Whigs were surprising to me. None were their strongest efforts but I thought they'd get some votes based on name appeal.Surprised that I gave the only nods to Jack White and Sun Kil Moon. I didnt love the whole Jack White album, but there were a couple songs on there that I really did like. I also liked the Sun Kil Moon album a lot better before you guys made me actually listen to the lyrics.
Caveat: I didn't vote for any of them myself but I remember being the only person who voted for Bowie's album last year.
kupcho1
Footballguy
The Dreaded Marco
Footballguy
Nice job as usual NV. Thanks again.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
As usual, great job on the countdown, and thanks again for doing it!
I know I didn't keep up with the 2014 album thread, but thought that I listened to a ton of stuff the last 1/3 of the year or so. Still haven't heard a good portion of the albums listed in the top 30. Now I have to go listen and try to keep up on this year's music.
I know I didn't keep up with the 2014 album thread, but thought that I listened to a ton of stuff the last 1/3 of the year or so. Still haven't heard a good portion of the albums listed in the top 30. Now I have to go listen and try to keep up on this year's music.
Brony
Footballguy
I was listening to U2's Songs of Innocence yesterday and didn't remember seeing it on anyone's list. Not shocked given their status in the indie rock world, but the new album is not as bad as the social media outcry would suggest. It would be in my top 20 now listening to it again with fresh ears.
El Floppo
Footballguy
was that the free Itunes thing?
I listened to it a few times and thought it was pretty bleh.
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