I thought it was a good year for music. I had one album that stood out, head and shoulders above the rest and that was Sufjan Steven's Carrie and Lowell.
I don't often get visibly emotional at live shows but I found myself in tears half way through seeing him perform this album live. I had been listening to it often and I had read, via a Hubski post by ButterflyEffect an amazing interview with Sufjan about the album and what it meant to him.
Then, I actually met the guy the night of his show and was able to thank him for his work over the years. His music has played a significant role in my life. It was pretty cool.
How about you? What was your favorite album of the year?
Guys, I feel like I'm the only one remembering that Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly came out this year. Easily leaps and bounds ahead of every other rap album I heard this year and probably my pick for Album of the Year. Also seconding Carrie and Lowell.
Not saying I endorse this 100%, but that may give you an idea of why not everyone's jumping to call TPAB #1 this year. Personally--in addition to the concerns raised by that post--I just don't like the way it sounds. IMO it falls somewhere between Dre and Baby's First Jazz Record.
rant time, I'll try and keep this short, So 8bit brings up a lot of good points in his post but I have to write a rebuttal because it feel like Hubski is shitting on TPAB because of his post. Yes TPAB was food for the masses of white middle class college age children (see me) and they will probably give up an arm and a leg to buy Kendrick's shoes. But all I can see in that post is anger at white people, the problem isn't Kendrick it'd goddamn white people. We suck, I know, but blaming Kendrick for pandering to white people just because of the delivery of his message isn't the problem with this album. Kendrick made an album talking about his struggles, white people got on board and were stupid about it aka what happens with most of pop culture. You don't get mad at Jean Michelle Basquiait for making art that was prominently bought by rich white socialites, so don't get mad at Kendrick for having a shitty fanbase. The album itself is great just as Baquait's art is great, but don't dissregard a great composition just because white people jumped on the bandwagon.
Okay so here's the thing: 1. I disagree with "the album itself is great," and from some of his responses in that original thread it seems like 8bit does too. But that's unrelated to the social part. So 2. You're reading 8bit's original post like the problem is white people listening to Kendrick. It's not. The problem is that the album was manufactured for, in 8bit's words, "fake-ass white hipsters that want to be 'down' with the movement that they have no understanding of and no interest in fixing." If you want to talk on the level of lyrical content about why TPAB is legitimately about black struggle, go for it, but it might be a little hard when Kendrick's out there saying shit like "when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us?"
I am going to listen to this album in entirety this week. I've never done so. I started listening to it today, with my daughter in the car. That lasted all of 15 seconds.
Albums that came out this year: - Babymetal - Babymetal (one of the quirkiest metal albums I ever listened to) (BTW, it was released in Japan last year IIRC) - Grimes - Art Angels - Jamie XX - In Colour - Leftfield - Alternative Light Source - The Prodigy - The Day Is My Enemy - Soilwork - The Ride Majestic Favorite albums I listened to this year, regardless of release date: - Goldie - Timeless - U.D.O. - Mastercutor - Shpongle - Ineffable Mysteries From Shpongleland - Mr. Scruff - Friendly Bacteria - Juno Reactor - The Golden Sun Of The Great East - Vincenzo - Wherever I Lay My Head - TOKiMONSTA - Midnight Menu
SUFJAN. IT'S PROBABLY ALMOST DEFINITELY SUFJAN. Working on a top ten list for this year but it's harder than it's been in years past. Hell, I might do a full fledged year in review post between now and 12/31/2015 that will be long winded, rambling, and mostly unreadable. No but really. It's album that needs the context surrounding it. But then again I always think context of the musician, time period, location, and so on and so forth is extremely important for a lot of albums.
Yeah it's a great album. Okay, so that is two people for Subaru :) What's another album on your list BFX?
My list is actually just Carrie and Lowell ten times over with Jenny Death as an honorable mention. Or, if I'm being serious: Colleen Green - I Want to Grow Up. This was a big step forward for her, and while Deeper than Love is a bit of an outlier in her discography it's perfectly placed in the album. I ever made Were people I knew I didn't have to see every day The closest to true love I ever came Was with someone I kept many miles away Cos I'm wary of eliminating distance This could surely be the death of Any romance Cos I'm shitty and I'm lame and I'm dumb and I'm a bore And once you get to know me you won't love me anymore And that possibility worries me the most Not harm or abuse or becoming a ghost It's the closeness, the intimacy I'm afraid, it might kill me This is a more typical song of hers. I don't know, I relate to her songs a lot and she's in the same scene that all my friends and I are in so yeah. ahhhhhh now you've got me talking about music tngAnd the only best friends
Why Carrie and Lowell? Is the touching subject, instrumentation, and lyrics really worth album of the year over stunning composition like Jenny Death, To Pimp a Butterfly, or Currents?
I'm going to break these down one by one. Good? Absolutely. Album of the year or even close? Not all at all, it's not even close to the best albums Death Grips have put out or the best hip-hop/rap/noise albums of the year which takes me to... See here, I share some of the same sentiments as 8bit and cgod. Which isn't to say I completely dislike TPAB, but I will say that I liked Vince Staples. the Lupe Fiasco mixtape, and Earl Sweatshirt more. Once again an unpopular opinion, but I've never cared much about Tame Impala. They're kind of psychedelic, I'll give them that. But it has that vague psych, somewhat disco and funk influenced sound that everyone has been doing this year and while they may have done it better than a lot of other people...looking at you El Vy...it's still not a sound that grabs as much. To directly answer your question: Sufjan put together an incredibly fragile album that could have fallen apart at any moment, indulged itself too much in its arrangements, or could have gone so far off the rails lyrically to the point that the story of Sufjan lost it's power. But it did none of those things because the songs are so well written and raw...I have a lot of thoughts about Carrie & Lowell beyond this. In the course of an album I was completely drawn into a persons life, the first time I listened to Carrie & Lowell front to back there were some tears, there's a lot to be said for that kind of emotional response. Edit: If you take a look at my last.fm or Spotify you'll see that in general composition isn't nearly as important to me as the feeling, unless your name is Destroyer or something like that. Different strokes.Jenny Death
To Pimp a Butterfly
Currents
What did you think of LA Priest's Inji? Might be a more grabbing sound than Tame Impala.
I haven't listened to that! But I will and will report back with an opinion! Currently working on a Spotify playlist for 2015, would be happy to send a link to anyone who is interested (note: this is a playlist that caters to my tastes and does not present a wide ranging view of 2015).
I gotta say Teens of Style because I've been addicted to Car Seat Headrest all year, but Carrie and Lowell was amazing too. I thought it was little bland when I first listened to it, but seeing him play it live totally changed my opinion. Sufjan is absolutely amazing live.
Modest Mouse - Strangers To Ourselves. It's the first Modest Mouse album I've loved since The Moon and Antarctica (though I've liked them all along the way). My favorite tracks are Ansel and Wicked Campaign, though there aren't any I dislike. I have to give honorable mentions to Sleater-Kinney and Brandi Carlile. Metric has a new album, too, and while they're still one of my favorite bands, and while I do like the new album, it doesn't hit me hard. I've had conversations with friends that music interests stagnate beyond age 30. I'm an example of that.
Veruca Salt's Ghost Notes. Is it the best album this year? I don't care. It's the one I like. So yeah. NPR liked it. Veruca Salt - Laughing in the Sugar Bowl God I love rock music plain and simple. But thenewgreen I would say that at 1:20 you can definitely hear them channeling their B-52's influence. I've seen a lot of interviews where they talk about how much they love them. And a much better song by them from the alubm - The Museum of Broken Relationships.
2015 has been quite disappointing for me when it comes to albums. I doubt I could fill a top 10 with solid albums throughout. My top-three is probably Damon Albarn's Everyday Robots at 1, followed by Currents and Sufjan. Honorable mention to Thom Yorke's Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.
Interesting question! I just reflected on my year (music wise) and there was a loooot of variety and many different things of different genres. Here are my top 10 albums from 2015 according to my last.fm account: 1. Porter Robinson - Worlds [Electro / USA] 2. Purity - Ring Another Eternity [Synthpop / Canada] 3. K.I.Z. - Hurra die Welt geht unter [Hiphop / Germany] 4. Ratatat - Magnifique [Electro, experimental rock / USA] 5. Spor - Caligo [DNB / UK] 6. Lena - Crystal Sky [Synthpop / Germany] 7. alt-J - An Awesome Wave [indie rock / UK] 8. The Wombats - Glitterbug (Deluxe Edition) [indie rock / UK] 9. CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye [Synthpop / UK] 10. CHVRCHES - The Bones of What You Believe [Synthpop / UK] Interesting list, nothing is really old! Somehow I either didn't listen to much stuff in the first half of the year or I didn't like most of it :D The pattern of genres also continues like this, up to place 30 it's just a mix of indie rock, synthpop and electro with the occassional hiphop thrown in! Fun fact: the record for most listened song in 2015 have 2 Porter Robinson songs from the before mentioned album, each having 17 plays. I guess I like my diversity :) Everything under place 26 has less than 10 plays throughout the year. Gotta check out some of the stuff you guys posted later at home, but Sufjan is also in the top 30 :)
I don't really listen to music as it comes out, so the only albums from this year I've heard are The Color Before the Sun from Coheed and Cambria and St. Cecilia (Warning: Autoplay) by The Foo Fighters. For C&C, I've found The Color Before the Sun much easier to get into than older C&C albums. I've always wanted to get into their music, but never could until now, despite trying a couple times. Similar story with St. Cecilia: Couldn't really get into Sonic Highways or Wasting Light, but have rather enjoyed St. Cecilia thus far. Beyond that, I have picked up quite a few artists this year that didn't release anything this year: The Protomen, John Mayer's newer country-er stuff, the Fallout 4 soundtrack, along with listening to playlists inspired by New Vegas. Finally, I became picked up some old favorites this year for the first time in a while. Namingly various songs that I used to listen to from the Ramones, The Airborne Toxic Event, and Nine Inch Nails.
Author & Punisher - Melk En Honing. It's got all the stuff that was great about Women & Children, but isn't the same album all over again. Noisey, droney, made with machines he built himself. Music video with muppets. It's industrial and metal in a way completely different than Ministry, Die Krupps and the bands inspired by them are.
Of this year that would probably go to Lianne La Havas - Blood, or Michael Christmas - What A Weird Day. Both albums I enjoyed thoroughly, and I love both in their own ways haha. I actually have the CD for both of them. If I had to choose one though it would probably be Lianne though... Her voice is wonderful