I guess if I don't do this now, it probably won't get done before the end of the year.

From a pool of 92 albums and counting (plan to get up to 100 and stop):

50. Emeralds – Does It Look Like I'm Here?
49. Curren$y – Pilot Talk
48. Thee Oh Sees – Warm Slime
47. Alcest – Écailles De Lune
46. Woods – At Echo Lake
45. Forest Swords – Dagger Paths
44. Oneohtrix Point Never – Returnal
43. Kylesa – Spiral Shadow
42. Curren$y – Pilot Talk II
41. The-Dream – Love King
40. Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma
39. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
38. Shearwater – The Golden Archipelago
37. Free Energy – Stuck on Nothing
36. Autechre – Move of Ten
35. Neil Young – Le Noise
34. Yellow Swans – Going Places
33. Abe Vigoda – Crush
32. The Besnard Lakes – Are the Roaring Night
31. Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté – Ali and Toumani

Gonna write little things about the Top 30 and post them as I get them done.

good to see autechre making a list. i had forgotten about them/him

I'm probably one of the few people that likes Move of Ten more than Oversteps. I never really get tired of Autechre.

i am only familiar with confield and draft 7.30

30. The Fall – Your Future Our Clutter
They've still got it. More than that, I think this is one of their best albums of the past 20 years. Sounds amazingly fresh and invigorated.

29. No Age – Everything in Between
I'll admit - this band is pretty overrated in some circles. But they put together a solid record here, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't really enjoy it. Solid shoegazey punk/punky shoegaze.

28. Mark McGuire – Living with Yourself
The guitarist from Emeralds, this is guitar + effects + home-recorded samples record. The best parts of Emeralds are this guy's guitar playing so guess what? His record is really good. Intimate, contemplative, sentimental, and emotional, and it even rocks out a little at the end.

27. Avey Tare – Down There
Like a comedown of sorts from Merriweather Post Pavilion, but a pleasant, comfortable, and endearing one.

26. Miracle Condition – s/t
This is Mark Shippy and Pat Samson formerly of U.S. Maple making music that sounds nothing at all like U.S. Maple. This is fairly pretty post-rock reminiscent of a bunch of late-'90s/early-'00s bands ranging from Explosions in the Sky to Don Caballero. So it's nothing too original, but it's a solid showcase for some really talented and versatile musicians cutting loose and stretching out.

25. Gorillaz – Plastic Beach
Continually surprised by how much I've liked this, but it's maybe my favorite pure pop release of the year.

24. Build an Ark – Love Part 1
Beautiful spiritual jazz record.

23. Tame Impala – InnerSpeaker
Not too exciting on paper but highly addictive in practice.

22. Spoon – Transference
Their best album since Kill the Moonlight if not Girls Can Tell.

21. Laetitia Sadier – The Trip
The main vocalist from Stereolab on her first true solo album. I think it's a good bit better than the last two Stereolab albums if not everything they've put out in the past decade. The music isn't drastically different from that band, and yet there's some refreshing and open about it. An instantly likable and endearing record.

If you like those, you should definitely check out the s/t ("LP5"), Untilted, and EP 7.

I should probably check this out.

20. Twin Shadow – Forget
I truly did not expect to like this so I avoided it for quite a while. Despite being pretty burned out on this whole synth-pop revival stuff, I've been pretty taken with this record. It has what really counts: good, memorable songs.

19. Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises
A beautiful, intimate record. I'm a sucker for this kind of spare, melancholy singer-songwriter stuff if it really goes deep enough into the mood and atmosphere. And of course the songs are really good.

18. Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest
Even though I think they peaked with Cryptograms, Deerhunter still knows how to put together a solid record. They've learned a few tricks and try a few new things here, but mostly it's just subtle tweaking of the intelligent, tasteful art rock they'd already pretty much perfected.

17. Weekend – Sports
Like No Age but with better songs. Or Wild Nothing with balls. Better melodies and more noise. Good stuff.

16. The Tallest Man on Earth – The Wild Hunt
My introduction to this guy. He goes onto my very short list of current singer-songwriters that I really care about. Yeah, he sounds a little too much like Dylan, but he's got his own voice at the same time, both vocally and lyrically. I really need to hear his first album.

15. The Fresh & Onlys – Play It Strange
My introduction to this band as well, but it seems like this was a change in direction for them from a rawer, more psychedelic garage rock sound. (Their previous EP from this year which I just heard a few weeks ago is definitely more in that direction.) This is great, energetic, jangly folk-rock that I took to immediately. Really catchy songs and a great sound.

14. Big Boi – Sir Lucious Left Foot... The Son of Chico Dusty
Best rap album of the year by the best rapper currently out there.

13. Daughters – s/t
Jesus Lizard-style noise rock with some weird and interesting twists. Too bad this band is probably done, and some of them went on to form the vastly inferior Fang Island.

12. Male Bonding – Nothing Hurts
Nothing you haven't heard before if you've been paying attention to some of the newer American lo-fi bands of the past few years, but this British band does it right. Great energy and interplay, really fun and exciting songs.

11. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
The best album this guy has ever put out. It's a blatant homage to his influences, but you could do a lot worse than mimicking Berlin-era Bowie & Eno. In fact, you couldn't really get much better. Surprised at how much I've enjoyed this, even the inane pop singles.

Good to see this one on your list Drinky. I'm having issues cos it keeps creeping its way up my list.




While this has a few good tracks and was on the cusp of making it, it came up short for me. (I only have 20) That being said, his first ep and Shallow Grave are both essential. The Tallest Man on Earth has definitely spent a lot of time absorbing Harry Smith's Anthology of Folk Music AND The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.




Yep. Good stuff. Waterfall is a great track.

Solid list Drinky.

Hmm. I need to hear the tallest man on earth.

Quick intermission for my Top 10 singles, EPs, & 7"s (didn't really hear many of these this year):


01. Double Dagger – Masks
02. Forest Swords – Rattling Cage
03. The Fresh & Onlys – August in My Mind
04. The Tallest Man on Earth – Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird
05. Girls – Broken Dreams Club
06. Sufjan Stevens – All Delighted People
07. Glass Vaults – Glass
08. James Blake – Klavierwerke
09. Factory Floor – Lying/A Wooden Box
10. Have a Nice Life – Time of Land

And finally...

10. Wavves – King of the Beach
Who saw this coming? Total screw up makes good. Better than that, he makes one of the best records of the year, full of punchy, accessible, and immediately gratifying punk songs.

09. Rangda – False Flag
I'm a sucker for this kind of noisy, knotty, instrumental exploration. A very engaging record of varied textures and dynamics. When a supergroup actually turns out to be something worthwhile.

08. Lower Dens – Twin-Hand Movement
A late year discovery that I've been instantly addicted to. Think Beach House + Krautrock and you're pretty close. Deep grooves and deeper vibes. Very cool record.

07. The Walkmen – Lisbon
If fans of The National weren't in love with boredom and mediocrity, they'd listen to The Walkmen instead. It's a similar kind of tasteful contemporary rock but smarter and with a little edge to it. Not a lot, but enough. Far better vocals and lyrics. Way, way better guitar. And the rhythm section - while The National's is pretty good, too - are among the best out there. Oh, and this album is maybe their second or third best. It's kind of splitting hairs between this and You & Me - both of them are albums that I could live in for days.

06. Sightings – City of Straw
My favorite noise band, and this is one of their best records. They don't really make bad records, though. Or anything less than very good.

05. Pantha du Prince – Black Noise
The best electronic record of the year. Wonderfully deep with great textures and subtle shifts. Oh, and not at all retro.

04. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti – Before Today
Awesome weirdo record of the year. Takes so many recent retro trends in indie music and breathes some real life into them. Maybe because he's the guy who started all that stuff.


03. Beach House – Teen Dream
A nearly perfect record. Every song on this is great. It's luring me in as I write this, and I wish I was listening to it right now.



02. Women – Public Strain
Someone got inside my head and made exactly the kind of album I wanted to hear, what I hope I'd be able to make if I had some hint of musical talent and my own band. You can hear This Heat, The Velvet Undergound, Swell Maps, Sonic Youth, Krautrock, Liars, and even Deerhoof in these songs. And they're damn catchy, too, once they've been given a few spins. And, just my luck, it seems like this band might have broken up already.


01. Joanna Newsom – Have One on Me
This is the album of Joanna Newsom's career. It's free of affectations and lavish experiments. The songs stretch out but are focused. The lyrics are weighted and meaningful. Her voice sounds smoother and richer than ever. It's a sturdy, meticulous yet natural and unforced record of uncommon depth. I'll be listening to this for a very long time, picking new favorite songs and discovering new nuances. It's an album to spend time with, and I plan to continue doing that.

in recent weeks I've picked up several of these.

- Beach House: like a couple tracks, but like their last album, dont care for it overall
- Ariel Pink: really like a few tracks on this...still listening more...like it more than I anticipated. going to go buy some oven mitts and peanut butter
- Fresh and Onlys: very good
- Deerhunter: just listened once
- Abe Vigoda: marginal

This is one I really wouldn't expect a lot of people to like.

Not because it's weird or difficult of anything, just because it seems another band doing that same retro-'80s New Romantic rock thing. If anything, I think fans of their previous stuff will still pick out elements of their old sound (which is what I did) and find stuff to like there, but I have a hard time seeing how anyone new to them would be drawn to this album.

I like it, obviously, but I'm not really going around recommending it to anyone.

great list, some things i'm curious about, and will check out or visit.

couldn't agree more about the joanna newsom record. the restraint, the craft, and the depth of it are something else. love it a lot. it's funny that you say it's the album of her career – i'm really curious about what she can do next.

i'm going to listen to it a couple more times. there are some things to like there, just maybe not enough for me.

Well, yeah, I don't want to rule out the possibility that she could somehow make an even better record.

My guess is that if she puts out a standard length LP of about eight songs at least close to the quality of Have One on Me, it would be a pretty big hit. Relatively speaking, anyway. I think she still has the potential to win a lot of people over if she makes just a little bit more effort to meet them in the middle.

Completely agree with your assessment here. I didn't like their first two albums very much but really enjoyed the last two. A rare band that seems to be getting better with age, for me at least.

I think I still prefer You & Me overall but Lisbon has the best first two tracks of any album I personally heard this year.

lol

(Yeah I love those first two tracks, too.)

Very cool. Always look forward to yr lists.

First--Huzzah to another Joanna no.1
Second--Very cool that you had Daggers as the number one EP of the year. It'd definitely be in my top 5.
Third--Nice on the Lower Dens record. Really liked it, but just didn't spend enough time with it.

Ha... I love these lists. Yours was the absolute best so far (meaning closest to my taste)... the Lower Dens has absolutely dominated the last couple weeks...

But then I go to your #1... ha ha ha... I just get nauseated when I hear/think of her. I have tried, I really have.

And... haven't heard Women so I guess I'll have to get it... jeez, another one I guess I need to hear.

Me too. There's a couple here that I'm going to have to investigate further. And I still need to hear Beach House I guess.

I found your comparison between The National and The Walkmen to be almost completely inaccurate, but never mind, I think we agree 100% on the strengths of the band and their sound. It's funny how much I used to only like "The Rat" (still a great track IMHO) but was fairly meh on the rest of their stuff, but their last three albums have really hit me right between the ears. Great fucking band.

Good write up, Drinkster.

We share love for quite a few of the same releases and artists once again dude. Great to see Glass Vaults in there! Also Forest Swords, James Blake, and the high placement for Beach House.

John Roberts wrote the best electronic album this year though. Did u ever check it out?

No, I remember you and a couple of other people mentioning it, but I never got around to hearing.

What's it like? Ambient or what?

Ol Chris Cillizza is a big Tallest Man on Earth fan. His tastes run toward mellow cum rag folk, so I never really bothered to check further.