Yet again, the keepers of wilful obscurity have pored over this year’s Ritalin-fuelled bleepings and selected their Albums of the Year. Call me old fashioned, but I think an annual top 100 is a bit over the top. Can you really collectively evaluate 100 albums in any meaningful way?
I listened to samples from the higher-ranked albums and the top-placed Dances/Curses by Hey Colossus is the only one I’d explore again. If you are feeling virtuous you may want to sample the eighth-placed offering, described as thus:
“On her fourth full length release, Nadine Shah engages with the gendered politics of interpersonal arrangements, keeping her gaze fixed on the time pressures of maturing womanhood”. Bonzer.
I like some of the writing in The Quietus (especially that by Chart Music’s Taylor Parkes, who is essentially me if I’d made less sensible and more interesting life choices), and it’s touching to know that there is still an audience for smugly defiant obscurism, but fuck me, their office parties must be unbearable.
https://thequietus.com/articles/29302-the-quietus-top-100-albums-of-2020-norman-records
I got to no 61 before coming across something I had actually listened to already and look, it’s by my favourite artist!
Big, big surprise to see no Bruce, Bob or Taylor in there …
It’s not often in life that I welcome the presence of Einstürzende Neubauten as a warm and familiar friend.
Ha ha, I bought one of theirs recently because of the Ferryesque melodic opener, a lovely song. The next was brown and sounded like a (broken) bell.
I have heard of 7, which may improve on last year for me. Not sure.
I own 1 (Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs). Would’ve been 2 but I never got round to Baxter Dury.
Not a bad return as I think half of them are made up.
I’ve heard of Kylie. She was in Neighbours.
I think they’ve gone soft. At least twenty can be described as mainstream.
I’ve tried but bugger if I can find twenty “mainstream” albums in there?
That’s Tiggs being Hip Man!
I’m just glad Nyx Nótt made number 99.
Upsammy’s Zoom, number 25 on their list, genuinely is one of the albums of the year. It’s airy, melodic, summery and deceptively simple dance music. It was a key part of the soundtrack to the first lockdown for me, and will probably be in my top ten list come year end.
Yes, it is rather good. Notable too that it’s only dropped one spot since the after-six-months list. Contrast with Lorenzo Senni’s very fine Stacco Matto – one place ahead of Upsammy at the half way stage, now all the way down to 64th place..
I thought I’d try one at random, so I picked number 42, Lamin Fofana – Blues. The write up says:
“Fofana’s exploratory sound design, evidenced in Blues and the full trilogy of records which it is a part of, situates a need for a thoughtful and grounded approach to the moving parts of contemporary electronic music and its wider relationship to the historical present – something only made more relevant as lockdown has brought nightlife to a standstill. In its stripped-back aloofness, one hears the rumble of a hardcore continuum embedded in a deftly crafted ambience, submerged under the tides of a white-washed mainstream.”
So far, so Pseud’s Corner. But if I thought that was pretentious wank, then the posted track, After Rain, was even more hilarious. Some birds chirping as a train goes past. Comedy gold.
As I was browsing I started listening to number 77, enjoying it, a bit like BJCole, I thought. As it got into more ‘free’ territory, I sped quicker thru the list to make one or the other, the music or the list, end sooner. Sort of how I find the Quietus, an idea which appeals and then appals.
Taylor Swift not #1 I am appal.
Good on them for listing Kylie’s.
Sun Ra hip again, I see. Heard of 10, own 1. Can you guess which one, readers?
I own 10-12 Sun Ra albums but I doubt I can guess yours Mike because I can’t even remember the titles of any of mine. I think one is entitled ’73 Trillion Journeys Around Saturn And Back In Time For A Pint’
Ha! 🙂
Actually I meant 1 out of the 100. Sufjan, of course….
They do like acts with a particular kind of name, don’t they? If I didn’t know some of them to be actual artists/bands, I’d think they had made them all up for the sake of satire. I only own four of the 100 (and I’ve only listened to one, I think…I’m behind on my listening this weird year).
I’ve heard of very few of them and own only one – Baxter Dury. And even that, reasonably good album that it is, may not make my twenty. I’m too old and tired to start investigating these acts with weird names.
I usually like to have a listen to the ones I haven’t heard off their list, but that will be a ruddy long listening session this year. I’ve heard precisely 3 of them, which I have downloaded. One of them, Destroyer, I listened to earlier actually. I was a little disappointed when I first heard it, but it’s grown on me each time I’ve played it.
Think what listening to those 97 albums is going to do to your Spotify recommendations…
https://youtu.be/G6o881n35GU
oooh, oooh, I actually own a track by Destroyer, “Crimson Tide”, and very good it is too.
Every year, the Quietus turns the tables and makes civilians of The Afterword – some achievement!
I have one of these albums, and I don’t rate it at all, but I was actually surprised by how many names I knew. As Tiggs says, it’s verging on the mainstream.
I do feel a need to investigate Thug Ambient on strength of name.
Well put, Sir.
I was trying to find a polite way of pointing out that everyone griping sounds like an old man shouting at TOTP in 1969…
Is you suggesting that my dad barking “Needs a bloody good haircut” at TOTP is the same as us, admittedly similarly ancient, men who profess to know something about popular culture shaking their heads at a music list 98.47% of the general population has never heard of?
Oh, you are
They’re all on drugs!
Really crap ones!
Dua Lipa, Charlie XCX and Roisin Murphy would give you a pretty good office party soundtrack.
Don’t forget Kylie!
I don’t know if I could take that much pleasure all in one go.
I could…
Hurr
…oh, we’re talking about music?
Drifted off to Shit and Shine (82) last night. Might give Dale Cornish (86) a try tonight. Thug Ambient, the title of his new one, intrigues.
Quietus: “You’re going to die, Bond.”
Bond: “Tell me, Quietus, does listening to willfully obscure music that no one gives a shite about really compensate for missing 1965?”
Believe me, if a time machine set to the mid-60s was set up outside Quietus headquarters, they’d all be clambering on board it like Richard Chamberlain in the Towering Inferno.
How old were you in 1965? Were you cavorting around in Carnaby Street in your modish threads?
I’m glad they’re still there and going. It can be a useful resource from time to time.
“Willfully obscure”? Don’t you mean “conventional mainstream”?
ps love the Richard Chamberlain analogy
Not that difficult to make up a band name, record name and do some bleeping in Garageband. Is it?
Bleeping in a garage? This vehicle is reversing.
Oh dear, you’ve crushed the barbecue.
You could be describing The Moisture Makers’ concept album Flat Hibachi, which just eluded last year’s Top 100.
Bands that get reviewed on The Quietus rarely seem to have the ‘three more from them later’ type names that keep me chortling. Obviously, this is where I’ve been going wrong.
Nice to see Mary Lattimore holding down the coveted no. 35 position. That’s a pretty good album.
I don’t believe I’m the only Afterworder who, while talking to someone about music I love, has been told that I’m just being wilfully obscure or that the band I’ve mentioned is one I’ve made up..
What counts as obscure is an ever-expanding category.
“You like all that weird stuff… Like The Beatles”
I realised how much ‘three more from later’ was a part of me when my best friend said something at the reopening of the village pub backalong, and immediately added ‘That’s one of your band names, Grey’.
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/five-ways-youre-becoming-your-parents-20201201203100
Jesus, I feel unhip after reading that list. Not that I felt particularly hip beforehand mind. Do you think they sit in the Quietus office, drinking their specialist obscure coffee, having conversations like “let’s just make one band up this year. See if the readers can suss it.” “Nah, we need to pad the list out to the whole round hundred.”
Actually that’s not fair of me. Some of the writing on there is great, although I increasingly like their non-music related articles. And Taylor Parkes is fabulous on the Chart Music podcast so it’s an immediate get out of jail free card from me…
Hipster Replacement.
That’s the name of my virtual band this year. None more virtual.
Sophomore EP entitled “Beard Full Of Sushi”.
Beard Full Of Sushi on the, 45
Well it’s a Beard Full Of Sushi, on the, 45
Do you remember @minibreakfast s wheeze of random reviews of the wackier outliers? Worth a shot this year, if avoidant of the obvious ones?
I remember that and I’m not doing that again. I didn’t enjoy it.
I’m still at an age where I should have my finger on the pulse, rather than at the age where I need to check for a pulse. I have heard of 15 of these bands/artists, but none of the albums.
Never heard of either act or artist – 87
Heard OF act, but never listened to them – 6
Listened to act at some point, but not the album on the list – 7
Listened to the album on the list – 0
What do I win?
By the way, they’re a bit premature with their list before giving Macca a chance this month.
yes, arguably no more wilfully obscure than much of our list might be, if we’re honest – it’s just that we clearly aren’t the target audience for this. I mean, I guess most people have at least heard of Bob Dylan – but I suspect 99.9% of the population couldn’t name his new album, never mind have heard it.
For the record, I have heard of 15, but only heard 2 – though one of those is the Nadine Shah, which is pretty good; certainly better than the deathless prose quoted in the OP might suggest.
Drift Records in Totnes generally mines similar territory with their list but in a slightly more Afterword friendly way (it includes three or four that may well be on my list) – here it is:
https://driftrecords.com/blogs/drift/deluxe-2020-records-of-the-year
I don’t see much Taylor Parkes on The Quietus of late. I would subscribe to their crowdfunding push if I thought they would spend that on commissioning more writing from him – he’s the funniest and most erudite music critic I can think of. Chart Music Podcast listeners cherish his missives from lockdown in Tower Hamlets but he richly deserves a wider audience beyond that in print and elsewhere.
Fuck all this crap. My favourite musical discovery this year has been ‘Piledriver’ by the mighty Quo.
I am unlikely to hear most of these, so have no view as to whether most are any good. J suppose my suspicions of it all being a bit hipper than thou come from the inclusion of Shirely Collins whilst, for example, the Rheingans Sisters, Rachel Newton or Jenny Sturgeon don’t get a mention. Don’t get me wrong, I have been again of Shirl for decades, but…..
Aside, from my own subjectivity, how do these things work nowadays. My understanding is that even top 10 albums sell bigger all nowadays and that most acts make any money selling CDs at shows. I dont suppose that even in non Covid times most of these acts do very well on the live circuit, so how do the economics work ? Is it really cheap and easy to make stuff at home on a computer ? Do they all have jobs ? It’s a genuine question – I am curious to know.
I don’t know about that, but suspect many have: new AW fave Ross Ainslie, c/o @kaisfatdad , has taken gainful as a labourer in the highlands to defray the costs of his prodigious output, solo, duo with Ali Hutton and lord knows how much else. Careful with those fingers, Ross!
As discussed on previous threads here, most musicians who aren’t Big Stars have other means of getting income to pay the bills. My jazz drummer friend Rick teaches drums from home and in schools/colleges. He spent many years earning a living in pit orchestras for West End musicals.
I thought you were pulling our legs, Retro!
But no, Ross is indeed working as a labourer up in Barrisdale.
Here’s an excellent in-depth interview with him which covers a lot of ground.
https://www.folkradio.co.uk/2020/11/ross-ainslie-artist-of-the-month-interview/
He mentions his fondness for the Indian sub-continent and working with India Alba. Here they are!