it's been a while since there's been a truly great release

  On 1/31/2012 at 2:32 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 1/30/2012 at 8:34 PM, Awepittance said:

is that supposed to be in any way an indication of if a truly great album came out? i'm really confused how people can use data from those sites to reach conclusions like that.

you think reviews have no value at all?

 

anyone that claims to be so above the pop stratosphere that the opinions of the rest of the civilized world are rendered meaningless has probably been munching on his own shit for a bit too long.

no, reviews in and of themselves do have value, i enjoy good music reviews (in case anyone misunderstood, I LIKE MUSIC REVIEWS) . but aggregate sites for music reviews that give you an average # are especially idiotic and if you use it as any indication of 'quality' music you are lazy

  On 2/2/2012 at 9:37 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 1/31/2012 at 2:32 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 1/30/2012 at 8:34 PM, Awepittance said:

is that supposed to be in any way an indication of if a truly great album came out? i'm really confused how people can use data from those sites to reach conclusions like that.

you think reviews have no value at all?

 

anyone that claims to be so above the pop stratosphere that the opinions of the rest of the civilized world are rendered meaningless has probably been munching on his own shit for a bit too long.

 

no reviews in and of themselves do have value, i enjoy good music reviews. but aggregate sites for music reviews that give you an average # are especially idiotic and if you use it as any indication of 'quality' music you are lazy

I use reviews as a guide to lead me to stuff I like (mostly movies and games) but not as a replacement of my own taste / ranking

I read a review saying the last Adele album was one of the biggest releases since a while. Although I believe the comment was about about volumes though.

Anyways, please continue this truly inspiring topic.

  On 2/2/2012 at 9:37 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 1/31/2012 at 2:32 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 1/30/2012 at 8:34 PM, Awepittance said:

is that supposed to be in any way an indication of if a truly great album came out? i'm really confused how people can use data from those sites to reach conclusions like that.

you think reviews have no value at all?

 

anyone that claims to be so above the pop stratosphere that the opinions of the rest of the civilized world are rendered meaningless has probably been munching on his own shit for a bit too long.

 

no reviews in and of themselves do have value, i enjoy good music reviews. but aggregate sites for music reviews that give you an average # are especially idiotic and if you use it as any indication of 'quality' music you are lazy

If one is trying to determine what the consensus is about one release or another, is there a better way?

I think the Clams Casino sound will influence a bunch of producers, but I don't think his album is a truly great release. His next album might be.

The dubstep realm has some pretty groundbreaking stuff. James Blake is popular and awesome, so I might consider that a recent development.

In my opinion, though, the most recent "groundbreaking" album is Splazsh by Actress. Takes house and dubstep to a whole new level.

Also, how far back are we going? Rifts was pretty great. Going back a bit more, Body Riddle. I would argue that while it might not be groundbreaking, VHS Head is releasing some pretty next-level shit.

Someone mentioned Death Grips earlier. I agree.

  On 1/31/2012 at 8:25 AM, rstark said:

ford and lopatin - channel pressure

Not that great, and not nearly as good as That We Can Play EP.

  On 2/1/2012 at 10:41 PM, patternoverlap said:

So much thought is taken up by the little media device in your pocket/the thousands of songs on your player etc, which are essentially other people's work constantly taking up your thoughts. I think if musicians took more time away from the constant barrage of stimulus, they would give their brains some space to have unique thoughts and find some different directions to go. At the very least it would help their music become more personal, which (IMO) is where most of the best and most groundbreaking music comes from.

BoC

  On 2/2/2012 at 4:38 PM, gmanyo said:

The dubstep realm has some pretty groundbreaking stuff.

read the rules

  On 2/2/2012 at 5:18 PM, ganus said:

read the rules

Here's a great video I found. Groundbreaking for sure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP_w_Mvh9tU

refer to the rules plz.

  On 2/2/2012 at 2:09 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 2/2/2012 at 9:37 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 1/31/2012 at 2:32 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 1/30/2012 at 8:34 PM, Awepittance said:

is that supposed to be in any way an indication of if a truly great album came out? i'm really confused how people can use data from those sites to reach conclusions like that.

you think reviews have no value at all?

 

anyone that claims to be so above the pop stratosphere that the opinions of the rest of the civilized world are rendered meaningless has probably been munching on his own shit for a bit too long.

 

no reviews in and of themselves do have value, i enjoy good music reviews. but aggregate sites for music reviews that give you an average # are especially idiotic and if you use it as any indication of 'quality' music you are lazy

 

If one is trying to determine what the consensus is about one release or another, is there a better way?

consensus on music doesn't make sense to me in 2011. Rotten tomatoes consensus on film still makes a little sense because most people are open to seeing and enjoying almost any genre of movie, music doesnt work that way anymore. To base anything off a censuses on 'album of the year' makes no sense if you are a consumer of a wide array of new music. If you've depending on a site like Metacritic, i dont mean to be harsh but get yourself back in the loop man. There are plenty of better reviews sites out there including *gasp* pitchfork, boomkat, brainwashed, etc to recommend new music to you.

i'm still in the loop and frequent all of the sites you mentioned. i agree that consensus doesn't mean much if you're looking for a definitive answer to the question, what was the best album of 2011?

but consensus is absolutely valid if you're looking for things you may have missed or wondering how something that you've nominally heard of has been received. i.e., I've heard of this skrillex cat, but am wondering whether he is generally acclaimed before I motivate my lazy ass to search in more detail. oh look, he's getting praise from all directions. or, wow, everybody seems to hate this guy. both of those findings will increase the chances that I will check him out. but it provides another layer of context.

  On 2/2/2012 at 4:38 PM, gmanyo said:

I would argue that while it might not be groundbreaking, VHS Head is releasing some pretty next-level shit.

I agree with this. I think it was a milestone album.

From the same year, (i'm not going to make any friends for this), I think Salem's King Night was a game changer. No matter your opinions of them, it felt like nothing I'd ever heard before. Like a doom metal southern hip hop opus.

  On 2/2/2012 at 4:38 PM, gmanyo said:

  On 1/31/2012 at 8:25 AM, rstark said:

ford and lopatin - channel pressure

 

Not that great, and not nearly as good as That We Can Play EP.

I disagree. Although Games was cool, I think that style was kind of done. I don't think F&L was historical, but I think they stepped up their game and said "we can either make that sort-of kind-of woozy 80s influenced stuff like everyone else, or we can make something that actually feels like a lost pop record" and went for the latter.

  On 2/2/2012 at 8:25 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 2/2/2012 at 2:09 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 2/2/2012 at 9:37 AM, Awepittance said:

  On 1/31/2012 at 2:32 PM, LOL Alzado said:

  On 1/30/2012 at 8:34 PM, Awepittance said:

is that supposed to be in any way an indication of if a truly great album came out? i'm really confused how people can use data from those sites to reach conclusions like that.

you think reviews have no value at all?

 

anyone that claims to be so above the pop stratosphere that the opinions of the rest of the civilized world are rendered meaningless has probably been munching on his own shit for a bit too long.

 

no reviews in and of themselves do have value, i enjoy good music reviews. but aggregate sites for music reviews that give you an average # are especially idiotic and if you use it as any indication of 'quality' music you are lazy

 

If one is trying to determine what the consensus is about one release or another, is there a better way?

 

consensus on music doesn't make sense to me in 2011. Rotten tomatoes consensus on film still makes a little sense because most people are open to seeing and enjoying almost any genre of movie, music doesnt work that way anymore. To base anything off a censuses on 'album of the year' makes no sense if you are a consumer of a wide array of new music. If you've depending on a site like Metacritic, i dont mean to be harsh but get yourself back in the loop man. There are plenty of better reviews sites out there including *gasp* pitchfork, boomkat, brainwashed, etc to recommend new music to you.

this and last.fm

  On 2/2/2012 at 8:39 PM, LOL Alzado said:

but consensus is absolutely valid if you're looking for things you may have missed or wondering how something that you've nominally heard of has been received. i.e., I've heard of this skrillex cat, but am wondering whether he is generally acclaimed before I motivate my lazy ass to search in more detail. oh look, he's getting praise from all directions. or, wow, everybody seems to hate this guy. both of those findings will increase the chances that I will check him out. but it provides another layer of context.

if it were 4-5 years ago i'd agree with you to some extent, there can still be interesting forms of internet consensus on certain music that i like. For instance there was a lot of buzz online for the artist Loops Haunt, a bunch of people started posting tracks in my facebook feed including Richard Devine so i finally checked it out and there was tons of stuff to stream online. I was able to listen to an EP length of this guys music within minutes of having a passing interest in him. Right now i feel like social networks and things like that are a better way to gauge a consensus on music that reflects your own tastes. While sites like facebook employs algorithms to filter what you see, it still has benefits like the one i described above.

Music is subjective. I mostly base greatness of of how original something is and how much it affects the change of music as a whole (whether directly or indirectly). We seem to be talking about how good things are, which doesn't really make sense objectively. I don't see much point debating music reviews in this setting.

For example, I actually don't like Aphex Twin much (oh no, the ultimate sin). But I would call SAW great, because there wasn't much else like it at the time and it completely changed electronic music.

  On 2/3/2012 at 11:48 AM, gmanyo said:

jandek 4 lyfe

word up G

  On 2/3/2012 at 9:35 AM, Awepittance said:

if it were 4-5 years ago i'd agree with you to some extent, there can still be interesting forms of internet consensus on certain music that i like. For instance there was a lot of buzz online for the artist Loops Haunt, a bunch of people started posting tracks in my facebook feed including Richard Devine so i finally checked it out and there was tons of stuff to stream online. I was able to listen to an EP length of this guys music within minutes of having a passing interest in him. Right now i feel like social networks and things like that are a better way to gauge a consensus on music that reflects your own tastes. While sites like facebook employs algorithms to filter what you see, it still has benefits like the one i described above.

oh brother. I'm not really sure what we disagree about anymore. i think all of us find out about things through social networks. I would include watmm in that category. and I've certainly found out about tons of music in the 14 years or so that I've frequented this site. but of course that stream of information is limited to the sources that you've already deemed worthy of being a part of your info stream. If your're following sources A and B but not C, you'll missing something new coming out of C. that's why i still rely on reviews. if something is getting hot press, odds are I will check it out. even if its not the kind of thing that any of my FB peeps or wattm folks would ordinarily discuss.

I think the last album that properly made me sit up and go 'wow' was VHS Head's Trademark Ribbons of Gold. I mean there's been some Quite Good™ releases since then but that was the last one that truly stood out as being something completely ground-breaking.

Just wait for the new FlyLo album, then you'll have a truly great release.

  On 2/1/2012 at 11:06 PM, GORDO said:

I still mantain that Ys is fucking amazing.

it is, it's also nearly five years old now.

Can't think of any recent ones that got a huge critical consensus, but speaking personally

-Crazy Clown Time

-Cymaglyphs

-Pawleys Island

-We got it

All under a year old (might also include the FaltyDL album. Haven't listened enough therefore I Stand Uncertain)

  On 2/3/2012 at 6:10 PM, kaini said:

  On 2/1/2012 at 11:06 PM, GORDO said:

I still mantain that Ys is fucking amazing.

 

it is, it's also nearly five years old now.

what? we want truly great releases every half year? In that case I think there's plenty if we are open minded, but the discussion has gone to other areas so bleh.

Eccojams was pretty recent, although it is essentially just DL's version of chopped n screwed songs. Still, I might consider it "great". All in all, I think that Daniel is a pretty revolutionary artist. I'd call his works as a whole "great".

ISAM wasn't amazing, in my opinion, but it was different. That makes it at least somewhat noteworthy in this context.

LISTEN TO WHAT I SAY ALZADO, YOU ASSHOLE!

The Weeknd - House of Balloons

Ford & Lopatin - Channel Pressure

David Lynch - Crazy Clown Time

If you check these three records and have nothing but contempt for them, then never listen to me again, otherwise, I am fucking right, these releases are epic!!!!!

Glad you are enjoying the Weeknd as well chen and Josh! I am not really a soul music person but this dude has infected my mind. The other two releases are great as well ('Thursday' and 'Echoes of Silence'), but one should always start with 'House of Balloons'