Best Of 2010 - The preamble

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Edit: Nevermind, Iggy and Greg said what I wanted to say.

[Benmont Tench]

How do we feel about previously unreleased albums that are only now being released making the list?

[dieblucasdie]

What album(s) are you talking about?

I've generally tried to take the position of not being too pedantic about it--an album has to have pretty widespread support to make the final list; why get technical if half the board thinks an album is one of the best records of '10?

For instance, I was going to mention it when we do the proper thread, but I'm leaning against excluding Bastard, even though it was technically released in late 2009, given that no one voted for it last year.

[Antero]

Bastard was technically released in 2009, but it was posted to the OF tumblr (which didn't exist in 2009) in 2010.  So it wasn't really RELEASED in '09 and stuff.

[kyle]

So here's the idea

1. Future Islands - In Evening Air
2. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
3. Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - I Learned The Hard Way
4. Superchunk - Majesty Shredding
5. David Cross - Biggerer and Blackerer
6. Parenthetical Girls - The Privilege Pt. 1
7. Tylor, The Creator - Bastard
8. Ö Paon - Courses
9. Johnny Cash - American Man VI
10. Earl Sweatshirt - Earl

Edit: ah ha! got all the way up to ten!

[DanielBurns11]

Bastard would've totally made my list had it not come out in 2009, but since it did I excluded it from my list.

[Andrew_TSKS]

What is Bastard?

[Antero]

The album of the year, that's what!

It's a weird, hyper-aggressive, musically-sophisticated, black-humored, fucked up teenager skate-rat rap album.

Tyler, The Creator - Bastard

Tyler Creator ( or Ace) Releases This Full Length Self Produced Album, Mostly About His Father, Rape, Box Logos And Jesus. Also Featuring Unicorns And Transexuals.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Allllll righty then. I'll see if I can find a copy and check it out.

[Antero]

"Find a copy"?  Hah!  This is the internet age, we don't sell COPIES.  Follow the link, it's just posted to zshare.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

the file's been deleted though

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Yeah, it's a free mixtape, Andrew.

Meanwhile, here's an updated list of albums I need to somehow inhabit completely before year's end:

John Roberts: Glass Eights
The Knife: Tomorrow, in a Year
The Bug: Infected
Kelis: Flesh Tone
Bilal: Airtight's Revenge
Yelawolf: Trunk Muzik
Waka Flocka Flame: Flockaveli
Diddy/Dirty Money: Last Train to Paris
Shining: Blackjazz
Yakuza: Of Seismic Consequence
Triptykon: Eparistera Daimones
Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit
Kylesa: Spiral Shadow
Gnaw Their Tongues: L'Arrivée De La Terne Mort Triomphante
Christian Mistress: Agony and Opium
Negură Bunget: Vîrstele Pămîntului

[Antero]

the file's been deleted though

Oh no!

Well, fortunately, the internet can help.

http://www.mediafire.com/?a7a6xacaz5dri36

[Anne the Man]

Is the bar really that low that we're willing to call Taylor Swift a good lyricist? She writes the same song every time; the _only_ variable outcome is whether or not she gets the guy. This girl (can't even call her 'woman') is my age, and yet I feel like me and all my friends are about 6 years older than her, given the very little that seems to go through her head. When I heard she was going out with Jake Gyllenhaal, my immediate reaction was "b-but...she's way too young!" Everyone seems to want to think of her as 'just a kid', and she encourages that by writing nothing but wafty shit about boys and projecting this cloying persona of a sweet fuzzy giggly blonde kitten. Well fuck you Taylor Swift, if you're old enough to drink and vote and get married you don't get to play the child anymore, not through your actions and not through your lyrics. If I abandoned all systematic and political thought (or any non-romantic thought) and started putting up songs here about how I feel when I look at the sky and how that girl doesn't deserve you because she's a cheerleader (hence a cheating slut, but it's okay if I steal a girl's boyfriend because I'm wearing a white dress!), there's no way you guys would cut me this kind of slack. Rather, I hope, you'd slap me on the back and tell me to grow the fuck up, and big deal if I wrote the songs myself, the lyrics are still a pile of antifeminist trash. Moreover, you'd probably tell me to actually READ Shakespeare and Hawthorne properly before criminally misinterpreting them in lyrical form.

No, I haven't listened to anything off Speak Now (I'd rather she forever held her peace) but I looked at the lyrics sheet in the shop, and surprise surprise, once again nothing but boys!

Btw

[Antero]

No, I haven't listened to anything off Speak Now (I'd rather she forever held her peace)

Well played!

[Good Intentions]

BOOM! POW! THWACK! That was a heavy-hitting post.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Is the bar really that low that we're willing to call Taylor Swift a good lyricist? She writes the same song every time; the _only_ variable outcome is whether or not she gets the guy.

This isn't the case at all.

Also how many artists trade exclusively in love songs and don't garner this sort of criticism?

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

I've also thought that considering Taylor Swift antifeminist is sort of an unfair and lazy thought! Songs like "Fifteen" and "White Horse" (the inversion of "Love Story") are clearly approaching feminism, what with how they ditch the fairy tale idealism for reality, or something resembling it?

I don't know Anne I've had this conversation like ten times this year.

[Antero]

From a brief survey of the lyrics, I'd have to say that "White Horse" is anything but feminist.  "You are not Prince Charming" is entirely different than "I am not looking for a Prince Charming."

Also: Lots of artists trade exclusively in love songs and meet the same criticism.  Taylor Swift is hardly being singled out for that.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

"I am not looking for a Prince Charming."

this is where "fifteen" steps in but whatev

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Also: Lots of artists trade exclusively in love songs and meet the same criticism. 

who

[Anne the Man]

No, I haven't listened to anything off Speak Now (I'd rather she forever held her peace)

Well played!

I stole it off my sister...

Yes Brad, many others do. Some such artists, however, manage to muster a little more metaphor and a little less girl-bashing.

I mean, come on, look at this:

You're on the phone with your girlfriend, She's upset
She's going off about something that you said
She doesnt get your humour like I do

I'm in the room, its a typical Tuesday night
I'm listening to the kind of music she doesn't like
And she'll never know your story like I do

So she's upset cos maybe he said something dickish and teenage-boyish to her, why doesn't she just laugh it off! Jeez, the bitch clearly deserves to have her relationship broken up!

Okay I looked at some of the more recent lyrics and correct, they are a bit better. But really, is there nothing else she thinks about? Boys boys boys boys boys! What happened to teenage aspirations of BEING something, of changing something, of finding who you are without reference to anyone else, of -gasp- some kind of wider framework of society! To be fair, even if she mustered some flimsy 'fuck the system' commentary I'd still probably be hating on her, because she can't fuck the system over while she's gleefully giving it a blowjob and having her nipples caressed by its Maybelline-nailpolished fingers. But still!

Xpost: How is 'Fifteen' feministic? "Abigail gave everything she had to a boy"--I guess all teenage girls have to give is their hymens, huh. If dear Taylor is indeed "realising bigger dreams of mine" it's only half-evident--unless she means taller boys with bigger cocks, because hell, that's all she writes about. (Sorry to repeat myself, seems all I write about is Taylor Swift writing about boys). White Horse seems to be an exception to a well-tested rule.

I know, I've had the conversation a lot too, probably here.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

Also it is not the same criticism because these other artists aren't accused of being children because their lyrical concerns are exclusively romantic.

Like all the time.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

What happened to teenage aspirations of BEING something, of changing something, of finding who you are without reference to anyone else, of -gasp- some kind of wider framework of society!

In your life you'll do things greater than dating the boy of the football team
But I didn't know it at fifteen
...
Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday
But I realized some bigger dreams of mine

Also if you're gonna equate "everything she had" with "hymen" WHEN THERE IS NOTHING IN THE SONG THAT SUGGESTS THAT

AT ALL

then i'm not even gonna have this conversation.

[Antero]

"Fifteen" isn't feminist either.  It's presenting youthful relationships in a more realistic light - while it's certainly a proper and positive presentation, there's nothing that would undermine anti-feminist narratives.  Telling girls to be a bit more careful before they believe that someone is Prince Charming is, again, entirely different than discarding the notion.

Also, don't most of her songs sort of exalt the impulse that "Fifteen" rejects?