Best Ever Albums

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Norman Bates — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 11:51:10 GMT

Author: Norman Bates

Posted: 04/11/2013 15:51

Thanks for the presentation, Jhereko.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

alelsupreme — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:58:17 GMT

Author: alelsupreme

Posted: 04/11/2013 14:58

AWWWW YEAAHHHH.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Madadude — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 23:44:46 GMT

Author: Madadude

Posted: 04/11/2013 03:44

Great results. Thanks for getting this done.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:59:20 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:59

Aye well done. Oy, aw, hmm wha 🤡 who won?

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:56:21 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:56

Magnificient job, Jhereko. It was worth the wai.... well it was a great presentation 😜

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

GeevyDallas — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:54:10 GMT

Author: GeevyDallas

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:54

Whoop Whoop 🥳

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:52:21 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:52

You know it

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Link

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

GeevyDallas — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:50:13 GMT

Author: GeevyDallas

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:50

They all look amazing,well done Jhereko.

As for the winner,it has to be Yung Kendrick Tha Masta Of Men

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:38:21 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 15:38

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

and the nominees are...

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

and the winner is...

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

GeevyDallas — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:19:58 GMT

Author: GeevyDallas

Posted: 04/10/2013 13:19

King Kenny Tha Gawd

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:17:21 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 13:17

and the winnner is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiCHlQf8I2Y

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 09:12:48 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 13:12

The nominees (in random order) for best song of the year are...:

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Link

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:18:37 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 09:18

Everyone's favourite CellarDoor on why he loves Shields

"And those countless empty days
Made me dizzy when I woke"
- Sleeping Ute -

Dizzy also comes to mind when you consider the gap between the lo-fi ditties on "Horn of Plenty" (2004) and the dynamic flow on an album like "Shields".
Standout tracks from previous releases ("Knife", "Two Weeks", "While You Wait for the Others") could overshadow the whole album, whereas "Shields" maintains momentum and powerful tracks from start to finish ("Sleeping Ute", "Yet Again", "A Simple Answer"...). Grizzly Bear's fourth album is probably their most focused, the production is less bright and the vocals aren't as overwhelming as on "Veckatimest" (2009). The band still provides the ambient intros/outros (or even tracks, as in the case of "Adelma") reminiscent of the dusty atmospherics on the album "Yellow House" (2006), but also plenty of shifts in color, like the jazzy feel to "What's Wrong?" or the gorgeous meanderings on the closer "Sun in Your Eyes". Another important element of the album, is the wonderful drumming which is tight and precise throughout (especially on "Speak in Rounds" or "Gun-Shy").

Although I hate making ridiculous comparisons, I have to admit that from the very first time I heard the intricate guitar playing on "Sleeping Ute" (the first single released from the album), it reminded me of the sharp guitar lines from the band Television. And though they stuck to what they do best, that is delicate dreamy pop, "Shields" is definitely a highlight for the band and for indie music in 2012.

But from now on, I guess I'll be secretly hoping for some weird art rock turn in future Grizzly Bear releases.

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:17:46 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 09:17

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 05:15:28 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 09:15

The nominees for Best Album Art of the year are:

BLOOM

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

THE HAUNTED MAN

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

LONERISM

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

QUARANTINE

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

THE SEER

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

and the winner is.........

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:46:49 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 08:46

and now the awards that were left:

The nominees for Most Underrated album of the year are:
Coexist by The xx
kin by iamamamiwhoami
Life Is Good by nas
The Seer by Swans
Valtari by Sigur Ros

and the winner is:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

The nominees for Most Overrated Album Of The Year goes to:
Attack On Memory
Bloom
Blunderbuss
Channel Orange
The Seer

and the winner? is:

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:33:56 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 08:33

Link
[/youtube]

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Anonymous — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:29:29 GMT

Author: Anonymous

Posted: 04/10/2013 08:29

A beautiful piece by tekin on The Seer

First of all I should say that I am the one who is writing this since our French gentleman turned down the offer and I was not volunteer or something so no ill feelings.

When you first saw this write-up, you might’ve thought “Oh god, this is long”; if this was your first impression then I invite you to be patient because what I’m writing about is a 2-hour-long music album. In fact The Seer is much less than a music album; to name a few drawbacks, it doesn’t have fun, you can’t dance to it (maybe you can if you know Agbekor or something), it may not satisfy your need for some clean vocals accompanied by guitar solos or nostalgic melodies, you cannot sing along to much of it or play it for the family while enjoying your turkey meatloaf dinner or sing the title track on the beach in at the dead of a hot summer night and this album will never yield up a single to MTV because that’s like singling out one toe off Heidi Klum’s foot to represent her whole beauty. The Seer is not a unique album in Swans discography as well, since there have been much more ambitious ones like Filth. It doesn’t have unique post-rock soundscapes or super-scary industrial madness either. But in another sense this album can give much more than a music album can ever afford. It will grab you by the scruff of your neck, put your head into muck, pull your fingernails and spit at you. But don’t be afraid, it just wants you to experience the whole thing wholeheartedly. When I first listened to The Seer and Lunacy began, the first thing that struck me was the words: "In the mind of no one, Forming sun, Forming love, Break the chain, Hide within, Innocence, Not innocent, Innocent, In no sense, Eat the beast, Keep him in, Take the blame, Speak the name". It immediately reminded me of peculiar style of Beckett's work "Texts for Nothing" which can be rightly described as broken text (perhaps of a broken mind); it’s a good indicator of the rest of The Seer. These words are uttered by someone who cannot come to terms with his/her own existence, someone who is on the verge of giving in to the sounds inside his skull. It’s all unhinged: world, mind, words, and music. It’s about the human condition in its barest and the music will not help you forget about things, it will instead take you captive. The music here is not adorned like a baroque castle; on the contrary it is either stripped off, like Sharon Stone with no make-up or at times overloaded but with noise rather than appoggiatura.

What makes this album unique so unique is that The Seer sees the uncovered truth; this truth burns pupils of his eyes. The record is the product of this pain. But what’s the truth then? Actually the announcement that "Your childhood is over" invites you to believe you are in no sense innocent and there's no way you can escape the reality of the beast that's living inside you; you should accept that you are a victim of original sin; this is the truth: "take the blame". I think it's the reason of the consequent quest for "Mother of the World" as well; now that you've given birth to us and we are destined to feel deserted among these senseless things that surround us, you must "keep us safe". The absurdity of struggle against the senselessness of this amalgam that you're in can only be represented by monotonous drones and primitive drum beats or, when reality strikes us with all its mighty force, a thousand bagpipes. Running in the vein of escape and struggle, "Mother of the World" starts with someone panting (four and a half minute of it) along with some creepy moaning (I'm afraid this is in the head of the same person who is panting and it’s somehow there for the rest of the album) and then the words come "In and out and in and out again"; the transition here is the transition between the brooding Seer and the possessed one, from melodies and soothing vocals to cacophony, industrial sounds and discords. Panting and life are very similar: they are both monotonous; and you do it without thinking about it that much because you’re immersed in it.

Instrumentally sparse, "The Wolf" is as if Estragon (of Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot) is singing for himself; the awkward-sounding minimalism of the track calls up the comic in the seer. To tell the truth the comic has always been there but with a Keaton-like stone face. When you run from the senseless to the dumb then the whole situation is absurdly hilarious.

To put it simply, The Seer sees it all and what he sees is nothingness; we had things and we lost them: oblivion, blissful life, innocence, and meaning. When you eat Apple of Knowledge you enter into the realm of nothingness. Nothingness is a nightmare where death has the main role and when you wake up to great light of it, it can drive you crazy; inevitably you'll crave "I know I'll never die".
In "The Seer Returns" you can see the "Beckett" inside Gira in work: "He's a greasy beast, heaving in a field of sticky black mud", you can easily imagine Molloy, during his mysterious journey escaping from the beast, "Jacques Moran", saying "I'm down here naked, there’s a hole in my chest, both my arms are broken, pointing east and west". In the end it seems the beast and the victim are the same: "My life pours into your mouth, your life pours into my mouth": a point further emphasized in the song "Avatar": “My mind is in your mind”. Molloy and Moran are the same because both are in a journey with no end but decline. It is as if the record as a whole is desperation (with sparks of angst here and there) in a lonely beast-haunted world in the expectation of signs of god; Waiting for god to show himself: "I scream up at the sky: You have arrived". It may seem there's a ray of hope especially in the Angels of Light-esque "Song for a Warrior":"there's a growing golden light", “some people say God is long dead, but I heard something inside you with my head to your chest”. But in “A Piece of the Sky” we can sense the ever-decreasing hope: "As the sun fucks the dawn, in the mud of a lake, in the drunk and the dazed, are you there?" and the question lingers on. This track and the title track are the peaks for me. The title track is the most haunting piece of music I've heard in a long time, a journey through everything Michael Gira has done in his musical life; apparently when he said "The Seer" took 30 years to make, he most of all meant this one. In the apocalyptic "The Apostate" all these ideas are presented together: our meaningless struggle is endless, “we’re on an infinite line”, the beast inside is driving me crazy, “get out of my mind”, “we’re on a ladder to god”, “get fucked”, “we’re blessed”, “fuck, cunt . . . fuck, bliss”.

The Seer is not an album as much as a daunting experience, a musical journey through burning lava of death, decay and pointless blind agonizing and exhausting struggle. This is an existential manifesto which has sunny corners but uncompromising otherwise. Many will not join the camp but they lose a lot just like the people who don’t dare to experience bungee jumping once in their lifetime. Believe me, it can be fun!

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

Necharsian — Mon, 1 Apr 2013 16:52:50 GMT

Author: Necharsian

Posted: 04/01/2013 20:52

i suppose it would be like growls and metal. the former doesnt make the latter, but they are usually considered to be of the same. And i cant even think of a band that uses growls/shrieks but isnt metal

similarily i do consider death grips hip hop but i guess i can see how they could be considered punk too

Re: The 2nd Annual Best Ever Albums Music Awards PRESENTATION

19loveless91 — Mon, 1 Apr 2013 08:37:41 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 04/01/2013 12:37

lethalnezzle wrote:

Honestly I think they're more 'punk' than they are hip-hop. I also think that they fit more comfortably under the heading 'industrial' than they do hip-hop. However, I had no problem with them being nominated in the hip-hop category (even if it was in place of plenty of brilliant records that were actually hip-hop), but rather was just making an observation; I don't see them as hip-hop. I understand that having a rapper is a defining feature of hip-hop, but it isn't the defining feature of hip-hop, and similarly not every group that has a rapper is hip-hop. I know everyone has their own definition for things, and I suppose that having a rapper means that a group are hip-hop to a lot of people, but for me hip-hop also stems primarily from black music (soul, funk, reggae, jazz, disco, scat singing, dancehall toasting, gospels, spirituals even the blues) and Death Grips doesn't do that. This definition doesn't mean that only black people can make hip-hop, which would be plainly ridiculous, but rather that in order for something to be hip-hop that it must have stylistic origins in black (West Indian, African, African-American) music or culture. That may seem to others to be a closed-minded definition, but it encompasses a lot of music. It all encompasses parts of Death Grips' music, but not as much as punk's defining features do. I get why people call Death Grips hip-hop, it's just that I think they're punk or industrial before they're hip-hop.

EDIT: If I heard someone give this definition of hip-hop I'd be pretty skeptical, and it's certainly not an ideal or thorough definition. However, when I considered all the music that is considered by others to be hip-hop that I don't consider hip-hop, this definition was what set the two apart. Other signifiers include BPM (I tend to think hip-hop should be around 90, though this is becoming less defining by the day) and, primarily, what I feel the band to be. With Death Grips, I don't feel them to be hip-hop, which is as simple as that. Not very scientific I know, but sometimes you've just got to go with your gut feeling.

Thanks for the reply. I see where you're coming from, even if I don't completely agree. I think there's a lot of music artists now out there, whose music has several elements/characteristics of hip hop, but push the genre in the direction, where it's also distinctively different to what the "defining features" of hip hop are supposed to be. But I would still describe those (BTW, I think El-P could go here as well) as being in a specific sub-genre of hip hop, rather than not being hip-hop at all. Maybe similar to this is how I would describe Kid A or Amnesiac as being both a "rock" and "electronic" albums, even if neither term describes what's going on particularly well... But I personally see them as wide enough terms (that thus also cover the sub-genres of those albums) anyway. Similar with "hip hop" and Death Grips.