My discoveries per year - Music Diaries - Forums : Best Ever Albums

dihansse · 2016-04-10T12:28:28-04:00

Well! Here I would like to start with my own long term project taking advantage of the best BEA has to offer: overall charts from people who are as interested in music as I am. I already have year charts which are based on the albums I already own or know, but there are a lot of them which I haven't listened to yet and which might be worth discovering. I'd like to do this by going through the overall BEA top lists per year starting in 1963 which is both my year of birth and the year in which I personally think rock music started to become interesting. To keep it a bit varied I will skip through the years in five year periods, ie starting in 1963 then 1968 then 1973 all the way to 2013 and then back to 1964 and so on. Every year I will start with some stats of my personal chart in comparison to the overall year charts, both top 20 an top 50 and will start to listen to at least the top 20 albums I don't know and I'll hope to give some comments sometimes very short, sometimes a bit longer. I will also update my personal year charts accordingly. In principle I will use Apple Music to listen to the albums, which I suppose will cover most of the field. If a certain album isn't present in Apple Music, I'll have to skip it. I will try to listen to all the albums at least once and sometimes twice if I doubt, but I'll skip the really stupid ones (ex a Xmas compilation in 1963) and also other compilations, classical music, jazz and easy listening. This will be a long term project which means there might be times in which I will stop a bit of course because I don't want be stuck listining to albums of the same year all the time. However I suppose this will take at least a month per year. I will try to keep it up but please don't be mad if I give up (maybe already after the first year :lol: )

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These are the next ones:
- A Thousand Suns by Linkin Park (nr 38 on the overall BEA top chart of 2010): maybe not the most typical Linkin Park and they certainly try to sound differently but still not my cup of tea.
- Black Sands by Bonobo (nr 39): I first planned to dismiss this album as muzak but the more I listened the more I liked it: this is just a cool mix of bossanova, minimal music, jazzy lounge music and very inspired soothing music and I loved the last tracks so much that I relistened to the start of the album I already had given fairly low scores and I still have the same feeling: tracks like Kiara, Eyesdown and Kong certainly have more hit potential but I like them much less than Animals and Black Sands but I did up the score of El Toro and We Could Forever. Conclusion: a very good album.

The following album to listen to is Clinging to a Scheme by The Radio Dept.

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This is the last batch of 2010 albums I listened to:
- Clinging To A Scheme by The Radio Dept. (nr 40 on the overall BEA top chart of 2010): Not a bad album and especially the last track is ok but I don't see enough interesting ideas or just music.
- All Delighted People EP by Sufjan Stevens (nr 41): again an album by Sufjan Stevens which is full of interesting ideas but that's not enough to make the album interesting enough. A good example is the last track which sometimes is very good but drags on too long.
- I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling (nr 44): not really my thing
- Hidden by These New Puritans) (nr 45 and the last 2010 album with an overall BEA rank of better than 2500): a very tribal album with often mesmerizing rhythms but it lacks good songs.

And this is the end of my journey into 2010, for me one of the worst years in rock music although there were of course a number of good albums. Here is the final verdict with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year rank and my personal year rank before and after this listening session.

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
31186 Rising Sun, Setting Sun By Mintzkov 931 - 1 To 1
32308 Our Cubehouse Still Rocks By Boston Spaceships 972 - 3 To 2
39 The Suburbs By Arcade Fire 1 - 2 To 3
32250 II By The White Wires 970 - 7 To 4
24375 Blood/Candy By The Posies 720 - 5 To 5
45496 Kudos By Surf City 1438 - 9 To 6
2668 Interpol By Interpol 47 - 6 To 7
5545 The Final Frontier By Iron Maiden 131 - 4 To 8
26440 The Wörld Is Yours By Motörhead 769 - 8 To 9
19457 The Soft Pack By The Soft Pack 559 - 10 To 10
46213 We All Got Out Of The Army By Robert Pollard 1453 - 11 To 11
32592 Northern Aggression By Steve Wynn & The Miracle 3 984 - 12 To 12
42240 Broken Record By Lloyd Cole 1347 - 13 To 13
915 The Monitor By Titus Andronicus 18 - 14 To 14
2348 Go By Jönsi 42 - 15 To 15
22469 Echo Mountain By K's Choice 657 - 17 To 16
49401 The Tragic Tale Of A Genius By My Cheap Little Dictaphone 1552 - 18 To 17
20439 Nothing Hurts By Male Bonding 595 - 16 To 18
36805 The Night Before By Hooverphonic 1167 - 19 To 19
50348 Cinema Red And Blue By Cinema Red And Blue 1584 - 20 To 20
7492 Majesty Shredding By Superchunk 184 - 21 To 21
541 The Wild Hunt By The Tallest Man On Earth 13 - To listen To 22
9743 Wake Up The Nation By Paul Weller 249 - 22 To 23
2001 Queen Of Denmark By John Grant 31 - To listen To 24
40664 NonStopErotik By Black Francis 1299 - 26 To 25
158 High Violet By The National 3 - 23 To 26
7224 All This Dancin' Around By Triggerfinger 178 - 24 To 27
35720 Play It Strange By The Fresh & Onlys 1121 - 25 To 28
39286 The Sore Losers By The Sore Losers 1272 - 27 To 29
28063 Crooked By Kristin Hersh 824 - 28 To 30
8411 Black Tambourine By Black Tambourine 211 - 29 To 31
57048 Pharmacy Of Love By Bettie Serveert 1821 - 30 To 32
7876 End Times By Eels 199 - 31 To 33
41013 Let Me Come Home By Broken Records 1309 - 32 To 34
16375 Pulled Apart By Horses By Pulled Apart By Horses 463 - 33 To 35
9596 Spiral Shadow By Kylesa 245 - 34 To 36
5188 Le Noise By Neil Young 121 - 35 To 37
9629 Hippies By Harlem 246 - 36 To 38
9076 Wilderness Heart By Black Mountain 228 - 38 To 39
3303 American Slang By The Gaslight Anthem 64 - 37 To 40
6062 Everything In Between By No Age 144 - 40 To 41
2352 Crazy For You By Best Coast 43 - 39 To 42
6091 Belle And Sebastian Write About Love By Belle And Sebastian 146 - 41 To 43
10927 Shadows By Teenage Fanclub 285 - 42 To 44
65069 Grandchildren Of The Revolution By Broken Glass Heroes 2053 - 43 To 45
44232 We Are Only Riders - The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project By Various Artists 1400 - 44 To 46
22155 Intriguer By Crowded House 646 - 45 To 47
53587 Cat Fit Fury! By The Van Jets 1700 - 46 To 48
1695 Nightmare By Avenged Sevenfold 24 - To listen To 49
2287 Black Sands By Bonobo 39 - To listen To 50
388 Innerspeaker By Tame Impala 10 - 47 To 51
1526 Treats By Sleigh Bells 21 - 48 To 52
3590 The Drums By The Drums 70 - 49 To 53
4977 Avi Buffalo By Avi Buffalo 112 - 50 To 54
48841 The Place We Ran From By Tired Pony 1533 - 51 To 55
333 Halcyon Digest By Deerhunter 7 - 52 To 56
17903 True Love Cast Out All Evil By Roky Erickson With Okkervil River 514 - 54 To 57
73592 The Inevitable Past Is The Future Forgotten By Three Mile Pilot 2278 - 55 To 58
3006 Grinderman 2 By Grinderman 56 - 53 To 59
2200 Infinite Arms By Band Of Horses 37 - Partly listened To 60
12493 Tomorrow Morning By Eels 342 - 56 To 61
27341 The Dance By Faithless 797 - 57 To 62
6947 Beachcomber's Windowsill By Stornoway 165 - 58 To 63
12010 I Will Be By Dum Dum Girls 326 - 59 To 64
22419 Bang Goes The Knighthood By The Divine Comedy 654 - 60 To 65
9735 Hurley By Weezer 247 - 61 To 66

The next year to investigate is 2015 (I again skip 5 years) but first I take a bit of holidays in Spain.

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I'm back on the project after a bit of holidays and I'm again at the end of a cycle at the year 2015 with not a lot of albums to cover as there are not of albums of 2015 in the overall BEA top 2500 yet. This is the list to cover with at the start the BEA overall rank and after that the BEA year rank and finally my personal year rank before this listening session:

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before
77 To Pimp A Butterfly By Kendrick Lamar 1 - To listen
164 Carrie & Lowell By Sufjan Stevens 2 - 22
352 Currents By Tame Impala 3 - To listen
514 I Love You, Honeybear By Father John Misty 4 - To listen
662 Art Angels By Grimes 5 - To listen
761 Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit By Courtney Barnett 6 - 9
802 In Colour By Jamie xx 7 - To listen
894 Hand. Cannot. Erase. By Steven Wilson 8 - To listen
1124 Have You In My Wilderness By Julia Holter 9 - To listen
1143 Divers By Joanna Newsom 10 - To listen
1148 Vulnicura By Björk 11 - To listen
1280 The Magic Whip By Blur 12 - To listen
1315 Depression Cherry By Beach House 13 - To listen
1330 EMOTION By Carly Rae Jepsen 14 - To listen
1345 The Epic By Kamasi Washington 15 - To listen
1603 Viet Cong By Viet Cong 16 - 25
1888 Drones By Muse 17 - To listen
2162 Summertime '06 By Vince Staples 18 - To listen
2214 Blurryface By Twenty One Pilots 19 - To listen
2249 My Love Is Cool By Wolf Alice 20 - To listen
2340 Ten Love Songs By Susanne Sundfor 21 - To listen
2358 Honeymoon By Lana Del Rey 22 - To listen
2367 Apocalypse, Girl By Jenny Hval 23 - To listen
2370 How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful By Florence And The Machine 24 - To listen
2473 Get To Heaven By Everything Everything 25 - To listen
2484 Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper By Panda Bear 26 - To listen

This was certainly not a bad year in music but most of the albums I liked of the year were not in the overall BEA top 2500.

And I've already listened to a few albums:
- To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar (nr 1 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): I know this album is regarded as one of the highlights in music but I don't really get it.
- Currents by Tame Impala (nr 3): I really liked Let it happen but after that I didn't find another track as good as that first one so will not make it to my personal top chart.
- I Love You, Honeybear by Father John Misty (nr 4): There are a few good songs on this album but maybe it was just how I felt when I listened to it but it didn't touch me enough to really like it. Maybe I'd need to listen to it again but for the moment it's a no.
- Art Angels by Grimes (nr 5): I can't deny that certainly at the start of the album there is a lot of originality about this album but especially the voice and that overall dance atmosphere on this album put me off.
- In Colour by Jamie xx (nr 7): here it's more clear: completely not my thing.

The next album to listen to is Hand. Cannot. Erase by Steven Wilson regarded as one of his best albums and again I think this will be an album I will have to listen twice to really appreciate it (or not).

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Another 2 2015 albums I listened to:
- Hand. Cannot. Erase. by Steven Wilson (nr 8 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): and again I had to listen to a Steven Wilson album twice (and it's a long one) to really appreciate it and after I did that it really caught on and it was as if I know it already all my life (a bit like a Pink Floyd album).
- Have You In My Wilderness by Julia Holter (nr 9): to say that is a lush and orchestrated album is an understatement and on Feel You, the first track, this works really well. Also some other tracks in the first half of the album are good but the second half drags on a bit and I finally decided not to include it in my personal top chart

The next album to listen to is Divers by Joanna Newsom

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And More 2015 albums:
- Divers by Joanna Newsom (nr 10 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): I don't like the voice and I don't like the songs of Joanna Newsom: I'm not a fan
- Vulnicura by Björk (nr 11): I fairly like the music of Björk but I haven't heard an album of her yet that was completely satisfying and this isn't an exception although the first two tracks are quite good.
- The Magic Whip by Blur (nr 12): I think I listened to this album before but since I haven't got it on my itunes collection I listened to it again. The first three tracks are amongst the best Blur tracks but the rest of the album disappoints a bit. But overall good enough for my personal top chart.
- Depression Cherry by Beach House (nr 13): for me not the best Beach House album: at their worst (like on this album) they represent everything I don't like in many records of the 2010's.
- E•MO•TION by Carly Rae Jepsen (nr 14): I can't imagine why this album has made it to the top 15 of the BEA 2015 ranks: this is to me just one of those many terrible pop R&B records.

And this leads me to the Epic jazz album by Kamasi Washington which I like already.

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Here are the next albums of 2015 I listened to:
- The Epic by Kamasi Washington (nr 15 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): this album has everything and in any case enough to stay away as far as possible from it: it's jazz, Kamasi Wahshington has links with the hiphop scene, it's a tough listen of nearly three hours with many very long tracks, the title is a bit pompous and don't really like the album artwork; but I absolutely loved it. I really have the feeling that Kamasi Washington is trying to cover all the many types of jazz, from very popular nearly sing along tunes to very experimental stuff with many references to the great masters like John Coltrane and Miles Davis all the time also remaining a very modern album. And while he's doing this he keeps making sure that the album keeps its very flowing rhythm and really sounds as a coherent piece of swinging art. The tracks are often very long and are in many cases based on improvisation but the album never gets boring which is strong feat for a record that long. The sound of the album is based upon the saxophone sound of Washington himself but there's many other instruments along with a full-fledged choir which also makes this a very orchestral album. All in all: a masterpiece to be cherished and for me who is not really a jazz lover the best jazz album I ever heard.
- Drones by Muse (nr 17): I fairly like the first albums of Muse but gradually their music more and more became pompous and since I read in a few reviews that this album was even more of that I didn't even bother to listen it at the time and I was right. This is really bad.
- Summertime '06 by Vince Staples (nr 18 ): again not really a hiphop album I like
- Blurryface by Twenty One Pilots (nr 19): this album is sometimes described as experimental but it's full of clichés and all in all just very bad.
- My Love Is Cool by Wolf Alice (nr 20): This must be the album about which my opinion changed the quickest. I didn't really know the album nor the band and at a first listen I just thought this to be a fairly bland album with not really a lot of interesting songs. But since the last (hidden) track was missing on Apple Music I listened to the Glastonbury 2016 live version on Youtube and since I was hooked immediately I also looked/listened to the rest of the concert which featured nearly all the tracks of this album and I was even more hooked: the singer has a lot of charisma and she delivers the songs in a fantastic way which isn't always very original but always catchy. And the songs grew on me and really became earworms so I listened to the album again and I was even more hooked. To conclude: I'm hooked and this is an album for my top chart of 2015 and I'm sorry I didn't discover it in 2015 itself.

The next album to listen to is Ten Love Songs by Susanne Sundfor.

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All women artist of 2015:
- Ten Love Songs by Susanne Sundfør (nr 21 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): this is a pop artist but she tries to aim higher with songs that are not bad (especially Accelerate is not bad) and with a lot of orchestral additions which are sometimes even a bit over the top. I doubted a bit but just nog good enough finally.
- Honeymoon by Lana Del Rey (nr 22): A bit of a boring album especially the last half.
- Apocalypse, Girl by Jenny Hval (nr 23 this album sounds a bit like a Björk album but more down-to-earth. Overall not really my taste
- How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence And The Machine (nr 24): I very much liked her first album and this album is a bit of the same but she never reaches the same heights as on Lungs although overall the songs especially at the first halve are fairly good. All in all I decided not to include it in my personal top chart.

The next album to listen to is Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper.

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St. Louis

Very happy to see you loved The Epic. It’s a favorite for me as well!
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ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

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And this is my last contribution of albums 2015 I listened to:
- Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper by Panda Bear (nr 25 on the overall BEA top chart of 2015): This albums sounds fairly experimental sometimes a bit like the Beach Boys go to more difficult places than Brian Wilson would have taken them to but somehow the music doesn't gel.
- Meliora by Ghost (SE) (nr 26 and the last album in the top list of 2015 with an overall rank better than 2500): I'm sorry but this album is what I would define as progrock in the bad sense: too pompous, derivative and overloaded with all kinds of twists and turns which don't work. There's sometimes a hint of a good guitar solo but that's about all.

And this end my journey in the year 2015, not abad year but I didn't discover a lot of new although I'm glad I became acquinted with Wolf Alice and especially with the Epic by Kamasi Washington, an album, no sorry, an epic album I would never have taken the effort to actually listen to it if it wasn't for this diary.

This is the final list with at the start the overall BEA rank and after that the BEA year rank and than my personal year 2015 rank before and after this listening project:

BEA Rank Title By Band BEA YearRank - My Rank before To My Rank after
4341 Teens Of Style By Car Seat Headrest 55 - 1 To 1
27982 Works For Tomorrow By Eleventh Dream Day 684 - 2 To 2
5335 Goon By Tobias Jesso Jr. 69 - 3 To 3
16875 West Kirby County Primary By Bill Ryder-Jones 333 - 4 To 4
6181 The Most Lamentable Tragedy By Titus Andronicus 94 - 5 To 5
30254 Delusion Moon By Meat Wave 782 - 6 To 6
6987 Ivy Tripp By Waxahatchee 112 - 7 To 7
20426 Bad Magic By Motörhead 416 - 8 To 8
748 Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit By Courtney Barnett 6 - 9 To 9
3057 Star Wars By Wilco 33 - 10 To 10
4302 The Book Of Souls By Iron Maiden 53 - 11 To 11
16523 Sore By Dilly Dally 325 - 12 To 12
15259 I Wasn't Born To Lose You By Swervedriver 293 - 13 To 13
26230 The Phantom Cowboy By K's Choice 617 - 14 To 14
48659 Zwaartekracht En Andere Verzinsels By Jonas Winterland 1587 - 15 To 15
6710 Untethered Moon By Built To Spill 108 - 16 To 16
35567 Brace The Wave By Lou Barlow 1016 - 17 To 17
24740 Saint Cecilia By Foo Fighters 566 - 18 To 18
52832 Wild Nights By Pins 1803 - 19 To 19
5382 Strangers To Ourselves By Modest Mouse 72 - 20 To 20
2264 My Love Is Cool By Wolf Alice 20 - To listen To 21
13964 Mutilator Defeated At Last By Thee Oh Sees 255 - 21 To 22
162 Carrie & Lowell By Sufjan Stevens 2 - 22 To 23
36908 Made Violent EP By Made Violent 1070 - 23 To 24
65204 Signs From The Lighthouse By Mad Dog Loose 2385 - 24 To 25
856 Hand. Cannot. Erase. By Steven Wilson 8 - To listen To 26
24150 Fantasy Empire By Lightning Bolt 545 - 25 To 27
1601 Viet Cong By Viet Cong 16 - 26 To 28
7276 Sol Invictus By Faith No More 119 - 27 To 29
18771 Foil Deer By Speedy Ortiz 377 - 28 To 30
1330 The Epic By Kamasi Washington 15 - To listen To 31
1315 The Magic Whip By Blur 14 - To listen To 32
63130 TaxiWars By TaxiWars 2284 - 29 To 33
5689 Sun Coming Down By Ought 79 - 30 To 34
77132 III By The Hickey Underworld 2894 - 31 To 35
38956 RKTKN#2 By Raketkanon 1175 - 32 To 36

And as I'm at the end of another 5 year cycle I return to the start which will be the year 1966.

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As an inbetween here are again some statistics on this album listening project. As I am for the third time at the end of a 5 year cycle I think I covered about 60% of this project.

As you know my intention is to cover the full top2500 as overall ranked by the BEA community. Why the top 2500: because I think this pretty well covers the BEA canon. Of course the contents of the top2500 changes all the time so I'm trying to adapt to that.

In the top 2500 I have the following categories:
- 588 that I already had in my collection and personal top charts before this diary
- 137 that I already knew before and aren't in my top chart
- 113 that I excluded from this listening session because they are greatest hits, live records or jazz records but I think I'm finally gonna include them again to actually cover the total BEA top 2500.
- 292 that I didn't know yet but have already listened to as part of this project and found them to be good enough to add to my personal top chart of the specific year
- 642 that I didn't know yet but have already listened to and found them not to be good enough to add to my personal top chart of the specific year
- 728 still to listen which will keep me busy for still a number of months.

Next to these albums in the BEA overall top 2500, there are also a lot of albums outside the top 2500 that are in my personal top charts:
- 962 albums I already knew
- 17 that were originally in the top 2500 and that I listened and added to my personal year charts but afterwards fell out of the BEA top 2500