Rainard Jalen

I guess any music forum at the end of the year ought to have a thread like this, eh? I'm sure there'll be a few matters of contention, but this is Music Banter after all and it's all in good fun.

The following albums get my nod. Note, I do not mean by this that these are bad albums. Merely that they've received an awful lot more credit and acclaim than I believe they deserved:

Burial - Untrue
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Battles - Mirrored
Kanye West - Graduation
Jay-Z - American Gangster
and finally...
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (and particularly the song All My Friends)

A note on the final choice: I do like this album a whole lot, but I firmly do not believe that it is even top 5 material in 2007 and the way it has been received is, imo, suspect to say the least.

anticipation

Against Me!'s "New Wave" was absolute garbage.

Urban Hat€monger ?

MIA - Kala

Just sounds like a chav talking over someones record collection.

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anticipation

maybe because that's what it is.





oi!

Rainard Jalen

lol

personally I thought the world of this album, though I can't help feeling that it was overrated by all the mags at the same time.

What's with the overrating process anyway? It seems that some special group somewhere or other decide that such and such an album is going to be the big craze, and all the mags and websites suddenly jump on the bandwagon like a bunch of mindless zombies. Hell, look at Pitchfork Media - they're one of those publications often credited with creating trends. This year they've clearly fallen for unduly-raved-over act after unduly-raved-over act, and elsewhere done the purely predictable by their standards (i.e. dropping their jaws over The Animal Collective and any member who happens to release an album).

It makes me wonder: is it more important to half of these publications that they give off the impression of having "guessed" right what the big record of the year would be, than that they actually try to say something new, original, unique?

Since I'm on the topic of Pitchfork Media, it's a laugh that Ghostface's The Big Doe Rehab and Wu-Tang's 8 Diagrams can make Pitchfork's top 50 albums of 2007, yet albums that they themselves rated significantly higher and that imo are way better, like Prodigy's Return Of The Mac and Blitzen Trapper's Wild Mountain Nation, don't even get a nod. And so, I ask...just what is a top 50/100 end-of-year list about half of the time?

YSHKMWYHTC

Year Zero by NIN.
Also one of the best albums of 07
But the way it was received by NIN fans was near disgusting.
They hailed it as the greatest album ever made, that all Reznors other work wasn't a patch on Year Zero. All of this within a week of first hearing it.

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You Should Have Killed Me When You Had The Chance

O'Bannion

I have to disagree with you. There are tons of NIN fans who hate YZ.

I think thats one of the reasons why I love NIN. He seems to lose and gain fans with each record he does. You know the fans he picked up with WITH TEETH heard YEAR ZERO and were like, "WTF is this techno garbage?"

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Think for yourself. Question Authority.

Rainard Jalen

There are even non-NIN fans who hate YZ. I'm one of them. However, I would go as far as to say that God Given is comedic genius and made me laugh for hours (was it supposed to do that? :-s)

To adidasss...I agree that Arctic's album was considerably better than Black Lips' Good Bad Not Evil; it was a decent record and I believe most people who gave it an honest try tend to agree, and reckon the only reason many mags snubbed it was merely out of determination to not be sucked into the AM hype machine.

YSHKMWYHTC

I was more on about the hardcore NIN fans, on a forum I used to post on everyone was all for bummin' YZ.

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You Should Have Killed Me When You Had The Chance

sleepy jack

8 Diagrams and The Big Doe Rehab were both a million times better than American Gangster, Graduation and Da Drought 3 all of which were ranked in the top 20 and in nearly every list. I don't see why you single out two of the only albums I think were really worthy of being on the list, not even that high on the list, when there are even more overrated and worse rap albums higher up.

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