Is there such thing as a terrible year for music?

Some possible answers (re: this year):

* 2008 was a woeful year for music
* You're talking nonsense! There were x great songs/albums this year
* Hidden gems yet to be unearthed will prove that when we look back in x years that 2008 actually was a great year for music
* With the Internet and stuff, good stuff bubbles to the top that much quicker, so not so many hidden gems to look forward to in future years
* etc

My own opinion is that 2008 was a low not seen since the likes of 2000, but that's hardly relevant.

yes and no

at the same time

in a chicken fil'a bathroom

Not really, but some years are worse than others.

I do insist that for all these type of (x year) sucked arguments that there be some fucking hindsight available to you. These things take a long time to suss out.

2000 was an amazing year so WTF anyway.

...suss out and then are totally and rightfully open to argument.

Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. I dunno

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/justarunner/25_best_albums_of_2000/
http://www.metacritic.com/music/bests/2000.shtml

In hindsight 08 seems way worse than 00.

Comparing my 08 list to my 07 list, I think 07 had a better list of music. But that could be a consequence of not being exposed to better stuff.

08 was my favourite year ever (?)

Unless you were into hip-hop or participated in the British underground dance scene, 1986-1989 were dire compared to the preceding and following years. 07 and 08 were average years, some gems, but I don't get a sense of any great new trend (or even revival) emerging of late.

2008 was, to my ears, the worst year for music in recent memory. But I suspect that has more to do with bad music criticism than an actual dearth of good music.

i dislike that this thread topic supposedly about these arguments has started a thread of these arguments

no there is no such thing. there may be such a thing as a terrible year for listeners though.

we need a suggest delete button for threads

supposedly there's a way to not open threads you don't like, but only a few people have figured it out

there can be
-a bad year for stuff you listened to
-a year in which a lot of the stuff critics said was good wasnt
-a year in which your favorite bands didnt release an album

No. I say this as an old, jaded fuck. No.

It's like saying 'a bad year for people'. Who do you mean? There will always be good albums and good songs and making an overall judgement is impossible as it's physically impossible to hear everything.

I think one thing that does happen as you get older is that it's harder for their to be big breakthrough moments because you've heard more music and therefore the mindblowing moments tend in my IMHO to be less. But this is a factor of you aging, not music getting worse.

Of course there can be a terrible year. Sometimes the year's dominant forms/styles/fashions suck, and you have to dig deep to find things of interest. Sometimes one or more crucial artists in a particular field die, and no one really arises to fill the vacuum. I don't think "b-b-but there's always something cool happening somewhere!" refutes any of this.

2008 was not a particularly good vintage, but as for truly terrible years you have to go back to the likes of 1988 or 1990.

I suppose a terrible year could be one where scenes or trends which started out promisingly faltered or led down a dead end (this seems to be what people feel about the mid-'80s with new pop blanding out). I can't imagine there being a year where no good music whatsoever gets released but its possible that sense of disappointment might overshadow what you did enjoy.

we need a suggest delete button for threads

― dugong.jpg (jabba hands), Tuesday, January 6, 2009 6:36 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also, 2008 and 2000 were brilliant

lex, is 2008 as great as 2006? Because I don't remember you stumping for anything as hard this year as you did for Paris.

i think the difference is that i didn't need to stump as hard for my favourite albums this year (erykah, young jeezy, ne-yo, the-dream, the bug and jazmine were all pretty consensus picks in their fields). i did stump pretty hard for beyonce and mariah though! and would've done so for nappy roots, but only heard that at the tail end of the year.

also in 08 i felt like almost everything i tried was good, or of some worth, so the stumping was spread over about 40-50 artists rather than concentrated on a few.

weirdly, looking at my 07 list, it's pretty clearcut that 08 was loads better for albums - almost all of my top 20 this year would have been, like, no 2 in 07 - but i also remember really enjoying music in 07 anyway, so saying "oh 07 was a terrible year" would be too narrow a view of it.

a top 2 as strong as ellen allien and paris in 06 is a rare and beautiful thing though

I wish I could find my 2006+07 list. And heck, the 08 list I submitted. I should really back this stuff up.

2008 would probably seem like a less enjoyable year for music for me if not for UK funky. Which made it a stellar year instead.

Which is the kind of thing that makes me so suspicious of this whole process. Like, anyone who didn't think funky was the ruling centre of music in 2008 basically missed or misunderstood the year from my perspective.

And i'm sure there will be people who think the same thing vis a vis me (or would if they cared) for not hearing any albums by any artists with a "Deer" at the beginning of their name.

"Deer" is so 2007, 2008 was all about "Crystal"!

yeah. 2009 sucks ass!

I tried really hard to get into funky through the funky thread, but totally didn't get it - which may be more due to my geography/social experiences than to the awesome power of funky. But that could explain why I feel more lukewarm about music this year. Maybe I wasn't apart of THE CONVERSATION that was happening.

I used to think that certain years were terrible for music, but whenever we have these discussions and someone nominates, say 1988 like someone did above, I always think "waht! crazy talk" and even if I do think that a year like 1975 does kinda suck, someone else will always come along and stick up for it. There might be some years that fit along my tastes more than others but that's all it is, just subjective differences.

To be clear, my position is kinda ridiculous - but I think basically saying a year was about anything in particular is ridiculous. It's THE CONVERSATIONS you're part of that are important.

In more ways than one: like I can't deny that my interest in teenpop several years ago was piqued by the way in which Frank and others like yourself characterised its appeals.

But such articulations start to lose their attractive force after a while.

I think most people who think interestingly about music, to the extent that they make judgments about a year, are basically talking about the creative power of conversations and articulations in that year more than actual albums, songs etc.

"yourself" being mordy.

I can't imagine there being a year where no good music whatsoever gets released

It is more about the amount. 1988 and 1990 are the years where I had most trouble filling my RYM Top 60 with even decent albums. That being said, Prefab Sprout and Freiheit both released fantastic albums in both years, as did Crowded House and Scritti Politti in 1988 and Jellyfish and Depeche Mode in 1990. So obviously there were some great highlights.

Right, so what I'm responding to is a lack of really powerful dialogue around something for me this year. A year or so ago, my favorite album and my favorite conversation (Aly+AJ and Teenpop) occurred simultaneously. So it really stood out for me. This year, though, very few people shared my favorite album (Kathleen Edwards). In fact, it barely registered on anyone's scales.

And I don't really care about "scenes". Because, other than the UK beat scene around 63/64, the psych pop of 67/68, the symphonic rock of roughly 71-76, the new romantic/synthpop scene of 80-84 and the Britpop scene of the mid 90s, there have really never been any "scenes" that have appealed to me anyway. The best music has usually been quite "unhip".

But I can blame that on myself. I don't think I made a huge effort to get people to talk about her new album. I certainly could've tried to create a conversation around it. XP to myself.

I think most people who think interestingly about music, to the extent that they make judgments about a year, are basically talking about the creative power of conversations and articulations in that year more than actual albums, songs etc.

i sort of agree and disagree in equal measure - i mean, i agree that this is true, but i don't think it should be. albums and songs and scenes are more important than conversations - i mean, it's not the music's fault if a lot of the most interesting conversators decide to get old and not bother with new music any more, right? i don't feel that interesting conversation necessarily adds much to my enjoyment of the music.

I guess I'm too Rorty'ian, lex. I believe conversation creates reality. Maybe not so firmly, but at least enough that I've noticed the music I talk the most about grows the most on me. I understand it's not everyone's experience tho.

to slightly paraphrase a conversation i had with tom recently - tom was saying that the fact that 808s & heartbreak sparked off so much debate and talk made it better for him, compared to say the recession, but i think this is a slightly backwards way of looking at things - the recession is still the much much better album

Conversation means nothing. Much of the best music is hardly being talked about at all. Like The Flower Kings are virtually ignored by everyone and yet their 2007 album was #3 on my end of year 2007 list.

ha i often find that talking too much makes me hate an album, especially if my original position was "it's good but not that good", if this comes up against people arguing that "IT'S AMAZING" i'll inevitably end up saying "ugh it sucks, what are you like".

It is more about the amount. 1988 and 1990 are the years where I had most trouble filling my RYM Top 60 with even decent albums.

I guess it's all relative but I'd say even a year where I'd struggle to name maybe 20 really good albums (2003 was like this for me) wasn't terrible - a mediocre year perhaps but 20 records to cherish would still make me glad I was keeping up with music.

I only named about 13-15 albums this year. About 30-40 singles.

I'm always shocked when someone can list 100 albums they liked, or even 50.

Of course it is also a matter of taste. Even though you don't follow trends, trends decide what is being released. 1988 and 1990 were probably excellent years for those who are into old school hip-hop, hair metal, really dirty early American "alternative" rock, shoegazing or house music.

The Kanye album was a 7/10 for me and probably my least favourite of his but yeah I enjoyed the way it became such a talking point, particularly when it seemed to draw in people who'd previously been uninterested in his music. It's as much of a part of pop as the music itself.

lex when you say "what are you like" is it said and meant in the same way as neneh saying "what is he like" in "Buffalo Stance"? This phrase fascinates me.

I don't think the conversation maketh the album or the song but I think it determines how we relate to music generally, at least if you're at all the sort of person who likes to talk about music.

As in: our relationship to our enjoyment of music. Rather than just the enjoyment itself. Which is what describing a year is always about - there is no artifact "the year 2008" that we just enjoy or not enjoy.

Ha I think i'm happiest about music when I start threads about songs or albums or genres on ILM that go on for a long time.

It was a good year for music = I started 50 threads.

1968 was an excellent year for music, yet I didn't start a single thread that year ;)

lex when you say "what are you like" is it said and meant in the same way as neneh saying "what is he like" in "Buffalo Stance"?

similar - it shares the element of astonishment - but more contemptuous.

but tim what if you started a thread about an album and no one replied? i know this never actually happens to you but it's basically been my relationship w/poptimists this year.

Tim, your point is well-taken (how I'm reading you) in that the year is itself a construct, so it's not like we're dealing with some pure reality here. We're opening up a discussion to talk about the year in music, itself. So relating to music through conversation is natural from that point. I wonder about other constructs too - my favorite album this year (or maybe second favorite after Edwards) was the soundtrack for the video game Fallout 3. All the music was from the 30s + 40s tho, and it wasn't released as an actual soundtrack AFAIK. I only heard it through this game medium. But I discussed it over on ILG, and it was really an amazing musical artifact for me. But I didn't include it because of all these considerations (not original, not even an album, etc, etc). But if I considered 2008 in terms of my PERSONAL listening to music, it was fab amazing. I wouldn't spend a year not listening to something great, even if it wasn't new.

1999 was the first year I started thinking about "the year in music" precisely because I stumbled across alt.music.alternative.

That need to capsulize intensifies when you start to write (professionally or blogwise or whatever) because you want to justify your attention and efforts to some extent. I think it would be dreadfully depressing to be a full-time critic and not be enjoying much new music. Don't know how so many of them do it!

"but tim what if you started a thread about an album and no one replied? i know this never actually happens to you"

Ha it does! It just seems like it never happens because no-one was there to read it.

Yeah Mordy I think that's interesting w/r/t how our choices are influenced... and not merely by "official" considerations (timing - else Rickie Lee Jones' "Pirates" would be my album of the year even though I've owned it for ten already) but also by what we think are good/interesting/worthy conversations. This is almost my point about starting threads. I wonder if I would have made Studio my top pick for last year if it didn't feel like there was some sense of momentum behind my enjoyment of it, like my proselytisation took on a life and function and purpose above and beyond merely describing my enjoyment. If there had been a really good funky comp released this year (AKA lol if I had heard the geeneus album already perhaps) I would have felt a strong desire to make it number one (though it would have been unlikely to actually beat The-Dream for me) just so that I could push that conversation more, a conversation over which I feel some weird and perhaps dubious sense of "ownership" over (though not possessively: more like a share in a co-operative perhaps) than I do w/r/t The-Dream specifically or R&B generally.

no. i hate it when people say 'what an awful year' and similar and it happens with every year.

tom was saying that the fact that 808s & heartbreak sparked off so much debate and talk made it better for him, compared to say the recession, but i think this is a slightly backwards way of looking at things - the recession is still the much much better album

how can this be backwards? it's not like he needs other people to validate his prefs. surely it's just a case of there being more to associate with one album over another, beyond the music. i don't usually do that or try not to but one example of it on ILM was the 'Do U Mind' thread. When that thread was started I had no other context for the tune and it was easy to dismiss it as 'alright but easily lost in a sea of similar releases over the years'. Only when it's anthem status became more apparent did interest in it rise. It's a very interesting process, and your attitude to and history with the track becomes more interesting with it, even if you end up still not exactly loving it but thinking 'yeah this is kinda important or noteworthy now'.

blueski OTM. When I first listening to Nevermind the Bullocks, I was in the middle of a very strict parochial school that didn't allow any secular music listening of any kind. I was vaguely familiar with the original historical circumstances of the album, but what resonated was that it sounded like rebellion, and my listening to it was a literal rebellion. Smuggling it, hiding it, listening to it between classes... When I later understood the total historical context of it, that gave it another layer. I don't know that it's objectively a great album, or even an album that I'd enjoy if I were hearing it for the first time today. But that particular auratic moment makes it one of my fave albums of all time.

Of course there can be a terrible year. Sometimes the year's dominant forms/styles/fashions suck, and you have to dig deep to find things of interest. Sometimes one or more crucial artists in a particular field die, and no one really arises to fill the vacuum. I don't think "but there's always something cool happening somewhere!" refutes any of this.

Why not? Why should dominant cultural styles matter? Particularly in these fragmented times?

i discovered black milk, air france and aeroplane last year so i really can't complain.