Music discussion thread

[wellAlbidarned]

If you're a indie/hard rock kinda guy like me, you'll find "Just" and "My Iron Lung" getting a fair few plays.

[GIMH]

So what albums have you ****ers enjoyed this year? In no particular order, some of the ones I've liked

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - The best collection of Noel Gallagher songs, compilations aside, since Morning Glory? Probably - his writing had clearly got back to great strength by the time of 05's Don't Believe The Truth by which point he was sharing the writing with his brother and bandmates. 08's Dig Out Your Soul had Noel in fine form with a blistering Chief-dominated first half making for a great final oasis album, but only getting to write 5 or 6 songs an album, and the decline of the b-side meant he had a right stockpile building up, and here is the result, a marvellous album. Whether it's the sneer of his bandmates 'trying to walk in my shoes' on Everybody's On The Run or Wonderwall's grown up brother If I Had a Gun, this album is full of gems. Probably my favourite of the year and I'm itching for his already recorded follow-up, next year.

Beady Eye - Different Gear Still Speeding - Shocker as Oasis obsessive lists Liam and Noel's albums first in his 'no particular order' list of albums for 2011. I've talked about this one extensively on the forum at the time of release, but while it did not set the world alight, it did show that Liam was capable of standing on his own two feet. This is a highly enjoyable album with Liam's voice sounding the best it has since Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. The songs are transformed live as well, and the softer b-sides 'World Outside My Room' and 'In The Bubble With a Bullet' really show a different side to Liam's voice that we've seldom heard. Good debut and hopefully they build on it when they head into the studio next year.

Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See - I have a bit of a thing for bands that a lot of people seem to draw a line after a specific point in their career (see the siblings listed above, The Strokes, Guns N' Roses...) and you can definitely add this lot to that list. First album was monstrously huge, second one had every single track charting in the top 200. Third album well-received critically but turned a fair few fans away - IMO it's a definite grower and an excellent album. But anyway it meant people were interested to see where they would go next and the result was another about turn - from Humbug's desert rock chorusless affair, the fun returned but with much softer songs, Smithsesque guitars accompanied Turner's brilliant wordplay. There's not a single song on the album that I want to skip and while it might not have the infectious highs of a When The Sun Goes Down or Fluorescent Adolescent it is remarkably consistent, melodic and enjoyable and it's amazing to think they are all still only about 25.

Kasabian - Velociraptor! - Saw these live a couple of weeks back, cracking live act it must be said. Anyway, an album that is quite noticeably different to their third, before I'd heard it a mate said to me it was 'half Beatles half electronic' and it's not far off. The trademark beats are met with Beatlesy melodies, and you've got the Immigrant Songish Days are Forgotten which is one of the standout tracks of the year. Kasabian show off their influences quite clearly on this album but do so while sounding like themselves more than anything else. Quality.

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light - I thought my days of buying Foos' albums were over tbh, loved the first two, enjoyed parts of the third, the fourth was meeeeh and I gave up after that. My elder brother is a huge fan and told me I'd love this because it's a lot heavier than their recent work, gave it a go and he was right - everything that I originally loved about them is here, with crunching riffs accompanying catchy melodies - it's not going to change the world but it's a hell of a listen - the album's closer Walk is one of the best, with Grohl putting in quite the vocal performance.

Honourable mention goes to Miles Kane - The Colour of the Trap which I don't have yet but I have enjoyed all of what I've listened to which must be pretty much the whole album, via youtube.

[Spark]

back half of the king of limbs + bonus tracks (which are better than the album tracks... hm)
ravedeath, 1972. it still hasn't quite clicked for me yet in the same way harmony in uv did, but it's tim hecker. it's good.
i do remember being underwhelmed by explosions in the sky's release this year. pity.
can't think of any other standouts at the moment, this year's more been about rediscovering some gems which i'd forgotten about.
in particular eluvium's "copia", which has gotten a hell of a lot of plays in the last six months. mostly on the basis of jaw-droppingly gorgeous tracks like this and this. just stunning.


have been listening to a lot more straight 'classical' than usual too - shifting tastes, again.

[sledger]

Eluvium, so good.

[andmark]

Paul McCartney concert was amazing

Has anyone heard of Ian McNabb or the Icycle Works?

[Mehul K]

So what albums have you ****ers enjoyed this year? In no particular order, some of the ones I've liked

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - The best collection of Noel Gallagher songs, compilations aside, since Morning Glory? Probably - his writing had clearly got back to great strength by the time of 05's Don't Believe The Truth by which point he was sharing the writing with his brother and bandmates. 08's Dig Out Your Soul had Noel in fine form with a blistering Chief-dominated first half making for a great final oasis album, but only getting to write 5 or 6 songs an album, and the decline of the b-side meant he had a right stockpile building up, and here is the result, a marvellous album. Whether it's the sneer of his bandmates 'trying to walk in my shoes' on Everybody's On The Run or Wonderwall's grown up brother If I Had a Gun, this album is full of gems. Probably my favourite of the year and I'm itching for his already recorded follow-up, next year.

Beady Eye - Different Gear Still Speeding - Shocker as Oasis obsessive lists Liam and Noel's albums first in his 'no particular order' list of albums for 2011. I've talked about this one extensively on the forum at the time of release, but while it did not set the world alight, it did show that Liam was capable of standing on his own two feet. This is a highly enjoyable album with Liam's voice sounding the best it has since Standing on the Shoulder of Giants. The songs are transformed live as well, and the softer b-sides 'World Outside My Room' and 'In The Bubble With a Bullet' really show a different side to Liam's voice that we've seldom heard. Good debut and hopefully they build on it when they head into the studio next year.

Arctic Monkeys - Suck It And See - I have a bit of a thing for bands that a lot of people seem to draw a line after a specific point in their career (see the siblings listed above, The Strokes, Guns N' Roses...) and you can definitely add this lot to that list. First album was monstrously huge, second one had every single track charting in the top 200. Third album well-received critically but turned a fair few fans away - IMO it's a definite grower and an excellent album. But anyway it meant people were interested to see where they would go next and the result was another about turn - from Humbug's desert rock chorusless affair, the fun returned but with much softer songs, Smithsesque guitars accompanied Turner's brilliant wordplay. There's not a single song on the album that I want to skip and while it might not have the infectious highs of a When The Sun Goes Down or Fluorescent Adolescent it is remarkably consistent, melodic and enjoyable and it's amazing to think they are all still only about 25.

Kasabian - Velociraptor! - Saw these live a couple of weeks back, cracking live act it must be said. Anyway, an album that is quite noticeably different to their third, before I'd heard it a mate said to me it was 'half Beatles half electronic' and it's not far off. The trademark beats are met with Beatlesy melodies, and you've got the Immigrant Songish Days are Forgotten which is one of the standout tracks of the year. Kasabian show off their influences quite clearly on this album but do so while sounding like themselves more than anything else. Quality.

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light - I thought my days of buying Foos' albums were over tbh, loved the first two, enjoyed parts of the third, the fourth was meeeeh and I gave up after that. My elder brother is a huge fan and told me I'd love this because it's a lot heavier than their recent work, gave it a go and he was right - everything that I originally loved about them is here, with crunching riffs accompanying catchy melodies - it's not going to change the world but it's a hell of a listen - the album's closer Walk is one of the best, with Grohl putting in quite the vocal performance.

Honourable mention goes to Miles Kane - The Colour of the Trap which I don't have yet but I have enjoyed all of what I've listened to which must be pretty much the whole album, via youtube.

I would mostly go along with this, I also like Smother by Wild Beasts and Yuck.

Its strange how Noel hasn't gotten better reviews for NGHFB, its more or less the same as Beady Eye's DGSS got even though it is pretty superior.

[BoyBrumby]

Has anyone heard of Ian McNabb or the Icycle Works?

Yup. Got a few of his solo albums. Head Like a Rock, featuring Crazy Horse (AKA Neil Young's backing band) on four of the tracks is a superior slice of fuzzy, amped-up rock but my fav is A Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Emotional Party, a mainly acoustic album that shows off the quality of his songwriting. Sex With Someone You Love is one of the great songs about wanking.

Picked it up for all of a quid too.

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Touche Amore - Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me
Close Your Eyes - Empty Hands and Heavy Hearts
Defeater - Empty Days And Sleepless Nights
We Came as Romans - Understanding What We've Grown to Be

[Spikey]

GOOD:
Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
Chad VanGaalen - Diaper Island
David Kilgour & The Heavy Eights - Left By Soft (AOTY)
East River Pipe - We Live In Rented Rooms
Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Eleanor Friedberger - My Mistakes - YouTube probably soty. that or Diamond Mine by David Kilgour
The Feelies - Here Before
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck
Nodzzz - Innings
Real Estate - Days
Stephen Malkmus - Mirror Traffic
Teenage Cool Kids - Denton After Sunset
Tom Waits - Bad As Me
Twerps - Twerps

Bad

****ING BON IVOR
still don't get fleet foxes
**** Unknown Mortal Orchestra
listened to wilco's album like twice
the fall and half man half biscuit didn't really do much for me
noel gallagher was what i feared it would be.
a lot of other stuff i got told to listen to

[GIMH]

What did you fear Noel would be?

[andyc]

****?

[andmark]

Yup. Got a few of his solo albums. Head Like a Rock, featuring Crazy Horse (AKA Neil Young's backing band) on four of the tracks is a superior slice of fuzzy, amped-up rock but my fav is A Party Political Broadcast on Behalf of the Emotional Party, a mainly acoustic album that shows off the quality of his songwriting. Sex With Someone You Love is one of the great songs about wanking.

Picked it up for all of a quid too.

He was one of the people I went to that Paul McCartney concert with and I got told he was quite famous. Cool guy

[Pothas]

Bought very few albums that were released this year but PJ Harveys - Let England Shake deserved all the praise it got and Kate Bush - 50 words for snow is bloody marvelous.

[Uppercut]

The new Beirut and Bon Iver album's were awesome, but musically I'll remember it as the year I found the Cat Empire, Femi Kuti and Emancipator.

[GIMH]

Stop making fake bands up you wanker