London’s Fact Magazine—which runs one of the sharpest-witted, up-to-the-minute music blogs around—has been doling out year-end lists for a few weeks now, the newest of which is its Top 20 albums, preceded in recent weeks by Top 20s of reissues and DJ mixes. These lists are thankfully different than the ones you’ll find in the big U.K. mags, which we’re thankful for even when their logic escapes us. The albums, reissues, and mixes lists are after the jump, but first, a few impressions.
THE GOOD: Sorry, Fleet Foxes: Fact’s got other priorities. The Top 20 albums is the strongest publication list so far this year—nearly all of the titles I’ve heard on it (Gang Gang Dance, No Age, Zomby, Portishead, Jay Reatard, Flying Lotus, H&LA, 2563, Vampire Weekend, the Bug, Claro Intelecto) are good-to-great by my ears.
THE BAD: That Kelley Polar album (No. 17) is pretty weak sauce, guys.
THE WHAAA? Surely 2008’s giant pile-up of African vault finds deserves a heftier representation in the reissues Top 20 than Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou at No. 18? (At the very least, the majordomos at the mag need to give Franco’s Francophonic Vol. 1, just out on Sterns, a spin.) And grateful as I am to Fact to linking to that Prins Thomas Resident Advisor podcast (I’d tried to find it to no avail earlier in the year), surely the fact that it was posted October 15, 2007, counts against it as a 2008 mix, shouldn’t it?
FACT’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2008
1. Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna (Warp)
2. No Age, Nouns (Sub Pop)
3. Zomby, Where Were U in ’92? (Werk)
4. Portishead, Third (Island)
5. Late of the Pier, Fantasy Black Channel (Parlophone)
6. Jay Reatard, Matador Singles ’08 (Matador)
7. MGMT, Oracular Spectacular (Columbia)
8. Thomas Brinkmann, When Horses Die . . . (Max Ernst)
9. Deerhunter, Microcastle (4AD)
10. Flying Lotus, Los Angeles (Warp)
11. High Places (Thrill Jockey)
12. Hercules and Love Affair (EMI)
13. Ponytail, Ice Cream Social (We*Are*Free)
14. 2563, Aerial (Tectonic)
15. Vampire Weekend (XL)
16. The Bug, London Zoo (Ninja Tune)
17. Kelley Polar, I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling (Environ)
18. Claro Intelecto, Metanarrative (Modern Love)
19. Hush Arbors (Ecstatic Peace)
20. M83, Saturdays = Youth (Mute)
FACT’S TOP 20 REISSUES OF 2008
1. Gas, Nah Und Fern (Kompakt)
2. Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika)
3. Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and Classics (R&S)
4. Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue (Caribou)
5. A Guy Called Gerald, Black Secret Technology (A Guy Called Gerald)
6. Liquid Liquid, Slip In and Out of Phenomenon (Domino)
7. The Prodigy, Experience Expanded: B-Sides and Remixes (XL)
8. Pavement, Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition (Matador)
9. BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective (The Grey Area)
10. Robert Wyatt, catalogue (Domino)
11. An England Story: The Culture of the MC in the UK 1984-2004 (Soul Jazz)
12. Pole, 1/2/3 (~scape)
13. Basic Channel, BCD-2 (Basic Channel)
14. Mount Vernon Arts Lab, The Séance at Hobs Lane (Ghost Box)
15. Derrick May, Innovator (R&S)
16. Tubeway Army, Replicas Redux (Beggars Banquet)
17. Philip Glass, Glass Box: A Nonesuch Retrospective (Nonesuch)
18. Gore, Hart Gore and Mean Man’s Dream (Southern Lord/FSS)
19. Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou, The Vodoun Effect 1972-1975: Funk and Sato from Benin’s Obscure Labels (Analog Africa)
20. Shining, In the Kingdom of Kitsch and Grindstone (Rune Grammofon)
FACT’S MIXES OF 2008
01: APPLEBLIM – RINSE APRIL PODCAST (Rinse FM)
02: METRO AREA – FABRIC 43 (Fabric)
03: MARCUS NASTY & MAC 10 – SEPTEMBER RINSE SET (Rinse FM)
04: OPTIMO – SLEEPWALK (Domino)
05: BOK BOK & MANARA – WHAT’S A NICHE? (Mad Decent)
06: ESAU MWANWAYA AND RADIOCLIT ARE… THE VERY BEST (Self-Released)
07: HYPERDUB SHOWCASE (Mary Anne Hobbs Experimental Show, Radio 1)
08: DJ /RUPTURE – UPROOT (The Agriculture)
09: TRIM – SOULFOOD VOLUME 3 (Self-Released)
10: PRINS THOMAS – RA.074 (Resident Advisor)
11: JUSTIN MILLER & JACQUES RENAULT – ANIMAL HOUSE (FACT)
12: GENERATION BASS (Mary Anne Hobbs Experimental Show, Radio 1)
13: CROOKERS – FIVE MINUTE MINI-MIX (Annie Mac’s Show, Radio 1)
14: HESSLE AUDIO – FACT MIX (FACT)
15: RITON – THE EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK MIXTAPE (Self-Released)
16: SQUINCY JONES – NINTENDUB (Self-Released)
17: MIKE SIMONETTI – ALBUTEROL MIX (Italians Do It Better)
18: DEETRON – FUSE PRESENTS… (Music Man)
19: JACKMASTER – MIX FOR SINDEN’S SHOW (Kiss FM)
20: GHOST BOX – ADVENTURES IN MODERN MUSIC GUEST MIX (Resonance FM)
without a doubt the strongest list presented so far, even with portishead and late of the pier in the top 5, and vampire weekend appearing.
i do take issue with their top 20 mixes list though. there’s some strong stuff there, and i suppose it’s just because they’re british, but they missed out on some great mixes by guys at mad decent (emynd’s bounce mix on the podcast) and throne of blood (dances with white girls’ promo mix for his ep). also the santogold/diplo collaboration missed that list entirely, for reasons unknown.
Not sure if I agree with Nouns (bad to my ears) up so high, but those are some pretty good picks. Also, 2563 never went anywhere for me…
Seriously, that reissue list that doesn’t have the three Soundway “Nigeria” compilations on it? Some bullshit, right there.
@walkmasterflex: I second your ’side-eye’ at their list of mixes.
Someone explain the Kelley Polar love to me? I’m sure he’s a nice guy and all, but his stuff is just terrible.
Something that’s always bothered me, and maybe we can start a thread here somewhere… if older material has never been released (like the Arthur Russell album), or was released only in a very hard-to-obtain manner (like Gary Higgins’ Red Hash, which I understand was a private press LP with a very limited run), does it qualify as a reissue? The reasoning being that it had to be issued in the first place for it to be RE-issued, right? I was always confused by folks who put Brian Wilson’s Pet Sounds as a reissue - that was all-new recordings of some old songs, not actual older material. Anyone care to take an official stance on this one way or another? It seems to me that in the eyes of record labels even something that has been bootlegged extensively would not be considered a reissue unless it had been officially available in some way in the past. Does at least one copy of something being made legitimately available qualify something as an “issue”?
Am i totally missing the boat here? Can someone explain what differentiates a reissue of an older album (usually with sonic improvements and maybe some bonus material) vs. a new release of older-yet-not-heard-before material? God I need to go home.
@T’Challa: i mean, crookers are pretty great djs and all, but did a 5-minute minimix they did really drop enough jaws to make it top 20, compared to an immaculate 2 hour long mix flying lotus just completed for bbc radio (which included tons of dubstep/uk house/glitch-hop artists)?
@walkmasterflex: The list was made two weeks before the Flying Lotus mix was even aired.
@baconfat: Yeah, I should have mentioned this in “The Whaaa??” The Russell stuff was never even released before, no way does it belong on the reissue list. (You mean Wilson’s Smile, not Pet Sounds, right?) I’d say a limited-edition original issue given a wider release is a reissue, strictly speaking, but I have no issue with you saying otherwise.
@Michaelangelo Matos: Yeah, I meant Smile, thanks for the catch. Anyway, I feel like with the majors going crazy with re-releasing popular albums that aren’t even a year old with bonus material and gumming up the works, this issue might bear some further scrutiny.
@the rich girls are weeping: Kelley Polar is a Marmite Artist.
oh, i tried to post a link to the post about Marmite Artists. now it just looks like i unironically used that term. here - [idolator.com]
hey Michaelangelo, cheers for linking to our top 20. it took a while, and there was a fair bit of argument over it, but i think we’re pretty happy with it.
“Surely 2008’s giant pile-up of African vault finds deserves a heftier representation in the reissues Top 20 than Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou at No. 18? (At the very least, the majordomos at the mag need to give Franco’s Francophonic Vol. 1, just out on Sterns, a spin.)”
We have all the soundway Nigeria comps in the office (and they were on our shortlist for re-issues; as was a heap more stuff), but we ended up going for the orchestre poly-rhythmo de cotonou instead. More of us just liked that one more. Cheers for the heads up on the francophonic comp though; we don’t have that and should hear it.
Re: Arthur Russell, it’s actually out top 20 reissues and compilations. As a collection of Russell demos recorded over 30 years, we felt it fell into the latter.
Thing about lists like that is because they’re consensual, and reflective of all our staff and contributors, a lot of worthy things get missed. In our blogs section we’ve got individual contributors and artists talking about their best of the year, which are obviously a lot more individual and arguably more interesting. First two are here:
[www.factmagazine.co.uk]
[www.factmagazine.co.uk]
we’ve also got end of year charts from no age, kode 9, ponytail, sinden, toddla t and many more, which we’ll stagger on the site over the next week.
Best wishes, apologies for the long post, cheers again for the kind words and most of all, merry Christmas!
tom
The albums list strikes me as the “albums I feel I should like more than I actually do” list. The top two albums are definitely that way for me, as is the High Places record.
Album list looks pretty average to me — 100 percent artsy indie music, or close to it; not exactly diverse. No pop, no country, no metal, no r&b…which is fine, if that’s what the publication’s about, but I’m sure not gonna pat them on the back for it. Three albums I like okay (Jay Reatard, Vampire Weekend, No Age, all probably somewhere between 50 and 150 on my own list); zero albums I love. # 1 is Gang Gang Dance’s least compelling album; still perplexed why this is the one that’s suddenly getting them all the attention. And lots of albums I haven’t heard that I probably wouldn’t like much. (I did like an album by The Bug once — *Pressure*, five years ago — which wound up either sold or in storage within a year, just like most other Kevin Martin related albums I’ve enjoyed in the background for a week or two. Pretty sure there have been a dozen or so of those, and pretty sure I couldn’t tell them apart. I’d be seriously surprised if his latest Bug outing was any different, but hey, you never know right?)
(Well, “artsy indie music” is a diverse category I guess, in its own way. So I’m probably being at least a little cranky. But it’s not any more diverse than any of the categories the list above ignores.)
(And also, I was wrong. The 2008 Jay Reatard album I like is *Singles 06 - 07*, which was way livelier, catchier, and more rocking than that CD of ho-hum Matador singles, which I barely made it through once [and even the one I liked was still a far cry from, oh, *Singles Going Steady* or *Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts* or *Pure Mania* or whatever it wishes it was]…So that means TWO albums I like. Approximately the same as every other premature year-end list I’ve seen so far.)
Gore on the reissues list is cute though! (I didn’t even know that got reissued!)
(Don’t remotely understand the appeal of Arthur Russell singing so-quiet-it-barely-exists lethargic fake country/folk songs, either, fwiw. I get the idea that people just want to like that stuff because it exists. And I say that as somebody with both Dinosaur L *and* Dinosaur 12-inches on my vinyl shelf, not to mention “Let’s Go Swimming.”) (Sadly, I only own “Is It All Over My Place” by Loose Joints on CD.)
(Or “…All Over My FACE,” even.)
“100 percent artsy indie music”
like 2562, claro intelecto and thomas brinkmann, right?
I said “or close to it.” I also said the category was a diverse one. (And yeah, we can quibble til the cows come home about whether artsy indie dance music counts. I’m sure there some people would argue Jay Reatard isn’t artsy, too. Good for them.)
Bottom line is, the list above presents an aesthetic. Just like, say, *Paste* magazine’s list presents an aesthetic, or *Decibel* presents an aesthetic. All three are aesthetics that anybody who has been paying attention to music criticism for the past quarter century has no excuse not to be completely familiar with. All three lists combine semi-household names with more obscure names in fairly unsurprising ways. I don’t get why one would, by definition, be better than the other ones.
(”Semi-household names” meaning, oh, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, Portishead, Hercules and Love Affair, No Age….so the type of household is pretty limited too, I guess.)
Man, I’m a blabbermouth today. But I’m not gonna argue now, only answer questions:
1) Unlike Michaelangelo, I see no reason why a release that came out October 2007 (or, uh, a podcast “posted” then — someday maybe I’ll listen to one of those!)should not be eligible for a 2008 list. As Michaelangelo knows, the Pazz & Jop poll even had a “year of impact” rule that said literal release date didn’t matter. And when silly magazines insist on ending best-of-year years long about, I dunno, early November, saving stuff for the next year might be the only way that late-year releases will ever even have a fair shot.
2) There is all sorts of grey area between “albums” and “reissues.” Always has been, always will be. My recommendation, which is to say this is what I always do: If a given release is on the new-release/reissue cusp, stick it on whichever list needs the most help. (Assuming you’re allowed to make both lists. If not, your job is even easier.)
“I said “or close to it.” I also said the category was a diverse one. (And yeah, we can quibble til the cows come home about whether artsy indie dance music counts. I’m sure there some people would argue Jay Reatard isn’t artsy, too. Good for them.)”
so diverse it covers bass-heavy ragga (the bug), dutch dubstep (2565), early-90s hardcore homage (zomby), a singer-songwriter album from a veteran techno producer (brinkmann), absurdly theatrical disco (kelley polar), etc?
i came here to say thanks to the original poster rather than argue, but even if the list did end up more conservative than i’d hoped, if all those fall into the ‘artsy indie’ category then not a lot doesn’t. anyway, peace.