Idolator

Nice to see Burial on a list.

A great disc, for sure.

Let the wars begin again.

This is surprisingly close to how I feel about the Justice record. I listen to "Genesis" and am floored (that fucking bass sound... wow). A little later "D.A.N.C.E." comes on and it feels like the musical equivelant of huffing gas.

i really just don't get the justice obsession. i would like to say that it was because i have already had my fill of hard dance music courtesy of surgeon, james ruskin and karl o'connor, etc. but, i am not 100% sure if that is the reason. i don't think they are bad but, is it really that revelatory to anyone over the age of 13 with more than a passing knowledge of dance music??

Perfect -- best and worst pretty much sums up my opinion of Justice. I'll totally rock them secretly on my iPod (yeah, yeah, yeah), but I pretty much want to spork any faux-hipster who requests "D.A.N.C.E." when I have a DJ gig. :P

My whine: The Field are pretty blinkin' terrible. I feel like the only person who thinks so.

@therichgirlsareweeping:

For me The Field's kind of a mixed bag. At least on that album (I haven't heard any of his other stuff). On the one hand, I think he does some interesting, pretty things with the vocal samples and stuf...

But on the other hand, I have a lot of trouble getting over the fact that the beat for every single song is a monotonous, unblinking oont-sss oont-sss.

@SuperUnison: A little later "D.A.N.C.E." comes on and it feels like the musical equivelant of huffing gas.

Really? I better start hanging around BP a bit more often, see what I'm missing.

@therichgirlsareweeping: You're not alone in your feelings on The Field's disc.

From what I had read, I thought I would love it. Definitely not the case. I handed it off to my girlfriend after a week.

@therichgirlsareweeping: Would you be more forgiving if they requested "Phantom Pt. II"?

@sparkletone: That mono-rhythm is typical of many Kompakt releases, the ambient drones and textures are what sell them.

I agree with the mixed feelings about Justice. On one hand, they take the Daft Punk sound into a gritter, sweatier realm, but many of their tracks are underdeveloped hack-jobs - namely "Let There Be Light" which repeats an irritating loop ad nauseam. Uffie's cameo is just painful, she reminds me of so many teenagers who pass out drunk by 7pm before the party starts.

I like a lot of the Kompakt stuff from a few years back, but couldn't get into The Field. It seems like an Ableton Live/Prefuse 73 trick spread out over an hour. That being said, I know a TON of really random people who dig that record a lot. Exposure can work wonders.

Oh, and when exactly does the Burial backlash start?

And, does anyone else think that Crypotgrams ain't too good of an album? I think that follow-up EP is far more enjoyable and interesting. I would've rather seen that on year end lists.

@Paperboy 2000: Oh, and when exactly does the Burial backlash start?

As soon as The Wire gives him a negative review.

It will trickle down from there.

@Paperboy 2000: I'd imagine that the Burial backlash will happen soon. His rhythms and some of his atmospherics are awesome, but he over-indulges in "somber" interludes that are more sentimental than dramatic. Much of his work reminds me of the old "illbient" and Future Sound of London records from the mid-90s.

How do you make that [CROSS] symbol on a Mac?

its really too bad the underworld album was such a disappointment

J DTZR: isn't it Option-T? I know you can do it in html by doing †

Burial: most boring album of 2007.
Burial's marketing scheme: best of 2007

Burial is the Blair Witch Project of electronic music marketing. Makes nice with all those "mystery" tricks from the IDM guys ten years ago combined with feeding directly into every Dissensus/WIRE magazine stereotype. BRILLIANT marketing. I'm really impressed.

Maybe not as much Blair Witch Project as it is Myst.

@Paperboy 2000: In my house, the Burial backlash started about 15 minutes into the debut disc, and the new one's even worse.

But what the fuck do I know? I really like the new Underworld album.

@thumper:Really? I mean, really?

For funk's sake...just because MIA is "exotic" doesn't mean that her music is actually any good.

I am sore with Xlr8r for skipping out on LCD, and they are hands down my favorite music mag. @therichgirlsareweeping: I just got a karaoke version of D.A.N.C.E. It's horribly repetitive to sing, but fun to dance to (for karaoke).

As far as Burial and The Field go, it's hard to determine what the "best" is with ambient tinged soundscapes, so I always just listen to the craft of the album, whether or not it really is repetitive and droney, or if there was some thought that went into the thing. I thought Gui Boratto was far more "fun" that The Field, but The Field required something of me as a listener that forced me to pay attention. Same with Burial. I like that Burial is somber and melancholy. It's like Moby's more ambient pieces without the sickening sentimentality.@Cam/ron: That track would have been classic without Uffie. Good description of her. I love that Justice makes these super filtered out hard disco tracks, but then you hear a litle Supertramp and ELO sneak in there.

Yeah, the Underworld disc was pretty worthless.

That's the first list I didn't stop reading by its fifth entry. Nice to have a 'worst' category, but wussy to fill a spot in the 'worst' with the already-best Justice album. Do they like Apples in Stereo?

And I don't think that Burial record is going to suffer too much backlash. It's too good, and I don't even care for much dubstep (we called it trip-hop in 1995).

Hopefully, for his third album, Thomas Dolby will produce and Aidan Moffat will lend his words. Otherwise, it's all over.

I think that Ricardo Villalobos mix of his own originals on Fabric is incredible.

battles - meh. decent spaz rock from what little i could pay attention to.

justice - i only got it to see if it was the jungle act from the hydrogen dukebox label. sounds like every other electro cla$h album, but with glitchy production.

apparat - overrated as hell. working with ellen allien is a hell of a crutch, though. with t. raumschmiere? ah not so much. low five!

burial - enjoyable, and pretty impressive for being supposedly made with sound forge. it's hard to have a backlash when 1 out of every 20,000 people even know what "grime" or "dubstep" are. and only 1 out 300 in that group cares.

underworld - i hated just about everything they did after jumping the sinking wax trax ship to go to the horrid v2 label, but the new one isn't too unbearable.

where the fuck download, dj? acucrack and scorn are would be my first question. congrats to them for being the only magazine on earth not to include radiohead, though.

@Jfrankparnell: Ditto on dubstep, some of it is great but I often get the nagging feeling that it rehashes music that was done to death 10 years ago.

@Jfrankparnell & Cam/ron: I always feel my indie cred fading when I rock the dubstep. It also reminds me of college. Yay!

@rogerniner: The karaoke version? Sign me up and buy me a drink!

@The Notorious T: Not if they specifically request the like, Boyz Noize or Soulwax rmx of "Phantom Pt. II." HAHAHA.

@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: Ok, good. I'm glad it's not just me.

@sparkletone: Oh, how I loathe the repetitive oonts ooonts ooonts-ing. Soooo boooooring. And meh, the painfully "edgy" vocal manips bug the crap out of me.

old LCDSS > new LCDSS

@therichgirlsareweeping: I also have a karaoke version of the Justice remix of Simian's "We Are Your Friends." Pretty hilarious.

re: Burial - great album, but too many of the tracks are so "same-y". there's really only one texture to speak of, and it's "bleak, grey futuristic cityscape". like the cover of the first album.

moreover, i suppose being classified as "dubstep" has made me not completely tired of the genre. but it's a tenuous association at best. try mixing that record with any other of a million records classified as "dubstep" and it's not even close.

re: Justice - i'm suffering from overexposure. as much as they've mimiced the daft punk ethos and taken it to another level, i don't see the music aging as well as DP's has.

re: Underworld - XLR8R is full of shit. far too many have considered the post-Emmerson work sub-par, but that's just wrong-headed and short-sighted. it may not be "pearl's girl", but it's still quality.

re: MIA - i dunno...i was hoping for something more different, and i didn't get it. maybe it's me. but i doubt it.

Glad to see other people sticking up for that Underworld album. In a year where I easily heard more albums than ever, that's a rare one I keep wanting to hear again.

Most overlooked electronic album of 2007: 2007 by False aka Matthew Dear, on M_nus. Just saying.

@rogerniner: Dude, that IS hilarious. I could totally OWN that in karaoke, I'll have you know. When USA Networks was using that in a promo this summer, it was always good excuse to get up an dance like rhythm-challenged white boy.