An Underwhelming Year
 

As I find myself coming to the end of the 10th year of the period of my life that I would say I'm heavily "into music" so to speak and in turn my 10th year of listening to 100+ albums and cataloging them all into a list at the end (which at this point is almost exclusively just for my own sake as I haven't been active here or on tumblr in quite awhile, and the decrease in popularity of facebook has led me to not even bother sharing my lists/reviews/thoughts there anymore), I feel much more disenchanted with the whole process than ever before.

The end of the year used to bring a nerdy pleasure for me, as I'm sure it does for many of you, re-listening to albums that had a spark but I ended up forgetting about for one reason or another, combing through other's lists for underrated gems I might have missed, and meticulously placing each album into its rightful spot. However, as I look back on 2018 I've come to the conclusion that this is most likely the worst year for new releases in that 10 year span. It is possible I'm just metaphorically hungover from what I felt was a particularly strong year for music in 2017, or literally hungover from all the bourbon last night, but either way there's not a single album that really gripped me in a way that I feel the need to share it with others, much less 10, 25, or 50 albums worth listing. My favorite artists disappointed, acts I find middle-of-the-pack or good to average failed to hook me yet again, and no new artist really stuck out to me as a must listen.

Can anyone else relate to this? If not with 2018, is there a year in the past decade or so that just sticks out to you as a complete miss? If so, which one and why? Or is every year a great year for music and I'm just me being dramatic after not having done enough digging this time around? I'd love to hear some of y'alls thoughts on this and am definitely open to any recommendations.

note: I'm working on some hard data using my rateyourmusic account to back up the above ramblings with statistics and will include them later. (if they ended up serving my point that is...if not eh maybe I won't)

I've listened to plenty of great releases this year. Maybe expand your taste?

I didn't really notice. I mostly just listened to ELO and danced like a dork.

cool! very constructive! thank you!

I'm currently putting together a Mixcloud playlist of just some of the things I've enjoyed this year and
I'm trying to figure out how I can keep it under 5 hours. It's looking like it'll have to be in at least 2 parts,
so I really can't say that I can't find anything good these days. It's actually pretty overwhelmingly good.

You asked. 2018 and 2017 are some of my favorite years of music.

I think that the capacity and rate at which albums come out these days is driving more established artists to pump out lower quality releases just to keep their hat in the ring and not be forgotten. Apart from that and the general oversaturation of music that the internet brought us making it hard to keep up, I think that this has been a pretty great year. Had a bit of a shaky start but came into stride about halfway through imo. It won't be a standout year like 2010 or 2016, but I don't think that it'll be a clunker year like...1987 or some **** idk. There are about 30 or so releases that I'd say I love from this year and a few hundred that I like enough to listen to again, but it did take a bit of digging to find a lot of them.

It's easy to say that your listening habits or taste is the problem here, but I think that with the way music is evolving, this is a good conversation to have. What could be happening is that the internet is less of an open marketplace and more of a cultivation center for niches to become deeply entrenched and isolated. The niches are harboring the truly phenomenal works of our time as the better-known releases are what appeal to an ever-shrinking common denominator. With all of the noise, those niches are harder to tap into, so it takes more work to recognize the cream of the crop. Or maybe choosing your favourite kind of cream is the hard part. Oversaturation brought us as much brilliance as it did garbage.

Or just stop over complicating something that doesn't need to be. Music is music. That's it. If you like it you like it, if not, move on to another form of music. I don't believe in that "too many albums = less quality" ideal.

deep

Well it ain't somethin else

Regarding jazz 2018 has been the best year since Coltrane died

86-87 were two of the most incredible back to back years in the 20th C

For 2018 the pace of incredible releases made it hard to revisit many of them because they kept pouring in but still 2016 was zenith year or whatever. Many things hit a sweet spot in 2016. For pop music or avant pop or whatever 2016 was the best year since 86.

I honestly don't feel like I've put all that much effort into finding gems this year, but they've come liberally just the same.
I stick my hand out of the window and a good album lands in my palm.

I'm convinced I could find way more with only moderate effort.

A really strong year for music in my opinion.

If we were talking metal specifically, I'd say 2018 has been slim pickings, but overall that was not at all the case.

Definitely wasn't aware of this. I've only heard Heaven and Earth, which wasn't for me, and the newest record from the Necks, which I enjoyed but not as much as last year's release.

I can relate to this more or less, especially with all the hip-hop releases this year. Lots of decent/slightly above average stuff but it has all been kind of samey and just runs together after awhile. Two of the only albums that I've really enjoyed are from jpegmafia and joey purp, both of which aren't super underground or anything but definitely stuck out first due to the uniqueness of their sound which led me to repeated listens where I then recognized the quality of the work as well.

In hip-hop this year,
I've been listening to stuff from
Your Old Droog, Roc Marciano,
Quelle Chris & Jean Grae, Noname,
Sampa the Great and a bunch others...

Roc's been on absolute fire this year.

What'd you think of the new Earl album, Fasho?

2018 has been the best year in music since 2017 tbh

Have you heard any of these, OP?

Completely slipped my mind - I was apprehensive at first but am really enjoying after repeated listens. Most likely in my top 10 and climbing.

Only a handful. My favorite there is the Nils Frahm record, but serving my point, not his best work imo. Lots of interesting stuff on the list though that I will check out. Thanks for sharing.

I don't think I've been blown away by a single album this year, and by that I mean I don't think there's any 2018 I've been able to add to my casual listening repertoire, other than Mid-Air Thief's Crumbling (still probably my AOTY). Doesn't mean there haven't been great ****in albums this year (like the Gendel and Wilkes collab or the new Daughters record) but they just haven't connected with me enough to make me love them. Maybe I really do have to pick up streaming so I can listen to more things whenever and wherever.

I'd be interested to know which ones you end up liking.

I'm saying the same thing every year more or less. Every year = lots of great music.


Is year [Insert recent year] a great year in music? Hell yes.

I don't even really know what the "talked about" albums are.

You Won't Get What You Want?

I've seen that album get attention on MB and I remember Fantano talking about it. But I didn't notice it being talked about much on the net in general.

I feel like I should be able to at least remember a few records that were very hyped many places on the web this year, but I'm blanking out when I'm not allowing a bit of memory-aid by way of Googling music sites.

in my personal opinion there's no comparison between any year and any other. Different albums are released every year.

I kinda agree. I'll love one year for some things, another year for other things. Of course, some years, several favorite artists of mine happen to release albums and that excites me, but there's so many albums of such wildly differing character coming out any year that it's hard to really have an overall opinion on that year in music.

Not to mention how I'll continue finding great albums from previous years moving forward.

2011 stands in my mind as a strong year, but that's because that was a year where I really started branching out and discovering new and exciting things and finding a few new favorite bands that have been very important to me since, plus some of the best albums in certain artist's discographies coming out that year.

apples and pomegranates

Pomegranates >

this album > that album

Blood Diner > Blood Feast

Powerpuff Girls > Schindler's List

Snow White & The Huntsman > the entire LOTR trilogy.

Not a joke.

2018 has been an awesome year for K-pop girl groups:clap:

/thread

Post us some wank fodder.

I still want to watch that movie just to see Charlize Theron being an evil bitch.

She's bitching it up pretty good in that movie.

Whatever you do, stay away from the sequel. Total studio cash-in with another director. It's pure cancer.

I figured it was already a studio cash-in. It's got Resting Bitchface from Twilight when she was still relevant.