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End of the decade lists

RA hasn't released theirs yet but I'm curious as to what you guys think would be some good top picks. More mainstream publications seem to all stack their top 10 albums with Kanye, Kendrick Lamar and Frank Ocean. I suppose the whole star-power and personality focus of rap and pop makes it easier to focus on a few artists. But I'm really not sure if there are even any records anywhere near as canonical for electronic music, since it's gotten so spread out and diffuse and there's just so much music. Like, I couldn't even think off any surefire consensus picks for the top 10 on top off my head. The first ones that came to my mind were Voices From The Lake - Voices From The Lake and AFX - Syro (both of which got a rare 5/5 from RA) but neither of these have been especially influential in terms of generating new trends and sit more in their own little world.

RA's top pick for the 2000s was Villalobos' Alcachofa. While that certainly doesn't capture all of the 2000s, it seems as good of a pick as any. Could you think of any record like that for the 10s?

Re: End of the decade lists

Two that immediately spring to mind are John Talabot - Fin and Bicep - Bicep. I didn't even particularly like Bicep's album, but there's no denying they've been probably the most important producers of the last ten years in terms of influence, and the album capped off a run of huge club hits, had good reviews from mainstream music press and sold a bucketload of copies, hitting the UK Top 20 album charts. Glue alone has about 11 million hits on Youtube and 25 million on Spotify.

As for Fin, it strikes me as the equivalent of something like Trentemoller - The Last Resort or Leftfield - Leftism, where a much-anticipated album fully lives up to expectations and becomes effectively an immediate classic.

Elsewhere, I'd say the likes of Scuba - Triangulation, Minilogue - Blomma and Skee Mask - Compro might not have been cross-over hits, but they're all textbook great albums. I've got my own personal favourites from the last ten years that are more niche, but I'll wait until the decade is actually over before making any kind of list.

Are we talking Best, or Most Influential? Because if the latter, we really cannot deny Skrillex' Scary Monsters, can we.

Re: Re: End of the decade lists

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Two that immediately spring to mind are John Talabot - Fin and Bicep - Bicep. I didn't even particularly like Bicep's album, but there's no denying they've been probably the most important producers of the last ten years in terms of influence, and the album capped off a run of huge club hits, had good reviews from mainstream music press and sold a bucketload of copies, hitting the UK Top 20 album charts. Glue alone has about 11 million hits on Youtube and 25 million on Spotify. As for Fin, it strikes me as the equivalent of something like Trentemoller - The Last Resort or Leftfield - Leftism, where a much-anticipated album fully lives up to expectations and becomes effectively an immediate classic. Elsewhere, I'd say the likes of Scuba - Triangulation, Minilogue - Blomma and Skee Mask - Compro might not have been cross-over hits, but they're all textbook great albums. I've got my own personal favourites from the last ten years that are more niche, but I'll wait until the decade is actually over before making any kind of list.

Oh wow, I had no idea Bicep got that huge. In my mind they were still underground house producers. Influential in what way though? Do you think the current en-vogue trance-revival can be traced back to them?

I think James Blake has undoubtly made the biggest impact on popular music overall but none of his albums have reviewed especially well in electronic music circles. Like, his debut album seems to be considered to be a masterpiece by people in pop and indie circles but at the time people in electronic music thought it was just watered down from his more radical early singles.

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Originally posted by Sykonee Are we talking Best, or Most Influential? Because if the latter, we really cannot deny Skrillex' Scary Monsters, can we.

Hmm, good point but I was thinking more in terms of underground stuff. That Skrillex record got a 1,5 from RA. Also, records that were influential historically but haven't aged very well seem to never fare particularily well because of recency bias.

to be fair, one person gives the score for a particular review. as for end of decade i can't even remember last year. maybe drumcode wins the decade

Re: Re: Re: End of the decade lists

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Originally posted by Woony Oh wow, I had no idea Bicep got that huge. In my mind they were still underground house producers. Influential in what way though? Do you think the current en-vogue trance-revival can be traced back to them?

To be honest, there's an element of "Great Man Theory" about trying to attribute whole trends to individual artists or albums. Leftfield may have popularised the fusion of house music with dub, but the evolution of British soundsystem culture into raves made it almost inevitable. They simply did it earlier and better than most.

Similarly, a '90s revival was always on the cards - just look at clothing fashion in 2019 - but Bicep did it earlier and better than most. What set them apart was when they started making tunes like Just and Higher Level which were no longer mere pastiche but mash ups of the entirety of the '90s - house, garage, breakbeat, ambient house "sunrise" tunes - into one genreless melting pot. Without them you wouldn't have DJ Seinfeld, Brame & Hamo, Trance Wax or 90% of the lush breakbeat tunes that close every DJ's set in 2019.

Fin was the first that came to my mind.

What about Dominik Eulberg - Diorama?

stefano noferini has to be somewhere on the list, he doesn't get enough credit for the whole tech house wave.

Dixon!!! and the Innervisions crew. I remember hearing about him and then eventually seeing him in the mid 2000's. Not much was known about other then folklore. Now in the 2010's, the man has become a beast and has caught the eye/ear of those who don't normally follow his type of music.

We're talking about albums, you dopes.

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Originally posted by Lews What about Dominik Eulberg - Diorama?

That's a nice album. I haven't listened to it in years actually. But it's more one of those "my personal favourites" selections than the kind of mythical, tribe-uniting classic album Woony is searching for in his eternal quest to find the grand narrative of electronic music.

What I wonder is if J' was still writing for Cokemachineglow (no, stop laughing, bear with me...!), and was tasked to provide a write-up on another four (4) albums that would have made that website's Best Of 2010s list, What Would Those Four Albums Be?

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J That's a nice album. I haven't listened to it in years actually. But it's more one of those "my personal favourites" selections than the kind of mythical, tribe-uniting classic album Woony is searching for in his eternal quest to find the grand narrative of electronic music.

Well, that was precisely my question. Do these records even exist anymore in dance music? It's very possible that they just don't but the fact that every single non-dancemusic list seems to agree on the same 10 or 20 records made me curious.

And I mean, sure, we can talk about personal favorites but then I'd need a month or two go back to remember everything that even came out this decade. There's so much nice music with no crossover potential out there now that it's difficult to even talk about it without just getting overwhelmed.

Well, there's a big difference between 'most popular,' 'most influential,' 'most publicised,' and 'best,' of course.

'Most influential' will always be impossible to agree upon; it strikes me that many publications settle for 'most popular,' which often is related to 'most publicised.'

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Originally posted by Lews Well, there's a big difference between 'most popular,' 'most influential,' 'most publicised,' and 'best,' of course. 'Most influential' will always be impossible to agree upon; it strikes me that many publications settle for 'most popular,' which often is related to 'most publicised.'

Sure enough, although I think that the first three (influential, popular, publicized) are strongly related. E.g. musically I don't think neither My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy nor Yeezus are nearly as groundbreaking as they have been played up to. But with Kanyes fame and PR machine they came just at the right time to introduce an entire generation of rappers and producers to more out there synthetic sounds, which made them incredibly influential across the board. Maybe the difference with dance music in that respect is that no one except a few legacy acts (AFX, Daft Punk, Boards of Canada etc.) holds enough star power anymore to not have their record drowned out by new releases within two weeks.

Oh by the way, if anyone wants to find their favorites from years back - I went through my post history to find our yearly "best of" lists back to 2011. Fun trip down the memory lane (also kinda sad, since you can see the forum gradually dying lol )

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

So what do you want? For us to just name the most popular "underground" electronic albums of the decade?

I'd have thought the likes of Caribou, Actress, Jon Hopkins, Moderat, Bonobo, George Fitzgerald, Stephan Bodzin and Nils Frahm (off the top of my head) all released pretty big albums in the last ten years that didn't get "drowned out" in two weeks. None of those were "legacy" acts.

Basically, you just don't seem happy with any answers given that don't confirm your narrative that there are no landmark electronic music albums anymore.

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Originally posted by Sykonee What I wonder is if J' was still writing for Cokemachineglow (no, stop laughing, bear with me...!), and was tasked to provide a write-up on another four (4) albums that would have made that website's Best Of 2010s list, What Would Those Four Albums Be?

I would have been given four albums that made the Top 100 from the overall staff's votes. They might not necessarily have been my own picks. Apart from the fact the site folded sometime around 2015, I really have no idea what that bunch of pretentious fuckwits would have been listening to for the last decade. I was talking to a friend recently about how the "blogosphere" doesn't seem nearly as relevant to electronic music anymore. 2010-2011 were probably the pinnacle of the "dance music you don't dance to" era, when getting picked up by Pitchfork and co would be how big new acts broke out. It seems in the last ten years things have become more club-oriented again, thank God.

My quickly cobbled together personal list based off what was mentioned in the previous I linked (in no particular order). If I did a comprehensive one from scratch, there'd probably be a lot more straight up ambient / modern classical / shoegaze on there, based on my current listening habits.

Sandwell District - Sandwell District
Atheus - Compile
Skudge - Phantom
Francis Harris - Leland
Voices From The Lake - Voices From The Lake
Donato Dozzy/Nuel - Aquaplano Sessions
Acronym - June
Minilogue - Blomma
Studio OST - Scenes 2012-2015
Steve Hauschildt - Dissolvi
Space Afrika - Somewhere Decent To Live
Skee Mask - Compro
Deepchord - Sommer
Kara-Lis Coverdale ‎� Grafts
Varg - Gore-Tex-City

quote:

Originally posted by Woony 2011

LOL, I see AarabMuzik (or whatever) in there.


Remember when THAT album was gonna' be hailed as one of the best of the decade?

EDIT: While making lists of what albums were the movers and shakers of an era are fun and all, I'm honestly far more fascinated in the Next Big Nothings of the decade. Those records everyone, at the time, was so certain to lead revolutionary change in how things would progress forever after.

Decided to fire up some Last.fm stats to see what my Top Scrobbled Albums were this past decade, and filtered out the ones that were only released within that time frame. The results are... probably not that surprising, really.

1. Vector Lovers - iPHonica
2. Sabled Sun - 2145
3. Sync24 - Comfortable Void
4. Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
5. Solar Fields - Until We Meet The Sky
6. Connect.Ohm - 9980
7. The Future Sound Of London - Environment Five
8. The Future Sound Of London - Environments 4
9. Adham Shaikh - Resonance (Selected Ambient Works)
10. Arpatle - The Day After

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J So what do you want? For us to just name the most popular "underground" electronic albums of the decade? I'd have thought the likes of Caribou, Actress, Jon Hopkins, Moderat, Bonobo, George Fitzgerald, Stephan Bodzin and Nils Frahm (off the top of my head) all released pretty big albums in the last ten years that didn't get "drowned out" in two weeks. None of those were "legacy" acts. Basically, you just don't seem happy with any answers given that don't confirm your narrative that there are no landmark electronic music albums anymore.

I don't know, that was just my intuition. Those are pretty good picks as, saying everything is forgotten in two is probably a bit exaggerated. But if we recall the really big crossover dance records of the 2000s (Alcachofa, LCD Soundsystem, Metro Area, Burial, Justice, Boy In Da Corner, Drukqs etc.), at least to me those seem to shadow anything from the current decade in terms cultural impact. Or maybe one just needs more temporal distance to judge the current decade.

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J I was talking to a friend recently about how the "blogosphere" doesn't seem nearly as relevant to electronic music anymore. 2010-2011 were probably the pinnacle of the "dance music you don't dance to" era, when getting picked up by Pitchfork and co would be how big new acts broke out. It seems in the last ten years things have become more club-oriented again, thank God.

The "Blogosphere" doesn't even really exist anymore, pretty much all of the blogs from around 2009-2012 are long dead now and there haven't really been new ones.

I'm not sure if prententious "dance music you don't dance to" ever really went away, it's just changed form. If you look at RA's lists from the past 5 years, it's chock full of it with very few dancefloor records. People that were listening to Nicolas Jaar in 2011 are listening to "experimental non-European queer club music" or whatever the fuck it's called now. At the start of the decade, dance music was still recovering from the mid-2000s mnml coma, I think there's just way more music coming out in general now to satisfy all sorts of demands. Honest to god rave music is back big time, for sure, but there's also a flood of headphone and experimental records coming out all the time, probably much more than in the early 10s, at least quantitatively.

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Originally posted by Sykonee EDIT: While making lists of what albums were the movers and shakers of an era are fun and all, I'm honestly far more fascinated in the Next Big Nothings of the decade. Those records everyone, at the time, was so certain to lead revolutionary change in how things would progress forever after.

That should be called the " Nicolas Jaar category" lmao. Also, in 2016 people wouldn't shut up about that stupid DJ Babyfather record (it was RA's top pick). I don't think it's aged well beyond the gimmick (having the record set up as imaginary pirate radio show). I also remember a lot of hype on the 2013 James Holden record (The Inheritors, also RA's top pick). I don't think it's aged terribly, but Krautrock-tronica hasn't exactly turned out to be next hot thing, has it? And it's still a bit too recent, but I don't think anything from the PC-Music Universe is going to age especially well. Music that's intentionally cheesy, OTT and annoying never ages well. The SOPHIE album got hyped to all heaven last year but it's just Autechre meets Europopdancecandyland?

Lou Karsh - Phantom Structures would probably be at the top of my list.

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Originally posted by Woony I'm not sure if prententious "dance music you don't dance to" ever really went away, it's just changed form. If you look at RA's lists from the past 5 years, it's chock full of it with very few dancefloor records. People that were listening to Nicolas Jaar in 2011 are listening to "experimental non-European queer club music" or whatever the fuck it's called now. At the start of the decade, dance music was still recovering from the mid-2000s mnml coma, I think there's just way more music coming out in general now to satisfy all sorts of demands. Honest to god rave music is back big time, for sure, but there's also a flood of headphone and experimental records coming out all the time, probably much more than in the early 10s, at least quantitatively.

It never went away because it was there for a long time before 2010, but in terms of its dominance over clubbing taste, I think the movement built up in the second half of the 2000s with stuff like The Field and LCD Soundsystem and peaked around 2010.

One of the more general cultural trends of the last decade is the switch in catch-all label for disparaging the mystifyingly popular from "hipster" to "millennial". I think hipster culture, with its attendant mouthpiece blogs and all-powerful cultural influence has died off in the last ten years to be replaced by social media, word-of-mouth and algorithms. You keep citing Resident Advisor as though they're some big cultural force, but nobody outside the electronic music scene gives a fuck about RA, not in the way they did/do about Pitchfork. In many ways the "blogosphere" was the last dying spasm of the traditional "tastemaker" media outlet, and the decline of that kind of media is why you can't find the same grand narrative for dance music, and the big albums that landmark those narratives. When everyone gets their tastes refined by a Spotify algorithm, who cares what the Big Important Albums are?

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Originally posted by SYSTEM-J nobody outside the electronic music scene gives a fuck about RA

Their reviews are meaningless. i think the only good thing about RA is event listings, this is important for me b/c i don't have any social media

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Originally posted by planetaryplayer Their reviews are meaningless. i think the only good thing about RA is event listings, this is important for me b/c i don't have any social media

I'd agree with that. I don't think their reviews have much influence. I can't think of many obscure records that have blown up off the back of a positive RA review.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J It never went away because it was there for a long time before 2010, but in terms of its dominance over clubbing taste, I think the movement built up in the second half of the 2000s with stuff like The Field and LCD Soundsystem and peaked around 2010. One of the more general cultural trends of the last decade is the switch in catch-all label for disparaging the mystifyingly popular from "hipster" to "millennial". I think hipster culture, with its attendant mouthpiece blogs and all-powerful cultural influence has died off in the last ten years to be replaced by social media, word-of-mouth and algorithms. You keep citing Resident Advisor as though they're some big cultural force, but nobody outside the electronic music scene gives a fuck about RA, not in the way they did/do about Pitchfork. In many ways the "blogosphere" was the last dying spasm of the traditional "tastemaker" media outlet, and the decline of that kind of media is why you can't find the same grand narrative for dance music, and the big albums that landmark those narratives. When everyone gets their tastes refined by a Spotify algorithm, who cares what the Big Important Albums are?

I keep citing RA because for the last decade they've been the only outlet in electronic music left with any sort of influence. That their influence, like all traditional media, is waning is not up for debate - their reviews obviously won't make anyone blow up like Pitchfork could do back in the day. But I think they still matter as far as credibility goes - they're clearly still relevant enough for the business techno crew to keep throwing money at sponsored RA reviews. And as far as legitimacy through traditional outlet still matters, RA is the only supplier.

Anyways, obviously you are right that there has been a massive change but what makes me sceptical of the idea that the death of traditional media necessarily equals the death of grand narratives in music is that these narratives still exist in other genres. Maybe not to the extend that they used but certainly still to much larger extent than in dance music. Like, if you hop on Reddit and check what Gen Z teenagers listening to Hiphop care about, they really care about what the big important albums are and spin all sorts of grand narratives. Obviously the tastemakers have largely changed - they're now Youtubers, podcasters, influencers and playlist managers (even in 2019, all of the important playlists are put together by humans) but tastemaking and narrative consensus (e.g. the "best of decade" discussion being completely dominated by the same ten artists) still seems to exist in that world. That said, obviously Hiphop has always been much more about narratives than dance music. The average punter probably has never cared much about lists and narratives and critical acclaim. I suppose it's very possible that with the death of what you dubbed hipster culture, there's just no demand for new narratives within dance music. Which makes me wonder how the scene is going to function moving foward, I've spoken to people working behind the scenes for a living and even they don't really understand how exactly social media and streaming works, especially since things are moving so quick and one has to change their strategy ever six months.

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