I just want people to know that I am a Merzboxee!!

I've been to fucking Swans shows.

I'm not yer Grandma. :)

Anyway....RTJ4 is fucking wonderful.

Pull the other one!

Eh?

That is what Beatrice Arthur said to Rufus Wainwright... minus one key word. Seriously: Rufus was a big fan, and one day he got to meet her and told her he loved to imagine that she/Dorothy from The Golden Girls was his grandmother. To which she replied, "I'm not your fucking grandmother!". True story.

OK, this is escalating beyond what is reasonably tolerable. :D I gave that TS thing a swift (sorry - for the bad pun, that is) run-through (sorry not sorry; I couldn't bear to listen to it all in full detail) and from what I could gather (please don't make me do it again) it's absolutely nowhere near the level of Tapestry, MUCH LESS Blue - I mean, unless you're comparing cheekbones, Joni and Swift might as well be different species. American Pie, meanwhile, is... these clusters of rhyme after rhyme that add up to a pool of nothingness. What can I tell ya, g.!

As for being too noise cool for pop school, anyone who reads the torrent announcements thread (I think there's, like, two of you who do :)) knows I certainly don't spend the whole week surrounded only by blasts of depraved atonal fuck-you rackets. So I'm off the hook on that front at least. ;)

ones that stuck with me, no particular order, definitely forgotten a few

graham lambkin + bill nace - the dishwashers
lisa lerkenfeldt - collagen / a liquour of daisies / a garden dissolves into black silk
jonnine - blue hills
etrusca 3d - s/t
cs + kreme - snoopy
autechre - sign
jim o'rourke - shutting down here
mark fell + will guthrie - infoldings / diffractions
romeo poirier - hotel nota
the gagmen - s/t
spivak - Μετά Το Ρέιβ
russell haswell - digital
magik markers - 2020
actress - karma & desire / 88
rian treanor - file under uk metaplasm
christina vantzou - multi natural
cavern of anti-matter - in fabric ost
dean blunt - roaches
cindy - i'm cindy
gabor lazar - source
helm - saturnalia
bill nace - both
elysia crampton - orcorara 2010
felicia atkinson - everything evaporate
nazar - guerilla
star searchers - avatar blue
jasmine guffond - microphone permission
dead c - unknowns

:)

I do look at that thread!!

I wasn't trying to say that folklore or evermore are just as good as Blue or Tapestry. I just wanted to throw out a couple of famous "singer-songwriter" albums. I thought (perhaps wrongly) that this was all about the kind of albums Taylor Swift made.

I love my Sonic Youth and Swans and Merzbow and King Gizzard and Electric Wizard, etc etc etc, but I will never be a snob about any genre or any artist if they make a good song.

Fucking Bee Gees have made many good songs.

Sue me.

Edit: I note that you gave it a partial, "swift" run through. Sigh....

Anyway...

Sufjan Stevens - The Ascension seems to be on many year-end lists. Anyone here dig it? I spun it a couple of times. I'm not sure what I think yet.

I struggled to get into this one and I normally dig Sufjan.

I thought it was dense and suffocating. But it may reveal itself.

I have a grand total of 1 Sufjan Stevens song in my collection: his cover of "Ring Them Bells" from the I'm Not There soundtrack. I remember the first impression I had of it was that it was "too much"... Now that I read your post, "dense and suffocating" might have worked too. ;)

Speaking of Dylan, I am exactly 10% familiar with Obama's 2020 picks. How uncool am I!

Anyone check out Kid Cudi's new man in the moon album? Reviews have been generally indifferent but I'm really liking it.

It’s pretty meh, couple nice songs, but generally quite forgettable for me

Beatrice Dillion - Workaround
Big Blood - Do You Want to Have a Skeleton Dream?
Sarah Davachi - Horae
Arca - Kick I
Infinite Body - Clemency
Christine and the Queens - La Vita Nuova
Charli XCX - How I'm Feeling Now
Girls Rituals - Crap shit
Julianna Barwick - Healing is a Miracle
Sam Prekop - Comma
Christina Vantzou - Multi Natural
Jim O'Rourke - Steamroom 50
M. Geddes Gengras - Time Makes Nothing Happen
Eiko Ishibashi - Impulse of the Ribbon
Horse Lords - Common Task
Ana Roxanne - Because of a Flower
Ryan Garbes - Tabbed View
William Basinski - Lamentations
A.G. Cooke - Apple
Animal Collective - Bridge to Quiet
Drew McDowell - Agalma

Strangely very few favorites this year. Usually this list is like 50.

I myself prefer compact lists.

Still assembling mine, by the way, but it's more like "stuff released in 2020 that I've actually listened to" than a ranking... with the possible exception of Diane Cluck's Common Wealth, which I'm spellbound by.



Skuj, if you really are after a "singer-songwriter" album of quality and true heart, look no further.

"I'm a dad and I like Merzbow [...] Does that make Merzbow 'dad rock'?"

You’re trying to say you don’t know who kid cudi is and have to guess?

Don’t believe you.