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Urban75 Album of the Year 2023 - The Results!

1. Slowdive - Everything is Alive

Slowdive.jpg



Not so lo-fi anymore, but their way with a melody is unchanged. Its reverbtastic, it’s the Slowdive album we didn't know we were all waiting for.

 
The easy read version:

Slowdive - Everything is Alive
Lankum – False Lankum
Boygenius - The Record
PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying
Mandy, Indiana - I’ve Seen A Way
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Mary Lattimore - Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
The Murder Capital - Gigi's Recovery
Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer
Craven Faults - Standers
Death and Vanilla - Flicker
Mammal Hands - Gift From the Trees
Blur - The Ballad of Darren
Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
Föllakzoid - V
Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
Sleaford Mods: UK Grim
Ao- Ao Mar
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Actress - LXXXVIII
Jalen Ngonda - Come Around and Love Me
Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
Avalon Emerson & the Charm
Arlo Parks - My Soft Machine
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny
Goat - Medicine
Protomartyr - Formal Growth In The Desert
Teeth of the Sea - Hive
Alison Goldfrapp - The Love Invention
Lorelle Meets the Obsolete - Datura
Romy - Mid air
Das Koolies - DK.01
John Francis Flynn - Look Over the Wall, See the Sky
Sigur Ros - Atta
Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume
King Creosote - I DES
Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun
Caroline Polachek - Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
Kelela - Raven
The Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan - The nations most central location


Lankum got the most actual Number 1 votes. Slowdive got 0 - their highest placing was third. But a lot of us did like it. From never happening before to twice in a row!

as well as those mentioned in the opening posts, Lana del Ray was somehow beaten by all of the above, and

Gaz Coombes - Turn The Car Around
JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown - Scaring the Hoes
The New Pornographers - Continue As a Guest
Hey Colossus - In Blood
Screaming Females - Desire Pathway
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
Roisin Murphy - Hit parade
Be Your Own Pet - Mommy
Queens of the Stone Age - times new Roman
The Black Dog - My Brutal Life

And those are just the artists who got more than one vote (she got two).

The playlist:

 
and, of course, commiserations to the Lonely Number One's

100 gecs - 10000 gecs
AC Soul Symphony - Metamorphosis
Colter Wall - Little Songs
Full of Hell / Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination
Hammock - Love in the Void
Hollie Kenniff - We All Have Places That We Miss
Jess Williamson - Time ain't accidental
Lil Yachty - Let's Start Here
Maria BC - Spike Field
Tennis - Pollen
 
and, of course, commiserations to the Lonely Number One's

100 gecs - 10000 gecs
AC Soul Symphony - Metamorphosis
Colter Wall - Little Songs
Full of Hell / Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination
Hammock - Love in the Void
Hollie Kenniff - We All Have Places That We Miss
Jess Williamson - Time ain't accidental
Lil Yachty - Let's Start Here
Maria BC - Spike Field
Tennis - Pollen
Sorry mate but I also voted for Lil Yachty - it was my #4. We need a recount!
 
Thanks belboid :thumbs:

Eight from my list made it which I think matches last year. Plus a couple I hadn’t listed to properly and a couple I’d forgotten about. Plenty of new stuff to try too.

My list:
Sleaford Mods - UK GRIM
PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying
Lankum - False Lankum
Future Utopia - We Were We Still Are
Chemical Brothers - For That Beautiful Feeling
Goat - Medicine
Gabriels - Angels & Queens Part II
House of All - House of All
Teleman - Good Time/Hard Time
Unthank : Smith - Nowhere And Everywhere
Shirley Collins - Archangel Hill
Daughter - Stereo Mind Game
Public Service Broadcasting - This New Noise
Grian Chatten - Chaos For The Fly
BC Camplight - The Last Rotation of Earth
SUEP - Shop (if EPs count)
Pigs x 7 - Land Of Sleep
Queens of the Stone Age - In Times New Roman…
Blur - The Balled of Darren
Holly Walker - Unsung
Gaz Coombes - Turn The Car Around
Christine and the Queens - Paranoïa, Angels, True Love
Orbital - Optical Delusion
Royel Otis - Sofa Kings
Pavel Milyakov - project mirrors
Arlo Parks - My Soft Machine
Brooke Combe - Black Is The New Gold
Jalen Ngonda - Come Around and Love Me
The Coral - Sea Of Mirrors
Philip Selway - Strange Dance
Skinny Pelembe - Hardly The Same Snake
Sparks - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
Lol Tolhurst - Los Angeles
Sven Wunder - Late Again
Billy Nomates - Cacti
Everything But The Girl - Fuse
The National - Laugh Track
 
My selection this year -

Lankum - False Lankum
Gonubie - Signals at Both Ears
Lisa O'Neill - All of This Is Chance
Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
The Mary Wallopers - Irish Rock n Roll
Supershy - Happy Music
Josh Caffe - Poppa Zesque
Daoirí Farrell - The Wedding Above In Glencree
ØXN - CYRM
John Francis Flynn - Look Over the Wall, See the Sky
Ayesha - Rhythm is Memory
3Phaz - Ends Meet
Gorgonn - Six Paths
Craven Faults - Standers
Slowdive - Everything Is Alive
Laurent Garnier - 33 tours et puis s'en vont
Jerome Hill - Flow Mechanics
Falhaber - Glitches of Life
Battery Operated Orchestra - Compulsory Games
Lindstrøm - Everyone Else Is a Stranger
Seo Linn - Anuas
Shirley Collins - Archangel Hill
Matthew Halsall - An Ever Changing View
Hollie Kenniff - We All Have Places That We Miss
Jon Hassell - The Living City

Thanks to belboid for this thread and Knotted for doing the other decades this year. See you in 1954 hopefully.
 
My list:

Jalen Ngonda - Come Around and Love me
Bobby Lee - Endless Skyways
Mary Lattimore - Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
Beirut - Hadsel
Slowdive - Everything Is Alive
Wilco - Cousin
Mitski - The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We
Julie Byrne - The Greater Wings
Pale Blue - Maria
King Creosote - I DES
Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer
Actress - LXXXVIII
 
Nice one belboid. Surprised to see Slowdive at no. 1. I had it in my list but not high. Didn't do it for me like the last one...

My list:

  • Lankum – False Lankum
  • Yo La Tengo – This Stupid World
  • Mammal Hands - Gift From The Trees
  • Deathcrash – Less
  • Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit
  • SUSS - SUSS
  • Surgeon – Crash Recoil
  • The Necks - Travel
  • Full of Hell / Primitive Man - Suffocating Hallucination
  • Craven Faults - Standers
  • Kelela - Raven
  • Vulture Feather - Liminal Fields
  • Hey Colossus - In Blood
  • Mary Lattimore - Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
  • Wednesday - Rat Saw God
  • Slowdive - Everything Is Alive
  • Purelink - Signs
  • Agriculture - Agriculture
  • Majesties - Vast Reaches Unchained
  • Phillip Jeck, Chris Watson - Oxmardyke
  • Nabiah Iqbal – Dreamer
  • Frozen Soul - Glacial Domination
  • OXN – CYRM
  • Oozing Wound – We Cater to Cowards
  • Brighde Chambeuil – Carry Them With Us
 
I've tried listening to so many of these and they just sound, bland? Went back to the other threads on this and most at least had some hook or something that was interesting even if not in my usual genres so its not that. I found myself fast forwarding and wondering when anything changed in the track. Some were even bands I knew lately but it was basically background music in a hotel lobby or seemed liked it belonged in some new trainspotting film where someone accidentally overdoses on fent. Where is the excitement?
A few were like OK but not what I would choose to listen to given the choice. Am I old? Barely 40 and I feel too young and presumably too old at the same time lol.
 
Lol Tolhurst - Los Angeles
You forgot Budgie X Jacknife Lee! I gave it a listen and it was good, except it could've done with less Bobby Gillespie. The whole aesthetic of the album screamed 1992 to me for some reason.

Lindstrøm - Everyone Else Is a Stranger
I completely forgot to vote for this. Love Lindstrøm.

I gave the Slowdive a listen and it was pleasant enough for a bit, but then it started sounding a bit like Coldplay and once that thought had hit me I had to turn it off.
 
Excellent! Thanks for that... lots of stuff to listen to.

I didn't even vote for the Slowdive album...'cause I don't think I've listened to the whole thing.

My list was short and sweet:

  1. Blur - Ballad of Darren
  2. Lorella Meets the Obsolete - Datura
  3. Follakzoid - V
  4. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs: Land Of Sleeper
  5. Sleaford Mods: UK Grim
  6. PJ Harvey - I inside the old year dying
  7. Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Council Skies
 
Great work as always belboid and U75 music lovers. Loads of great music released this year.

My list, hastily compiled before the deadline and so not really in any kind of order apart from the top three:

Jess Williamson - Time ain't accidental
Gaz Coombes - Turn the car around
The Murder Capital - Gigi's recovery
Danny Brown - Quaranta
Kali Uchis - Red moon in Venus
Wednesday - Rat saw god
Nabihah Iqbal - Dreamer
Mammal Hands - Gift from the trees
Cleo Sol - Heaven
Caroline Polachek - Desire, I want to turn into you
Roisin Murphy - Hit parade
boygenius - The record
Kelela - Raven
Corinne Bailey Rae - Black rainbow
JPEGMAFIA x Danny Brown - Scaring the hoes
Margo Price - Strays
K-LONE - Swells
Bex Burch - There is only love and fear
 
I went with...

AC Soul Symphony - Metamorphosis
Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!
Say She She - Silver
Alison Goldfrapp - The Love Invention
Avalon Emerson & the Charm
Death and Vanilla - Flicker
Karen y los Remedios - Silencio
Subjects - Evolution
Matrixxman - Dust World
Le Couleur - Comme Dans Un Penthouse
Reuben Vaun Smith - Da Cuckoo Yaya
Irina Mancini - Undo the Blue
Derek Carr - Archive
Witch - Zango
ACR - 1982
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny
De Lux - Love is Hard Work
ONIPA - Off the Grid
Randolph & Mortimer - The Incomplete Truth
Sofia Kourtesis - Madres
Orchestra Gold - Medicine
Maara - The Ancient Truth
Zanias - Chrysalis
Jalen Ngonda - Come Around and Love Me
Vince Watson - Another Moment in Time

And I'm gonna give some more love to the AC Soul Symphony album that I put at the top as it's been criminally overlooked just about everywhere - I've not seen it reviewed, I've not seen it in shops (I had to order it from Bandcamp), I've not heard anyone else mention it anywhere. And it's incredible. Dave Lee (aka Joey Negro and a thousand other aliases) has been doing his disco thing for three decades and while he's been good, he's usually been one or two steps away from hitting bullseye for my musical tastes. Until this. I guess people thought 'oh, Dave's got another record out' and moved on. But it's incredible. A full 20 piece disco orchestra recording 70s disco (new tracks and a few covers) the old fashioned way. I've been playing and playing this and... did I mention it's incredible?
 
I have spoken with my masters in $%*&. The whole 'Lonely Number One's' list might be bollocks. ie, definitely is in other places too. A mere side tab tho, that had been cast aside. I'll have a looks for what the proper ones should be
Whatevs, you did a great job for us again, cheers!

My top 20

PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying
Armand Hammer - We Buy Diabetic Test Strips
Zaho de Sagazan - La Symphonie des éclairs
Lil Yachty - Let's Start Here
Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume
Billy Woods, Kenny Segal - Maps
babybaby_explores - Food Near Me, Weather Tomorrow
Actress - LXXXVIII
Amaarae - Fountain Baby
Mandy, Indiana - I’ve Seen A Way
James Holden - Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities
Protomartyr - Formal Growth In The Desert
Liv.e - Girl In The Half Pearl
Craven Faults - Standers
Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun
Tirzah - trip9love…???
Yo La Tengo - This Stupid World
Modern Cosmology, Lætitia Sadier & Mombojó - What Will You Grow Now?
Debby Friday - Good Luck
Headache - The Head Hurts But the Heart Knows The Truth
 
The list I submitted was:

Protomartyr - Formal Growth in the Desert
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Boygenius - The Record
Mandy Indiana - i’ve seen a way
Death & Vanilla - Flicker
New Pornographers - Continue as a Guest
White Poppy - Sound of Blue
Home Front - Games of Power
Bruise Control - Useless for Something
Fucked Up - One Day

Then I realised I'd forgotten to include Algiers - Shook, so I messaged belboid but he said that it didn't make any difference cos no-one else had voted for it. Extrapolating from this sample size, statistics tells us that everyone else also meant to include Algiers on their lists but forgot to, so I reckon once that's taken into account Algiers easily take the top spot. Congratulations to Algiers on their win!

Will have to listen to some more of these, I'd probably have ended up voting for the Goldfrapp and Jessie Ware albums if I'd remembered about them, and may or may not have ended up voting for the Polachek and Iqbal if I'd listened to them enough times to have a firmer opinion on whether I like them or not. Just worked out that all of my top five made it in, that's a reputable showing.
 
Went for Tennis, they just write great catchy pop, and Pollen was another fine collection. They consistently make me happy!

Tennis - Pollen
Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny
ANOHNI - My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
Oneohtrix Point Never - Again
Chris Farren - Doom Singer
Yaeji - With A Hammer
Slowdive - Everything is Alive
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster
Squirrel Flower - Tomorrow's Fire
 
Went for Tennis, they just write great catchy pop, and Pollen was another fine collection. They consistently make me happy!

Tennis - Pollen
Sufjan Stevens - Javelin
Andre 3000 - New Blue Sun
DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ - Destiny
ANOHNI - My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross
Oneohtrix Point Never - Again
Chris Farren - Doom Singer
Yaeji - With A Hammer
Slowdive - Everything is Alive
Wednesday - Rat Saw God
Bethany Cosentino - Natural Disaster
Squirrel Flower - Tomorrow's Fire
Again, I'd either completely forgotten or didn't know in the first place that Beth Coastino had a new album out.
 
Not a bad hit rate for me this year, but absolutely gutted Brighde didn't place - far and away the year's highlight.

Brighde Chaimbeul - Carry Them With Us

Craven Faults - Standers
Bonnacons of Doom - Signs
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Forest Swords - Bolted
Gazelle Twin - Black Dog
Lankum - False Lankum
Mandy, Indiana - I've Seen a Way
Nation of Language - Strange Disciple
PVRIS - ANIMAL
Teeth of the Sea - Hive
 
Got a few in the top 40.

My list:
Hammock - Love in the Void
Blur - Ballad of Darren
Slowdive - Everything is Alive
King Creosote - I Des
Mary Lattimore - Goodbye, Hotel Arkada
Young Fathers - Heavy Heavy
Arlo Parks - My Soft Machine
EBTG - Fuse
Christine & The Queens - Paranoia, Angels, True love
Mammal Hands - Gift from the Trees
Ezra Collective - Where im meant to be
Hinako Omori - Stillness Softness
Billie Martin - Drop Cherries
Erland Cooper - Folded Landscapes
Smote - Genog
Orb/David Gilmour - Metallic Spheres in Colour
Silver Moth - Black Bay
Dot Allison - Consciousology

Like everyone else, big thanks to belboid
 
Was flabbergasted to see no Little Simz but I've just realised that though I bought it this year it came out this time last year
 
Thanks for all your hard work yet again, belboid 🙏

Here's my list - the top 4 are pretty solid, then quite a few could have been higher/lower. Surprised Swans didn't make it into the top 40, they're usually pretty popular round here.

The Murder Capital - Gigi's Recovery
Black Honey - A Fistful of Peaches
Cloth - Secret Measure
Flyying Colours - You Never Know
We Are Scientists - Lobes
Manchester Orchestra - The Valley Of Vision
boygenius - the record
Samia - Honey
Swans - The Beggar
Anti-Flag - LIES THEY TELL OUR CHILDREN
Paramore - This Is Why
Fever Ray - Radical Romantics
Be Your Own Pet - Mommy
slowthai - UGLY
Margo Price - Strays
Caroline Rose - The Art of Forgetting
Slowdive - everything is alive
Screaming Females - Desire Pathway
Hey Colossus - In Blood
The New Pornographers - Continue as a Guest
 
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