[Alex04]

1st: Radiohead - Kid A [2000]
Runner-up: Audioslave - Audioslave [2002]

HMs:
Riverside - Out of myself [2004]
Muse - Absolution [2003]
Darkness - Permission to land [2003]

 

[Deep Funk]

First: Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head

Second: James Brown - In The Jungle Groove (2003 Reissue)

The rest is too hard for there is too much to choose from. Toxicity by SoaD and Exit by K-os are there for sure. The others require too much thinking for now...

 

[limpidglitch]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deep Funk /img/forum/go_quote.gif Second: James Brown - In The Jungle Groove (2003 Reissue)

Do you have an alternative? Except for the one bonus track it's identical to the 1986 release.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif I just have to comment on the appearance of the Fleet Foxes in many of these posts. This is a minor band, to put it kindly. In five years, no one will remember them, and people currently touting them will deny that they ever did. The Foxes, in the mean time, will have gone on to law school or Wall Street. Sterile, stilted competence -- that's the best I can say for them. See also Crosby, Stills and Nash, or maybe the Four Freshmen. That's not intended as a compliment. This sort of pop music is what rock was supposed to demolish. I guess not. See also: The Strokes, Grizzly Bear.

That's pretty much how I feel about Radiohead, except the being forgotten in five years part.

 

[Deep Funk]

Limpidglitch, I honestly don't have an alternative. James Brown & The JBs made me fall in love with music. The Bonus Beat Reprise is somewhat sacred for me. Funky Drummer on that album is definitely sacred. (There is a longer version on LP!) That album is my fall back album when everything else fails. In hindsight I find it quite miraculous that In The Jungle Groove was re released in the 21 century.

Coldplay is first for it isn't a reissue and does what very few albums do to me, it makes me silent and just empties my head of everything that's going on. In The Jungle Groove is more of a feel good album and a little inconsistent, therefore second.

 

[limpidglitch]

No problem, I'll put it up.

 

[SweetAdeline]

1.) Hayden- Skyscraper National Park
2.) Ted Leo & The Pharmacists- The Tyranny of Distance

I couldn't decide/ order between-
Hayden- Skyscraper National Park
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists- The Tyranny of Distance
Constantines- Constantines
Shearwater- Palo Santo
TV on the Radio- Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes
Low- Things We Lost in the Fire

So I did a coin flipping tournament and that's what I ended up with.

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGreen /img/forum/go_quote.gif Welcome to hipster town,DrBenway.

Thanks. A nice place to visit, but...

I'm just mystified as to why some mediocre bands become hot items, while others, equally bland or uninteresting, are not adopted by taste-makers. I am still searching for some shred of a reason why, for instance, a manufactured joke like the Strokes are name-checked (To this day!) with such wide-eyed reverence. To me, they were a glossy fashion campaign that spun off a couple of mediocre, derivative records to go along with the image marketing. Britney Spears, times four.

 

[Drumonron]

Porcupine Tree - In Absentia

This gets my vote as best!

There is no runner up!

 

[MrGreen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrBenway /img/forum/go_quote.gif Thanks. A nice place to visit, but... I'm just mystified as to why some mediocre bands become hot items, while others, equally bland or uninteresting, are not adopted by taste-makers. I am still searching for some shred of a reason why, for instance, a manufactured joke like the Strokes are name-checked (To this day!) with such wide-eyed reverence. To me, they were a glossy fashion campaign that spun off a couple of mediocre, derivative records to go along with the image marketing. Britney Spears, times four.

I think the main appeal of certain bands for a lot of hipsters are that they are not popular or are no longer popular. A sort of "I liked it before it was cool" statement, where the obscurity becomes justification for the music. I'd probably say "hipsters don't like music". A pretty big example is hipsters who are into In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral milk Hotel (a 1998 album rereleased in 2005 or so). It was never cool, and even the people who listenned to it in 1998 (myself included) have moved on. They love this kind of thing, especially since most of them are 14 and the album has the lyric "semen stains the mountain tops".

IMO this sort of thing is just a phase for these people, and they are every bit as impressionable about their "tastes" as most people who get their favourite songs from hits on the radio, they just don't like to admit it.

 

[Cianyx]

Haha, gotta love /mu/

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGreen /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think the main appeal of certain bands for a lot of hipsters are that they are not popular or are no longer popular. A sort of "I liked it before it was cool" statement, where the obscurity becomes justification for the music.

In a bizarre way, I think that same attitude is what made Sea Change Beck's least popular album (I could be wrong, but I think it sold relatively poorly.) His fans love to trawl his material for achingly hip references, and the idea of an album of straightforward songs, passionately sung, is just boring to them. They much prefer his superficial pastiches of hip-hop/rock/folk/electronica/whatever, which are far better suited to limited attention spans.

I, on the other hand, was shocked out of my shoes by that record. I had previously liked "Loser," and very little else among Beck's material. I had no idea he could write, play and sing so movingly. So I guess it's actually pretty encouraging to me that it did well in this poll.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGreen /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'd probably say "hipsters don't like music". A pretty big example is hipsters who are into In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral milk Hotel (a 1998 album rereleased in 2005 or so). It was never cool, and even the people who listenned to it in 1998 (myself included) have moved on. They love this kind of thing, especially since most of them are 14 and the album has the lyric "semen stains the mountain tops".

I downloaded that from eMusic not too long ago, and I was underwhelmed. Not a bad record, but not the masterpiece I had been led to expect. Another example is the Zombies final album, Odyssey and Oracle, which I also recently heard in its entirety for the first time. Sure, "Time of the Season" is a magnificent single, but I find the rest of the album to be annoyingly twee and cute. After two close listens, I just don't understand why I have been hearing for decades that this record is some sort of lost classic. I suspect it's for the reasons you cite: it was out of print for years, and a highly prized trophy for vinyl collectors.



Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGreen /img/forum/go_quote.gif IMO this sort of thing is just a phase for these people, and they are every bit as impressionable about their "tastes" as most people who get their favourite songs from hits on the radio, they just don't like to admit it.

Well, the hipster dress code is now as standard as the emo dress code, the hip-hop dress code, and the metal dress code. There are, of course, many people who passionately love hip-hop, emo, or metal for all the right reasons. But there are many more who just want a social group to fit into, and they just choose one, ready-made, off the rack.

The irony of it is that hipsterdom did have a certain edge to it long ago. It wasn't a stance that was likely to get you invited to the cool parties. It was more a collection of misfits who, silly as they may have been, were making it up as they went along. Now, as I said, it's just another cliched stance; anyone who has spent five minutes in Williamsburg recently can attest to that.

 

[Ross1]

winner: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People

runner up: Elliott Smith - From A Basement On The Hill

HM's: death from above 1979 - youre a woman, im a machine
regina spektor - songs
battles - mirrored

 

[Davey]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ross1 /img/forum/go_quote.gif winner: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People

Nice record, one of my favorites too, though you know we risk being labeled hipsters with questionable taste for liking a record such as this

Got a feel to it that holds up year after year. If you missed it, definitely give some listens to the Antlers Hospice from last year. Can't get it out of my head. Has some of that same charm at the core, though much darker in the theme, and without some of the celebratory feel of those rave ups on the BSS record. Still, gets me to the same type of place. 2003 was a pretty good time for some of my favorite music ...

Woven Hand - Blush Music
Songs: Ohia - Magnolia Electric Co
Califone - Quicksand/Cradlesnakes
Manitoba - Up In Flames
Cat Power - You Are Free
Damien Jurado - Where shall you take me?
Over The Rhine - Ohio
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow
Okkervil River - Down the River of Golden Dreams
British Sea Power - The Decline of British Sea Power
Libertines - Up the Bracket

 

[DrBenway]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davey /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice record, one of my favorites too, though you know we risk being labeled hipsters with questionable taste for liking a record such as this

Not if it's a good record! Hipsters value music solely (or nearly so) for its obscurity. That way, they know something you don't, which is the whole point. They can run their hands through their long, greasy hair, or stroke their soul patches, and say "Well, I wouldn't expect you to have heard of The Horizontal Grape. Very few people have." Followed by a disdainful roll of the eyes.

Mere obscurity is not the point. I know very few people who have heard of Eddie Hazel, but I don't think that's cool; I think it's a crime.

P.S. I am not stroking my soul patch.

Oh, wait; I don't have a soul patch.

 

[jbergan]

Winner: Tool - Lateralus
Runner Up: Bloc Party - Silent Alarm