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#1 SONG REVEALED|Kang his best of 2015 reloaded the re-up
Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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satan givin' out deals, finna own these rappers
the game is full of slaves and they mostly rappers
you sold your soul first, then your homies after
let's show these stupid field ****** they could own they masters
20. A$AP Rocky - AT.LONG.LAST.A$AP
Rocky Rock's thing has pretty much always been style over substance going back to his (classic) very first drops of music, and in 2015 I am still a little stumped at those getting worked up thinking this is a bad thing. Long Live A$AP was a great great party record but this year he cranked things up to the next level and went for #aesthetic over everything else, making for an album undeniably committed to the rules of its own world, as well as on the verge of being way too long. But it neva eva comes out to the problem of Rocky being too far up his own ass, because he's really just being himself the whole time. A.L.L.A emerges as some blend of Live.Love's supreme cloudy consistency and LONG.LIVE's flashy high highs, just a more fatigued version of them. But yeah even for its status as the ~mood music~ A$AP album you would be in the wrong to just go about sampling here thinking you've heard one song you've heard them all. Because he has packed this thing with some good ass songs.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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Aw the comments right before I post to bump me into the next page, luh u guys
Quote:
Originally posted by Allstar
Need something like a summary of this Best Of, EP, songs, etc so I can choose what to get into first accordingly
Heard of Junglepussy
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 eye just posted all the links so far in the OP last night
but if you were tryna hold out for the songs list then I mean that one's gonna be pretty fire as well
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Pregnant With Success doesn't even need a stan nickname.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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moments of clarity are so rare
i better document this
19. Björk - Vulnicura
Damn I feel bad it took the dissolution of Björk's relationship with the father of her child to push her to create her best album in who rly knows how many years, because I don't like to see her unhappy. But it's clear to see Vulnicura owes its entire existence to this one event; that is the ONLY thing that this album is concerned with. And it's heavy, like the kind of thing you can't be listening to for too long or super close together cuz that energy can ****in drain you. But it's worth going through the bad to get to the good, and there's a lot of good in standing as an observer to this giant supernova of emotional passion. A lot got made out of her collaboration with Arca and the Haxan Cloak to create the spidery beats holding the whole thing, and they definitely work to inform the direction the music moves in, but I think even more significant is the layers and layers and layers of strings on top of it all. It's partly a throwback to some of her very best work ever, but the net product is something totally new.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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but now i'm all out of charity, i'm all out of change and
i cannot erase you, i cannot replace you
18. Susanne Sundfør - Ten Love Songs
Boiiii, so this is the most dramatic album ever, and it's appropriately huge sounding as a way to back those dramatics up. Not on any scale we have on this planet, nahh there's much more of a... galactic feel to everything going on here. It's like Star Wars as a breakup album. Lyrically this is a liddo bit similar to Lykke Li's I Never Learn from last year, where pretty much every song is a take on its own distinct post-breakup emotion, and tbh that's a really good approach that keeps things organized and avoids repetitiveness. So along the ride you get some hope, a little bit of straight defeatedness, and then a ton of massive, consuming anger too. Honestly I'm trying to think of other synth-pop I've heard that hits as hard as this and I'm coming up short, but that definitely shouldn't be a deterrent when the music is this easy to listen to.
j I guess in some ways it's like anti-Vulnicura
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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draw a line in the sand
like there's nothing to regret and nothing to prove
set my sights high enough
so i see the turning tides are parting for you
17. CHVRCHES - Every Open Eye
I enjoyed CHVRCHES' first album but after a couple months of living with it I felt like I was about done with this band forever; it just carried what seemed like an overly eager vibe that I couldn't shake at all. Well, when the first single 'Leave a Trace' off their followup dropped this year there was a new vibe, one that suggested these guys had done a lot of growing up in the interim and I could not be more grateful that it pushed me in the direction of this album. They've also gotten more skilled in the production department and tighter on a pop songwriting level, so that the faster moments genuinely thrill and the slower ones hold my attention for 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds. Most improved in the mind of Kang but possibly not everyone else goes to.
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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Half of Ten Love Songs was GREAT but the other half was just kind of whatever. Had some really great tracks tho
I haven't listened to Vulnicura yet  Probably won't either, but I'm sure its good.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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we play the life secure with give and take
we build the buildings and they’re built to break
tell me, tell me, tell it to me, tell it straight:
what is the difference between love and hate?
16. Viet Cong - Viet Cong
Oh hay, another album I would not have foreseen myself loving even at the start of the year when it came out, but here we are. The outlook in the world of (FKA) Viet Cong is kind of a BLEAK, almost apocalyptic one; all these songs are totally totally capable of kicking your ass if you let them. But the band also has a plan in mind as it goes about this, and the intensity never just comes straight at you all at once. The pacing is really impressive all throughout and a big part of that is the incorporation of little touches that keep me hooked while the rest of the songs just march on. Like in theory the 3 minutes of ~drone that kick off 'March of Progress' before it picks up for about 2 more and then goes and DESTROYS me for 1 min at the end just seems a little extra, but every single listen I'm on the edge of my seat the entire time waiting to see what I'm being led to even though I know what it is. It's all about the climb. Also: never turn away a song just cuz you see it goes for 11 minutes. A lot of times those are the ones you should listen to first.
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Member Since: 1/1/2013
Posts: 13,978
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O **** I'm really behind.
I actually liked JP a lot despite what I've said. She has a lot of good/funny lyrics.
Waxahatchee (I've spent all year learning to spell that name and I am proud to say I think I have it down) was kinda the alt. girl album of the year for sure.
I just donnot think ASAP is for me, I don't like him at all from listening to this album, all the songs were such downers/a slog and there wasn't anything interesting going on musically to me. Everyday, L$D, and a few others were aight tho... This Car Seat Headrest song has me feeling eh too.
Buhjork/ Suse/ Chvrches are all very very good. Viet Cong was something I needed to listen to more.
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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Björk and CHVRCHES, great set 
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Member Since: 2/5/2014
Posts: 29,111
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Rocky delivered a knockout with ALLA. Everything about it is great. It's not flashy but it sneaks up on you.
The Viet Cong album was bleak, I agree, but in the best possible way. And it's kinda incredible how Bjork just came up and dropped on of her best albums this year. Good stuff.
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Also: never turn away a song just cuz you see it goes for 11 minutes. A lot of times those are the ones you should listen to first.
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This is pretty truthful right here.
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Member Since: 11/20/2010
Posts: 29,258
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Quote:
Originally posted by Kang.
Aw the comments right before I post to bump me into the next page, luh u guys
eye just posted all the links so far in the OP last night
but if you were tryna hold out for the songs list then I mean that one's gonna be pretty fire as well
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my little eyes did NOT spot that small box on the bottom 
---
Omg at CHVRCHES so high. I love them and that's definitely one of my favorite albums of the year. Have to check out that Susanne album bc of the Lykke comparison now.
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Ten Love Songs is this era's Silent Shout. It will be unmatched for quite a while girl.
SIS I did nOT like the Churches album but I guess I've never been that huge of a fan.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 12,760
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Yeah, Chvrches definitely got better at slower songs, Down Side of Me and Follow You are two of the best on the album.
Ugh and the last minute of March of Progress is so good. 
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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they say that this place ain't got a heart
cause i could still hear the beat
and every night is oh-oh-oh-ay-oh, oh-oh-oh-ay-oh
from all the way down the street
15. Neon Indian - Vega Intl. Night School
Wow this is the COOLEST album ever, I feel so much cooler just listening to it. Ironically I think a lot of that feeling comes from its tendency to just be goofy at the times where it makes most sense and not take itself overly seriously. So at the same time that the whole experience comes off like this super-immersive descent into like sketchy inner-city nightlife culture, it reads as a total self-aware parody of that scene as well. Neon Indian was one of the big chillwave acts as that movement started to come up and then fade away but you could see him working on stepping away from that whole style as early as with his second album release (and Era Extraña > Psychic Chasms!). VEGA Int. is like a continuation of him establishing his own identity totally separate from where his roots lie; you can hear a lot of chillwave's basic elements in the music here but it's almost like they're just being used as building blocks as part of something much more tropical and colorful and Prince-inspired and FUN.
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Member Since: 2/17/2012
Posts: 33,611
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Poor Toro and Washed out, no one will remember their 2015 music. Neon Indian showed them the **** up without even sounding like he tried (he probably tried a lot tho).
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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all of his albums are like, really really good. chillwave what it do? 
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Member Since: 10/8/2009
Posts: 8,118
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A$AP Rocky 
CHVRCHES 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 9/2/2011
Posts: 21,728
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Yes Absolutely, the album was simultaneously cool and fun, which is so hard for others to do.
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Member Since: 12/14/2011
Posts: 21,274
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i know it comes too soon
the universe is riding off with you
14. Beach House - Depression Cherry
Beach House got some **** this year (I mean like as much as a band this consistently NON-polarizing can get) for again not changing their sound up much after Sparks hinted at some kind of reinvention, but I think they deserve more credit than they got for that. Sure none of the other tracks really went near that same shoegazey sound, but I did feel like the band suddenly had grown a lot more accomplished at playing with texture, and that's something that ends up making these songs feel special, as they play out over the course of the album but also as moments distinct from everything that came before them in the BH discography. This kinda felt confirmed after the Thank Your Lucky Stars drop -- while I promise I liked that album, my biggest complaint was how it didn't seem to retain the amazing... grainy, velvety quality that just comes alive in all of the Depression Cherry songs. But besides that it's really just a band working at top level, something they have never really stopped doing since their very first album almost 10 (!!) years ago. I've read how when you break dance music down to its basics it really comes down to mastering the balance between repetition and change. Obviously Beach House couldn't be farther from dance music but I think this holds true in their own material as well, and they couldn't be better at walking the line.
And if we wanna talk about BODYING the opener and closers game. I think they take it for the whole year.
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