B&C's 2015 Albums of the Year AKA The One Time A Year Peef Uses Math

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I've actually listened to 2,178 albums this year and plan on listing them all.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
 
If you're really worried that my 9 album list would skew the results (which, based on the fact that I think the only one in any other list is Currents, wouldn't really effect much in the way of results), you can weight mine. 9/15=60%. So just take 60% of my rankings. I don't want to add more albums that I don't want to or buy more albums that I don't need to (I don't have any streaming services and no longer download) just to make 15.
 
I've listened to hundreds of albums this year, like any other year. Just being strategic and also had a ton of "proper" releases that I handed out an 80/100 on AOTY, so a bit hard to distinguish between a few dozen albums of that caliber.
Strategic in that you want your albums 6-10 to matter more than someone else's album 6-10?

I don't think I'm being at all unreasonable in suggesting that it's very easy to just do the lists the way we laid it out. It obviously doesn't matter at all because this is all just dumb fun, but, like, what's the point of what you are doing?

Tourist's situation is a little different since he didn't even listen to 15 albums from this year, though, and I don't mean to be rude by saying this, but it sort of begs the question why he would bother trying to assign points when he's barely scratched the surface of the year 2015.
 
Deerhunter| Fading Frontier
Paul Weller| Saturns Pattern
Julia Holter| Have You In My Wilderness
Kamasi Washington| The Epic
Dungen| Allas Sak
Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper
Eternal Tapestry| Wild Strawberries
OZmotic & Fennesz| Air Effect
Invisible Astro Healing Rhythm Quartet| 2
Noel Gallagher| Chasing Yesterday
Godspeed! You Black Emporer| Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress
Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe & Ariel Kalma| We Know Each Other Somehow
Stara Rzeka| Zamknely sie oczy zeimi
Blur| The Magic Whip
Deradoorian| The Expanding Flower Planet
Sleater-Kinney| No Cities to Love
Wilco| Star Wars
Kurt Vile| I B'lieve I'm Goin' Down
 
If I need to alter my list, I could just give a solitary point to a few other titles and take a few off one other, correct?

Revised List:

1. Julia Holter - Have You In My Wilderness (15)
2. Lady Lamb The Beekeeper - After (1)
3. Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp (15)
4. Tame Impala - Currents (15)
5. Father John Misty - I Love You, Honeybear (15)
6. Sharon Van Etten - I Don't Want To Let You Down EP (1)
7. Hop Along - Painted Shut (1)
8. Holly Herndon - Platform (1)
9. Jlin - Dark Energy (1)
10. Royal Headache - High (15)
11. Purity Ring - Another Eternity (15)
12. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit (1)
13. Jenny Hval - Apocalypse, Girl (1)
14. Blur - The Magic Whip (1)
15. Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell (2)


That should fix it. Adds up to 100 and there's a two pointer to make sure Sufjan wins this thing.
 
Last edited:
Tourist's situation is a little different since he didn't even listen to 15 albums from this year, though, and I don't mean to be rude by saying this, but it sort of begs the question why he would bother trying to assign points when he's barely scratched the surface of the year 2015.

A lot of the popular or darling artists that released records this year didn't interest me. Is it wrong to want to give points to records I really like without listening to a ton of records I didn't have interest in to maybe find a few albums I'd give a 1 to? Probably the only record I haven't heard this year that might be higher on my list is the Deerhunter record, but I'm getting that for Christmas and I hate getting records for Christmas that I've already listened to. Takes the fun out of it. If I'm happy with my list, and don't care if it's prorated, and 8 of the 9 records I listed aren't on anyone else's list, I don't know why it's such a big deal?
 
LM, I might have to look into that Susanne Sundfør album based on a few tracks I heard from it today.
 
A lot of the popular or darling artists that released records this year didn't interest me. Is it wrong to want to give points to records I really like without listening to a ton of records I didn't have interest in to maybe find a few albums I'd give a 1 to? Probably the only record I haven't heard this year that might be higher on my list is the Deerhunter record, but I'm getting that for Christmas and I hate getting records for Christmas that I've already listened to. Takes the fun out of it. If I'm happy with my list, and don't care if it's prorated, and 8 of the 9 records I listed aren't on anyone else's list, I don't know why it's such a big deal?

This is me pretty much, except the Deerhunter part.
 
A lot of the popular or darling artists that released records this year didn't interest me. Is it wrong to want to give points to records I really like without listening to a ton of records I didn't have interest in to maybe find a few albums I'd give a 1 to? Probably the only record I haven't heard this year that might be higher on my list is the Deerhunter record, but I'm getting that for Christmas and I hate getting records for Christmas that I've already listened to. Takes the fun out of it. If I'm happy with my list, and don't care if it's prorated, and 8 of the 9 records I listed aren't on anyone else's list, I don't know why it's such a big deal?

:shrug:, it's fine to post a list, but if you didn't listen to enough albums to qualify for a full entry, IMO, you don't qualify for a full entry.
 
I must ask the tourist, what the hell have you been doing all year? If you were out socializing or being active, shame on you!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
 
Also, you have 10 days to listen to 6 more albums. Stat!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk
 
My thoughts on the "controversial" lists and the broader discussion surrounding them: first, I don't think it's that big a deal and people should allocate points however they like within the rules; second, I'm surprised somebody so into music would listen to so few new albums but there's nothing wrong with emphasising quality of experience over discovering quantity; third, lulz at any strategic voting.

I just made a draft list with 43 albums and EPs (obviously I won't count any EPs for this thread) that I really loved. I know my lists trend a bit obscure or at least take some different paths to most other B&C lists, but damn I think only four of my current top fifteen have received votes so far. I don't think I can really be bothered voting strategically though; sure I want Beach House, Metz, God Is an Astronaut, Health, Deafheaven, etc., but they're below 25th so I'd be kidding myself to bump them to the top fifteen.
 
I don't think it's a big deal either. But I still do feel that if you didn't listen to 15 albums, you shouldn't be participating in the vote tallying. That's all.
 
Moot since I would never try to vote in this thread, but I don't see how being really into music automatically should equate with massive quantity of artists. Even when I was twenty or twenty one, I don't think I ever bought more than 18 or 20 new albums from any given year. And most of them didn't stand the test of time in any way.
 
I must ask the tourist, what the hell have you been doing all year? If you were out socializing or being active, shame on you!

Mostly recording an album and an EP with my band, working (I believe the last time I checked was 428 hours of) overtime, taking care of things at the home that I am now an owner of, spending way too much time driving places and listening to sports talk radio, listening to almost every single Mariners game on the radio (don't have television), going to every one of the football games of the high school I graduated from to see my cousin play (they took 3rd in the state and their QB just won Gatorade Player of the Year as the #1 rated high school quarterback in the nation), playing a shit ton of guitar and writing and demoing about 30 sketches for my band's next record, spending time in the hospital and at physical therapy for my back (the count was 3 bulging discs, 2 strained muscles, and spinal stenosis all hitting at once hard right before...), the birth of my daughter and everything that that entails.

But if that disqualifies me, whatever. I guess next year I will listen to one more album and give the ones I wouldn't have given any points to just 1. The legalism and disqualifications of something that is supposed to be fun is just overbearing and I just think that's a lame reason to discount music I liked. But whatever. This is just an internet forum with literally not one person I know.
 
Moot since I would never try to vote in this thread, but I don't see how being really into music automatically should equate with massive quantity of artists. Even when I was twenty or twenty one, I don't think I ever bought more than 18 or 20 new albums from any given year. And most of them didn't stand the test of time in any way.

I think the idea is that either everyone has a streaming service, downloads tons of music, or spends a ridiculous amount of money on albums. Heck, before I stopped illegally downloading things, I don't know that I listened to more than 30 new albums in a year, because I love repeat listens and listen to music from other years as well (sometimes I'll go an entire month listening to nothing but The Beatles, or a rotation of Zeppelin, Simon and Garfunkel and CCR). Sometimes when I really dig a record I'll listen to it on repeat for a couple days. That happened with Mute Math and Tame Impala.

Earlier in the year I went through three months of a rotation of a couple older records I discovered and loved (When The Night by St. Lucia, Be Impressive by The Griswolds, We Are The 21st... by Foxygen, Soft Will by Smith Western, Sun Structures by Temples, Before the Waves by Magic Man, Alix by Generationals, Loma Vista by Family of the Year, Talking Is Hard by Walk the Moon) along with just a couple from this year (Strange Trails by Lord Huron, Lovetap! by Smallpools, Glitterbug by The Wombats, Use Your Time Wisely by Strange Names, and 1st Bath by Avid Dancer).
 
Last edited:
I've pretty much always had a limited number of artists on frequent rotation at any given time. This year it's been a lot of older (ie. late seventies/early eighties) records. A few years back it was almost wall-to-wall The National and Wilco. On the whole, I'm probably doing better, variety-wise, than I was around 2012 or so.

Now, I don't have a streaming service, nor do I buy any records (almost never; it would have to be in my All Time Desert Island Top Ten to warrant being a CD on my shelf). Mostly, I just have a look on Youtube (already knowing, for the most part, what I'm looking for). I can foresee someone maybe wanting to jump down my throat when I say that, so let me add that my internet bill is my entertainment budget. There's no pot of money that struggling bands would have ever gotten out of this black duck.
 
Last edited:
If you don't have 15 albums you feel like assigning points to, post an unranked list instead. You can't participate in the competitive aspect of this thread, but the discovery involved in reading the lists and discussing them is ultimately more important anyway.
 
Last edited:
LM, I might have to look into that Susanne Sundfør album based on a few tracks I heard from it today.

It's got some strong and Bjork and Kate Bush influence, but it swings for the fences as far as pop appeal goes. There are some huge choruses on that album. Listen to it.
 
1. Joanna Newsom - Divers (15)
2. Kamasi Washington - The Epic (13)
3. Daniel Romano - If I've only one time asking (13)
4. Deafheaven - New Bermuda (13)
5. Floating Points - Elaenia (12)
6. AFX - Orphaned Deejay Selek 2006 - 2008 (9)
7. Hey Colossus - Radio Static High (7)
8. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Freedom Tower: No Wave Dance Party 2015 (5)
9. Björk - Vulnicura (3)
10. The Icarus Line - All Things Under Heaven (3)
11. Joe Jackson - Fast Forward (2)
12. Belle & Sebastian - Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (2)
13. µ-Ziq - XTLP (1)
14. Sam Lee - The Fade in Time (1)
15. Kylesa - Exhausting Fire (1)
 
Back
Top Bottom