Mike: Top album/songs/artists lists are bullshit, right? We can all agree on this? They’re a way for lazy bullshit ELITE HIPSTER MUSIC JOURNALISTS AND EDITORS to create digestible #content that instructs plebes what to listen to. But does anyone like these fucking lists? As a reader, any time I’ve ever looked at one is just to hate read it and see what kind of shit taste that site has. So in a time-honored tradition in order for Bearded Gentleman Music not to get its Rock Criticism Card revoked, B.G.M. did a fucking top albums list.
Kendon: Mike, I would want nothing more than to literally arson this horror of a list. When Thomas Ligotti calls mankind an abomination against nature, he’s referring specifically to this year-end list. The only thing that detracts from the banality of a year-end list is when a year-end list is this bad.
- Dendritic Arbor – Romantic Love
Kendon: Don’t let the serene band name and album title fool you; this is actually an album from a bunch of nerds trying to sound scary and tough. It’s hard to even take this album seriously between the generic metal riffs and the trying-too-hard-to-sound-badass vocals. I almost feel like its number ten ranking on our year end list is some sort of practical joke. It has to be, right?
Mike: *Me listening to the first track of Romantic Love. Song ends.*
Wife – Wow that’s awful shit.
Me – Well let’s give this a chance, maybe that was like the intro and the second track won’t be as much shit garbage. Nope. Also, track 5 is called “E Waste” which is a proper summary for the MP3s on their Bandcamp page.
- Dawn Richard – Blackheart
Mike: LOLOLOLOLOLOL COME ON NOW THIS CAN’T BE REAL. This woman was in Danity Kane, the fucking band Diddy put together for a reality show on MTV. This album was supposed to come out in 2013, but it was delayed because she was fucking making a Danity Kane reunion album. If your shit is being shelved for a reality show band, you are not a serious artist. Go home. Also, let’s take a look at this gem from Wikipedia:
“By July 2013, after the self-funded January released Goldenheart had sold a total of 9,000 copies domestically, Richard found herself at a lack of sufficient funds to stem the production of her next album, leading to her starting a campaign via Kickstarter, in which she asked her fans to donate a total of 25,000 dollars. With 133 backers lending 2,854 dollars, Richard was not able to reach her goal however, and the campaign turned out unsuccessful.”
Many people would find it inspiring that this album got made after this pathetic crowd funding effort. NOPE, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. There’s a good reasons why people didn’t want to support her shit. So if her bio wasn’t embarrassing enough, I listened to this record and it sounds like all the other icy/heavy-synth R&B stuff that dominates right now. She’s interchangeable with like at least 20 artists I can think of off the top of my head. This is a top ten record? No.
Kendon: I started to listen to this album for the sake of finding something mean to say about Dawn Richard, but when the pitch-shifted vocals on the generic first real song (“Calypso”!!!) came in, I couldn’t do it. Instead, let me say how stupid it is she names her album based on the formula (INSERT COLOR HERE)heart. What’s her next album going to be? Redheart? Blueheart? Magentaheart? What happens when she runs out of good colors to use?
- Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell
Mike: Oh this no integrity, hat-wearing motherfucker. Hey you somber dick, what happened to your 50 states project? Oh it was just some shit you made up to sell records? Fuck you. And why are you wearing a hat all funny in like 80% of your google images pictures.
Fuck you, fuck this album. This is a stupid album about his stupid parents and nobody cares. I have no time for your touching bullshit. It’s replacement-level indie folk. You don’t deserve to breath the same air as Mark Kozelek. It’s also on all the other year-end lists so way to be original, guys.
Kendon: Mike and I are obligated to make states albums jokes, so here’s mine: I didn’t realize that Music So Boring it Makes Me Want to Burn Myself Alive to Make it Stop was now a state, but Sufjan really captured what that state is all about with this album. I like the song about that state’s bird — whatever the most boring bird currently in existence is. What I’m saying is this album is boring.
- Failure – The Heart is a Monster
Kendon: I can honestly tell you this would be the eighth best album of the year if the year was 2000 and the list was only shitty post-grunge bands. Under those conditions and only those conditions, this album would be the eighth best on a year end list — perhaps right after that first Three Doors Down album. You know, the one with the song about Superman. Hell, maybe on that list, this album would be even higher than eight. After all, Creed didn’t make an album in 2000, I checked!
Mike: I started to research this band a little and there are a bunch of features about how they were some great 90s alt band and this is their big return. Their active period in the 90s coincides with my high school years when I was HEAVY into alt rock/post grunge. How have I never heard of this band before this moment? I refuse to accept that they existed. Does the guy from Failure write for B.G.M. and somehow snuck his band on the list?
I think Failure sums this album/band up pretty well.
- Grimes – Art Angels
Kendon: The production on this (by Grimes herself) is immaculate, and “California” is a really great and sonically interesting pop song. It’s just too bad Grimes forgot to write any other songs and instead filled the album with a hair-pulling mixture of generic songwriting and flat out annoying vocal bullshit. But man, can she write one good song per album or what? Makes you wish she accidentally stumbled into writing good music more often.
Mike: Grimes? More like crimes… against humanity that this album shows up on any top 10 list. Grimes is nonsense and the only list this record ranks on is “Albums Mike Tried to Listen to Numerous Times Before Turning Off in a Rage”.
Also, the common thread in write-ups about this album is that it’s great because it’s such an improvement over her first two records. So let me get this straight – her first two records were messes and this one is mildly more coherent so it’s OMG BEST OF 2015!!!!!11111111111? Fuck out of here. That’s like excitement when your kid stops shitting its pants.
- Marriages – Salome
Mike: Hey guys, what’s worse than a bad album? A completely boring album that you can form no thoughts about. I started listening to Salome by Marriages and I thought the record zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Kendon: I’m not sure how many marriages end in divorce, but I wish this one would. Mike hit the nail on the head when he said this album is boring. I know they’re trying to go for a certain atmosphere here, but they failed to actually make the songs interesting. At least the upside of a band that tries to be this dark and moody is maybe we’ll luck out and all their fans will succumb to their darkest thoughts. Then there will be no fans left for Marriages to make any more albums for.
- Beach Slang – The Things We Do to Find People Who Feel Like Us
Kendon: There’s nothing sadder than a forty year old man starting a band with a bunch of twenty year olds and singing songs about being young and partying and rock and roll and all that shit that sounds cool coming from a bunch of kids but weird coming from some dad-ass bro. It isn’t just pathetic. It’s creepy.
I have no idea how a mediocre album of generic pop-punk songs that some creeper wrote got to number four on this list, but some kind of foul play had to be involved. This is an album that tries too hard to fit in with the young kids but doesn’t try at all to stand out musically. I’d be mad if it wasn’t so depressing.
Mike: Look, I love Beach Slang. It’s entirely possible I arranged a semi-shady voting block to get Beach Slang this high on the list. However, about 20 percent of the reason was to try to get them some success and make some cash before the singers’ inevitable hip replacement surgery. Look, if this creepy 40-year-old shit wants to hang out with 25 year olds, fine… but he’s going to hurt himself. Ranking him this high is charity for his eventual catastrophic injury. Rock is no country for old men, motherfucker.
- Tame Impala – Currents
Mike: Fuck these tribute band-sounding assholes. Here’s a novel thought – instead of listening to this band, how about you just put a fucking Beatles album on?
Kendon: Bonus points to this band for the most spot on name. Yes, this music is tame — as in boring and derivative, and an impala is both the worst African animal (the kind you wouldn’t look twice at in a zoo) AND a terrible American car. So boring and terrible? Spot on.
But look over this list, and half the albums in the top ten are boring as all hell, so I guess there’s a pattern going on here. Just like Marriages and Sufjan Stevens and Dawn Richards and, okay, every album on the list before this, Tame Impala is some safe-ass, unimaginative music. Maybe that’s not fair. Grimes’ album wasn’t boring. It was just stupid. I’m getting tired of all these sleep-inducing albums, though. Is this site staffed exclusively by 60-plus-year-old hipsters?
- Baroness – Purple
Kendon: These guys certainly have chops, but maybe they should have stuck to being career session musicians or playing in other people’s bands. Between the cover art of cartoon naked women and the cringe-inducing lyrics that would make Dragonslayer whisper, “Man, those lyrics are embarrassing,” I’d sooner believe this a gag album from some Spinal Tap sequel than the second ranked album on a year end list.
I keep thinking someone is messing with me with this list, but it’s dawning on me that this is reality. There is no joke here. People think this album is good.
Mike: Wait… is this list trying to slip one past us? I don’t remember music in any G.I. Joe storyline.
- Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
Mike: Oh wow, really going out on a limb here and saying Kendrick’s album was best of the year. This is SHOCKING.
Problem is this album isn’t good. The problem isn’t Kendrick – he’s great. His features are always spot on and he’s put some great work in on his previous albums. But this album is some sort of mess of jazz and “smart hip hop”. Go listen to the lead single, “i”. It’s dog shit. If you say you like this you’re either lying or have taste for shit. There’s no other answer.
The crux of the problem is music critics/blogger can’t discern the difference between what’s important and what’s good. This record is important because of subject matter and lyrics in relation to the time we live. In execution, it is not good. This same lack of differentiation is why people fellated Dr. Dre’s Compton upon release.
TLDR: Most music critics are more interested in what music means rather than if it’s good. And that’s stupid.
Kendon: I agree that this is number one because critics care more about what is important than what’s actually good, but I disagree when you say this album isn’t good. It’s a really solid album. It’s probably my third favorite rap album of the year after Earl Sweatshirt and Vince Staple’s much better albums. On music alone, it belongs somewhere in the top fifteen. Good album. Good effort. It’s Kendrick’s American Idiot — an album that’s more important than it is great and nobody will listen to it over his previous superior work five years from now.
Mike: So we determined this is a huge mess of a list? But at the same time is no better or worse than any other list?
Kendon: For sure, I don’t want anyone to think our shitting on this list implies that this is the only stupid list. Any time you average a bunch of opinions together, the mediocre and most IMPORTANT rise to the top. A list like this is a collection of albums people hated the least. Whatever is least offensive coupled together with the pretend-art nonsense of Grimes and a Kendrick Lamar album. This list is just like 90% of other year-end lists. They’re all that same formula.
Mike: I’d blame everyone’s ass opinions but I think 2015 was a shit pile in general. Is there anything here that will be remembered for years to come? Congrats, 2015 – lots of “this is ok” and nothing great.
Kendon: It was a bad year for albums, which makes it even sadder that zero of these top ten albums were actually the top ten of the year. But you’re right, it softens the blow that nothing great came out this year. Kinda takes the onus off this terrible list.
Mike: So really hope you agree with us. If not, don’t @ us.
Editor: Hit up Mike and Kendon on Twitter if you’d like to applaud them or send them death threats.
Mike – https://twitter.com/MikeyFiveBucks
Kendon – https://twitter.com/spacefunmars