Wire Magazine Records of the Year 2011 (Spoilers)

[negative potential]

*notable 2001 releases they ignored

But everything you list is stuff from the "eai" end of the free improv spectrum. Which means basically that the criticism on this thread boils down to The Wire not being something like an "eai journal".

No, of course it isn't. It's a slick, widely available music magazine with slightly "experimental" pretensions. Of course that means they have to pay attention to what's going on in, for example, free improv or "eai", but it doesn't mean they're anything like a house journal for this kind of music.

The people on the thread emphasizing the inclusivity of The Wire hit the nail on the head: just because it's the only mainstream music glossy that will run features on Keith Rowe, Mattin, or John Tilbury does not mean that it's a magazine devoted to that type of music.

So I don't get the disappointment that the year end lists generate.

BTW, I notice that the "Jazz" list will also inevitably almost always list anything William Parker released the last year. That really is fucking tedious. Insofar as the people contributing to the Jazz lists are actually people who think there is some creative potential left in Jazz, it's odd that they never seem to submit nominations for slightly left-of-center mainstream groups like Jason Moran's Bandwagon or something. Instead, it reads like a hipster indie rock kid's idea of what Jazz is.

Oh fuck, I think I answered my own question as to why the "eai" people are disappointed by the year end picks. Ok, I get it now, and I share your pain, homies.

[jon abbey]

*notable 2001 releases they ignored

But everything you list is stuff from the "eai" end of the free improv spectrum. Which means basically that the criticism on this thread boils down to The Wire not being something like an "eai journal".

no, there are quite a few different criticisms here, they shouldn't be simplified like that.

and I don't have an issue with EAI records not making the main list (I was pretty shocked at how high 'motubachii' was last year). my biggest issue has always been with the improv sublist, which was why I put that list in, for context of my criticism of the 2001 improv list.*

*I directly connected it with an asterisk, if you go back and look.

[leroysghost]

That Tricoli/Ankersmit record is excellent imo. Suprised to hear people less weighing in behind its inclusion - especially since Ankersmit got a lot of plaudits around here after the Touch disc. For my money this is much stronger.

for mine, it's decidedly weaker and the Niblock tribute at the end isn't very connected to the rest of the record. it's ok, but I was expecting something stronger from those two.

agreed.

The Hecker and Helm releases are fantastic though, so the list isn't a total wash.

[Dan Warburton]

my biggest issue has always been with the improv sublist, which was why I put that list in, for context of my criticism of the 2001 improv list.

Well, to recap, that list seems to be have been compiled from selections sent in by just three journalists, myself, Philip Clark and Daniel Spicer. Anne Hilde Neset asked me to send a list of ten favourite improv albums in, so I imagine Philip and Daniel were asked the same, and then someone (who?) edited the list of 30 down to 15.
The problem with this idea is that whereas we were invited to separate new (2011) and old (reissue) releases for the two major lists, that doesn't seem to be the case here, which explains why a Billy Bang recording from 1977 and a Derek Bailey gig from 1983 made the cut. Maybe one of the reasons for asking just three writers to submit J/I lists was to avoid what used to happen in the past, when we were each asked to send in five releases per category, which meant that whatever Bailey released during the year almost invariably made the year end Wire best ofs, because it happened to be just about the only improv disc most writers got hold of. In any case, looks like Derek is still making the list, and probably always will. I imagine if someone could dig up a cassette tape of him farting in the bath it'd make the Wire top ten. The Milwaukee gig is fine, but I can think of several guitar albums that appeared in 2011 that are, in my opinion, more deserving of attention.
Would also just like to go on the record and say I didn't choose that bloody awful William Parker thing, not that anyone suspected I did.

[dialectics of shit]

*notable 2001 releases they ignored

But everything you list is stuff from the "eai" end of the free improv spectrum. Which means basically that the criticism on this thread boils down to The Wire not being something like an "eai journal".

No, of course it isn't. It's a slick, widely available music magazine with slightly "experimental" pretensions. Of course that means they have to pay attention to what's going on in, for example, free improv or "eai", but it doesn't mean they're anything like a house journal for this kind of music.

The people on the thread emphasizing the inclusivity of The Wire hit the nail on the head: just because it's the only mainstream music glossy that will run features on Keith Rowe, Mattin, or John Tilbury does not mean that it's a magazine devoted to that type of music.

So I don't get the disappointment that the year end lists generate.

BTW, I notice that the "Jazz" list will also inevitably almost always list anything William Parker released the last year. That really is fucking tedious. Insofar as the people contributing to the Jazz lists are actually people who think there is some creative potential left in Jazz, it's odd that they never seem to submit nominations for slightly left-of-center mainstream groups like Jason Moran's Bandwagon or something. Instead, it reads like a hipster indie rock kid's idea of what Jazz is.

Oh fuck, I think I answered my own question as to why the "eai" people are disappointed by the year end picks. Ok, I get it now, and I share your pain, homies.

since when is the wire a mainstream music magazine? also, maybe it's widely available where you live but certainly not around here; i routinely struggle to find it in stores when i'm in between subscriptions. overall, your post smacks of elitism. but don't mind me, off to listen to some mainstream another timbre releases.

[frozen reeds]

since when is the wire a mainstream music magazine?

It's not that ludicrous a statement.



I would love to see a correlation of items in these year-end lists with label/distributor advertising spend. Not to be too conspiratorial: just an observation.

[jon abbey]

yeah, I was hesitant to broach that point, but there's something to it. it's not entirely for those reasons, it's also a question of exposure, but I do think that it is true (for instance) that if the Ankersmit/Tricoli had come out on l'innomable, it would have had zero chance of making these lists. on the other hand, I haven't taken an ad in the Wire in probably 8 years, and they still almost always give Ersts pretty solid coverage (Teatro Assente excepted).

[dialectics of shit]

It's not that ludicrous a statement.

A lot of it boils down to one's conceptions of the mainstream, or how one's using that term. I would never in my wildest dreams label a band like Mercury Rev that, but that's because for me someone like Lady Gaga is an artist most people are familiar with. And, of course, definitions of mainstream shift with the passage of time and depend on location. You could maybe get away with calling Mercury Rev mainstream in the 90s in a college town, but otherwise...Also, as I'm sure you're well aware those covers you chose are dated, out of the ordinary by today's Wire standards (These days it's stuff like Wadada Leo Smith and Smegma), and in Bjork and Radiohead's case, they represent artists who've always managed to straddle the line between accessibility and experimentation. In their heyday, a band like Radiohead could be on MTV and also make the cover of The Wire. I don't see that happening now.

[leroysghost]

it's worth noting that in the last two years box sets of the most well regarded material by Smegma, Walter Marchetti and Ghédalia Tazartès have come out and the rewind has managed to miss all three.

it really just boils down to how ludicrous a proposition it is to cast such a wide net and then claim to have an authority over the entirety. They should just have individualized lists from people who are well versed in a certain area and leave at that. Replacing the critic entirely with some grand aggregate does very little other than prove that old "camel is a horse designed by committee" line to be true.

and they should at least stagger the list so that it applies to a 12 month period.

[frozen reeds]

yeah, I was hesitant to broach that point, but there's something to it.

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/ ... eview.html

[negative potential]

since when is the wire a mainstream music magazine? also, maybe it's widely available where you live but certainly not around here; i routinely struggle to find it in stores when i'm in between subscriptions. overall, your post smacks of elitism. but don't mind me, off to listen to some mainstream another timbre releases.

Well "mainstream" is always a relative position, but The Wire is certainly mainstream relative to the sort of music that gets discussed regularly here. Just check out the covers frozen reeds posted.

It's certainly an inclusive magazine compared to stuff like NME or Rolling Stone, the latter would never do features on Cardew or whoever. But just because it has that inclusivity doesn't preclude it from picking something like a Radiohead album for "best record of the year" or whatever. I think it's certainly a better music magazine for at least acknowledging a far broader range of music than the tedious rock magazines, but ultimately it's still aimed at a far broader demographic than IHM.

I mean, the point is that we all have a different idea of what constitutes "significance". For example, I think John Tilbury would be on my short list of most significant 20th century pianists, but I know when I go seem his performance on Tuesday, the chances are slim that the audience will be very large. This isn't a question of my taste being "objectively better", but rather acknowledging that it's a micro-demographic.

And FWIW regarding "availability", you can usually get it in Berlin at any train station newspaper store. Horribly overpriced since it's shipped over from Britain, but it's available. I would consider buying it if it weren't so expensive, but really the Internet has kind of supplanted any need for a journal like that.

[Matt Wuethrich]

I would love to see a correlation of items in these year-end lists with label/distributor advertising spend. Not to be too conspiratorial: just an observation.

I'm not sure this would really lead anywhere. When's the last time Soul Jazz, who has held the back over ad slot for as long as I can remember, ended up with a release anywhere near the top 5? I also can't remember Hippos in Tanks (who placed three releases in the top 10 this year) having any ads, at least big ones. Have to check again.

And my guess is that most Wire contributors don't get their ideas about what to cover / put in a year-the end list from ads in the magazine itself

[negative potential]

A more interesting discussion might be to what extent the ascendancy of the Internet makes magazines like The Wire somewhat outmoded.

One idée fixe of mine is that a common mainstream monoculture against which subcultures define themselves is a thing of the past. Anyone is free to indulge the most obscure musical tastes with a click of a mousebutton. And nobody has to be aware of what's going on in another area.

This touches upon the point above about how The Wire casts so wide a net that it ends up not being very authoritative about anything. Essentially, it's pretending that we live in a world where the people who buy PJ Harvey and Radiohead CDs are also the same people who would be interested in a recording of Cardew's The Great Learning. This sort of broad musical subculture might have existed in the pre-Internet era (though even then it would've been doubtful), but these days that's not the case at all. I haven't even heard clips from the most recent PJ Harvey or Radiohead CDs. In the 90s it might have inevitably been the case due to the exposure to "alternative" or "college" radio, but these days I can seek out the music I like without having to know much of anything about what's going on in other fields. Sometimes I'll glance at Pitchfork and realize I have no idea who any of those bands are.

The question is, is this development actually a good thing? People sort of lose the ability to be conversant about a shared broad musical culture. I mean except for stuff like Lady Gaga, which I can hear in the supermarket.

[notoriousd]

The Wire casts so wide a net that it ends up not being very authoritative about anything.

Great summary. To be honest I'm surprised at the haters in this thread. If you didn't think that the Wire was already a mainstream rag, where have you been the last few years? They give album of the year to stuff like Burial, calling it innovative and experimental (wtf lol), whilst ignoring a lot of the best composed music, electroacoustic and general improv (theres more to good music than just EAI). They clearly don't do their research on less widely known releases, as such a pretentious magazine should, meaning that the magazine is useless to me, being incapable of telling me anything I don't already know about.

[Dan Warburton]

An interesting subject to discuss, Alex, but isn't what you say - an increasing specialisation on the part of listeners, to the exclusion of other things - just part of growing old (people and media)? I've seen my own tastes and preferences for music really narrow significantly in the past ten years - back then I would (and did) buy PJ Harvey and Björk discs, nowadays I wouldn't. I occasionally download them just to see if I'm missing anything, but haven't yet felt that that's the case enough to run out and buy the disc. I've DL'ed plenty of dubstep and fail to see the attraction. Idem the Ferraro, which I find pretty deadly, but I've never understood the hypnadoodliwhatsit thing anyway, either Keenan's definition of what it's supposed to be, or the music itself. I have more or less totally given up on hiphop, not because it's no good any more (though I do, obviously, have a personal preference for the early stuff, because it reminds me of an exciting time in my life), but because I simply don't have time to trawl around / read around to find out what the good stuff is. Other things - opera, recent mainstream MOR jazz, most techno - have gone out of the window altogether. I'm sure other regular contributors to this board (Jon) and beyond (Brian, Richard) will admit to similar narrowing of preference fields with the passing time .. though I suspect mine are still a bit wider than theirs.
In the light of the above, of course folks whose tastes have focused on EAI / Wandelweiser whatever are bound to be disappointed by the Wire list, because I seriously doubt any regular contributor to the magazine is really as far into that stuff as many of the folks who regularly post here. I wouldn't even say I am: I listen to a lot of it out of a sense of (semi-)professional obligation, but it's not always the music I reach for. I've listened more to the Billy Bang double on the J/I list (which I didn't select myself) than I have the Doneda trio, the Sofa and the Mural (which I did). Go figure.
So, who are these lists for, anyway? I can't seriously believe many of today's too-busy-to-think yuppie bobo culture vultures will run out and buy everything on the Wire 50 list just to be hip (as if often the case with trendy culture weeklies here in France - a rave review of an album in Télérama will sell 5000 copies in a single weekend). Of course, some will - same folks who buy the T shirts, I guess - but I suspect most people use the list as a kind of barometer to measure how well they're doing, culturally. "Hey, this year I got ten discs which made it to the Wire Top 50!" I didn't even get that many.. you can imagine how hip I feel.

[Dan Bennett]

That Tricoli/Ankersmit record is excellent imo. Suprised to hear people less weighing in behind its inclusion - especially since Ankersmit got a lot of plaudits around here after the Touch disc. For my money this is much stronger.

for mine, it's decidedly weaker and the Niblock tribute at the end isn't very connected to the rest of the record. it's ok, but I was expecting something stronger from those two.

agreed.

The Hecker and Helm releases are fantastic though, so the list isn't a total wash (I love Ersatz G.B. too, but that's more ymmv territory).

Well that's fair enough obviously, different ears, but I'm surprised. tbh the last track doesn't do much for me either - but as I say I personally think what comes before is just much more interesting than the Utrecht set. Not at all to slate Utrecht - it's a really excellent live disc - I just prefer Forma II.
"Niblock tribute" seems a touch harsh though - obviously an influence, but distinct enough to stand on its own.

The Hecker is excellent, agreed, and I'm looking forward to hearing the Helm.

[visa tapani]

They give album of the year to stuff like Burial, calling it innovative and experimental (wtf lol)

So, on what grounds was it neither of those? Of course most innovations seem pretty tiny and insignificant when observed as an outsider, without proper literacy of the field - the same thing definitely happens to EAi and such. It sounded pretty much like nothing else, which can't be said about most EAi releases, which I suppose are still automatically labeled as experimental.

On a different note, I think part of Wire's agenda is to question the whole underground/mainstream or high art/low art divisions. But if we want to stick to it, I think it's still a pretty UG mag, with an UG outlook (whatever that might mean) to the mainstream things it deals with as well. I mean, you can take a hyper-produced Britney Spears song and listen to it with the same ears as you would a piece of musique concrete (and frequently that can be quite satisfying)...

[presquepartout]

the way the Pazz and Jop annual poll does it is that they allow contributors to divide up a certain number of points any way they want, which makes a lot of sense.

yeah, but the pazz and jop culls together too many critics, so individual tastes get averaged away. also, i was literally the only person to submit a ballot with more than one eai record (one other person voted for air supply). just looked up my ballot:

http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/cr ... 0/2282404/

[jon abbey]

yeah, I was just saying the way they count the ballots makes more sense to me than the way the Wire does it. it gives more flexibility to the critics.

[james]

Thanks to that list, I've now heard the Peter Evans Quintet and Andy Stott albums....and I'm thrilled that I have.