You know what else is bonkers? Jumping the queue and posting your list in response to the first post

“seriously, did everyone forget about this album??”

Nah, we just remembered it came out in 2011.

Actually, it’s “angst.”

I want a cuckoo clock with a little David Byrne going around the outside edge and saying “same as it ever was!” once for every hour.

2018 was a rough one for me. Without going into specifics, I recently had to write down a list of all the

GOOD things that happened in order to feel better about this year. The following is a different list with

20 good things that helped me through the year:

01. Iceage — Beyondless
02. Deafheaven — Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
03. Spiritualized — And Nothing Hurt
04. MGMT — Little Dark Age
05. Beach House — 7
06. Earl Sweatshirt — Some Rap Songs
07. Parquet Courts — WIDE AWAKE!
08. The Field — Infinite Moment
09. Jon Hopkins — Singularity
10. Travis Scott — ASTROWORLD

11. HOLY — All These Worlds Are Yours
12. Mitski — Be the Cowboy
13. Yves Tumor — Safe In The Hands of Love
14. Pusha T — DAYTONA
15. Let’s Eat Grandma — I’m All Ears
16. Against All Logic — 2012 – 2017
17. Arctic Monkeys — Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino
18. Amen Dunes — Freedom
19. Father John Misty — God’s Favorite Customer
20. Gang Gang Dance — Kazuashita

A few notes:

Spiritualized made a late push to the near top after I had a spiritual night with it and remembered how

Spiritualized has always made albums that reinforced my love of music. His new one is no different and

needed proper recognition, especially if it truly ends up being his last. Not to mention many of the other

albums on my list are indebted to Spiritualized, including bloc’s favorite HOLY.

I apparently loved me some LP4’s this year! Iceage, Deafheaven & MGMT all proved why we cared about those

bands in the first place. We heard their talent early on and kept them in mind in case they came around to

making something even better. They all did this year and in a way, it seems more impressive to me to see a

band better than they’ve ever been four albums into their careers. As opposed to kicking off their career

with a classic they’ll never top. For all us veteran music fans, we’ve seen that happen countless times.

Personally, it sounds sweeter when a band rewards the listener for sticking it out with them.

Finally, as the gum’s resident number guru, you can only imagine how much I struggled against putting

Beach House’s 7 at #7 on this list. The temptation was… yeah, just like that kind of temptation.

“When the guitar solo arrives and the whole band kicks in, it’s probably the closest that the Beatles ever came to doom metal…”

“She’s So Heavy” is RIGHT THERE.

tired: “ugh Earl is gonna *fuck up* my EOY list”

wired: “yas The 1975 is gonna fuck. up. my. EOY. list.”

inspired: “wow what a great late-in-the-year release date! Taken together, these two excellent and compelling albums give us a nuanced portrait of what it feels like to be an anxious young person in the contemporary globalized economy!”

I just want to state that whatever the right opinion is here, I have it. So just upvote this post, because trust me you agree with me.

I don’t need to subscribe to the ‘Gum’s mailing list because I refresh the frontpage about 185 times a day.

There are a lot of reasons for why, even if it isn’t okay, it’s something that primarily white left-wing sources try to keep their hands off of. A few major reasons:

1. Right-wing, racist media has used criticizing the language used in hip hop songs to discredit black men generally and paint them as crass, vulgar and subhuman. Lefties don’t want to accidentally repeat similar talking points or give a platform to people who would use non-racist criticisms as a gateway to racist screeds. It’s way too hard to distinguish between what’s actual critique of hip hop culture and what’s opportunistic bigotry.

2. Most of the people “giving passes” are white and lack the context, understanding and life experience to give a nuanced critique of gender relations among people of color. Those same white people also would have their opinions amplified and credited over the opinions of black people. Sometimes when you have the loudest voice in the room, it’s wise to say nothing instead of risk saying something really wrong.

3. The people who have the most insight and stake in misogyny in rap music, black women, often don’t have much of a platform to talk about these things – and when they do, there’s a lot of pressure to make the (understandable) decision not to take a speak up because the criticism they give against black men will be hijacked by racist whites as proof that all black men are thugs and predators. That’s a stereotype that’s gotten a lot of black men killed, brutalized and incarcerated.

4. Most of the targets of hip hop misogyny are women of color and culturally we just don’t care about women of color.

I’ll just say that I probably wouldn’t date a woman who found this song offensive

Lol at having to walk this tame comment back, it’s truly a great time to be a bent out of shape SJW. Even mild criticism of black culture in music or otherwise is strictly verboten.

I just love it when all the 40-year old white dudes who post here (90% of you?) jump on some “hip-hop” from someone half their age. Yeah-you get it. “Helen, I can’t return my phone calls for next hour, I’ll be meeting with Mr. E. Sweatshirt.”
Let me help you–he hates you.

At least he apologized unlike roger waters. Yes, this kind of thing doesn’t scare me nearly as much as the bds movement and the women’s march leadership.

This makes me so angry. The fact that a group of bullies who claim they are fighting for the rights of women are taking MY RIGHT as a woman to listen to whatever I want. I love this song, it has wonderful memories for me. If you don’t like the song, CHANGE THE STATION. The fact that you are RAPING MY RIGHTS AS AN ADULT FEMALE OF WHAT I CAN OR CANNOT LISTEN TO IS WRONG.

I knew we were at peak anti-Grimes sentiment the other day when, in a gut-churning +8/-7 nail-biter, inthedeadofnight rode his brand of old-school Grimes-hatin’ to an ultimate +1, the best I’ve seen him do on a thread about her.