#21

Yeah I would think at least Noname would make the list. She has massive crossover appeal and is pretty safe in terms of lyrical content for the indie kids on here

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#22

Quite surprised that only 4 of my top 10 were mentioned on these lists. I thought I went quite safe!

#23

From what I’ve read a lot of people tend to regard them as left-field pop that incorporates some great rap amongst a mixing pot of lots of great things - they’re very difficult to categorise in general (which is a good thing).

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#24

Great list, my favourite of the year.

My five made the list… that could be a first

Good stuff @Prob500
thank you for putting the effort in.

#25

Haven’t you just described hip hop?

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#26

Not really what I meant but I can see how the wording was poor :stuck_out_tongue:

#27

Theory: Everyone here is old-fashioned so stuff that doesn’t come out on CD doesn’t register as much (no SOPHIE here either is there?)

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#28

Also would not be at all like DiS to argue about semantics instead of the real issue at hand (if we do count Young Fathers the count goes from 1/50 to a whopping 2/50)

:wink:

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#29

Nope

#30

Yeah I think it would be a stretch to call Young Fathers hip hop now. A lot of their songs don’t really have rapping on it at all.

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#31

I think that you’re going to need to make your peace with the fact that hip hop just isn’t as massively popular on here as indie guitar music and that’s almost certainly always going to be the case.

There’s a definite analogy to metal, there is a thriving heavy music community on here and some fab chats and recommendations come out of it but a lot of people are put off by the more screamed vocals and so it rarely makes the end of year polls. And that’s ok.

The same applies to hip hop, a lot of people like it and know a lot about it on here but when you look the whole user base the minority interests get drowned out in the most popular stuff which tends to be indie guitar.

At this point someone then has to throw their hands on the air and go “I thought this place was different, I thought everyone here was open minded and tried different things”

And I think we are, compared to the vast majority of the population, and there is a wide variety of different loves here, but in aggregate we’re by and large indie rock fans with a bunch of other niches too but none as popular as that one.

9 Likes
#32

I don’t think I am going to, and tbh I don’t think I’m even asking for nearly as much as hip-hop being equally popular on this website.

It’s just saying “we’re better than most but this is a space for Indie people so deal with it” is all a bit Noel Gallagher and Glastonbury, isn’t it? I don’t have a problem with people liking indie, I love it myself and 2 of my top five were firmly indie choices. But I’d be really interested to see what the points threshold was for making it into the top 50 (though after the Herculean effort that Prob500 has put in again I wouldn’t blame him for saying “fuck you! I’ve done enough here”) Like if you only needed 32 points to make top 10 I imagine that you wouldn’t need much more than 15 points to reach top 50?

#33

I do love the Saba and Jean Grae/Quelle Chris but it is really stupid that you can’t purchase physical copies of them yet

#34

I think you’re misunderstanding me and it’s probably my fault because I’m bad at explaining it properly.

I’m not suggesting that this is just an indie space at all and I would rather die than join the Noel Gallagher “real music real haircuts brigade”.

I’ve tried to explain my position on this for years and I never get anywhere so I don’t know why I bother but here it is, one more time:

You actually put your finger on the issue yourself when you said that you had several indie LPs in your top 10.

Let’s imagine that there are only 5 dissers and they all vote on their top ten albums of the year:

Disser A likes indie* and Hip Hop
Disser B likes indie and drone /ambient
Disser C likes indie and Jazz
Disser D likes indie and metal
Disser E likes indie and electronica

Now you poll those dissers and work out the Dis albums of the year and what do you get? 10 indie LPs. That doesn’t mean that people on Dis only like indie it just means that it’s the intersect, it’s the middle of the Venn diagram and it is therefore ALWAYS going to get more votes.

You said you were never going to make your peace with the idea that indie will always be more popular on here than hip hop, what about other genres? Does it bother you that loads of amazing music was produced in the metal genres this year that is totally unrepresented in the Dis list? Will you vow not to rest until Rolo Tomassi, Svalbard etc are represented?

3 Likes
#35

by “indie” I mean anything generally guitar based in a fairly loose sense.

#36

One of the things I find odd is that when Kendrick Lamar releases an album it places reliably in the top three of the user poll and when he doesn’t there is no sign of any hip hop at all. I’m not knocking Kendrick - he’s great, he’s almost certainly the single greatest artist working in hip hop at the moment - but he’s not so much better than everyone else that the rest of the genre disappears.

I don’t get the mindset of people that (rightly) love Kendrick’s records but don’t seem to even listen to any other hip hop. There’s obviously a wide range of music under that banner, and I get that there are some barriers to the indie kids liking some of it, but I would have thought that anyone that liked Kendrick would get a lot out of Saba or Noname or Jean Grae for instance. There was little sign that anyone had even bothered to listen to those (hardly obscure) albums when they came out.

#37

Well I can’t answer to that at all I’m afraid. Never been a huge KL fan (although his production on daytona is one of the highlights of the 2018 musical year I must admit) and I can’t see why people who don’t like hip hop would give him the time of day apart from just the rubber necking that his infamy inspires.

#38

That pretty much sums up my view of Run the Jewels (the other indie kid approved hip hop act). I love Kendrick though.

#39

Well there’s the problem in a nutshell… If we all liked the same things we would have a bigger impact on the vote! :grinning:

Now if only everyone who liked hip hop had voted for Hermit and the Recluse like I said in the first place… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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#40

Someone mentioned upthread about not being able to get hold of some hip hop lps on vinyl and I think rtj know how to market themselves to the indie kid crowd with colour vinyl pressings etc whereas most of the stuff we’ve been discussing certainly not available, at least in the UK, on vinyl. I know I would love a Noname lp. Not sure what’s cause and what’s effect in terms of visibility /popularity and the physical lp marketing though.