The Greatest Albums of 2018 According to laut.de
On December 21st, laut.de released their list of the best 50 albums of 2018. Yippie. Not.Just one look at the cover artworks gives you an impression of what they are into. It is quite apparent that they do whatever they can to present themselves as:
a. latently sophisticated
b. latently individual
c. latently offbeat and indie
All of this is done while trying very hard to come off as average and modest.
Again, I like their list the least of the ones I checked out. They definitely have a passion for music, but I dislike how much of it is based on excluding everything that falls under general consensus. A good list combines efforts from indie, mainstream, and specific scenes. Most importantly, entertainment value and professionalism should be honored.
At least my own pick for the best album of 2018 made their list, but it's way back at number 30. My pick for the second-best album of 2018 (which was well-liked by other critics) was awarded one star by them in one of their most randomly hateful reviews.
Ladies and gentlemen: this album is the definition of laut.de's taste. It's by a virtually unknown band. The singer sounds like your average guy next door. The vocals are casual and rather unpassionate. The lyrics are widely interpretable but distinctly not set up to sound poetic. Nothing catchy or overly poppy. The guitars are distorted to sound trashy, but neither they nor the drums sound hard. It is designed to NOT be effectual, gimmicky, or epic in any way.
It's music for guys who meet up in a small club for 50 people, who are very proud to not be part of any scene nor mainstream, while laughing at people who think their sense of music is boring. That being said, off of this very distinct style that they like, this is one of the better records, by far.
It just barely missed my own list, but "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" was one of the absolute greatest songs of the year. The Swedish musician crafted a five-track album (two songs last over 10 minutes) that's extremely haunting and atmospheric.
Dark tones and gothic instrumentals that sound like a subtle score, and a voice that's beyond expressive.
I noticed that it is also considered one of the best on Rate Your Music. Also, it has a score of 81 on Metacritic. More surprising, though, is that it actually has a score usually only more well-known albums do.
I see what you mean about them having a taste for the obscure. Astroworld was the only album by anyone I had heard of. Are laut.de the most popular music magazine in Austria? It surprises me that so many would want to read them if the magazine is mainly interested in lesser-known artists.
Also, I think I understand what you mean by them coming across as dislikable even when you agree. I sometimes find this on the top tens, for example, when someone praises an artist but can only do so by ranting about the other artists they might be compared to. Is it something like this?
Oh yes! One of the few things about laut.de I can agree on is their taste in US hip hop (German hip hop, not so much). They love the current scene and development, and the fact that they praised this varied and unpredictable suite of an experimental trap album that much kind of makes browsing their site worthwhile.
What Pusha T and Kanye West delivered in 21 minutes in terms of inventive ideas is more than most others do on full-length albums. There's always something unexpected the beats have in store for us, and Pusha T really has something to say on the tracks.
Yeah, this German rapper is okay. She's none of the big names, but fortunately, she's also not quite the hip hop equivalent of what I wrote on "Fake" by Die Nerven, which is usually what laut.de likes in German rap. Instead, she has the right swagger and attitude to still be entertaining.
In my opinion, Tocotronic - who are among the most acclaimed German bands ever - lost much of their quality in recent years. I never saw them as the second coming like most critics, but what they had in the '90s was a rough and unpolished indie-punk sound, casual lyricism, and youthful energy that was completely unknown in Germany until then.
Now, what's left is the casual lyricism, becoming more and more trivial over the years.