The Quietus Albums Of The Year So Far Chart 2019

It's the mid-point of 2019 so here's our Albums Of The Year So Far chart which was compiled by tQ's editorial staff with help from the team of columnists

The Quietus Published 9:43am 1 July 2019

Over the past four weeks, my Quietus co-founder John Doran has been broadcasting a series on the phenomenon we’re calling New Weird Britain on Radio 4. I’ve been tuning in not just with pride that my friend is on the airwaves, but also a genuine sense that this perhaps marks one of the greatest achievements of our digital websheet in the eleven years since we launched. To have music by Guttersnipe, Gazelle Twin, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Richard Dawson, Richard Skelton, Natalie Sharp, Sophie Cooper and so on played alongside I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue and The Archers feels like a victory. The programme allowed music that we deeply care about to be treated seriously in the mainstream, rather than patronised, as often happens in the media, as being deliberately obtuse, preserve of an elite.

The New Weird Britain series explored the reasons why, for so many of us, this music made in the margins helps us deal with issues around mental health, gender and sexuality, not to mention as a means of resistance to the terrible age we appear to be in. This music is visceral and important, and changes lives. We don’t want to keep it in a niche, but to share it with as wide and diverse an audience as possible – but we need your help to continue being able to do so.

This brings us to the difficult part. It’s nearly two years now since we last issued a serious plea for help at The Quietus with a fundraising campaign that raised enough money to keep us going after a really tough summer. Unfortunately the global advertising situation has got worse, not better, with Facebook and Google continuing to take all the ad revenue that once went to independent publications like ours. In recent months, we’ve seen editorial sites like Red Bull and DrownedInSound (to whom we owe eternal gratitude for helping us be born) close, and the BBC slashing Radio 3’s vital Late Junction to a day a week. It increasingly feels like The Quietus is a lone outpost for the celebration and dissemination of odd culture both new and old, weird and less so, British and beyond. We really need your help to survive, so if you can, please do support us via a one-off or monthly donation at the PayPal link below. The price of a pint or a coffee a month can make a huge, huge difference.

Once again, I feel that this is one of the finest years of music we’ve enjoyed since we founded the site back in 2008, showing that pop from Carly Rae Jepsen, Little Simz and Solange outclasses the Algorithm Friendly Unit Shifters you’ll find elsewhere, and makes perfect sense sitting next to Matmos, Gum Takes Tooth and The Caretaker. You’ll also note that there’s New Weird Everywhere on the list, with killer records from Ifriqiyya Electrique, Alameda 5, and Sote. It fills our hearts with joy to celebrate this music with you. Here’s to a fantastic rest of 2019. – Luke Turner, 28th June 2019

If you would like to support tQ as an independent publisher via a one-off donation, click here.

<input type="hidden" name="business" value="donate@thequietus.com">

<!-- Specify a Donate button. -->

<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_donations">

<!-- Specify details about the contribution -->

<input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="The Quietus">

<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="GBP">

<!-- Display the payment button. -->

<input type="image" name="submit" border="0"

src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donate_LG.gif"

alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online">

<img alt="" border="0" width="1" height="1"

src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" >

This chart was compiled from ballots by Bobby Barry, Paddy Clarke, Christian Eede, John Doran and Luke Turner, with help from Teju Adeleye, Jennifer Lucy Allan, Tristan Bath and Noel Gardner. It was compiled by Doran and built with help from Clarke and Eede.

100. YERÛŠELEM –

The Sublime

(Debemur Morti Productions)

99.