The 2022 retrospective of non-2022 albums

by Tarbeaux on Tue, Jan 31, 2023

It was better before

Over the past year, I have found myself increasingly disinterested in new music. The decline in quality that began in 2016 has continued, and the impact of two years of COVID-19 has only exacerbated the situation, with many live shows and bands being affected. Few albums seem to garner both critical and popular acclaim, and those that do are often not particularly innovative or exciting (looking at you Black Country, New Road - Ants from Up There and Chat Pile - God’s Country).

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Why 2022 was actually a great year

by Snyde on Mon, Jan 16, 2023

As long as you avoided music released in 2022

The game has changed. I followed my own advice from last year and listened to even less current music and even more music from past years and I couldn’t be happier. I watched my vortex comrades commiserate as they forced themselves through yet another goregrind, business casual, drum ‘n’ bass release as I merrily ignored 2022. There are too many things I want to listen to, too many discogs to run, too many lists to peruse and waaaaaaay too many reliquary picks.

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State of the Vortex: 2022 wrap-up

by Snyde on Tue, Jan 10, 2023

On and on it spins.

2021 was pretty horrendous, musically. So bad in fact, that most of my music listening that year shifted away from the new releases and onto discovering past glories. That proved to be a much more rewarding experience than trawling through endless bandcamp pages searching for gold and going weeks and weeks without finding any. In 2022, I took yet another step further into my new role as a tourist, only listening to current albums that I truly had an interest in or had been brought up from the mire of the vortex.

SotV wrap-up 2022

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The Worst of the Best Part 1

by Tarbeaux on Fri, Dec 23, 2022

A journey through the worst greens of the sheet

There is a saying I invented that goes: ”to really know someone, you have to look at what he likes that everyone else hates”. As the leader of this godforsaken place, it’s my duty to understand the best I can all the plebes going frantically around those absurd and obsessive sheets. For that, I obviously decided to go through it in the most masochistic way. For users with over 100 rates, I would listen to their worst ranked green on the sheet, provide some commentary, and a voïevoda approved rating.

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