ILM's TOP 77 TRACKS of 2015

Thanks for nominating and voting again this year, everyone. In the end, 137 of us cast a ballot for our favorite tracks of 2015.

While I've got your attention, please show some love to forksclovetofu for helping out not only with maintaining all the associated Spotify playlists—including the one that accompanies these results—but for assisting with the rollout as well. My work situation is not as flexible as it's been in previous years, so I'm only able to get things started in the mornings before I leave the house. That's when our pal forks will take things over each day. Please address all your "Save us, Johnny Fever!" pleas to him. ;)

So without further delay, here are ILM's top 77 tracks of 2015...

http://i.imgur.com/2lCLh7o.jpg

77 JAZMINE SULLIVAN "Mascara" (182 points, 8 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

great start too!

thanks for all the hard work; JF, seandalai and forksclovetofu!

blah, this would have been much higher if I'd gotten my shit together and voted. But I'm glad to see it made it.

don't know why consensus formed around "Mascara," would've much rather "Brand New" or "Silver Lining" but i just voted for the album and not any of its tracks

Ah, a great week on ILM.

Think we've not seen the last of Jazmine, some dude.

ah yes, cluttering the tracks poll with deep cuts from the high placing albums, a time-honored lame tradition

save us, johnny fever!

Macara is the best, but I, too, voted for the album instead of its singles.

excited! although I don't know much about jazmine sullivan

ooooooh! get acquainted - the whole album is fantastic

This was one of the two songs that caused me to submit a new ballot once I realized that I'd forgotten it. I'm guessing that it was my reconsideration that gave it that bump into the Top 77, so yay!

http://i.imgur.com/zB8L2Jp.jpg

76 RADIOHEAD "Spectre" (184 points, 5 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

ah yes, cluttering the tracks poll with with tracks that people agree are the best tracks of the year, a time-honored lame tradition

traditionally, the joke result is #1 or #2

As much as possible I avoid voting for singles whose albums will appear on my list, but I can't fuck with "Mascara," which I reviewed exactly a year ago and heralded 2015's best album.

Love Mascara but Stanley has always been the standout for me.

traditionally, the joke result is #1 or #2

Yeah, imo, this succeeds neither as a Bond theme nor as an even halfway decent Radiohead song, but ¯\(ツ)/¯

take a POLL to dinner

2015 was my "year of keeping up". Listened to more new releases than ever before. Still, I expect that to pay off more in the albums rollout; I'm sure I'll still be going 'WTF is that? Never heard of it' as the tracks results appear. :)

Anyway, voted for Jazmine. Would have been a travesty had "Mascara" not made it.

I'm on holiday ftr, so my responses shall be unusually sunny. Right now we are taking high tea.

http://i.imgur.com/fGrRf44.jpg

75 THUNDERCAT FT. FLYING LOTUS AND KAMASI WASHINGTON "Them Changes" (184 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - 27 / P&J - 47 / Youtube

Drums sound a LOT like Dilla.

Them Changes being the 75th best track of the year seems about right.

Didn't vote for it but that whole thundercat album was great imo

i think i avoided the thundercat album mistaking him for someone else i dislike whoops
will check it out

Not heard any of the songs yet but I gave 'Mascara' a quick listen. Strangely the first thing that came to mind was 'All Woman'-era Lisa Stansfield. I like the almost stream-of-conscious lyrics and the way I can't tell if this is supposed to be a happy or sad song (it's def bittersweet I'll give it that).

I had a Thundercats album from a few years ago and kind of dismissed him, but the more recent stuff I've heard is wonderful,

Drums sound a LOT like Dilla.

Well they are sampled from an often sampled Isley Brothers track:
https://youtu.be/etwIu8-FlGU

Radiohead are still releasing music?!

And ILM is still voting for them?

5 people out of 137, so that seems about right. I think there is an album rumored for 2016 though.

Not being a fan of Bond, I thought I'd give this Radiohead song a miss. Hmmm, nothing special. Sounds like a retread of Pyramid Song but not as interesting. Feels like someone trying to sound like Radiohead and Thom's voice is thin on this one.

Well they are sampled from an often sampled Isley Brothers track

Ah, that would definitely explain it.

Oh, sorry, I missed the post about it being a Bond theme. I guess I'm totally out of loop, I did notice there was a new Bond in the cinemas, but I didn't know they did the theme. Sounds like an awful choice for that particular franchise.

Yeah, that Radiohead track is clearly getting points for simply being Radiohead, and hopefully not also for being a rejected Bond theme.

It's not the official Bond theme. It was rejected.

Radiohead didn't do the official theme. That was Sam Smith. His version is 100000x more terrible.

^ this might be true, actually.

Seems bizarre that Radiohead would have even been considered for this, and that they would have also agreed to it, but whatever.

dog latin - fact that it's from a concept album called 'Reality Show' should clue you in a bit

i forgot this was starting, so pleased to see "mascara" made it. i voted for the superlative album but this fucking song...the nuances of the songwriting and the performance and the melodies blow me away every time.

yeah my hair and my ass fake,
but so what? i get my rent paid with it,
and my tits get me trips to places i can't pronounce right
he said he'd keep it coming if i keep my body tight

is probably up there with the best opening verses i've ever heard? i love the run-on lines throughout the whole song, every statement has a caveat or qualification or something that adds a different angle to it. and jazmine is so empathetic, she reminds me of brandy clark on this album. is the accordion line running behind it meant to be reminiscent of the-dream's "fancy"? it's retelling that story from the girl's perspective in some ways. "you're coach class and i'm in that g5" is really terius-like melodically as well, actually the entire middle 8 sceptically nodding to kendrick, terius and beyoncé in three consecutive lines works so well.

i wanted to read a million thinkpieces about this song & race & gender & economic inequality & the labour of beauty last year, it's all in there, this is just phenomenal and timely songwriting, she's the fucking best

and the one bit where she lets her voice crack, gets out of the character's psychic armour of defiance and just crumbles with "DON'T I DESERVE TO BE PRIVILEGED, DON'T I DESERVE TO GET THE VERY BEST" and strikes right at the heart of every one of those themes

http://i.imgur.com/Rdw3TUj.jpg]

74 FLOATING POINTS "Silhouettes (I, II, III)" (186 points, 5 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 233 / Youtube

(yawn)

(sorry)

I can't listen to the #74 tune right now, but the combination of the band name, track name, and the image in the post makes it seem like the most boring thing ever.

the way I can't tell if this is supposed to be a happy or sad song (it's def bittersweet I'll give it that)

i think the narrator is trapped - by the conditions her men impose on her, by the poverty she came from, by the sheer work that goes into maintaining her beauty - but jazmine also makes it clear, imo, that her defiance should win out; we're not meant to feel sorry for her, the injustice is systemic, she's doing her best with what she has available to her and even if there's a weariness to her, the narrator is content with her choices and rejects any pity offered to her

great post Lex, I'll def be revisiting the song (and the album if I can get hold of it).

it's a really smart song.

Yeah, the character in the song is like, "You mean I follow the rules you created and you STILL won't love me?"

Floating Points always seem to sound different on every track I hear by them. I'll give this a go. I really love 'Wires' from a few years ago.

lex totally tom

otm

That Floating Points track with Katy B is good.

That Floating Points track with Katy B is good.

yeah it's really brilliant, had i voted a week later i'd probably have included it

"silhouettes" is lovely too, definitely what i wanted from floating pts on an album that was perhaps a bit too low-key for me to really love

I can't listen to the #74 tune right now, but the combination of the band name, track name, and the image in the post makes it seem like the most boring thing ever.

he is also a neuroscientist!

I'm not often fond of long, ambient music, but I've returned to this one Floating Points track a lot this year. It's very pretty and way less boring than you'd imagine. (Still didn't vote for it though)

i think the narrator is trapped - by the conditions her men impose on her, by the poverty she came from, by the sheer work that goes into maintaining her beauty - but jazmine also makes it clear, imo, that her defiance should win out; we're not meant to feel sorry for her, the injustice is systemic, she's doing her best with what she has available to her and even if there's a weariness to her, the narrator is content with her choices and rejects any pity offered to her

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:24 PM (5 minutes ago)

The little Jazmine Sullivan I've heard has done nothing for me musically, but I did get this from the song, and I completely respect the sentiment. Great summation, lex.

Lex on Mascara <3

lol i just realized the first time i heard this track was at the top of an Uhh Yeah Dude episode

i had the album high on my ballot

(floating points)

http://i.imgur.com/UySYOMc.jpg

73 JME FT. SKEPTA, SHORTY AND FRISCO "Don't @ Me" (187 points, 9 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

Henceforth today, forks will be steering the ship. Enjoy!

put it all in the bin don't at me

I ALREADY SAID DON'T WASTE MY TIME
NOW I GOTTA TELL EM DON'T WASTE MY DATA

the state of twitter in 2015 made me play this song so much

was this track inspired by this famous twitter exchange?

https://twitter.com/itsyourboytadi/status/587973127205953536

lol

Anyway, this song is class, but then it feels like everything Skepta touches these days turns to gold.

was this track inspired by this famous twitter exchange?

or...the other way round

yeah i wondered.

I dunno what to think about the resurgence of grime in 2014-15, but this track is pretty stellar.

that radiohead track is trash

turn on your location if you're a bad boy, you prick

I both like the Floating Points track *and* think it's boring.

Love 'Don't @ Me'.

'boring' doesn't automatically mean 'bad' in music sometimes I guess

don't @ me really brightened my year

yeah don't @ me rules

Yep. So good.

Love don't @ me but there were other Jme tunes I liked more

yeah, it's great, I put man don't care on my extended ballot

Spotify Playlist is now updating!

Nice!

http://i.imgur.com/7jNELfH.jpg

72 JANET JACKSON "No Sleeep" (190 points, 6 votes)
Pitchfork - 37 / P&J - 75 / Youtube

Gorgeous song.

God this song.

yeah i voted for a deep cut ("promise of you") as my personal favourite off the janet album but this single really raised my expectations for her comeback

The J. Cole isn't the excellence I once thought, but who needs him when she'saw expressing her lust so well?

(switched out the track on playlist... now with 100% less J. Cole!)

Uh excrescence that is

Yeah, this is really lush. Feels like it could be straight from the late 90s. I guess I didn't feel like enough of a Janet fan to vote for it in the end.

"No Sleeep" missed my ballot but i'm happy to see it here. such a relaxed, unlikely comeback single.

janet's album went overrated to underrated really really fast

love No Sleeep but it didn't quite make my ballot

Didn't vote for it but glad it made the cut!

76 RADIOHEAD "Spectre" (184 points, 5 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Monday, 18 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Who voted for first place - WE NEED NAMES!

http://i.imgur.com/8TmVz12.jpg

71 SHURA "White Light" (192 points, 8 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

good couple of years for shura
voted for 2shy iirc

ended up voting for 2Shy over this but glad to see it make it

Never heard of this before - I like it, it's cool.

Have tried and tried with Shura but her songs just never stick with me.

hadn't any idea who this was until recently but my first impression is that i like this better than "2shy" which is too ~precious~ for me to actually want to listen to it

This was one of my best discoveries from listening to the Spotify playlist. I liked 2Shy a lot too but White Light made my list. Hope her album is coming soon.

shura's music never clicks w me either, it feels very on-the-nose and effortful, you can hear the checklist of trends being ticked off in her major label meeting and they get an ok, adequate-not-great song out of it but i am unsurprised that the general public doesn't care

never heard that before, I could be on board with that being the 71st best song of the year

I voted for this. Factory Floor Remix is banging too.

So here's some interesting (to me at least) metrics with regard to the 77's inclusion in spotify's catalogue: of the 77 placing tracks, only eight are not available in the US... so something less than 10% of the winners. One of those tracks is available in the UK and one other will almost certainly be added to the service's catalogue once the album the song's on is released.

Thus far, we're lacking Radiohead's "Spectre", which will likely be a b-side sooner or later and BOTH of the tied songs that fall next at #69 on the countdown.

http://i.imgur.com/05R9KAu.jpg

TIE-69 GESU NO KIWAMI OTOME "Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No" (194 points, 5 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

http://i.imgur.com/tbEeoWp.jpg

TIE-69 HEAVY-K FT. NOKWAZI "Sweetie" (194 points, 5 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

The Heavy-K song IS available on UK spotify and has been added... it'll read as invisible to 'Murricans.

Both those tracks are awesome btw and deserve your ears ASAP!

ahhhh the heavy-k single i didn't vote for has placed, it's brilliant AND it gives me hope for both the heavy-k single i did vote for, and more afrobeats in general

what the heck are these things? they look fun.

SWEETIE SWEETIE!

ooh dang, never heard this before but so far this is the first of the rollout that i'm really feeling

"sweetie" that is

Oh that's sweet the Gesu track made it. They've been putting out stuff like this for a while and sorta blew up this year. Jazz hands that's not annoying just a lot of unpredictable fun.

G.N.K. Otome was a Singles Jukebox pick last year and a lot of people on here place it highly, me included. It's a stupid fun song!

it sounds like three different songs at once that have been nicely synced, which is to say it's prog i suppose.

yeah this gesu track is good. reminds me of la case azul or something but not as egregiously twee. some nice math-rocky flourishes here and there.

My second or third favorite track of the year. I love how well it develops its parts.

Voted for the Gesu track as well. And they just released their new album last week.

sweetie is just a big powerful club song with meaty vocals and killer percussion.

How have I not heard this Heavy K track before?

I really like Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No but forgot to vote for it. will have to check out their new album soon. hadn't heard Sweetie before but it's really nice too

this rollout is already better than my ballot

Really don't like the Gesu No Kiwami Otome track. I think it's the same reason I couldn't bring myself to vote for Joanna Wang this year... the ideas behind it are fine, but right now "arch and perky" is an aesthetic I cannot bear.

my god "sweetie" is just blowing me away and i'm only on my second listen 0_0

how is it arch? I'm curious.

i think the support on 'Sweetie' comes from Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2015 thread

Everyone should bookmark the 2016 thread; there's already a number of bangers on there:
Rolling Afrobeats / Afropop 2016

damn and i thought i'd been following the acrobats (AFROBEATS GODDAMN YOU AUTOCORRECT) thread closely this year. Must have missed a bit.

That Gesu track is pretty 'arch' to be fair.

"Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No" is not my type of music, but the video was fun to watch. "Sweetie" on the other hand is pretty awesome, gotta pay more attention to those Afrobeat threads.

Yeah, I remember saying I would pay more attention last year, completely failed.

The Shura tune is nice too, better than "2Shy". I wish she had some new angle to her pastiche, but at least this one has a proper dance groove, "2Shy" is just too much 80s syrup.

http://i.imgur.com/Wmht4Eo.jpg

68 BRANDON FLOWERS "Between Me and You" (194 points, 5 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

So is this guy like the son of Mike Flowers? He sounds like him.

Flowers' album caught me by surprise: no idea he could write ridiculous-good instead of ridiculous-bad at this point in his career.

We were doing so well. What happened?

(to be honest, I've not heard this before but I can't imagine liking it)

*listens*

yeah this is cobblers.

I would've voted for "Can't Deny My Love"

can't deny my love for this record, nowhere near my top 25 but cool to see it here

(could some britisher please fix the playlist? it's a pain to manage on the web interface. just put sweetie between the brandon flowers and shura songs; it's collaborative at the moment to allow for this. thanks!)

Why does ILM like these pitch-perfect past pop pastiches so much? I thought people here were forward-looking?

(re: Flowers and Shura)

oh my god the countdown is so awesome so far

Why does ILM like these pitch-perfect past pop pastiches so much? I thought people here were forward-looking?

― Tuomas, Monday, January 18, 2016 1

cheekbones

To answer your question, Tuomoas: listening to things because they're "forward looking" is not how I listen to pop. It has to grab my ear and force me to relisten.

The last seconds of the Flowers song even quotes Cars' "Drive", if it wasn't obvious enough already!

(xpost)

re: spotify
should be in order now, tracks kept disappearing on mine

What the hell, ilx?

there should be a word for the moment you realise halfway through a song striving really hard for transcendent emotion and classic melody that it's not going to get there. it's akin to second-hand embarrassment but it winds up close to boredom as well. anyway that's what i feel on first listen to the brandon flowers one

We are indie Tuomas, haven't you noticed?

thanks for fixing nxd!

the brandon flowers record is great, and that's the best song from it imo

Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

This is awful.

If Suiyoubi no Campanella don't make it and this bollocks does I will be incredibly angry.

It has to grab my ear and force me to relisten.

Yeah, I guess we're different here, pop tunes that sound exactly like the pop tunes that were on the radio when I was a kid don't really grab my ear, no matter how well they're made, I already heard enough of that stuff as a kid.

david rose 6 months ago
Your about to get so famous..Amazing song and album, thank you...changed my perspective on life...

That Shura track is deadly dull. I thought Haim had put the last nail in this coffin a few years ago.

That's like saying in 1983, "I won't listen to Culture Club, they sound like certain Motown songs *crosses arms*"

tbf the Flowers album did boast a couple of fall-down-on-your-face embarrassing moments; that's the deal with this fool.

got no issue with backward-looking pop but shura feels totally boxed in by her influences and the flowers song just isn't very good

also the whole 80s teen movie romance aesthetic isn't boring in 2015-16 bc it's old but bc it's ubiquitous

like i haven't heard from dev hynes in a long time THANKFULLY and yet it feels as if i'm still hearing his style everywhere, and even more inert

The Killers anticipated Dev Hynes imo

the killers were fucking dreadful landfill indie and we all know it. this, at least, is a bit better than that

Which Motown songs sound exactly like Culture Club, though? I don't mind borrowing elements from the past, even large chunks of them... I love how The Knife appropriated the synth riffs of the Eurodance of my youth, for example. But if you're doing nothing creative with those elements, it's kinda boring. The Flowers and Shure tunes sound like they could've literally been made 30 years ago.

yeah i just don't know what's supposed to be so special about those two songs. The Shura track sounds like any electro-pop ILM 77 track from the last 10 years. Did Robyn have a year off or something?

and neither of those songs float through the dullest opaque chord changes ever imo so dev is a limited comparison

I loved the Flowers album and appreciate Alfred stumping for it, as late-period Killers wasn't exactly bringing it. Bummed I didn't nominate 'Dreams Come True' in fact.

Is there a spotify playlist of everything?

lmao i am so indiff to that Flowers song but this lil spat got me like popcorn.gif

xp is that the link in the first post?

Which Motown songs sound exactly like Culture Club, though?

"Uptight."

"white light"'s appeal is probably more visible in the 7 minute version of the song tbh

If my only contribution in 2015 is getting "Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No" to place I'm okay with that. And "Sweetie" is pretty boss too.

Was going to defend Shura here but TBH I find White Light a bit inconsequential, so will save it until we get to 2shy.

Not going in on Shura - reasonably pleasant but inconsequential is something I'll let others get angry about. But I viscerally dislike the Flowers. Ugh ugh ugh.

save us forksclovetofu

gaz coombes

the #1 vote for radiohead's james bond song is inexplicable

Well if the Brandon Flowers track is any indication of where this list is going, the next song will obviously be: https://youtu.be/zD77kyQYifc

lol I actually love that Vannelli song.

ok i'm caught up now, good shit all around so far

all we need is one of my votes now

http://i.imgur.com/GoHqvqU.jpg

67 KENDRICK LAMAR "The Blacker the Berry" (201 points, 7 votes)
Pitchfork - 21 / P&J - 33 / Youtube

haha shit i really nearly voted for this, it's at like 30 on my extended vallot

feels low here

I like the Kendrick album loads but other than King Kunta, I can't seem to think about it as a collection of individual tracks at all. I was looking forward to hearing BtB in that context but the video is blocked in the UK.

probably my favorite single (if it can be called that) from the album

I'm with emil.y. that Brandon Flowers love is inexplicable to me.

I don't dislike anything else so far. Although Jasmine Sullivan is another ilx sweetheart I don't really care about.

kendrick is gonna be all over this tracks thread huh

definitely at least two more kendrick cuts but not necessarily all over the countdown

this whole thread is going to be a repeating tricolor of Kendrick/Future/CRJ tracks

I like the Kendrick album loads but other than King Kunta, I can't seem to think about it as a collection of individual tracks at all

"king kunta" and "alright" seem to be the obvious tracks that took on a life outside the album in 2015. didn't "the blacker the berry" originally come out in 2014? it's one of the highlights of the album for me but

this whole thread is going to be a repeating tricolor of Kendrick/Future/CRJ tracks

pls pls pls let this not happen

listening to BtB outside of the context of the album and yeah it's smokin

The Jazmine Sullivan is fantastic - I'd never got around to listening to her at all before but definitely will now.

Was interested to hear Floating Points but that just didn't sound distinct enough to be make me wanna look further.

I hear "Alright" on the radio and it booms.

http://i.imgur.com/DYErMLB.jpg

66 RAE SREMMURD "This Could Be Us" (203 points, 9 votes)
Pitchfork - 67 / P&J - 107 / Youtube

^^^^^ great song

man i forgot that was from this year, it feels axiomatic at this point

I'm just gonna sit over here being irrationally angry with everyone and their stupid ears

all very well dan but cop to the radiohead #1 first willya

Yay Rae!

the fairground melodies playing off each other in the chorus <3333

came around to fetty wap in q a big way in 2015 but rae sremmurd never no nay. but that is ok it takes all sorts ^_^

i love "no flex zone" as much as anyone but yeah i thought most things sremmurd this yr (including their album) were perfectly serviceable but not as much of a revelation as many here seemed to think

http://i.imgur.com/766DZnF.jpg

65 DJ KOZE "XTC" (204 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - 94 / P&J - 107 / Youtube

Sweet

Radiohead - Spectre

I didn't vote for this and had no idea there was any interest about this song on ilm. Johnny Greenwood's string arrangements which sound very influenced by middle eastern/spanish composition are what makes the song stand-out. Not the most interesting Radiohead song but I definitely prefer it over the Sam Smith one. If I have one complaint I'd say the drums sound very forced and thin.

Someone upthread commented that Radiohead making a bond song was weird. Everytime a Bond movie comes out fans bet on Radiohead as the theme song artist. This goes back to the OKC days when they were working on an unreleased song called Big Boots that was a tribute to James Bond themes. Everyone just assumed they were interested in doing a Bond theme ever since. Seems like it was partially true.

Never rated The Killers yet I love the Brandon Flowers album. Not sure I can really explain why. I voted for Still Want you. Fingers crossed for it placing.

Voted for The Blacker The Berry. I spent most of the year thinking King Kunta was my favourite song on the album but that overtook it in the last month.

Also they used to do 'Nobody Does It Better' live occasionally iirc.

xp (re Radiohead)

this dj koze track is interesting, would have preferred the vocal sample being used only once but still like it

"xtc" rules

I like how XTC becomes kind of feral-sounding at the end

okay yeah the vocal sample being used a 2nd time is really unnecessary

Agreed on the sample.

This single's bside is super cool. Better than XTC imo.

cheekbones

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 18, 2016 10:45 AM (1 hour ago)

learning about alfred's taste in men is always a nice little sub-narrative in these results threads

no flex zone!

UNLEASH… THE CARLYYYYYYYYYY

http://i.imgur.com/Ue3JJQK.jpg

64 CARLY RAE JEPSEN "Making the Most of the Night" (206 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 233 / Youtube

iirc that's the best crj

this one wasn't even a standout to me on the record

I had a week in July when I'd gel my hair singing MTMOTN and going HEY into the mirror.

That Koze track is tremendous!

The best CRJ track didn't get nommed :(

This one is still great though

good song :)

i kept my crj track votes to the singles since i figured i'd just be complicit in the absurd vote splitting otherwise

HIJACK U

this song is not as amazing as "Black Heart" or "When I Needed You" but it is very amazing

Dj Koze is the cool dj/producer already cool djs/producers use to remix their songs but as a songwriter/producer he still feels so underrated to me. I know he's probably making music for a niche audience but I keep expecting him to break into wider recognition. He has kept a consistent quality in his releases/sets/remixes for more than a decade and he has a very recognisable style.

I just listened to the DJ Koze song but I didn't notice it playing :(

I heard Michael Mayer drop XTC at Glastonbury and it was instantaneously both enhanced and ruined by my friend asking if the vocal sample was Margaret Thatcher.

lol

So is this guy like the son of Mike Flowers? He sounds like him.

― Tuomas, Monday, January 18, 2016 4:41 PM (2 hours ago)

Genuine world-class deadpan here.

http://i.imgur.com/YAgcYGS.jpg

63 ALESSIA CARA "Here" (206 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - 32 / P&J - 18 / Youtube

this song recently earned some chatter in the rolling worst songs 2015 thread so let the bickering begin :D

ps i voted!

oh huh

I don't know what to think of it. I gave it a middling score in June but it sounds cool on the radio.

ow wow i hate this song. she just keeps going on and on in with that same cadence and it never ends.

i voted for that! i like it. it's a fun song and at least a couple of my friends say it's their "anthem" of 2015 (idk, #FOMO or whatever). i still can't conjure it in my mind without accidentally hearing Hell Is Around The Corner, though.

xp i think the consistent cadence is one of my favourite parts!

not FOMO, FOGO.

I think some of the lines in here are cringe-worthy but at the same time hell yes do I identify with the punchline of "I'll be over here". Didn't even consider voting for this and the only thing I remember about her other songs is that I don't remember them, but yeah.. some on the nose introvert pop going big actually does feel kinda good.

It's a bit like hearing a really self-involved teenager talk at you at a party, but that's sort of endearing in a way? I reserve the right to disown this opinion when she turns into this generation's Kate Nash.

Using that sample is kind of a cop-out but we're talking about a singer literally young enough to have been played Glory Box in the womb so I'll let her off.

I literally just heard this for the first time the other day when we were listening to the radio in the car; I liked it primarily because I was mentally singing Glory Box and Hell Is Around The Corner over it.

This was my #1, but I just love bland MOR pop in general for some reason.

as if she's not entitled to have a song using the same sample as glory box if she hasn't heard it before lol

I cannot fn stand this new wave of singers w/ that Dave Matthews vocal affectation where it sounds like they're singing every vowel as an "ah" sound w/ their mouth open v v wide (Alessia Cara, Hailee Steinfeld, Clean Bandit/Jess Glynne, etc, etc)

do we have a name for this trend yet?

oh this was the glory box one

fucksake

"Here" is basically kidz bop trip hop. sounds like an executive slammed their fist on the table and said "Lorde is platinum! BRING ME MORE DARIA TYPES!" but it's not bad, just kinda smh.

I cannot fn stand this new wave of singers w/ that Dave Matthews vocal affectation where it sounds like they're singing every vowel as an "ah" sound w/ their mouth open v v wide (Alessia Cara, Hailee Steinfeld, Clean Bandit/Jess Glynne, etc, etc)

do we have a name for this trend yet?

― police patrol felt the smell of smoke and found that goat burns (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:30 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Progressive Winehouse? Deschanel Vowel Syndrome?

this song is very young/juvenile to be sure but its perspective is more observant than anything i've heard from lorde

I had this big theory planned out about how this song is what happens when the children of first-generation British rave kids grow up and go to stage school, and then I found out she's actually Canadian.

Using that sample is kind of a cop-out but we're talking about a singer literally young enough to have been played Glory Box in the womb so I'll let her off.

born in 96 appaz, too young for that

i'd never heard it before and it definitely wasn't what i was expecting. the song felt very sellotaped over the sample but maybe that's bc i know "glory box" too well?

"making the most of the night" ended up my fav CRJ by some way, fucking love how the drums SNAP on top and patter underneath it

think dj koze is very overrated by critics and would not be a fan of hearing that sample if i was actually on e, but it's otherwise fine, just not really a standout for any reason

still disapprove of kendrick (and kanye) using dancehall mcs for ~gravitas~ and then not crediting them

also i roll my eyes now at ppl who think they're above whatever party they're at but i imagine i'd have been well into it when i was 19

her vocal is very...insistent and foregrounded, that took me by surprise, imagined something less in-yr-face

i certainly still end up at parties where i feel like that & i'm not 19 anymore

I voted for The Blacker The Berry and I think it's too low (not that Kendrick needs any more love really), but I would have voted Assassin's 'Bad' higher if I'd remembered to nominate it. Str8 banger.

xp - on nye i almost went to a party where i would have felt like that but someone sent me a photo at 11pm and i was like "well that was close"

it was 6 people, 5 were looking at their phones, and cards against humanity was involved

i was *this close* to going too

still disapprove of kendrick (and kanye) using dancehall mcs for ~gravitas~ and then not crediting them

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah that's a terrible trend. also "Blacker The Berry" contains the album's most questionable lyrics (the vaguely 'what about black on black crime' ending) and its most uninteresting crowd-pleasing 'token banger' production, so it's really one of the last songs from TPAB i'd vote for.

http://i.imgur.com/eOy5onw.jpg

62 TY DOLLA $IGN FT. BABYFACE "Solid" (210 points, 6 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

"here" was prob my least favorite pop song of the year, just something really nagging about both the sentiment and the melody

i hate that "ooh Ty got Babyface on his album!" got more attention than an actual Babyface album

i like "solid" a lot ... i think it's fun that ty made an acoustic ratchet r&b song but there's better songs on that album

lex otm about that Glory Box song. if you're going to do that, at least do something interesting over the top. every time I hear people talk about 'introverts', I think about this http://the-toast.net/2014/11/10/sorry-murdered-everyone-im-introvert/
We get it, you'd rather be in bed with a book than at this party. Guess what, I like reading too.

i hate that "ooh Ty got Babyface on his album!" got more attention than an actual Babyface album

― some dude, Monday, January 18, 2016 2:46 PM (6 seconds ago) Bookmark

i don't really care about this but i'm not quite sure what babyface does on that song

I'm not sure who Carly Ray Jepsen is, but the tune sounds like the sort of over-produced anonymous teen pop ILM seems to love for reasons that escape me.

I don't know Alessia Cara is either, but this "Here" tune on the other hand is a pretty awesome piece of teen pop! I love how she manages to capture certain teenhood experience so crisply. I'm 36 and obviously haven't been "there" for 15+ years, but I don't think the lyrics are cringe-worthy at all. It's pop music, you're allowed to be a bit melodramatic and navel-gazing! And I agree with Will M that consistent tick-tick cadence makes the song, clearly it's used to emphasize the nervousness/uncertainty of the situation painted in the lyrics.

i like "here" not b/c i relate to it but b/c i remember those same feelings when i was a teenager at parties being a bit of a front for having been plain-old scared. i feel that peeking through when she goes "oh god why am i here" at the start of the 2nd(?) iteration of the chorus and that's the moment that made me like the song

With her talking in those cadences it's no wonder no one talks to her.

j0 otm. i think this will be the only ty$ song that shows up but Credit ended up being my fav off the album

That isaac hayes sample will always be a classic but portishead already made the most definitive use of it. The recent schtick of we're too deep for this party/we are not the cool kids is kind of grounded in the 90's no?

i'm not necessarily mad at "here" cuz it obv struck a chord but it's also total "22 things only introverts understand"-core and i just can't vibe with that in any way

i think i hate "22 things only introverts understand" things more than anyone on the planet and yet i love "here" b/c i don't think it's that straightforward/dumb at all, i don't get y'all

i like "here" not b/c i relate to it but b/c i remember those same feelings when i was a teenager at parties being a bit of a front for having been plain-old scared. i feel that peeking through when she goes "oh god why am i here" at the start of the 2nd(?) iteration of the chorus and that's the moment that made me like the song

Yeah, I remember feelings like that too. And also I was mostly an extrovert as a teen, I didn't take the lyrics to be some kind of ode to introversy, it's just describing a situation a lot of people can/could relate to.

what DID babyface do on that Ty track? Is he the guitarist?

i voted for "saved" instead of "solid" but like both. i was sorta confused at the babyface credit, i guess he just plays guitar?

Well, to its credit she doesn't sound like she's pleading for sympathy -- it's like hanging out in her head with the thought she can't share.

this ty$ track is so ignorable, like a soundcloud outtake or something, why on earth did anyone care about it at all other than the mere presence of babyface

the Carly Rae song is amazing, but then so is the whole album. I haven't really been able to convince any of my IRL friends of this fact other than my O/H.
Disagree with Tuomas. I'm not a big listener of teen pop but I find this and the Emotion album utterly exceptional.

babyface has songwriting & production credits on "solid" so maybe it was at true collaboration and ty threw him a ft credit just to stunt but he doesn't have an identifiable contribution

Last one for the day up next! Get caught up on your listening before tomorrow!

ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2015 Spotify Playlist

yup xp

I've not really been feeling anything off the new CRJ album, the whole thing feels like it's trying way too hard. The last one was probably overworked as well and it had its dodgy moments but it FELT effortless.

http://i.imgur.com/Iyv6cmB.jpg

61 DEJ LOAF FT. BIG SEAN "Back Up" (210 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

this ty$ track is so ignorable, like a soundcloud outtake or something, why on earth did anyone care about it at all other than the mere presence of babyface

― dyl, Monday, January 18, 2016 12:56 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thats what i thought the first couple times I heard it up it'll get its hooks in you for sure

"back up" is a really cool song

btw really loving the image design this year

yeah v clean

Love how Dej, even when you're well aquainted with her material, manages to surprise you with her weird ass delivery every time.

"i'm very antisocial / social networks ain't my motion" where are the haters for this song??

jk i like this song a lot

i didn't notice ppl being enthusiastic about it here so pleasant surprise to see it place :)

I still haven't checked out the dej loaf ep but the sell sole mixtape from 2014 is excellent

"solid" is a masterpiece

Love 'back up', love the whole EP

and this track by dej loaf is brill. not sure if it's as good as try me, but it has potential

Back Up is a real gem.

It's a ...piece xp

Voted for Solid in my top ten, awesome that it placed.

They love me in New YORK

well it's safe to say "sweetie" was the biggest revelation for me today

ppl turned onto heavy k should check out "give me luv" it will def place at some point later in this poll, stunning song

i still stan to death for the last CRJ album but i dunno something about this one didn't connect with me, i think maybe it felt too generic in the context of contemporary pop. "making the most of the night" is a decent tune but you can also hear sia all over it.

sia? O.o

oh she was actually a writer on it, apparently i didn't hear her on it lol

I've not really been feeling anything off the new CRJ album, the whole thing feels like it's trying way too hard. The last one was probably overworked as well and it had its dodgy moments but it FELT effortless.

i actually agree with this and guess will talk about it more in due course but MTMOTN is the closest the album gets to effortless rush

"solid" is a fun and endearing jam, kind of love how the acousticness of it works but the strings coming in are what pushes it up another level for me. would've been fun to hear on the radio more

"back up" is fun as well but with a beat like that i kind of wish it was even better, the hook falls a bit flat and big sean really does his best to sink it. i wish honey cocaine's "sundae" had been as big as this song

I only managed to hear Dej Loaf's 'Desire' before poll time was up, but if this is anything as creeping and unusual as that then I'll be very pleased it got here.

i still stan to death for the last CRJ album but i dunno something about this one didn't connect with me, i think maybe it felt too generic in the context of contemporary pop.

i never really figured out why it didn't connect with me because, like...the hooks and craft are def there. i just didn't FEEL it and i don't know why

The density of this CRJ album and her more assured singing -- she wasn't pummeled by the electrobeats -- were instant grabbers, despite the presence of those sinister ballads.

I like Big Sean on Back Up - the two of them are obviously having a lot of fun and their verses are written to match each other - feels like a complete duet.

I wasn't persuaded by Dej's flow -- sounded more awkward than the one in "Here," which I liked less. And ugh Big Sean. I'll listen again.

there's one "ballad"

xpost to alfred re: crj

is this the song with Big Sean rapping "I grew up without a hammock" or is it from one of his spring singles? Nice unexpected line at any rate.

i also don't particularly hear sia on "making the most of the night" which i guess is why the demo sounds so awkward

i never really figured out why it didn't connect with me because, like...the hooks and craft are def there. i just didn't FEEL it and i don't know why

― cher guevara (lex pretend), Monday, January 18, 2016 3:25 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

same more or less. i think maybe it was too buttone dup for me? maybe i'm just projecting her career struggles onto the record but i feel like you can sense it really TRYING. nothing has that sort of effortless blast off of "tiny little bows" or "this kiss" or "hurt so good"

dej loaf manages to put herself to shame on "back up", she's so much more charismatic and nimble when rapping and then she starts the hook well and then...forgot to carry on writing it?

the first time i heard "back up" i was like "oh dej is going to go off on this beat" and then it doesn't quite happen but it's such a good production/hook that it doens't really end up mattering that much to me in the end

Yay Dej Loaf!!!

there's one "ballad"

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Monday, January 18, 2016

I forgot "Favorite Colour" is not part of the regular sequence.

same more or less. i think maybe it was too buttone dup for me? maybe i'm just projecting her career struggles onto the record but i feel like you can sense it really TRYING. nothing has that sort of effortless blast off of "tiny little bows" or "this kiss" or "hurt so good"

― J0rdan S., Monday, January 18, 2016 8:31 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i sort of thought it was because it was almost TOO coherent and her voice doesn't have a huge expressive range, but then...that was true of kiss as well, which was and remains pure pop rush at its best for me, and i connected with it so easily compared to the latest

ppl turned onto heavy k should check out "give me luv" it will def place at some point later in this poll, stunning song

― J0rdan S., Monday, January 18, 2016 8:15 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is very true btw. it had better be coming!

Hm. "Gimmie Love" and "Your Type" define effortless.

the hook in "back up" is good!

that brandon flowers song is great, i love that something ilmcore can still place out of nowhere. but "never get you right" is my #1 jam off that record even if it's kind of a pure rip off of "higher love" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msMYoM7Xkb8

I just imagined Flowers singing over a burbling dance track like "Making the Most of the Night."

Hm. "Gimmie Love" and "Your Type" define effortless.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 18, 2016 3:35 PM (19 seconds ago) Bookmark

both of these songs are great

yeah loved all of the b flowers album. never get u right is awesome

Hm. "Gimmie Love" and "Your Type" define effortless.

otm. i get ppl not connecting to the album but only "i really like you" is overcooked imo

Yep! That's one of the few I don't revisit.

actually "your type" is a little... mechanical and churning for me? i don't really know how to describe why the some of those songs rub me the wrong way. but i think it's really within the context of her past record, because of ariana grande or whatever sung that song i think i'd be fine w/ it

i guess this is really a discussion for next week but the first 6 songs are pretty great, after that i kinda lose it

ew

sorry that "ew" was about ariana grande singing a crj song. having a nightmare of blurred syllables

some cool things to place so far, just one that i voted for (shura). i support radiohead's inclusion not because i think it's a good song but because its existence got sam smith all riled up.

"if I fuckin make you cum, gotta promise not to stress me/dont be blowin up my phone, and dont be leavin voice messages"<--the great line in "Backup" I mean, I get what lex is saying abput how its kind of padded out but I think Dej brings it enough anyways, and the beat is really good

back up was my #1, luv it deeply

I think Dej deliberately works against the beat (resisting the urge to follow its lead) with her hooks, she just goes Pollock on that shit.

Amazing video for Back Up as well.

can someone please elaborate on why they like Rae Sremmurd? idgi

What's not to like?

That's one of the few Rae Sremmurd songs that really works for me, I like their on-record presences but I hope their next record is less sparse overall.

Dej Loaf however I only really listen to when she appears in these polls and then I immediately wonder why I haven't been paying more attention to her. Back Up is great.

rae sremmurd is fun pop music their appeal is pretty obvious

i find their tunes pretty weak tbh

I hadn't heard are sremmurd until last eoy but No Flex Zone became pretty much my favourite song for about 6 months after that. First time I heard it, I was admittedly a bit wtf? though

Liked Jazmine (although I don't want to read a think piece on it tx) and Dej Loaf the most so far. CRJ youtube doesn't work. Lamar and Koze good (LOL that is so Thatcher on the vocals tho'). Glory Box sampler a no-no. Most else passed me by (incl JME which is a bit lets throw this against a wall and see if it sticks)

Brandon lasted 20 secs and I'm not listening to Radiohead/Bond as I'm a Maoist these days.

i remember the first time i heard "no flex zone" on the radio i rushed home to google the lyrics and find out what it was which i rarely do. (yes i know i need to get shazam or similar, shaddup)

i then posted it to ilx w/o comment where it promptly received crickets as a response, but evidently everyone caught on eventually

i remember when jack breakdanced to that song on black-ish

for me "No Flex Zone" didn't sink in until last year when I started going THEY KNNNNOOOOWW BETTER to myself walking to class.

Great start so far. Shura and Heavy-K were new to me; both fantastic.

xtc is excellent but my favorite koze track this year was his remix of Session Victim's Hyuwee. Love the electric guitar lick he added and how he warps it around 1:10 + how the whole thing sounds simultaneously laid back and menacing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpZNJM-gweY

im with the skeptics when it comes to sremmurd, it's like trap went hair metal to me.

Hair metal <3

Yeah that's an apt description and it only makes me like their music more

GESU NO KIWAMI OTOME "Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No"

First amazing find of the countdown for me. This is kind of like if someone took the manic energy and inventiveness of a Koenjihyakkei song and refined it down to its pop song essence. Hoping I don't have to pay Japanese import prices for the album.

0/17 lol.

same here! But at least five of these are fair alternates

(janet, kendrick, jazmine, gnk otome... okay, maybe four)

I think I'm pro-Alessia Cara, the nagging persistence works and it all just about fits when it probably shouldn't.

Whoa I was wondering why this countdown started on the weekend but I guess a lot of us don't get MLK day off work

Nothing I voted for showed up either but I'm cool with Jazmine, JME, Heavy-K, Kendrick. Kind of disappointed that I stopped liking Floating Points' output just when everyone else fell in love; the live drumming on Silhouettes just doesn't work for me - it reminds me a bit of Random Access Memories but done in such a worthy way that it feels cheesy and embarrassing.

god "here" is nails-on-chalkboard grating, everything else has been mostly really cool though!

Really like that Dej Loaf track. In general I am pretty down on the list so far, though.

what DID babyface do on that Ty track? Is he the guitarist?

― Copy rights, pleasing all star wars fans, hiring professionals. (forksclovetofu), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i voted for "saved" instead of "solid" but like both. i was sorta confused at the babyface credit, i guess he just plays guitar?

― HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Monday, January 18, 2016 2:54 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he plays guitar in the video and his voice is pretty recognizable on some of the backing vocals, it's really not that mysterious

i don't understand how anyone can not like Solid. it's perfect

i also would've voted for anything from the babyface album over "solid" but "we've got love" and "exceptional" aren't my favorite songs from it and he hasn't released any other singles (fingers crossed for "walking on air")

the best ty dolla song is Saved (ft. E-40)

agreed

There was definitely some interesting stuff today. "XTC" is pretty great and I love that Dej track (but I voted for that one so I guess that doesn't count), but holy shit, this Heavy K is incredible.

my only votes to place today were "sweetie" and "no sleeep" but imo the list is great so far, i even like that shapeless radiohead song

DeJ Loaf is the only thing to place so far from my list of votes, but I'm also pretty into the results so far (except for Radiohead).

I'm so glad "Mascara" made this list, even at the tail end

From today's pics most thankful for Heavy K. Liking 'Sweetie' a bit more than 'Give Me Luv', but both are v nice.

The strings on Sweetie are EVERYTHING.

God that Alessia Cara song is unbearable

forks can u make the Spotify list go from 77-1 instead of the way you have it set up now?

i hope "here" doesn't end up being the most controversial/hated song on the rollout, not because i like it but because i enjoy when ppl complain and/or argue over what places :P

Highly unlikely, we still have Hotline Bling and The Weeknd

i'm kinda stunned that "here" is divisive. i don't really feel any particular way about it but it doesn't strike me as bad

xp if you're on the Spotify desktop app, just click the "Added" column header and it will reverse the sort. That's what I've been doing...

it's not bad but the reasons people have very wide ranging reactions to it is pretty obvious imo! a sample that lots of people already know and associate w/ other songs, subject matter that is kind of diametrically opposed to other Top 40 songs, etc.

genuinely surprised that "here" placed, i did not think anyone needed to hear that gd sample again.

really sad that i can't keep up with today's music, particularly the non-english sort- don't really even have time for the "rolling" threads- and so i'm grateful for these rundowns so i at least get to hear stuff like gesu no kiwami otome. thanks to the folks who make it possible.

Mmm had never heard that Dej Loaf song but is it a callback to this Dj Clent song or is the reference not on purpose?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvc-QQJ0QC0

a sample that lots of people already know and associate w/ other songs, subject matter that is kind of diametrically opposed to other Top 40 songs, etc.

right but i don't think diametric reactions to either of these things translate to posting it in rolling worst songs. it's just kinda weird to me.

of course since someone pointed out how she sings in the same cadence throughout the song i now find it actively annoying

i voted for a different Pop & Oak production with a different sample people associate with the '90s ("Say It" by Tory Lanez). obviousness is not something they shy away from. xp

xps I just hate it because her voice and the cadence of the lyrics are grating. I don't think I've even noticed the sample. It sounds like Kat Dahlia without the hilarity.

also i didn't say i dislike "Solid," it's fine for what it is (although it's not much melodically or lyrically, like most of Ty's songs imo, it just has a pleasantly different sound from most of his stuff)

probably like 2% of the audience for that song has any idea what the sample is

well yeah i'm just saying the sample is divisive for people who do recognize it

i was amused by the brand-building of Alessia Cara that had a big feature on her on Pitchfork when she had one whole song out, all leading up to a 5.5 album review

xp to grady: in prior years, folks had requested it go top down? That way when you start playing the tracklist, you start with whatever's new rather than what's old.

but yes, you can just order by "Added" and it should basically do the same.

i don't think i hate "here" but it is very immediately hateable imo. obnoxious narrator whose potentially resonant alienation is overlaid by an undisguised sense of superiority and whose performance doesn't let you ignore any of that; not hating it pretty much requires either finding that endearing and forgiving it, or identifying with it.

interesting to compare it with "white light", the other major label pop song i'd never heard today, but almost the opposite - it's so careful and tasteful and ultimately generic, could never imagine hating it (or loving it tbh). i'd assumed alessia cara was generic for a while but..."here" might be a bit obvious but it's def not careful or tasteful.how many breakthrough singles from female pop singers are there that are so unconcerned with likeability? (prob loads actually, i'm tired and can't think of any)

the shura song to me is a cousin to jessie ware's "imagine it was us"

the post only links to the 4 minute edit; essential version is 7+ mins long and features a spectacular guitar-led outtro

man i didn't read any superiority into "here" but i fuckin hate parties

what if the gin was good

the post only links to the 4 minute edit; essential version is 7+ mins long and features a spectacular guitar-led outro

yep which is precisely where i go from liking the song to loving it

Today's tracks ranked in descending order:

***** (I voted for both of these)
Floating Points: Silhouettes (I, II, III) - slow grower innit, love it when the strings come in halfway through, rest of his album doesn't hit the same heights (although "Nespole" is nice)
Thundercat: Them Changes (feat. Flying Lotus & Kamasi Washington) - last.fm says this was my most scrobbled track of 2015, loved that whole L.A. sound last year

****
Carly Rae Jepsen: Making The Most Of The Night
Jazmine Sullivan: Mascara - best find of the day, what superb phrasing she has
Gesu No Kiwami Otome: Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai No - unlike anything else I've heard recently, digging their arch chops!
Kendrick Lamar: The Blacker The Berry
JME: Don't @ Me

***
Alessia Cara: Here - it held my attention, and its flat sameness felt apt for the story being told
Heavy K: Sweetie
Ty Dolla $ign: Solid (feat. Babyface)
DJ Koze: XTC
Janet Jackson: No Sleeep

**
Rae Sremmurd: This Could Be Us
Radiohead: Spectre
Shura: White Light
Dej Loaf: Back Up

*
Brandon Flowers: Between Me And You

man i didn't read any superiority into "here" but i fuckin hate parties

the entire second verse is "ew, silly girls and drunk boys, i should run the world"

nice to see Between You and Me make it, the Brandon Flowers album was surprisingly great, much better than anything he's done with the Killers and that was the highlight of it.

nothing I've voted for yet but Sweetie is a great find.

I don't hate Here but there's nothing that stands out about it at all except the sample? the sentiment gets a bit obnoxious though so that's not a great combination.

guess i tune out by the second verse of "here"

am i the only person in the universe for whom the sample is not the (or even a major) defining feature of the song? (other than, yes, the tons of young ppl who haven't heard the sample elsewhere i.e. in "glory box")

the "woooooahhhh here, woooooahhhh here" is certainly the most memorable feature of the song to me (speaking as someone who's only ever heard it out in the wild, rather than voluntarily)

so you can go back, please enjoy your party; I'll be here: somewhere in the corner under clouds of marijuana with this boy who's hollering I can hardly hear over this music I don't listen to and I don't wanna get with you so tell my friends that I'll be over here
Oh here oh here oh; I ask myself what am I doing here?
Oh here oh here oh and I can't wait till we can break up outta here

if it had a verse about only hanging out with the host's cat/dog at a party i'd have voted for it on principle

I was curious about what an "all-time" list would look like, we only have 5 years of comparable data but anyway these are the top 10 tracks with the most points:

2012 Todd Terje - Inspector Norse (1676 points, 45 votes, 7 #1 votes)
2012 Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe (1528 points, 48 votes, 6 #1 votes)
2013 Daft Punk - Get Lucky (1212 points, 38 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2014 Tinashe ft. Schoolboy Q - 2 on (1190 points, 39 votes, 4 #1 votes)
2013 Mariah Carey ft. Miguel - #Beautiful (1138 points, 37 votes, 4 #1 votes)
2011 Azealia Banks ft. Lazy Jay - 212 (1111 points, 34 votes, 2 #1 votes)
2011 Lana Del Rey - Video Games (1107 points, 40 votes, 2 #1 votes)
2011 Nicki Minaj - Super Bass (1023 points, 33 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2010 Girl Unit - Wut (996 points, 31 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2011 Beyoncé - Countdown (911 points, 29 votes, 2 #1 votes)

Before someone asks, here's how many tracks ballots we got each year:

2010 113
2011 123
2012 119
2013 147
2014 132
2015 138

So if you normalised those points scores by the number of voters in the corresponding year, Terje and CRJ would be even further ahead.

I can get w/the sentiment of being at a shitty party with obnoxious people you can't identify with/where lame music is playing, but for me "Here" sounds like the music that would be played at one of those parties

lol otm

the floating points track is super cool btw

yeah I like that record

I can get w/the sentiment of being at a shitty party with obnoxious people you can't identify with/where lame music is playing, but for me "Here" sounds like the music that would be played at one of those parties

― welltris (crüt), Monday, January 18, 2016 7:57 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol otm

― seandalai, Monday, January 18, 2016 7:59 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes

i hear "here" on the radio prob 3-4x a day, it is terrible, the cadence & singing are very grating, i don't feel like she really does anything with the sample either, it's just there

my reax

jazmine sullivan - kept meaning to listen to this album. this is soo good, fuck
radiohead - listened to 30 seconds of this a few weeks ago. not gonna listen again. it sounded extra awful, even for radiohead
thundercat - i used to love this one thundercat song. this isn't bad bad but i was impatient for it to end
floating points - i like this, is the whole album live drums though? would be interested in hearing this jazzy krautey approach with the beautiful drum pads of his other releases. now this could have been a bond theme song lol
dont @ me - i voted for skepta's 'shutdown', this gets me less hype than 'shutdown' and some of the raps are pretty goofy. i'm imaging a grime song called 'RT don't equal endorsements' and it's making me lol
janet - beautiful track. i never made an effort to pocket the good tracks on this album but i should go back and scoop em up
shura - there's always a bunch of tracks like this on these polls. i love this kind of stuff at its absolute best, like the extreme catchiest choruses... but anything below like the 99th percentile just doesn't register
ゲスの極み乙女。 - 私以外私じゃないの - glad to know a... japanese prog maroon 5 (?) exist, i guess. i found out today i'm going to japan in two weeks ^_^
heavy-k - this is ok. really liked the afrobeats stuff last year
brandon flowers - love the style, well-written, but not really lighting a fire in my heart
rae srem - <3
dj koze - dece i guess. can't really process boring dance music in one sitting it kind of has to gestate
carly rae jepsen - i still haven't listened to the first album tbh... this isn't as good as i hoped
alessia cara - yesss... fuuuck this is pretty good! she looks very young?
ty$ - few things made me happier this year than this song. making it acoustic guitar was a risk but it paid off big time, the simple rhythm he strums carries it better than anything else could. i really loved the album this was on more than anyone else and listened to it way too much. i think he's a really beautiful singer and talented songwriter, also something about his delivery and his ad libs just cracks me up
dej loaf - i love her style and voice and i loved that song from last year and kinda checked for her stuff this year but skipped each song half way through. this sounds like a failed attempt at a hit

overall the list is kinda wack this year (so far) :'-(

that floating points song is, if memory serves, the only track with drums (and possibly the only decent track). i recall listening to the entire album and thinking most of it was starbucks mellow-tronica.

"This Could Be Us" is great, it's basically a Billy Joel song. I think one of the regrets I've started to have about my 2015 lists is that I put "Throw Sum Mo" over "This" and ranked both way too low (and too low to be on my ilx ballot). but w/e, SremmLife was high on my albums ballot.

that floating points song is, if memory serves, the only track with drums (and possibly the only decent track). i recall listening to the entire album and thinking most of it was starbucks mellow-tronica.

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Monday, January 18, 2016 9:30 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh come on, it's a little more interesting and dynamic than that, even if it does stay pretty mellow throughout large chunks.

really sad that i can't keep up with today's music, particularly the non-english sort- don't really even have time for the "rolling" threads- and so i'm grateful for these rundowns so i at least get to hear stuff like gesu no kiwami otome. thanks to the folks who make it possible
― diana krallice (rushomancy)

That's great, although most of us who mostly vote for non-english tracks would agree that this list probably never will be the place to celebrate that - do pop over to our rolling threads and ask for some year-end summaries.

also something about his delivery and his ad libs just cracks me up

Stay up out my pockets my pockets

my fav dej loaf thing from 2015 was this but it wasn't nominated :'(

I was curious about what an "all-time" list would look like, we only have 5 years of comparable data but anyway these are the top 10 tracks with the most points:

2012 Todd Terje - Inspector Norse (1676 points, 45 votes, 7 #1 votes)
2012 Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe (1528 points, 48 votes, 6 #1 votes)
2013 Daft Punk - Get Lucky (1212 points, 38 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2014 Tinashe ft. Schoolboy Q - 2 on (1190 points, 39 votes, 4 #1 votes)
2013 Mariah Carey ft. Miguel - #Beautiful (1138 points, 37 votes, 4 #1 votes)
2011 Azealia Banks ft. Lazy Jay - 212 (1111 points, 34 votes, 2 #1 votes)
2011 Lana Del Rey - Video Games (1107 points, 40 votes, 2 #1 votes)
2011 Nicki Minaj - Super Bass (1023 points, 33 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2010 Girl Unit - Wut (996 points, 31 votes, 3 #1 votes)
2011 Beyoncé - Countdown (911 points, 29 votes, 2 #1 votes)

― seandalai

That is a surprisingly solid top 10. I have nothing against any of these.

I think the only odd one on that list is Wut which doesn't really stand out next to the other songs. Not that popular too? Where did all the love come from?

Here's the spotify plays as of today for all of these to compare. It's the only song that doesn't reach at lease 1 million plays.

Daft Punk - Get Lucky 220M
Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe 202M
Lana Del Rey - Video Games 120M
Nicki Minaj - Super Bass 82M
Tinashe ft. Schoolboy Q - 2 on 66M
Beyoncé - Countdown 44M
Mariah Carey ft. Miguel - #Beautiful 42M
Azealia Banks ft. Lazy Jay - 212 32M
Todd Terje - Inspector Norse 11M
Girl Unit - Wut 800K

The static cadence on Here makes perfect sense imo. These aren't emotive self-assertions but unpleasant, panicky thoughts - she wants to get out of there but can't bring herself to do anything about it. The whole song gives off a sense of being horribly stuck, not merely at this particular party but also in, idk, adolescence? (Yeah, the narrator is obnoxious, but who isn't these days?)

Daft Punk is actually near 320M since the radio edit has around 98M plays and the album version 220M.

"wut" had a thread named after it where lex was calling it the best single of the year early on and i guess ppl were agreeing

er i guess it came out late-ish that year idk

my fav dej loaf thing from 2015 was this but it wasn't nominated :'(
― tpp, Tuesday, January 19, 2016 7:45 AM

Very nice. Although I don't know who Elijah Blake is and that song didn't especially make me care.

As someone clearly pretty out of the loop, I'm curious where people hear songs like this? Just the radio? Clubs? Blog hype?

Wut sounded really exciting at the time.

Wut sounded MOR to me at the time, and still. Pleasant enough.

longneck OTM re: Here. I love the panicky, looping feeling like she can't turn off her thoughts. The rhythm of the vocal gives the sample a whole different vibe. If anything it's closer to the sickly paranoia of Hell Is Round the Corner than it is to Glory Box. It's relentless. I love how she hits the syllables: "SOMEwhere in the CORner under CLOUDS of mariJUANa." And I like that there's a big hit that nails a particular adolescent experience so vividly.

If we're talking about the mid-90s casting a long shadow, I can't get over Floating Points' resemblance to something on LTJ Bukem's label.

Actually no, it's more like 4 Hero but same era.

I first encountered that Elijah Blake in the r&b thread and found myself constantly returning to it. The album version replaces Dej Loaf with an extra chorus but the single version is so obviously better, Dej Loaf has such a weirdly expressive voice that it lends the song a sense of lusty urgency that it lacks without her.

So far "Mascara" towers above everything else in this list except maybe lex's writing on it

That Koze track is interesting. I don't feel like 2015 has been much of a banner year for me and dance music (save for footwork/grime etc).
A lot of the house and techno I've come across in the last 12 months seems to be backward-facing or with some degree of retro involved. A lot of producers seem to be interested in reviving the sounds of classic 90s house or mid-00s minimal house. So when that 'Maggie' sample (can't think of it any other way) comes in, I'm at once thinking 'it's been a long time since I heard a new dance track that explicitly references taking ecstasy'. It feels quaint. It's like the whole use and placement of that sample is predicated on harking back to the early-90s, rave culture in the news, the M25, the CJB, John Major, Swampy, the Poll Tax Riots etc. So I get a creeping nostalgia while at the same time feeling cross about how egregious and manipulative it is. The sample is pasted haphazardly over the track in this deliberately abrupt way. It doesn't ride the beat. It doesn't need to be in there at all really, but it's also what makes the track what it is, and therefore vital. And then it plays again, which is also interesting. People were saying upthread that they wish it had only happened once, but if I were to only have heard this song once while out dancing, I think the message makes more sense the second time round. The first time round I'm too busy trying to blot out the image of Thatcher doing yoga to understand the core of the message.

I always hear the voice as Charlotte Gainsbourg, which is a bit better than Thatcher. I can imagine it sounding like Thatcher if under the influence in a field at Glastonbury but it doesn't sound like her outside of that context, thankfully.

I had been thinking similar thoughts about dance music in 2015, but I think it was simply just I had taken my eye off the ball this year. It doesn't help that lots of the usual sources of dance music writing eg Resident Advisor seem to have given up on actual clubbing, and I've not been out nearly as much as I would want to be.

Tim Sweeney's round-up of 2015 did a lot to re-instill a bit of enthusiasm for me though, lots of great stuff to be found
http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/815

I like "XTC" a lot - I've never tried the drug itself so I don't comment as an expert, but I feel like XTC sounds like it's both coming up and coming down at the same time, and it's trippy enough to mesh with that sample to make it feel like a really deep, profound question.

'it's been a long time since I heard a new dance track that explicitly references taking ecstasy'

paul woolford's "mdma" was also huge last year and about five million times more banging than "xtc" https://soundcloud.com/hotflush/paul-woolford-mdma-full-stream

It doesn't help that lots of the usual sources of dance music writing eg Resident Advisor seem to have given up on actual clubbing, and I've not been out nearly as much as I would want to be.

My eye's probably been off the ball too, and I get even fewer chances to go out dancing than I ever did. But is the closure of so many famous London dance institutions partly responsible for this? I love that Carmine track by Fit Siegel, but it's a head-tune innit?

It's like the whole use and placement of that sample is predicated on harking back to the early-90s, rave culture in the news, the M25, the CJB, John Major, Swampy, the Poll Tax Riots etc

koze is german lol

"Banging" is not always what one wants from music, all of the time. I feel physically bruised from having that Paul Woolford track in my headphones for about 3 minutes. :-/

koze is german lol

― tpp, Tuesday, 19 January 2016 10:18 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The sample is a very RP British accent, old-fashioned sounding as well. I'm sure Koze is as aware of UK rave culture in the same way UK producers are aware of the Berlin house and techno scene.

I think it's pretty intentional that "XTC" isn't banging, because they whole track seems to be highly ambivalent on the whole drug/clubbing combination. The vocal sample isn't the sort of cheesy anti-drug propaganda snippet 90s producers would use on their tracks to parody the authorities' rave scare tactics, it's more wistful and measured, and combined with synth pads of the track gives almost a melancholy vibe. Plus the oppressive, paranoid ending of the track is surely meant to simulate comedown?

thatcher conceit is kinda perf tho. romantic sentimentalist synthetic psychoactive 4 middle england, a lie sweet in the beginning and bitter in the end

i'm british and have no idea what 'swampy' is? went to koze's wikipedia to see what he was up to in the 90s and found this:

He was part of German hip-hop act Fischmob in the 1990s, while also recording under the name Adolf Noise.

Daniel Hooper (known as Swampy; born 1973) is an environmental activist, was characterised as an environmental protester or eco-warrior, from the United Kingdom. He was active in a variety of environmental protests including that in Fairmile, Devon, against the expansion of the A30 road.

tea koze

I have a feeling that today will be an interesting day! Looking forward to JF salvation.

Yeah I mean it seems screamingly obvious that the Woolford track is for peak-time and the Koze is for 5am, but there are so many better Woolford tracks than that one. There are better Koze tracks as well, many of them, but he gets more love in general.

My fave "koze track", which should have charted but won't :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbmd64-gToo

good work ilx finding japan's only boring band

Really thankful for this thread. It finally made me realize that Rae Sremmurd are the modern day Mötley Crüe.

Eh it wasn't terrible. Bit of a Phoenix vibe about their guitar-based nerdiness maybe? Xp

Maybe but idk it just didn't do anything for me

The Jazmine Sullivan song is great, easily the best thing here other than Kendrick

(and JME)

I think that band's track appeals simply because it's relatively reined-in. The wacky maximalism and arch-cuteness could have been played up (and often is) in this kind of thing, but I like how it's a fairly strait-laced track with all these odd technical flourishes happening at unexpected points.

i'm british and have no idea what 'swampy' is? went to koze's wikipedia to see what he was up to in the 90s and found this:

/He was part of German hip-hop act Fischmob in the 1990s, while also recording under the name Adolf Noise. /
--tpp

Loooopl

http://i.imgur.com/hZzkS9b.jpg

60 THE 1975 "Love Me" (210 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

'This Could Be Us' my favourite track off what ended up being my favourite album of the year. 'Mascara' great and Lex's bit about was OTM (except for wanting thinkpieces) and so well put that I almost regret not reading any music crit. for the last few years.

obviously i was wanting thinkpieces from good writers! the song is complex and important, it deserves essays, it deserves books to be written about it

1975 track is a lot better in practice than in theory.

They usually annoy me but that one's got a nice Prince-like groove.

Wow, I am not keyed into the ilx hivemind at all any more. Brandon Flowers and the 1975?! What is going on?

I can't listen to the whole of that, sorry.

People on ILM love this sort of thing emil.y. Where you been?

I've never been crazy about Duran Duran, so the fact that this song is sub-sub-sub-Duran Duran does it zero favors.

These sound like INXS. Or the house band who appear at the end of some 80s comedy caper. Along with Brandon Flowers, there's some odd eighties AOR revival going on.

i was thinking sub-sub-sub-sub-INXS

xpost

I couldn't get through it. Why listen to this when you could listen to... anything else?

The only things I've actually had to skip so far are Brandon Flowers (and you guys make fun of me for liking Interpol?) and Floating Points. But this 1975 track is really pushing it.

Like, I genuinely love Duran Duran but this is generating only a totally perplexed face - mostly because I'm so grossed out by the sub-Aerosmithisms of the vocals.

Oh thank fuck at least it's short.

I get the pop crew, I get the not-pop-not-indie "women sing over synths" thing, I get the goons, I get the bobbins crew, I get the worldies and the time-travellers. I don't get the people who like sub-INXS you-*wish*-you-were-a-rock-star guitar bands.

xposts damn I wrote sub-INXS before you did I just took ages to post!

Wow, I am not keyed into the ilx hivemind at all any more. Brandon Flowers and the 1975?! What is going on?

You wait until Years & Years pop up.

oh do they HAVE to?

I hear the INXS in the guitars, but the vocal harmonies are all Duran Duran.

The only reason I lasted so long was because I became slightly intrigued with trying to identify each specific "oh that's Love In An Elevator" and "oh, that's the yelp from Sledgehammer" of each specific recreation of musical moments from the 80s.

Yeah, if this song serves a purpose, it's like a musical Where's Waldo.

The guitars are totally Notorious era Duran Duran, tho.

forks can u make the Spotify list go from 77-1 instead of the way you have it set up now?

― gr8080, Monday, January 18, 2016 11:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you can just click the right hand "calendar tab" to make it go the opposite way

http://i.imgur.com/DXrxRcC.jpg

59 MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS "I'm a Ruin" (211 points, 7 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

I actually don't mind the one Years & Years song I've heard, to be honest. I don't like it, but I don't hate it. This post is probably no longer relevant in the flurry of xposts.

I don't really rate M&tDs that highly but this sounds like musical genius in comparison to the 1975.

The Years & Years song I know sounds like a Hot Chip song which in turn sounds very similar to Madonna's La Isla Bonita. It's okay once in a while but they've had it on the radio at work for months now and it doesn't really get better with time.

yay like a ruin :)

*i'm
whoops

This is my favorite Marina song to come since her initial rush of pre-debut album singles. Very happy it made the cut.

Love this song, best song on the album by some margin, in my opinion. I voted for it somewhere in my top 10.

Great track! Had another of hers (Better Than That) on my extended ballot. Find her to be constantly underrated, and this track is as good a rallying-point as any

voted froot p high last year, both that and this are standouts for me
better than that, savages - also choice cuts

where is saer in all of this?

there's a lot of obvious reference points for "Love Me" ("Fame", INXS, "Sledgehammer", etc.) but I think I like it more than any of those. it's probably the worst of their recent singles though (voted for UGH! over it)

never really got Marina, seems like something I'd like in theory but none of her songs have ever hooked me. I'm A Ruin just sort of floats by - the chorus almost gets me but then lets go?

The guitars are totally Notorious era Duran Duran, tho.

this is a good spot, but it sounds like they're being played by someone with metal arms rather than nile rogers or whoever it is on those duran songs

i was thinking sub-sub-sub-sub-INXS

xpost

― hi-nrg candidate (crüt), Tuesday, January 19, 2016 8:35 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I believe the term all you people are rooting around for is "Escape Club".

("Fame", INXS, "Sledgehammer", etc.) but I think I like it more than any of those

Christ.

been avoiding muting blocking reporting the 1975 ever since that horrifying time i first tried them until now and it's somehow even worse than i remember, his voice manages to take in so many affectations but the music is just this limp vaguely funky dated rock. this is even worse than that radiohead sludge

otoh this marina song is nothing like what i remembered her to be, first thing i've heard by her that i'm taken by - i like the way it ebbs and flows, and even at its most generously big her delivery is still restrained and she sounds like she's withholding things

i'm not v conversant w 80s rock reference points, the 1975's arrangement made me think of a limper lenny kravitz or perhaps the red hot chili peppers

absolutely abysmal

as a former loather, now undecided: The 1975 is basically a treatise on shallowness

http://i.imgur.com/UUR8Z5b.jpg

58 JUTE GYTE "Grief of New Desire" (222 points, 6 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

and hyperspeed idiocy of youth

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I give lex 2 seconds with this

love song of the year, my #3

I give lex 2 seconds with this

28 seconds as am still in the post-1975 flush where everything that isn't the 1975 sounds great

...except metal vox

Okay, now I can get behind this. I often find Jute Gyte a little underwhelming, but feeling it right now.

how do you pronounce jute gyte? joot? zhoot? yoot? zhooté? geetay? geit?

I say 'yoot git' but i never really said it out loud

I'm a Ruin was in my top five. I always liked bits of her stuff before, but this song is on a different level to everything else she'd done. Her earlier ballads seemed a bit too forced, this one she got it just right. The way she delivers the lines, "I've had my share of beautiful men, but I'm still young and I wanna love again" is so perfect. I ended up going back to the album a lot.

joot geet iirc

lex the middle two minutes have no vox and a v pretty steel drum melody, no kidding

I still haven't checked out Ship of Theseus. Kind of amazed to see Jute Gyte as the first thing close to alternative rock in the countdown so far.

yep this is p great
the album that placed the other year was p good too, should def listen to him more

Still not sold on Marina, IDK, give it another couple of goes. I found her voice grating on 'Hollywood' and have avoided since, but this sounds completely different.

I'd always mentally pronounced it /dʒuːt ɡaɪt/ but I'm not sure if I'm right.

Of all the great metal that came out last year, this disjointed mess gets in?

I like Jute Gyte in theory but is there much reason to have more than one album? It all sounds pretty similar.

Relax, Siegy, Ghost are a lock :D

this newest album was an obvious and brilliant leap forward in compositional, sonic and songwriting technique imo dl

that young man needs to get hold of a tuning fork

Jute Gyte is what I should have listened to instead of trying to get into New Bermuda and The Ark Work this year, huh?

Jute Gyte is what I imagine non-metal fans think of when they think about metal.

yeah but The Ark Work is good too imo, more ambiguously so xp

Since forks posted the songs in yesterday's tie together, I'll do the same (it's the only other tie in the top 77, though)...

http://i.imgur.com/0jM0Bl3.jpg

TIE-56 RED VELVET "Ice Cream Cake" (222 points, 7 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

http://i.imgur.com/k5VIcu3.jpg

TIE-56 CHELSEA WOLFE "Carrion Flowers" (222 points, 7 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

I voted for Ark Work, pretty high, spent a lot of the first part of year listening to it, but I must admit it has slipped out of mind. Forgot to nominate Qel Valhaal, that would have made it high up on my list.

Good to see some K-pop on here, though I did not vote nor know this song. Man, I've been so out of the loop this year. But it's lovely!

i've not heard of either of these.

fans of jute gyte vocals, please explain yourselves

it's metal vox. take or leave.

Oh I kind of love Ice Cream Cake! Almost made my ballot. Today has been very me-friendly

Of all the great metal that came out last year, this disjointed mess gets in?

― Siegbran, Tuesday, 19 January 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ilm = indie, or haven't you heard?

If Jute Gyte is Swedish, as the name implies, it should be pronounced something like "you-tteh" "gew-tteh".

it's metal vox. take or leave.

― canoon fooder (dog latin), Tuesday, January 19, 2016 2:22 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*leaves*

lol. i love how this conversation takes place every year

I can maybe understand liking that if you've never had to deal with small children.

Jute Gyte is what I imagine non-metal fans think of when they think about metal.

so much truth.

On the other hand, Carrion Flowers is great.

Wait, neither Jute nor Gyte are Swedish words, right? I pronounce 'Jute' as in 'someone from Jutland'. Gyte I don't know.

almost voted for Ice Cream Cake, I love its sense of momentum between all the rhythmic shifts.

I guess the thing about Love Me is it pushes its sound to a sort of cartoonish extreme but I get why that's the absolute last thing some would want to hear.

I'm not having a good day.

Jute Gyte - lo-fi metal with vomit gnarling vocals, only 317 monthly listeners on spotify, no reviews or ratings of the album that includes the track on

Encyclopaedia Metallum - Jute Gyte - Ship of Theseus
http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Jute_Gyte/Ship_of_Theseus/514531

the most obscure and unpopular track ever to gatecrash the ilm top 77 tracks? Who voted this apart from imago and imago gf? the other members of the London Jute Gyte fanclub? (London is the most popular location in the world for Jute Gyte listeners according to spotify data, 11 listeners)

The perps are likely to be found in this thread: Jute Gyte

Who voted this apart from imago and imago gf?

lol. Jute Gyte have been a thing on ILM for a minute now.

Also, Jute Gyte's music is mostly heard and released through Bandcamp, right?

(I like Jute Gyte but didn't vote for it. Martian, I thought you were down with metal?)

Here's my last one for today. Forks is up next with the rest of the results!

http://i.imgur.com/Imd6aC7.jpg

55 ROMAN FLÜGEL "Black Towers" (224 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

Wait, neither Jute nor Gyte are Swedish words, right? I pronounce 'Jute' as in 'someone from Jutland'. Gyte I don't know.

"Jute" means "someone from Jutland" in Swedish too, I think? Not sure if "Gyte" means anything, maybe it's a surname?

The silent majority strikes agane xps

ah this flugel ep was wonderful

Black Towers is a great track and Sliced Africa is an excellent EP

Dog Latin, there are many different types / genres of metal, Jute Gyte is not my type of metal.

To "gyte" is to spawn in norwegian. So spawning some jutes, i guess? Good luck with that!

lol, the ties at 56 are both things people I know and respect love that I just cannot get with at all.

it means 'tote bag' in Swedish.

why are people talking about this Jute Gyte bullshit when that inifinitely-better Chelsea Wolfe track is available for discussion

I like this Flügel. Apparently he's some kind of a big deal but I don't think I've heard of him before... Was captured by the slight grindy noises at the beginning but it seems to drop that quite quickly and go pretty straightforward, hm.

Yeah he's a longstanding and well-respected producer who no one not engaged with techno has much reason to have heard of. I like this one though, more landscapey than some of his other stuff. Genuinely surprised it placed.

This Roman Flügel seems like pleasant enough progressive techno, no idea why it would be someone's track of the year, but it worked fairly well as background music for 12 minutes.

i've never heard of chelsea wolfe but i'm really impressed by this

red velvet - i don't follow k-pop but it's always nice to see it pop up, they kill it the most in terms of videos (the giant cat!)

"black towers" is awesome, a bit surprised (but pleased!) that it placed as it's one of those big house/techno tracks that never seem to get much discussion on ilm. god, he's 45 now?! i still have extremely fond rave memories of "geht's noch?" from the mid-00s

heh @ "black towers" and "carrion flowers" placing b2b

yeah i'm really into this chelsea wolfe, gonna d/l her album and live with it for a while i think

i didn't vote for "love me" and didn't imagine it would place (it is divisive even among hardcore 1975 fans) but i feel a little proud/responsible for upsetting everyone, which is how i imagine lj feels about jute gyte

Oh, I skipped the Chelsea Wolfe as I'd heard it before, but I checked and it is the one song off the album that I actually liked. So, well done ilx.

"dumb dumb" is just slightly > "ice cream cake" but i'm psyched some k-pop placed this year

Lex, the entire Chelsea Wolfe album is fantastic; I'd never heard of her before either but she came up on my radar when Maura tweeted something about an album being described as "nu-metal Portishead"

She's labelmates with Deafheaven (eh) and Marriages (who also rule and afaict no one heard)

i see the 1975 have gotten....worse since the last time we did this

The new 1975 single ("UGH!") is the first of theirs that works in practice instead of theory.

Lex, the entire Chelsea Wolfe album is fantastic

No, no it isn't.

Again, Black Towers sounds peculiarly retro to my ears. Elements of AI-era Warp, Burger Ink and old Encarta CD-ROMs. I'd like to say that this concretes my thoughts upthread that house music has started to face in on itself in 2015, with producers being more interested in referencing the past than finding new paths. Is stuff like this and the Koze track upthread the house music equivalent of The Jam? If so, I'm not entirely sure we're at the stage where retromania has quite started to have an ossifying effect quite yet. Something Tuomas said upthread, about how Koze's 'XTC' still reveals a certain bittersweetness; that the retro-aesthetic is somehow a reflection or meta-comment on today's dance scene, has me pondering.

chelsea wolfe is hitting similar spots to torres for me, except with even heavier guitars

As jute-spawn myself, I applaud the Norwegian interpretation. I'm not entirely sure it's grammatically correct, but it's cool.

I voted for Chelsea Wolfe. I just discovered it a couple of weeks ago by listening to the nominations playlist on shuffle. Love this song. I haven't really managed to get into the rest of the album yet.

The next track is the first of three charting today not to be available for the playlist... though the original unremixed version IS... I'll be including that there as a placeholder and hopefully to spur you to try the Youtube here.

http://i.imgur.com/arBwico.jpg

54 FATIMA YAMAHA "What's a Girl to Do (DJ Haus 4/4 Edit)" (227 points, 8 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 465 / Youtube

The new 1975 single ("UGH!") is the first of theirs that works in practice instead of theory.

if i weren't obviously really super into the band i'd say otm

i only noticed recently that rtc posted that 4/4 edit in the japanese boogie thread sometime last year which was really inspired

That Fatima Yamaha is sick, easily my fave so far.

Why DID this blow up this year, like a decade after its release? Was it entirely down to being sampled on the Hudson Mohawke album?

Oh yes, I have heard that Fatima Yamaha before. I like it.

Chelsea Wolfe is very gothy but a bit thin and gets boring after not long. I'd rather listen to the last Gazelle Twin album.

I figured HudMo sampled it off the back of its initial re-emergence.

aaaahhh "what's a girl to do" is the first of my votes! incredible timeless classic etc etc. i nominated the dj haus edit as that was the version that wasn't actually released in 2004 and no one nominated the original, but i'd actually say the original was more omnipresent in 2015. both are amazing anyway.

as far as i can tell it blew up 11 years after its release because it had been a personal favourite of the glasgow scene all that time, and they started blowing up internationally in 2015: this piece tells the story well - https://boilerroom.tv/fatima-yamaha-dekmantel/

anyway, i absolutely love that in this era of immediacy and constantly moving on to the next new thing, you can have an organic slow burn like this. especially in dance music! i first heard it in 2013 or 2014 i guess, and even so its popularity took me by surprise. and when i say "timeless" i kind of mean that it's sort of out of time now, it's not tied to the actual era it was released in but neither does it sound like anything about 2015. the thing it does remind me of is ada's blondie, i guess - these simple but very beautiful melodies driving the whole thing.

a bit of a side-eye to the dude producer taking on the guise of a woman "caught between two cultures" but the music works, and it's clearly a preoccupation for him and not just a bit of dabbling - he released his debut album last year as well (this wasn't on it) and it's pretty much entirely themed around migration

Again, Black Towers sounds peculiarly retro to my ears. Elements of AI-era Warp, Burger Ink and old Encarta CD-ROMs. I'd like to say that this concretes my thoughts upthread that house music has started to face in on itself in 2015, with producers being more interested in referencing the past than finding new paths.

FWIW, Flùgel was already doing stuff like this around the same time as your reference points. I always liked his and Alter Ego's mid-90s home listening techno, and didn't much care for their juvenile 00s electroclash experiments, so I welcome the nostalgia here.

yesterday>>>today so far

i was the 1st place voter for "Love Me," and while it was partly strategic (UGH! was lower on my ballot will definitely place today or tomorrow) it was also 100% the 2015 song i played the most in 2015.

u guys w/ your "practice/theory" talk are such a bore

whats a girl to go was on my ballot for a while but i ultimately took it off

oh wait "what's a girl to do" is the second of my votes after "don't @ me"

ikr, songs are like 3 minutes long, you don't have to theorize about them xp

http://i.imgur.com/SYAyrJu.jpg

53 MIGUEL "Waves" (227 points, 9 votes)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - 233 / Youtube

I've less patience for the murk of the first third of Miguel's album but I fucking love every live clip of this track.

good tune

SO HOT GODDAMN I NEED A TOWEL BABE

this is not the song i would have voted for off miguel's album, had i not voted for the album ("leaves" obv) but it is so wonderful. that bridge! idg anyone who was disappointed by him in 2015

murk suits miguel

Waves is awesome, voted for it

digging this new wavves jam

*pic of Miguel and his cat*

i can't remember if i voted for "waves" or not, it was one of a few wildheart tracks i was debating and i may have chopped it off for "coffee" and "leaves" but yea "waves" is great!

Love how he rides the groove like he RIDES THAT WAAAAVVE

i go hot and cold on this guy. loved 'Sure Thing', 'Do You...' and a couple of others, but 'Coffee' really didn't do anything for me and so much of his songs simply repel me.

boy this is not a good day for me. haven't even had any of my tracks show up yet.

wildheart was my album of the summer for sure

even if it is somewhat spotty, just so many good songs on it

Rad times indeed!

Great song. Obviously Coffee is going to be very high in the list, I'm hoping Leaves can sneak in too.

i got kinda burnt out on all of Wildheart for a while but put it back on during noms & voting and was like damn this is one of the best records of 2015

it is just so thrilling to listen to this song

same reaction

xpost

idk the groove is both gentle and insistent, it pulls at you like a....wave

Such a summer album. I'll forever associate it with Fourth of July weekend.

rethinking this whole music writing thing after that post

xpost

beautiful, brad :_)

xposts lol

I think today has been more interesting than yesterday, but I've given up hope on all but three of my tracks placing. Two of which will definitely be here, the third probably.

carly off the starboard bow

http://i.imgur.com/MIgZPfM.jpg

52 CARLY RAE JEPSEN "Your Type" (230 points, 7 votes, 1 first-place vote)
Pitchfork - DNP / P&J - DNP / Youtube

*heart eyes emoji*

aw my number 1 :)

i limited myself to one carly track but could have voted all of them

also one of my favorite videos of the year

chelsea wolfe managed to grip me by the end of first listen, same w/ "black towers", both very nice

i also kinda like "waves" but don't imagine i'll be revisiting any of the rest of today's bunch (other than maybe the marina song) at all

I like Your Type a lot but I was really surprised it was picked as the third single. I was convinced they'd go with Boy Problems.

but i still love you
i'm sorry
i'm sorry
i love you
i didn't mean to say what i said

Yes, great Carly track!

Carly Rae Jepsen is the new Robyn, afaict

i like this one too

Carly Rae Jepsen is the new Robyn, afaict

― its subtle brume (DJP),

if she continues her no-Hot 100-hit streak, this is more true than I realized

Realised I voted for three CRJ tracks but Your Type wasn't one. It's a good one though.

didn't vote for it though, i can only do so much

i spend a lot of the CRJ album thinking i should like it more than i do but i don't even think that about "your type", it's probably the most effortful.

Carly Rae Jepsen is the new Robyn, afaict

she really is! it was p funny seeing people wring their hands over why she wasn't actually popular off the internet

I thought Carly Rae Sremmurd was the new Haim or maybe that's the other way around. IDGI either way.

I'm fine with CRJ but not as mad on it as most people.

"All That" was the Carly Rae Jetson that I dug, but it didn't make my ballot.

like most of the crj album, another one that i like hearing individually but which fades into the background when i try listening to the album all the way through

Apart from Run Away With Me, I have no idea which of her other songs are going to place. I thought split voting would really hurt her as 12 songs from Emotion were nominated.

"i really like you" is divisive but i wouldn't be surprised to see it show up

Yeah, that could make it. It would be like when Shake It Off placed last year.

Carly Rae Jepsen is the new Robyn, afaict

― its subtle brume (DJP), Tuesday, January 19, 2016 9:51 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol this stings

Your Type is exhibit A for the argument that Carly Rae is the new Robyn. That was the one I voted for but it was a tough choice.

i feel like maybe she could, like, un-crossover and have the same sort of fanbase career as robyn or charli xcx. sorta feel like her working with people like dev hynes, ariel rechtshaid, rostam etc on this record is the first step in building that bridge.

that said maybe she'll end up in this weird stasis where she's too one hit wonder to ever be taken seriously by both the general pop audience of america *and* the types of people who think robyn is the only acceptable pop star

― J0rdan S., Monday, August 3, 2015 12:02 AM (5 months ago) Bookmark

;-)

oh ha making the most of the night was my #1