ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2022: 17th Anniversary Edition

Fair warning: now, perhaps more than ever, lack of consensus defines our annual Top 77 Tracks poll. With only five performers claiming more than a single song, 84% of the 77 is single artist placement only. The leap between #77 (120 points) and #27 (200 points) is a question of fewer than two #1 votes. Everything was (only) someone’s favorite and you were more likely alone than part of any zeitgeist. Such may have always been the necessary endgame of the celestial streaming jukebox.

But I come to praise Caesar, not give him a .6 rating. A poll filled with diverse picks is a thing to be celebrated and we’ve surely got that going for us with a list that includes Billboard hits, obscurities, Grammy winners, thirteen-minute instrumentals, hip hop, Afropop, hard bops, bleep blops, K-pop, emo rock, noise rock, pop rock, guitar rock, indie rock, folk rock, novelty rock, igneous rock, and just about everything it’s gonna taaaaeeeeeee to provide 5 1⁄2 hours of music you’ll love and hate and replay until the marrow shows through the bone. For better and worse, this is your 77.

For reasons related to curation, better inclusion for our friends in different time zones, and simply for the sake of switching it up, I will be taking things a bit slower than in past years. We’ll be posting six or seven tracks a day, Monday to Friday, over the next two weeks. My hope is that this will encourage us to give these songs a few listens apiece and the space to let them come into their own both as objects of discussion and for more introspective consideration. Of course, hot takes are also part of the grand tradition, so don’t feel shy about participating on either end of the spectrum!

This is the Top 77 Tracks of 2022 Spotify Playlist:
http://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SZaXOeCc1ArfhoDqRAx2G

This is the Top 77 Tracks of 2022 Tidal Playlist:
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/a94e7638-b48f-4b10-89aa-5176f005bc29

If anyone wants to maintain a matching YouTube / Apple / Amazon Music / Utopian Benevolent Corporate Ownership playlist, it would absolutely be more than welcome. Feel free to post URLs to those here and they will be added to the OP.

In case you’d like to listen to the talent pool, here’s the Nearly Complete Nominee Playlist, which includes nearly 1100 nominated songs:
http://open.spotify.com/playlist/6KkJodsMzHIz4XIXq1f8ro

Here’s the complete list of nominated tracks:
http://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E-PAaV4KHrTPi5stkShDtxoeRrdEdqnX_pRji_mbADM

We have been discussing those nominations here:
ILM's 2022 End of Year Tracks & Albums Poll / VOTING THREAD

Your admins for this poll are myself (posting, playlisting), Moka (graphics) and Seandalai (organization and vote tabulation). In keeping with the times, Moka has embraced new technology, which means that this year’s images were built with the use of AI. The singularity is nigh!

Moka shared some thoughts about her process:

Midjourney is the most aesthetically pleasing of the big AI art-generating programs of the moment and also the one with the most varied results. For these “co-created” poll images, I’ve mostly limited myself and the AI to a handful of short prompts consisting of the artist's name, the track name and the influence of three creators whose styles I love and who have a clearly definable look: Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Hilma af Klint, and Maxfield Parrish. So the prompt might be:"The Linda Lindas Growing Up in the style of Moebius" and I then clean up the final product in Photoshop to taste, fifteen fingers per artist and all.

Midjourney also allows you to upload photos to use as the basis for the image. This is especially useful when you’re trying to get a more accurate portrait. Artists like Elvis Presley or Jim Morrison are popular enough that you don't have to feed any images into the AI but (to summon a totally random name) Soccer Mommy is a different question. Then there were some images where I just blended multiple images together from several prompts. In any case, I'm not much of an expert and pretty much have only been using these services for a month to fool around... mainly for this poll. It ended up taking way more time than I expected!

With each winning song I will be posting a link to the song’s music video on YouTube and, wherever possible, appropriate ILX artist/song/album/genre threads for further reading. Workload permitting, I’ll also try to include some brief context on each track so that you know what you’re getting into before you hit play.

As a courtesy to folks without a high-speed internet connection, we ask that everyone reading the thread please refrain from posting embedded YouTubes so that this can load at a manageable speed. YouTubes can (and should!) still be posted as hyperlinks. If you're unsure how that works, click the "Formatting Help" button below the Submit Post button and it will explain how to use hyperlinks on ILX.

As is tradition, we’re encouraging speculation on our just-missed-the-countdown #78 (four votes, 120 points) and you can win deeply meaningful bragging rights if you can name the artist and track before we get to the end.

While you’re waiting, here’s the prior 16 years of annual winners:

***Put Ya Hands Up for the 2006 ILX TRACKS POLL RESULTS***
**********Just the trax, ma'am: THE ILX 2007 POLL RESULTS, part 1**********
//////////////shawty got poll poll poll poll poll poll poll (part I: 2008 TRAX)\\\\\\\
Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Trax Poll Results: TOP TEN TODAY)
ILM'S TOP 77 TRACKS of 2010
ILM'S TOP 77 TRACKS of 2011 (Los resultados!)
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2013
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014
ILM's TOP 77 TRACKS of 2015
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2016
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2017
ILM’s Top 77 Tracks of 2018
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2020
ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2021

For anyone who would like to get a jump on 2023, we have recently started an ILM 2023 Listening Club where anyone can recommend a track for the ongoing group playlist. Join in!
ILM 2023 Listening Club

We’ll get started tomorrow morning.

Sounds great! And that's an amazing trio of artists to draw from, Moka.

I like the idea of trying fewer tracks per day… should make it easier to keep up with them!

Two weeks!

Let's get a taste so people have something to work with for the wee hours of the morning.

Québécois indie-twee band TOPS have been ably dropping a new album of gregarious soft rock aimed at the Gorilla vs Bear target audience every two years or so for the past decade. “Perfected Steps,” an upbeat and airy confection driven by a groovy bassline and lead singer Jane Penny’s whispery soprano, is the pick of choice from their Empty Seats EP for our Mr Irrelevant #77 spot.

http://i.imgur.com/MwfF0t7.png
#77: TOPS - Perfected Steps - 120 points - 5 votes
Video
Live

Vocalist Jane Penny explains: “‘Perfected Steps’ is about some right wing aging loser clinging to their glory days, values out of sync with reality. It feels like for some reason people like this still have an enormous presence in everybody’s lives and it’s super irritating. We thought that maybe if we write a song placing this mentality in the past where it belongs we could bully this vibe peacefully out of existence.”

Fleetwood Mac vibe

Alright, let's go!

This song sounds pretty good on a monday morning.

Didn't vote for TOPS but definitely was one of the finds of the nominations

new to me... that's quite lovely!

very amused by that song description - it's so combative but the song itself has such a nice sunny vibe

Well this is a pretty interesting hour to begin this...

very amused by that song description - it's so combative but the song itself has such a nice sunny vibe

― Roz, Monday, 13 February 2023 07:37 (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the 70s mellow soft rock vibe feels appropriate, both because that could be the era of the right wing aging loser clinging to their glory days, and because there's so much actual 70s mellow soft rock that's about has-been losers clinging to their glory days, I guess it's usually more melancholy rather than the righteousness that the quote implies though, disillusionment after the 60s - with something like e.g. Steely Dan you get the impression that we'll all become 'some right wing aging loser clinging to their glory days, values out of sync with reality' in the end, there's no hope that this vibe will ever truly be left in the past.

i'm fine with more of the rollout happening when i'm awake, even if it's only a single track

this is fine enough soft-rock but idk why it's nearly 7 minutes

dangerous to only run 6 or 7 tracks per day, because my ability to keep quiet when it's something i don't like will be essentially non-existent. There Will Be Takes

starting with: hilarious that a sounds-just-like-the-70s soft-rock song about growing old and clinging to the past has made the ILM 77. always nice to begin with an ironic reminder of how reactionary my fellow posters are. now let Spiritualized place so I can be guilty too lol

christ tho this is so miserable

Started off kind of hating this, listened to it four times to try and figure out why, ended up sort of liking it. I think it was her voice in the first few bars got me the wrong way, like when you try a new food for the first time and you don't know whether you like it or not, but there's this atavistic suspicion at the back of your mind that someone's trying to poison you. Kind of salty and sweet with an earwaxy aftertaste. Back half of the song went down easier - if you ignore the main singer, that section sounds very Haim-ish to me. Will probably forget all about this band within the next two hours, but will inevitably be reminded of them when they place at number 54 in three years time. Amazing graphics Moka!

You know…

I like this song, which feels like 4-5 early 70s singles fighting gently for dominance, which isn’t a negative.

Or: NickB OTM basically

hope forks has set alarms ensuring he wakes up every 2 hours and posts the next one. ruin your sleep cycle for us. FOR THE GREATER GOOD

Lol imago

By last bit of this song it’s become a less scabrous, less shocking version of an Ariel Pink tune

Sounds fine, but not very 2022.

This sounds a bit like Tennis more than Tops usually do (ime).

Not to be confused with Brussels’ own DJ soFA, the DJ Sofa we have installed at #76 is a queer Finnish jungle aficionado with a relatively low profile and a taste for slow build D+B extravaganzas of the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink variety. “So Soft” transforms drastically along its seven minute runtime from Lofi Chill and Study to full on glow-stick twirling.

http://i.imgur.com/pzR9c14.png
#76: DJ Sofa - So Soft - 121 points - 5 votes
Video

White wine and bang snaps

(In a good way)

Yes! Did vote for this one.

The B side is great too

Following along furtively at work and don't have access to artwork/listening, so that bit will have to wait, but I'm enjoying the slow rollout so far.

I like footwork and breakbeat so that sound is up my valley

Didn't anticipate anything being rolled out beyond that extreme middle-of-the-night three-hour window again! *genuflects*

I don't recall hearing these first two, despite cramming the playlists ridiculously hard nowadays...

The TOPS singer's analysis is so facile it almost talks me out of liking the song. Reactionaries will always be with us, and the complacent attitude that we simply need to wait for them to die off means you won't be ready for them, or their well-funded young recruits. Also, the song doesn't really sound like something that would make it on the radio in the 70s (to its credit, I thought). If anything it reminds me of one of Belle & Sebastian's longer genre experiments. The length is part of what makes it interesting; I like when a song asks "can we keep this vibe going" and finds a way to capably answer "yes."

oh this is cool

this one does justify being 7 minutes

My eyes *really* like dwelling on these images, btw. Nice work, Moka!

the jungle flips coming out on coco bryce's myor label have been such a source of joy for me over the last year or so. plenty of bang in those breaks and just the right amount of pop, all executed with killer precision. whole thing is such a pure rush

the bottom of my tracks ballot on the bottom of the rollout. Nice discovery from the campaigning thread.

By any reasonable estimation, the post-punk novelty hit Chaise Longue should have been the entirety of Wet Leg’s 15 minutes. Then one hit became two, then the album was released and was miraculously critically well received. Now the Isle of Wight duo, named after a local semi-derogatory slang term for tourists, have leveled up from complete unknowns to the second line of Coachella in something less than nine months. Sounds pretty impressive until you also factor in that they’ve dropped from last year’s #1 to this year’s #75. That’s something to scream about. 

http://i.imgur.com/UcWjnix.png
#75: Wet Leg - Ur Mum - 123 points - 4 votes
Video

WET LEG a girl band from the Isle of Wight on Domino Records

Speaking of Ur Mom in a statement, Teasdale says: I was pretty angry at the way things had gone in this particular dynamic. It’s just a diss song I wrote to make myself feel better. It worked. The song also explores the idea of escaping a small town, something Teasdale and Chambers thought a lot about while growing up on the Isle of Wight.

this AI stuff is pretty wild. Were some of the prompts long?

I spent a few hours on the weekend arguing with ChatGPT. Randomly introducing cinnamon into recipes. Scoundrel.

The TOPS singer's analysis is so facile it almost talks me out of liking the song.

admittedly the lyrics passed right through me. It sure was pretty.

oh cool, a whole hour to discuss the merits of this song

This is basically Britpop, cool that it finally made it to the Isle of Wight I guess (they can keep it)

Sure everyone will agree with me that this is the best Wet Leg song.

Angelica is the only song they've done that isn't utterly abject, and it's still derivative as hell

This is the first time I’ve listened to Wet Leg. Fun song!

Is this likely to be the highest placing wet leg song?

i'm just really glad the band member went on Genius.com to explain what the lyrics to 'Ur Mum' are about.

Angelica was also nominated and is a better song (imo) so possibly not xp

Chaise Longue seems to be the quintessential Wet Leg song, but not sure if its especially well liked here

It's not that I dislike Wet Leg that much but I'm still mystified why they get so much attention from people who have heard a huge amount of music. Glass houses on my part, maybe.

xp oh no, we hated it

The TOPS singer's analysis is so facile it almost talks me out of liking the song. Reactionaries will always be with us, and the complacent attitude that we simply need to wait for them to die off means you won't be ready for them, or their well-funded young recruits.

it's funny, because I tend to associate that 'we just need to wait for the reactionaries to die off' attitude specifically with boomers (when they were young themselves, before they voted Trump into office), who are presumably the generation that the singer is taking aim at?

people who have heard a huge amount of music

from the last few years, though? Wet Leg is where you go when you give up and let the major press outlets inform you. we post way more about the Grammies now than we did 10 years ago, just saying

Simon Reynolds making an absolute arse of himself about WL in an attempt to stay relevant without actually listening to contemporary rock

i heard of Wet Leg here and I think they're... fine. No votes from me but i mean whatever.

iow "excuse me... what?"

I don't mind that Wet Leg song, tbh.

cute, is it

this TOPS singer really does sound like Alaina from Tennis. but unlike them, i'm struggling to find many hooks despite the track length, there's a wannabe 'What A Fool Believes' vibe but it's not really hitting.

Chaise Longue seems to be the quintessential Wet Leg song, but not sure if its especially well liked here

It literally won the 2021 tracks poll so...no

I'm not sure about this whole thing taking two weeks, though - aren't we already a fortnight behind normal schedule? I mean, fair enough if you're busy, forks, but just say that rather than pretend that making everything slow is somehow a good thing!

cute, is it

Ha! I actually think it is kind of cute. But cute as in 'small and nice' not 'pretending to be clever'.

was thinking it would make more sense to do Albums at this pace, but maybe it'll encourage good conversation. or failing that, just increasingly frustrated bile

the synth and piano sounds at the start of that DJ Sofa track are SO much like the Joe Hisashi soundtrack for 'A Scene At The Sea', i sort of wish it stayed there for longer before going into the up tempo sections

xp Yeah, agree that a longer albums roll-out would make more sense. It's easier to listen along quickly to tracks, and then we just get bored and ornery.

This is basically Britpop, cool that it finally made it to the Isle of Wight I guess (they can keep it)

― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Monday, 13 February 2023 12:25 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't think I've actually listened to any Wet Leg before seeing this video and I wasn't prepared for how much it looks and sounds like Bis

― soref, Monday, 13 February 2023 13:18 (0 seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Joe Hisashi soundtrack for 'A Scene At The Sea',

soundtracking my next hour - cheers!

This DJ Sofa track is great!

it's one of my fave scores, and maybe top 5 films of all time, its a beauty and unlike any other Takeshi Kitano film

Listening to DJ Sofa now...idk this may be toooo much a straight-up studied 1994 ardkore-jungle retread. Not necessarily against that approach but tend to prefer it to sound more like a modernised homage (which I think Aquarian and a few others are managing).

DJ Sofa is nice, but am also curious what sets it apart for people from so many other intelligent/ambient jungle tracks then and now.

DJ Sofa track sounds like an identikit Good Looking Records/ Peshay b-side from '94. Too much of an homage going on for me.

If every track gets as much opining as these have then the slower pace is a good idea.

have put dj sofa on. we are indeed 3 for 3 on reactionary pastiche

(but at least this one's pastiching something good)

it's a very pleasant track for sure.

There was another Tops nom in the big playlist that I liked better - looks like it was called "Waiting."

Wait jk i might have starred that one from the 177 albums playlist. I cant keep all this shit straight.

(xposts) I nominated an Aquarian track but didn't end up voting for it. Am not really up on what's going on in modern d'n'b at all (hence only just hearing this track now) but I will admit to a soft spot for that 1994 sound.

this AI stuff is pretty wild. Were some of the prompts long?

I spent a few hours on the weekend arguing with ChatGPT. Randomly introducing cinnamon into recipes. Scoundrel.

― maf you one two (maffew12)

This was my first time fooling around with AI so there were some things I learned along the way that ended up giving me better results. For starters midjourney works remotely via discord and there’s many hidden features that I didn’t use (like ratio, chaos, stylize…) and some which I found out halfway thru the poll’s images, namely blend (which allows you to upload several images and do some style mashup for your prompt) and how to properly upload external images (like artist’d photos) to use them as a guide for the AI.

With that in mind: prompts were slightly different. Let me get home to properly search the prompts that were used in today’s run.

the sassy affected profanity in the second verse of that weg leg song makes me want to die (not in a good way)

Going ny memlory, Iirc for these three they were prompted in maxfield parrish style.

For the tops song the prompt was the opening lyrics of the song:

“Starting up
Your Chevrolet to packed crowds
Back in the heyday backfires
Like the bravado
You did your best to downplay
Your mistakes
Are sitting center stage
Just like you made them
The American way”

For DJ Sofa it was just dj sofa by maxfield parrish.

For the tops song I uploaded an image of the music video to guide it and did something like “woman at the the counter of a gas station store”

*Going by memory

Love the images so far Moka!

haha nice. Thanks.

I'm out of Hisaishi and wandered into the new Unknown Mortal Orchestra remix of "Chaise Lounge". Um... not recommended.

Btw the Spotify playlist is mislabelled 2023, not 2022

I'm getting an uncanny valley kind of feeling from these. Maybe its the images or a combination of the images and the records or the AI or make it so number one. earl grey hot

Sorry wrote tops song twice, the third example was the wet leg song.

xp
well, midjourney is the perfect tool for illustrating reactionary pastiche

we post way more about the Grammies now than we did 10 years ago, just saying

Objectively untrue! There wasn't even a dedicated Grammys thread this year, but there was 10 years ago: ok Grammys 2013, why not

That's a jjjusten irreverent liveblog ffs lol but fine, ceding this one. Maintain we seemed to CARE less

for the love of fuck, forks, save us

I know there's some benefit to this relaxed rollout pace, but I hate it so much. SO MUCH.

A poll filled with diverse picks is a thing to be celebrated and we’ve surely got that going for us with a list that includes Billboard hits, obscure novelties, Grammy winners, thirteen-minute instrumentals, hip hop, Afropop, hard bops, bleep blops, K-pop, emo rock, noise rock, pop rock, guitar rock, indie rock, folk rock, novelty rock, igneous rock, and just about everything it’s gonna taaaaeeeeeee to provide 5 1⁄2 hours of music you’ll love and hate and replay until the marrow shows through the bone.

made me smile

We’ll be posting six or seven tracks a day, Monday to Friday, over the next two weeks.

I've done the math and fear we won't be getting the top ten

We might all be wiped out in the China-US balloon wars by then.

floating, floating

c'mon insanity is setting in. left for 3 hours on Wet Leg

Lol forks where are you why are you punishing us with a slow rollout.

Just saw a car with the license plate HI POO. literally hallucinating here. well that or N London is full of weirdos

waiting so long they're now called dry leg

More than two decades into a highly successful career that started when all its members were barely in their teens, the J-Pop trio of Perfume (and their pivotally important longtime producer Yasutaka Nakata) have a finely filigreed signature city pop electrodisco sound that might evoke EDM by way of video game soundtrack boss battles for the gaijin among us. Spinning World, the debut single from PLASMA, the band’s first album in four years, represents something of a departure without breaking completely from the band’s strengths. Think Star Wars Bubblegum meets Niles and Chic and you’re in the right prefecture.

http://i.imgur.com/gvljWHP.png
#74: Perfume - Spinning World - 124 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
Video
Live

Where is the LOVE for Perfume?

AI helpfully giving the musicians in this poll extra fingers so they can play more notes.

Yesss! Voted for a different Perfume song, figured this would be the favourite though.

What's the over/under on how many songs in the rollout will have at least one #1 vote? I'm going to guess 35.

What's the over/under on how many songs in the rollout will have at least one #1 vote? I'm going to guess 35.

(Pardon my double post)

What a tune that Perfume song is

ha ha so every time perfume has shown up in these polls my brain has just assumed it was perfume genius so i was very confused when i opened the video for this song

pretty fun song though

Finally discovering Stevie Wonder is like a superpower where I can now hear him in everything! Like this, haha. It's nice tho

Perfume Genius sounds like the second season of the Perfume anime

Good rollout so far. These are mostly new to me, except the Perfume song, which I encountered during the albums roll-out, but I don't dislike any of them.

glad the album poll gave me a timely reminder to listen to plasma again

Oh cool! I was the #1 vote for this, glad it snuck into the 77.

What's with AI's inability to get fingers right?

Voted for TOPS and Perfume. Both were discoveries from going through the playlist at the beginning of the year.

The last TOPS album and the EP which Perfected Steps came from felt like a big step up for them. Their songs always sounded so nice, but this time the songwriting was so much stronger.

Hard to pick just one highlight from Plasma. The whole album is so fantastic. Always nice to see a band putting out their best work so far into their career.

Nice start this! That Perfume track really hits the spot.

DJ Sofa track makes me feel like I'm sneaker shopping, a little corny or stock like others are saying. Amens & Thinks (Amen as the base break rather than pulling it out for effect!), unadorned sines and piano, we need a little more in 202X.

TOPS are not my thing but I put them on at a party and multiple people who are into Haim and Fleetwood Mac became instant fans.

so we only get 2 or 3 more songs today eh? feels kinda meagre ngl

I'm here for the slow rollout, why rush.

If my calculations are right forks plans to do 7/8 tracks per day for 10 days

Yeah, the eoy rollouts are really only "events" we have left on ilm, and by stretching the rollout over two weeks with sporadic updates every day, it's more like watching C-SPAN than the Super Bowl.

forks should push the next song reveal back 15 minutes for every entitled whiner who complains about the pace

there may not be so much ambient jazzpiffle on the tracks rollout, so the rollout itself has gone ambient

imago should be permanently blocked from reading the thread at this point

If every track gets as much opining as these have then the slower pace is a good idea.

― abcfsk, Monday, February 13, 2023 8:03 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah this works for me, less chance of racing by something that's fun to talk about.

I think I voted for this Perfume track, which is great, but ended up prioritizing another one for the big points. This song is fresh but also has roots way back to their early days 20 years ago and some of the tracks collected on "Complete Best".

I'm no expert (didn't even realize that the jungle breaks have names) but my favorite sections of that DJ Sofa track are the busy sections with the tuned bass drum hits and the breaks and the vocal sample that comes in and out.

Nigerian amapiano star Asake’s 2022 album Ololade, released on Olamide’s YBNL indie label, had a seismic impact in Africa, Europe, and not least of all on the overwhelmingly active subsection of ILM that recognizes Africa as the most important producer of modern pop music.  I mean, they’re not wrong! Peace Be Unto You is Asake’s best-performing solo track internationally by far, breaking into the top 10 of the US Afrobeat chart.

http://i.imgur.com/m6SHrAw.png
#73: Asake - Peace Be Unto You (PBUY) - 126 points - 5 votes
Video

rolling afropop 2022
Best Naija Pop Album/EP in 2022

This follow-up to his debut single Omo Ope, which featured Olamide, and Sungba, which featured Burna Boy, lyrically samples a popular Instagram post from a Lagos State Traffic Management Authority officer where she says, “Help me help me, he taken me where I don’t know”.

that tops song is execrable.

DJ Sofa track makes me feel like I'm sneaker shopping, a little corny or stock like others are saying. Amens & Thinks (Amen as the base break rather than pulling it out for effect!), unadorned sines and piano, we need a little more in 202X.

I forgot to add bonus points for vibraslap samples though.

Yeah this isn't even the kind of d&b I liked back in the '90s

xp
the Amen break story is super interesting! there used to be a cool documentary about it online somewhere

PBUY feels very low

catching up, already seems like this is gonna be more surprising than the albums poll.

77. tops - "perfected steps": digging the yacht-y (no lil boat) vibes, and guitar-keys interplay. feels a bit like a kinder, gentler version of "ride like the wind" by christopher cross, especially in the chorus. that's not necessarily a bad thing, but i wish the vocals were stronger

76. dj sofa - "so soft": don't feel like this is as nondescript as this thread's critics are saying. love the way it builds, with the hints of the breakbeat slipping through before the full beat drops a minute in. great percussion sounds throughout, particularly like the washy crash and the vibra slaps!

75. wet leg - "ur mum": this was my least favorite song on the album, but certainly not because it lacks hooks. it's a bit annoying, but not boring.

74. perfume - "spinning world": funky and futuristic, kind of went in one ear and out the other, tho. watched the video and enjoyed the song a lot more that way!

73. asake - "pbuy": voted for this one, pretty sure it made my ranked section. it's a perfect summary of asake's whole deal, amapiano in miniature with those irresistible gang vocals, exuberant whistles, and sinuous, melancholy violins. an enthusiastic celebration of the joy we find through communal musical experiences.

I like "Ur Mom," but it's not the Wet Leg track I voted for (think I mentioned this in the WL thread, but there's something about the chord change at the end of the chorus that puts me off, fsr)

I picked a different Asake track to vote for (spoiler alert: it was my number one), but all his singles were among my most-listened to tracks of the year. PBUY would have been my second pick.

(it’s a small miracle only five of his songs/features were nominated to begin with!)

Africa as the most important producer of modern pop music

I'm synchronizing the spotify playlist to a Tidal playlist which can be found here: https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/a94e7638-b48f-4b10-89aa-5176f005bc29

Of the three Yeah Yeah Yeah’s tracks nominated for the 77, my preference was the grungier, weirder Burning.  ILM opted instead at #71 for the shimmery, eco-optimistic sludginess of Karen O in duet with chamberpop cover boy Perfume Genius.

http://i.imgur.com/qjxzYuz.png
TIE - #71: Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Perfume Genius - Spitting Off the Edge of the World - 127 points - 4 votes
Video

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cool It Down

In a statement, O said, Spitting Off the Edge of the World was inspired in part by the looming climate catastrophe. “I see the younger generations staring down this threat, and they’re standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiance,” she said. “It’s galvanizing, and there’s hope there.”

One more in an hour or so and then we'll get going again tomorrow at a more reasonable time.

ILM opted instead at #71 for

Most lifeless and disappointing 'comeback' single in years, just nothing to it at all.

I'm a massive YYY fan but this album evaporated for me.

vague sense of sonic impressiveness, doubtless the work of the featured act, but cmon we've heard this tune a zillion times before

holy shit that YYY image

Asake's album is my most played... of the past week

I thought 'Burning' was fantastic but wasn't keen on this one at all.

some of these images are making the songs seem a LOT cooler than they actually are lol

the number of fingers keeps growing though...

makes me think of crappy Gorillaz artwork when they go lifelike

the album didn't grab me but i do like this YYY song

the number of fingers keeps growing though...

i liked "fleez" from the new yyys album, but this was just ok

Midjourney doesn’t allow nsfw prompts so we’d have to look another term like short sausage man.

It gives some body horror results :

https://imgur.com/gallery/tkhjuia

I was about to get chatGPT to do some "dicks" lyrics by acting insulted at the insinuation that I was asking for anything inappropriate, and that I meant private investigators. It was pretty good.

I was able*

I haven’t really heard much TOPS but I voted for a Born At Midnite track pretty high

Midjourney doesn’t allow nsfw prompts so we’d have to look another term like short sausage man.

It gives some body horror results :

https://imgur.com/gallery/tkhjuia🕸

I know! Gave me an effing five finger hand for once.

What is that thing on the helmet? Half of a comically massive pair of sunglasses?

Would probably be willing to pay for a t-shirt with that image on it.

i didn't vote for the Asake track but it has become a big favourite these last few weeks. My dog seems to love it too as she always comes into the room when I play it. She ran out the room earlier when I listened to that Wet Leg track. :)

Asake should have won this.

Asake is still in this!

Over the past four years, Benito Ocasio has not only become one of the world’s biggest musical artists and most influential cultural figures, he’s broken into modeling, acting and professional wrestling. But he’s never been this big: four albums into his career, Bad Bunny has finally cracked the 77. With five nominated tracks, will this be the last we see of him in 2023? Ask his auntie.

http://i.imgur.com/Yb8zkTs.png
TIE - #71: Bad Bunny - Tití Me Preguntó - 127 points - 4 votes
Video

thread of bad bunny

“I remember one time—I don’t know who the hell that was, if it was Billboard, or if it was Rolling Stone—came out with a list of the best singers in history. Like, cabrón, specify that it’s of the history of the United States. Because, on that list, I didn’t see Juan Gabriel, I didn’t see Vicente Fernández, I didn’t see Tito Rodríguez. Don’t refer to those artists like the greatest when we have legends in our Latin American music. And that’s the pure truth. Why are they called a legend and I can’t compare them to this one? Because they’re American? Because they sing in English?”

Next round tomorrow!

loving the moebius-style art

I love 'Spitting...' - "COWARDS...here's the Sun..." name a better opening lyric from last year I'll wait (for your equally acceptable responses)

Yeah Bad Bunny image was in moebius style and it came out pretty cool imho

I love the poll so far. I love the slowness, I love that it came after albums, and I love love love the images. It's cool that it's so different this year. And I just have to say thank you to the poll runners, you put not only an enormous amount of work into it, but clearly put so much thought into it as well, even though it feels like our taste is getting sillier and sillier each year. So far it's a good thing though. I don't have a lot to say about the songs, except that the DJ Sofa is really cool, and that Asake obviously is incredible. I doubt he has more tracks on the poll, though, the album - again, objectively speaking the best and most important album of the year - is such a coherent work of art that I never considered voting for a single track. I'm rooting for Rema to take it. Thought Fireboy DML had a chance, but apparently people felt Peru was 2021.

"titi mi pregunto" is a banger

*me

actually half-considered voting for this one, I too vaunt its bangerness

“Last Last” will def place, I have high hopes for “Girlfriend”, and maybe, just maybe “Ku Lo Sa” might sneak in

xp to Fred

The one I'm unsure about, but really really rooting for, is Jaiye Foreign. But that's probably impossible.

As someone who regularly misses 90% of the conversation due to sleep and then feels it’s difficult to catch up, I’m also appreciating the new pace.

Loving the snail on Karen O's jacket

What's with AI's inability to get fingers right?

― Indexed, Monday, February 13, 2023 10:01 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Here's a short explanation:

Generative artificial intelligence that’s trained on billions of images scraped from the internet, Winger-Bearskin explained, does not really understand what a “hand” is, at least not in the way it connects anatomically to a human body.

“It’s just looking at how hands are represented” in the images that it has been trained on, she said. “Hands, in images, are quite nuanced,” she adds. “They’re usually holding on to something. Or sometimes, they’re holding on to another person.”

In the photographs, paintings, and screenshots that AI learns from, hands may be holding onto drapery or clutching a microphone. They may be waving or facing the camera in a way where just a few fingers are visible. Or they may be balled up into fists where no fingers are visible.

“In images, hands are rarely like this,” Winger-Bearskin said, holding up her hands with fingers spread apart. “If they were like this in all images, the AI would be able to reproduce them perfectly.” AI, she said, needs to understand what it is to have a human body, how exactly hands are connected to it, and what their constraints are.

tops song rules. i was glad to see ppl discovering it on the voting thread, and sad to see the haters itt

i like having some of it in my time zone, but if anything could potentially benefit from a slightly slower pace it'd be the albums rollout not the tracks idk, the slower pace here is a little disappointing especially after the delays - if you're busy please ask for help

#75: Wet Leg - Ur Mum - makes me miss "chaise longue" which i still find pretty annoying
#74: Perfume - Spinning World - perfume getting funky was a fantastic move
#73: Asake - Peace Be Unto You (PBUY) - voted for a different asake track ("organize") but hard to go wrong with him
#71: Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Perfume Genius - Spitting Off the Edge of the World - some of the other yyys tracks were decent but this one's nothing, no idea why perfume genius is even here either
#71: Bad Bunny - Tití Me Preguntó - could have voted for this, goes hard

I feel that there is a lesson in that for all of us.

kind of hesitant to say this, but-

i really appreciate the slow rollout. i prefer it. for full disclosure, i sometimes have avoided participating in past polls because of my inability to keep up with the rollout. there have been times where i was just finishing my reply to seeing what #3 was only to hit submit and see that the rest of the rollout had happened, #1 had been revealed, and folks were posting their ballots. i know it doesn't revolve around me (a particularly long-winded fucker, at that). i know i'm in the minority. but it does allow me to follow along with a bit more clarity (and entertainment, of course!).

that being said, i don't want these words to become meaningless through repetition but i would like to reiterate: thank you sean, moka, and forks for all of your work. the graphics look great so far. jumping back into the playlist a little later.

(and thank you everyone else for the noms+discussion. i voted for tops! yay! none of my noms have showed yet! boo!)

no idea why perfume genius is even here either

It's always sounded to me like PG is probably the chief writer. Doesn't sound like any other yyys songs, but it sounds like a bunch of his.

"so soft" is ill

Thanks, jaymc!

again, objectively speaking the best and most important album of the year

― Frederik B, Monday, February 13, 2023 1:50 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

ah yes, of course

I like the DJ Sofa track quite a bit, but broadly agree that mid-nineties drum & bass revivalism that is too close to the source material becomes less interesting to me, especially in an era when lots of producers from both inside and outside the actual d&b scene have become interested again in how to do different sorts of things with fast breaks. I do agree though that the tune is constructed very nicely.

I love (a lot of) Aquarian and voted for “Rene Likes The Steak”, but even they’re not fully free of this dynamic - something like “Death, Taxes and Hanger” which is very Metalheadz circa 1996 is excellent but still a bit less interesting to me than tracks like “Rene” or “Delicious Intent” or (best of all) “A Familiar Place”, which are more like techno messing with breaks than d&b per se.

And then there are pretty amazing tunes like “Dead Whale” or “If U Wanna” which are very clearly drum and bass but don’t really sound like any old track you could name.

Aquarian really should have just released the Mutations EPs as a single album so it could win some plaudits - both releases are close to flawless and cover so much ground.

Otherwise if I am going for d&b revivalism I will probably go sooner for silly pop stuff like the Clipz remix of “Looking at your Pager”.

"so soft"

i love dance tracks that basically split themselves in two for djs looking for different moods but still sound of a piece / make sense as a whole. the minor key hook in the second half somehow reminds me of danny wolfers or maybe that's just some vague vibe that amsterdam / netherlands dance music shares idk. nickb otm about that rhythm / bass, nice calibration, big punch.

xp in what world is 'looking at your pager' pop, a much cooler one than mine i guess lol

It's always sounded to me like PG is probably the chief writer.

weird thing is he doesn't even have a writing credit, they just got him to do backing vocals

titi me pregunto, why the slow rollout?
the slow rollout

i don't feel either type of way about the rollout speed, but hey if it scans it scans

times have changed, back in the day perfume genius would've gone uncredited and been a good fit for this thread: overqualified backing vocalists

xp in what world is 'looking at your pager' pop, a much cooler one than mine i guess lol

The Clipz remix is very much pop d&b though that is obviously a relative concept. A more obvious example might be that somewhat-recent d&b mix of Mattafix’s “Big City Life”.

xp in what world is 'looking at your pager' pop, a much cooler one than mine i guess lol

The Clipz remix is very much pop d&b though that is obviously a relative concept. A more obvious example might be that somewhat-recent d&b mix of Mattafix’s “Big City Life”.

almost everything I voted for is mid 90s jungle revivalism or “tasteful” trancey stuff

didn’t vote for dj sofa tho

enjoying the roll out pace.

i had never heard titi me pregunto, before. love it!

"titi me pregunto" was very ubiquitous in latinamerica - as pretty much every track in that album. 'Un verano sin ti" ended up becoming my most listened album of 2022 unintentionally, you couldn't escape from hearing Bad Bunny everywhere, even at children's parties.

I ended up enjoying the more chill, 'indie' adjacent tracks the most - probably because they were the least likely you'd overhear every weekend: "ojitos lindos" with Bomba Estereo and "Andrea" with Buscabulla.

well at least it's about 7436629x better than Despacito

Despacito: thank god in mexico everyone was exhausted of that one by march/april and Danny Ocean’s “me rehuso” took its place as biggest song of the summer. I wouldn’t have survived another month of Despacito

count me as another in favor of the slow rollout fwiw (not much considering i'm lurking the EOY polls this year, but js)

the AI images are crazy, i didn't know it was possible to tweak them to get so specific

"titi me pregunto" was very ubiquitous in latinamerica - as pretty much every track in that album. 'Un verano sin ti" ended up becoming my most listened album of 2022 unintentionally, you couldn't escape from hearing Bad Bunny everywhere, even at children's parties.

Since 2018 you can't step into a Uber/Lyft in Miami without hearing Bad Bunny, and "Titi Me Pregunto" was the Bunny song that made me whimper, "Uncle."

bad bunny - "auntie diaries"

I voted for a different Bad Bunny, but Titi me pregunto bangs with its chilling bass + hilarious lyrics + reggaeton sounds so good with different parts and bridges and I love that the song finishes in such a different darker place. Ey, no te enamores de mí, No te enamores de mí.

Enjoying the slow roll out too. I was looking at last year's countdown and realised I'd never really taken the time to check out all the tracks, mostly because they all (to me) appeared in one fairly fast big dump. This way I can properly listen to them and get some thoughts together :-)

TOPS - Perfected Steps
I have a feeling this will either grow on me and earn its length, or do quite the opposite. It's a satisfying listen, musically (what would you call this, indie-jazz?), but I haven't listened closely enough to the lyrics yet.
*Listens a bit longer*
Okay this is starting to outlast its welcome. I admire the musicianship but it's not going anywhere, and I'm starting to get the distinct feeling warping back to 2009.

DJ sofa - So Soft

I'm absolutely here for the jungle/garage/rave revival vibes on the whole - I like playing out jams by people like Sully, Addison Groove, LMajor etc when I DJ, but this isn't doing enough for me.

As others have said, it's not unpleasant as an exercise in liquid jungle, but it sticks way too closely to the script. I wouldn't have guessed this came out last year.

Fine for nostalgia, but my main bugbear with the whole d'n'b/jungle thing is that with certain exceptions, there's little out there to convince me that the genre didn't run into a creative cul-de-sac decades ago and still hasn't found a way out.

Wet Leg - Ur Mum
I liked Chaise Longue as much as I felt cynical about it. A fun, quirky little song that felt a bit like a meme that got way out of hand. Posh girls saying 'suck my dick' is kind of amusing. I really like the bit where she does the scream - that's very very good. I dunno, I'm on the fence about these lads - like, say, Idles, I have no problem with people enjoying them and I get it, it's just not really for me.

Perfume - Spinning World
Now this is great fun. I only ever really encounter South East Asian pop through these EOY lists and I always wonder why I don't investigate more. It seems to be a mine of creativity, fun and attitude I don't get from a lot of Western pop. This is a very fun, funky jam. I love the "announcement" at the beginning. More songs should do that.

Asake - Peace Be Unto You

The first track on the list I was already familiar with. Appeared in the lower echelons of my ballot. I like Asake's vibe, the chorus + logdrum thing works well; I would perhaps prefer a bit more bite to his sound, but it's nice enough :-)

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Spitting Off The Edge Of The World

This is the kind of music I associate with the lower numbers of ILM EOY for years now. It's been a while since I've heard Karen O's voice and it's nice to hear. That said, I don't find this song especially remarkable in this post-Susanne Sundfør world.

Bad Bunny - Titi Me Pregunto
I always assumed Bad Bunny had moved into the realm of vapid commercialised pop-reggaeton so I haven't paid much attention. This is an absolute JAM though. I really want to play this one out. Sorry Bad Bunny, I got you all wrong!

I'll just make the counter claim here that a slow rollout is clearly better for tracks than for albums. It's a pipe dream to hope that many people who didn't listen to the album originally will listen to it during the rollout, on the same day it's placing. Meanwhile, tracks are easily checked out, but if they're followed by a new one 15 minutes later a lot of people will miss it while the conversation is hot.

Allow me to make the counter counter claim that YOU ARE ALL OLD AND SLOW

and that's okay!

My main reason for not really checking out that many of the songs or albums I haven't heard before during these polls (apart from a lack of time) is that I find most people's hot takes about anything bad and awful and I can't assume that mine aren't also.

The poll needs its noisy in-the-moment blowhards as much as its thoughtful after-the-fact professors. But then I would say that! Maybe in another ten years or so I'll try to switch camps. But half the fun is being quietly put back in my box by the Tim F roundup, lol

(That said, the take isn't always hot! Many of these songs will have been on the radar already...)

Agree. I think a lot of the fun about EOY can be some of the kneejerk wrong opinions (and also ienjoyhotdogs)

Perfume and Asake are the clear standouts of the first batch

for anyone who hasn’t listened yet, the bad bunny album has like a dozen songs as fun and surprising as “titi”

“It Hit Me,” a personal treatise on desirability, didn’t seem to me like the standout cut from our #5 album of 2023. Even discounting last year’s eliminated-by-virtue-of-charting (#59) HAHA, I would rate the arch one-two punch of Esperanto and Thank You or the lyrically-stronger Blenda or Hey higher than this. None of those were even nominated though, so the song we got behind was the one Pitchfork picked for BNM. It’s not bad! But maybe take the opportunity to listen to some of the links above while you’re waiting for #69? That would be nice.

http://i.imgur.com/r11strb.png
#70: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul - It Hit Me - 128 points - 4 votes
Video

Charlotte Adigéry (Adigery)

”By tapping into the sensory details, from the thread color of Adigéry’s field hockey socks to the warm scent of Pupul’s stolen cologne, the duo turn eye-opening events from their childhood into the type of lyrical anecdotes that allow everyone at the club to dance away the weight of their own traumas.”

yeah!

and it felt like a kiss

good song

there a lot of delicious ambiguity in what exactly hit them too. maintain that these lyrics are good and not cringe, and we have over an hour to work out why

hard disagree with forks. this was the only song on that album that did it anything for me, for the simple reason that the lyrics here actually work with the music instead of ruining it.

Xpost: I don’t think there’s much ambiguity in the song? What “hits them” is puberty and the realization of sexual desire.

well yeah but also everything that comes with that

Ooh, nice. I voted for this one (plus "Blenda" last year) instead of the longplayer.

No mention of the album's most popular track, "Ceci n'est pas un cliche"? It's the only one I can get with. But I can be basic like that.

Anyway whatever you think of the lyrics, the production is some electrifying stuff, all quasi-industrial kinesis and bold vocal processing. Just listened to it again, reminded myself why I liked it so much

"Ceci n'est pas un cliche" absolutely should have been nominated

Yeah, I didn't vote for a specific track off this (did vote for the album) but I'd definitely identify this as one of my favourites. It's very insistent.

I like Carly best when the BPM starts popping and apparently y’all do too. Nods here to The Eurythmics and Divinyls are less than subtle, but no less toothsome for their brazenness.

http://i.imgur.com/oiEdwmV.png
#69: Carly Rae Jepsen - Talking to Yourself - 131 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
Video
Live

Carly Rae Jepsen • The Loneliest Time

"y'all do too"? Colour me surprised if "Western Wind" doesn't show up. Anyway great tune!

It Hit Me was my #6! Feels like a play in three acts. The final couple of minutes are my dream industrial techno sound - could easily stretch on for another ten.

Love CRJ but couldn't get into this so much.

I like the Adigery & Pupul lyrics. They're very ESL, but I don't have a problem with that. It has a certain edge.

Idk what stands out about this CRJ song even from its album. Proponents where are you

"y'all do too"?

I didn't vote but I thought "Talking to Yourself" was a standout from the album, or at least one of the most immediate songs. Never noticed the Eurythmics connection, that's neat

Topical Dancer is easily my most-disliked album of last year - and I’m someone who liked Adigéry’s earlier work (that Zandoli EP).

whatever there is to like about the music becomes irrelevant once the lyrics take center stage. they are nails-on-chalkboard bad in their ostentatious clever-cleverness. the fact that so many people with let’s say discerning taste seem to think they’re brilliant makes it all the more baffling to me, “HAHA” being the first and very grating example of this.

as for that music, hmmm, it can be good at times, but it reminds me of my own 80s post-punk/industrial/electronic/whatever past far too often and not in a good way. that’s slippery musical terrain for me.

but like I said, “It Hit Me” is the exception to all of that, so I’m glad that’s the track that’s placing here.

now let’s all have the last laugh together.

so i guess we're just not gonna talk about that AI overbite

sorry but it's a little ridiculous to critique a song for having pretentious lyrics when it the lyrics are literally just six words

and yet people deemed it brilliant!

HAHA isn't a brilliant lyric, it's a fun throwaway lyric that carries a catchy little idea for a song, and just about the only way to pull off that idea that halfway works. Maybe it IS brilliant lol

it is brilliant though. the "lyric" is a very minor part of the song, really does not affect its brilliance (or non-brilliance) at all

yeah as I said! but how else can you pull off a track that's just laughter without some pithy semi-ironic distancing I ASK YOU

i was pretty much agreeing with breastcrawl until they got to HAHA as the first example of it. that was the good one. it's just great paranoid, sleazy, drugged up dance music. the lyrics on the album are distracting and render the v good production totally inert, turning good dance music into thinky chin-stroking boredom. anyone who is listening to this album mostly for the industrialish sleaze factor should go for front de cadeaux's LP from last year instead, far superior in every way

11 of the 16 songs on Beyoncé’s (underrated at #7 on our countdown?) RENAISSANCE album were nominated for the singles poll. Is it possible that stellar track list succumbed to vote splitting such that her only placement on the countdown could be way down here at #68? It’s never wise to count out the Queen. In any case, it’s hard to complain about an occasion for a re-listen to the honey-dipped disco of VIRGO’S GROOVE, especially that “love of my life” run.

http://i.imgur.com/c6toMyh.png
#68: Beyoncé - Virgo's Groove - 132 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
Video

Beyoncé - Renaissance

"Equal parts Velvet Rope and Evelyn 'Champagne' King, Virgo’s Groove homes in on a breathless romance. “Baby, come over,” Bey coos, guaranteeing a good time over upbeat handclaps, slap bass, and airy synths co-produced by neo-soul upstart Leven Kali. She wants to cuddle, to soothe her emotions, but she also wants the heat: 'Use me, pursue me,' she purrs on the song’s bridge, dipping from sturdy lower octaves to an enraptured falsetto, fully under the sway of passion."

”With Virgo’s Groove, you can hear us in the harmonies and in the bass line. Someone described it as West Coast funk, which is just a result of us being raised in Santa Monica.”

”In fact, Virgos are known to be extremely kinky.”

why dally with Adigery's lyrics when we can have "and I need more nudity and ecstasy, oh"

I wasn’t sold on HAHA until I saw this live performance of it and it made me love them and the song even more:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8D6H2Z61jk

I spaced and didn't get a ballot in this year, but that would've been my Beyonce pick

subtext for posterity: current conversation on Pitchfork thread about lyrics and their criticism, hurrah everyone is winning

it is brilliant though. the "lyric" is a very minor part of the song, really does not affect its brilliance (or non-brilliance) at all

a track that's just laughter

laughter is not a lyric

short bit of catch up

70. charlotte adigery & bolis popul - "it hit me": i once went to see a friend's band do a show in nyc, and one of the openers did a song called "today's headlines." the band played a grinding post-punk groove, and the lead singer literally took out his phone, loaded the new york times website, and read the headlines one-by-one in an affected monotone. can't help but think of that moment whenever i listen to music from this album.

69. carly rae jepsen - "talking to yourself": voted for a different song of hers. the divinyls reference is distracting, and despite some fun production choices (little ripple heading into the guitar solo, the breakdown that follows), this song is a bit too sugary for my blood.

68. beyonce - "virgo's groove": works nicely as a launching point into the feverish second half of the album, but i think i prefer the songs on the first half as songs qua songs, if you know what i mean? idk why i'm complaining, no question this is a renaissance highlight. certainly the bloghouse-iest song on the album lol.

lol "Virgo's Groove" is open of my least favorite tracks from that record.

The gentle atmosphere in here is very MacBethish.

Paying attention to lyrics will generally make almost any song less enjoyable, this is like music listening 101, I feel like

xxp

laughter is not a lyric

In case someone was thinking about it: the ai prompt for the image was goddess Virgo / Isis which accounts to why it doesn’t look like beyoncé.

generally agree, and i don't want to re-litigate the discussion happening on multiple threads right now, but the presentation of the adigery/popul tracks makes it impossible to ignore what she's saying.

then again, i like the music of marie davidson, even tho she does basically the same thing. maybe because she's campier? idk.

xps to silverfish

Paying attention to lyrics will generally make almost any song less enjoyable, this is like music listening 101, I feel like

xxp

hold me closer
topical dancers

70. charlotte adigery & bolis popul - "it hit me": i once went to see a friend's band do a show in nyc, and one of the openers did a song called "today's headlines." the band played a grinding post-punk groove, and the lead singer literally took out his phone, loaded the new york times website, and read the headlines one-by-one in an affected monotone. can't help but think of that moment whenever i listen to music from this album.

This sounds fucking wicked. Would watch.

xps marie davidson came to my mind as well, she was kind enough to release the instrumentals though

xp it was fun, not gonna lie haha

"It Hit Me" is very very "Walk The Dog" by Laurie Anderson

70. charlotte adigery & bolis popul - "it hit me": i once went to see a friend's band do a show in nyc, and one of the openers did a song called "today's headlines." the band played a grinding post-punk groove, and the lead singer literally took out his phone, loaded the new york times website, and read the headlines one-by-one in an affected monotone. can't help but think of that moment whenever i listen to music from this album.

Not sure if you were trying to make this sound bad but I’d have probably loved it.

oh god, I really disliked that Marie Davidson album, spoken word stuff is harder to ignore. Did like the instrumental version of the album

multiple xps

Lol high five emily

yeah Marie Davidson's lyrics were not comparable to Adigery's, and definitely not to my liking lol

I still chuckle every time it gets to "Stefaan. Ended up. With Nadia"

in seventeen years i've drunk 25,000 beers

Since we seem to want to talk about lyrics, Genius informs me that “Don’t wanna be nice / I don’t wanna be nice,” the opening lines of Canadian dream pop punk band Alvvays’ (pronounced “always” in case you were wondering) curiously titled Pomeranian Spinster “state the overall nonconformist and unapologetic feel of this song” and that kinda insight is exactly how you get that VC funding. I’d venture that PS would be twice as listenable if it were half as long but, if this is your jam, I bet you won’t mind.

http://i.imgur.com/ALId7Ox.png
#67: Alvvays - Pomeranian Spinster - 135 points - 4 votes
Video

Alvvays

Rankin calls Pomeranian Spinster “probably my most prickly song. Maybe it’s a shy person talking to themselves in the mirror,” she says, before remembering a better comparison point: “You know in Seinfeld when George has all these comebacks for this person and he brings it up at the board meeting two days later and everyone is really bothered by it?”

i love alvvays. i pronounce it alvays because i am trying out a sultry dracula thing these days.

beautiful pic

Love this song, it is indeed my jam (and I def. don't agree about the length!)

(I have no idea what the lyrix mean, but that Seinfeld thing is funny...)

yeah I'm with treeship on the correct pronunciation

I fiercely loathe generative AI art, but I admit I smiled at that image

don't quite understand the american southwest background lol

presumably from the Maxfield Parrish prompt

No one has anything else to say about how awesome this song is(?!)

Not I

we place stuff like this every year

exactly like this

Wasn't totally sold on the first few singles from this Alvvays album, but this song scratched the itch for me (and didn't sound much like anything on their first 2 albums).

xp Point me to it, I must have missed it! :D

"pomeranian spinster" is pretty good, the only song from the album that really stuck with me. not particularly unique, but a fun, snotty bit of nosie pop

All the songs today are from albums I voted for but none of them are my favourite tracks.

When Talking To Myself came out as a single, it was the moment I stopped worrying about the album after how much I disliked Beach House. I voted for the Rufus duet which I'm hoping is still to come.

I'm surprised which Alvvays songs have been picked out as highlights. This one and Belinda Says which won the Pitchfork list feel like lesser songs on the album to me. After The Earthquake and Pressed are the ones I keep going back to.

Catching up from yesterday, I'm glad to see others were underwhelmed by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. The first single sounded like Karen guesting on a fairly average Perfume Genius song and the other two songs I can remember (Burning and Wolf) don't lift off like they should (unlike Zero and Heads Will Roll). It came across like a fleshed out EP that they didn't have time to properly finish. It was better than Mosquito, but not by much. Easily my biggest disappointment of last year.

xp Point me to it, I must have missed it! :D

― unknown blues singer (morrisp)

I mean, it's more Alvvays - feels like they've placed in tracks every year for the last five years.

I like this beyoncé song but, at the risk of getting a shoe thrown my way by they bey brigade, it makes me want to listen to something like Victoria Monet’s Jaguar instead.

I don't particularly dislike Alvvays but I do wonder why ILx loves them quite so much. The image, however, is one of my favourites of this run so far.

xp to self

feels weird to me to complain about the song's length? it's 3 and half minutes, which is a perfectly normal and reasonable length for a pop song

I mean, it's more Alvvays - feels like they've placed in tracks every year for the last five years.

With songs that sound like this(?) Not that I've noticed... I don't even really care for any other songs on this album. This one, though...!

I mean, it's more Alvvays - feels like they've placed in tracks every year for the last five years.

― emil.y,

This was their first new music in five years though.

Ha, I knew facts would prove me wrong on whether or not they had. I maintain that it feels like they have, though.

If this was a Ramones-like jam that ended at the first coda I might’ve been more inclined to be enchanted. Good rule of thumb is get off the stage once they start applauding.

(Sorry if sound bratty, btw... it's just so rare that I track I voted for shows up in these polls, I was psyched for some discussion, and everyone's like – "Interesting art," lol)

Something about the chord changes has a specific galvanizing effect on me

(also – "first coda"?)

The pause at 2.13

Many of you will recognize Noah ‘Panda Bear’ Lennox as a founding member of longtime ILM-faves Animal Collective, the band who put the “A” in “GAPDY.” He is joined on Edge of the Edge, and throughout the collaborative doo-wop-meets-BK-indie Reset LP, by elder alt-rocker Peter ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember of Spacemen 3. The bed of this track is Randy and the Rainbows’ 1963 one-hit wonder Denise, but my notes read “Peggy Sue, as produced by The Magnetic Fields.” What do YOUR notes say?

http://i.imgur.com/7vNbdM0.png
TIE - #65: Panda Bear and Sonic Boom - Edge of the Edge - 135 points - 6 votes
Video

Panda Bear- Person Pitch

”But its buoyant spirit starts to feel uncanny when the sentimentalism of Lennox’s vocals is disrupted by the jarring buzz of a dial-up internet modem. Its obsolete trill mixes with glittering synths and doo-wop harmonies until this Beach Boys–inspired reverie feels less like a Pacific coast cruise than a bad trip inside a SoCal Radio Shack. “

xp ...you mean when it kicks into the tension-building bridge, followed by a kickin' reprise + gtr solo??

If that’s how it hit you, sure!

this is a friendly reminder that animal collective are in many ways both the progenitors and the standard-bearers of the sort of offensively dreary neo-psych nothingness that fucking blights modern indie with its fucking oooh-oooh, its fucking basic chord-sequences, its fucking VIBES. gloves off let's do this

idk if you read the description but these chords are literally from 1963

basic chord sequences can be fun tho?

how many chords are sufficient to make a good song?

urban outfitters was founded in 1970, they probably played the original too!

this one in particular is definitely more of a song than a vibe. the melody is really inventive, love the way it climbs with big interval leaps, and wraps back around on itself in the chorus

didn't vote for it, but i almost did

Basic chord sequences? Whatever, good enough for Randy and the Rainbows (and Blondie). I love how they made a dreamy psych-pop gem from this source.

how many chords are sufficient to make a good song?

― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 18:11 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

it isn't how many obviously, but this is a gentle, complacent, posi-vibes cod-spiritual sequence we've heard a zillion million times over. they could have chosen any song and they chose this one, because it fits the narcotised drifting-off-into-the-cottonwool-void vibes

and oh good people are posting now. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

yeah i mean we've heard it millions of times since 1963, when this song came out lol

you can either appreciate the song that lennox wrote over the building block, or not, but seems like it should be acknowledged that this is a tape loop.

the song over the top is like...he sings notes that are very consonant with the chord loop, and goes up an octave to indicate a chorus. there are some bleepy bloopy noises to indicate that it is Well Psychedelic. cmon where is the songwriting

it's a strong melody, interval leaps all over the place, but you seem to have made up your mind

it has taken a few listens but i'm happy to concede that there's something going on with the insistent go-around of the songwriting here, and some fun brief production touches (such as the bit a minute in). talking about the alvvays song obv, and yeah it should end when forks says it should

Imagine using chord tones

I didn't get round to the album but am listening now and this rules. Screw you imago!

we place stuff like this every year

― imago, Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:25 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

exactly like this

― imago, Tuesday, February 14, 2023 11:25 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s the same people voting every year so unless you think their tastes and preferences are going to change drastically from year to year i’m not sure what you expect to happen

>:P

This is quite friendly

The video is extremely unfriendly

I'm realizing now that I have been conflating Alvvays and CHVRCHES.

The lead single from Chicago postpunk genzer trio Horsegirl’s debut album (#51 on this year’s poll) is a morose and melodic thrash which does what it set out to do, no more but certainly no less.

http://i.imgur.com/z3ntZlY.png
TIE - #65: Horsegirl - Anti-glory
135 points - 6 votes
Video

Horsegirl (RIYL: Cat Power, Mercury Rev, Galaxie 500...)

”The original song was in our heavy shoe gaze phase.”

”We’d love for somebody to listen to our album and say, “That’s so punk rock.” It’s not punk rock, but it’s so punk rock.”

great image!

Song is cool, image is fantastic!

Yeah, I’m not an AI or fan myself, but that’s cool (and given the band name, I feared the worst before clicking…!)

Voted for this one. They're cool kids!

Fully behind this one. It's an adventure!

Didn't know these, sounds good enough to check out the album

Also it puts many of the UK post-punk revivalists to shame, even though it's aiming much more at 90s fx-board psychonauts. Well done America etc etc

I like the verses well enough, but the jagged chorus part in the middle ("Dance! Dance!") – or is it the bridge? – doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the song for me.

They've got good songwriting sense, plus they know they're part of a musical lineage, and they're in conversation with it. Maybe it's a Chicago mindset.

I like the verses well enough, but the jagged chorus part in the middle ("Dance! Dance!") – or is it the bridge? – doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the song for me.

― unknown blues singer (morrisp), Tuesday, February 14, 2023 2:02 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

agreed, they should should "horse! horse!" instead

*should shout

lol I think that would have genuinely worked on me

everything is sounding p bland & inoffensive to me this rollout...am I becoming imago? :/

feel like this is a good place for the formalist indie stuff to show up, so i'm not mad

yes here for the 12 minute wobblies i haven't heard before that usually appear around now

oh I'm not mad either (I swear lol). especially being second, the tracks poll is purely a lark

I was hoping for some cool bobbins too, but forks did say "rock" a lot in his OP

There are bobbins en route

I wish I’d gotten anything out of that Sonic Boom/Panda Bear LP, two listens and just never returned to it

South African amapiano producer Vigro Deep goes, well, DEEP in this space-age, oscillating bop. Asijabule rapidly develops beyond the standard percussion intro into an exceptionally protean seven-minute club jam, buoyed up with velvet crooning from the vocalists (and noteworthy producers) Murumba Pitch.

http://i.imgur.com/5lexnMy.png
#64: Vigro Deep ft. Murumba Pitch & Lady Du - Asijabule - 136 points - 3 votes
Video

drowning in a blissful ocean of log drums and keys: 🎹🎹 amapiano a-z 🎹🎹 an ilm poll
rolling afropop 2022

That octave-jump on the word "trash" during the Panda Bear song (at 2:55) is the most Brian Wilson thing i've heard in years.

wow that must have been an enthusiastic trio of voters

This is really good. Love the contrast between the slow-floaty/pumped-up club bits.

just cos i enjoy poking bears with sticks: imago, I really don't see how that horsegirl song is any more acceptable to you than whoever it was you were criticising upthread for being "musical reactionaries". no diss on this song which I don't feel particularly strongly about either way, but seriously it could've come out any time in the last 40 years. what is the difference between this and Tops other than a given set of stylistic preferences? it might be a better song - who knows? - but if you're going to make 'drawing too heavily from the past' an infringement of your aesthetic rules, then I think you might need to get a VAR check on this one

Asijabule song is great, love how it feels like two different songs mixed together.

speaking only for myself: I will cop to often having strong negative reactions to music I see as "derivative," while being totally unbothered by it in lots of other cases. Having realized this, I try not to use pastiche as a final verdict, but it is p hard (e.g., my unposted reaction to Horsegirl was: boy this is derivative, next)

I gave up following amapiano last year (I gave Crush Yam a vote though), but Asijabule is v cool

xxp I had the same curiosity re: imago's enthusiasm there (but def. didn't want to poke that bear myself)

discovered this excellent track from the amapiano poll thread linked.

we just want consistency of refereeing clive xp

Same, I'm not usually into pastiche-y or classicist electronic music, but I'm fine with a lot of music that uses a convincingly spare & tasteful '70s palette (for r&b, funk, 'indie', etc).

xp

wooooooooahhh!!!! my number two! was secretly hoping this might sneak in, because several people on the piano poll thread grew to really love it - but I didn’t campaign for it although I had planned to (a function of my general ILM half-assedness I’m afraid).

no other track shook me to my foundations last year the way “Asijabule” did#
the voice of Murumba Pitch is one of the most beautiful in amapiano right now (hell, in all of music), and the way it floats in and out here is incredibly moving and soothing. the structure may seem jarring and disjointed at first, but the contrast/conflict with Lady Du’s hyped-up sections actually enhance the track, I feel. serenity giving way to chaos and back again.

#well, there was one other (that I doubt will place)

talk about half-assedness: I actually started a thread about this song back in May and then basically ghosted it, because I wasn’t able to compose a good enough reply to Tim F’s post on it - and then just left it be, for shame

and I didn’t even mention Vigro Deep, who is one of amapiano’s foundational producers, but whose work I don’t always wholeheartedly love (recent album being an example of that).

and what a beautiful image again, Moka! what was the input here?

"Anti-Glory" is the first thing off my ballot to place. Really love that song, especially the snaky, woozy guitar line in the intro. I know they're derivative, but they're deriving well.

Asijabule! My favourite amapiano tune of last year. I said this on the other thread but it's the perfect balance of light and dark

love "asijabule" and the artwork

Man I love this song. Was very high up on my ballot. The sweet, serene, almost Sade-esque male sections buckling under the tough AF female rap, then washing back into beauty only to be overwhelmed by a torrent of wordless gasps and breaths. It's super powerful in way only amapiano could be

last one for today, much more to come!

Yeah and great artwork. I'd love that blown up to poster size, wouldn't lie

Singer/songwriter Alex G’s debut track on the 77 from his #63 album has been a runaway train of success that sounds awfully familiar. Anyways, that’s neither here nor there.

http://i.imgur.com/DZmmFvx.png
#63: Alex G - Runner - 137 points - 6 votes
Video
Sorry, I meant “Video”
Alex g Sandy

”Among piano chords, murmurs and a single wail, Alex G gives us an unlikely summer anthem that reveals the seedy underbelly of the idyllic season”

”Indie rock’s normcore hero”

More non-Soul Asylum based hits

*Among piano chords*, murmurs and a single wail, Alex G gives us an unlikely summer anthem that reveals the seedy underbelly of the idyllic season.

!=?

Didn't vote for it but love "Runner"

so, what did you think breastcrawl?

and what a beautiful image again, Moka! what was the input here?

― i saw mommy kissing twink henry kissinger (breastcrawl)

Thanks! So for this one I fed the AI a photo of Vigro Deep - the first one in here: https://9jadaily.com/vigro-deep-biography-age-profile-songs-net-worth/ - and iirc I used something like: “img reference” + in South African city + by giraud moebius.

just cos i enjoy poking bears with sticks: imago, I really don't see how that horsegirl song is any more acceptable to you than whoever it was you were criticising upthread for being "musical reactionaries". no diss on this song which I don't feel particularly strongly about either way, but seriously it could've come out any time in the last 40 years. what is the difference between this and Tops other than a given set of stylistic preferences? it might be a better song - who knows? - but if you're going to make 'drawing too heavily from the past' an infringement of your aesthetic rules, then I think you might need to get a VAR check on this one

― o shit the sheriff (NickB), Tuesday, 14 February 2023 19:42 (fifty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

poke achieved! um well the way I see it, TOPS are doing something completely by the book, total facsimile of a very 'rested' sort of music achieved (and fair enough if you like that restedness, it is intelligible as a balm), whereas Horsegirl are adopting techniques used by bands who were, sure, edgy and forward-thinking 30 years ago, but they're twisting them into slightly unpredictable song-structures, chord sequences that don't feel totally prescribed...maybe this is a horrific double standard but it feels like they're not lovingly recreating so much as renewing the quest. I didn't vote for them and I regard them as more promising than anything else, but they're making imo fairly adventurous indie rock, UNLIKE A FEW THINGS HERE

ah, that’s funny, that one was the closest pic of him I could find, didn’t know it could be twisted around like that, but that’s AI for ya, I guess. cool stuff!

xp

so, what did you think breastcrawl?

are you calling me on my Alex G bluff?

haha I was! and I mostly agree with you, though somewhat perversely I thought it ended too abruptly

"runner" >> "runaway train" imo

great song, but a song that is remarkably similar to an alt rock radio hit from 1993 is not exactly gonna convince anyone who was worried about derivative indie placing in the poll haha

need to poll the two

It doesn't sound like Runaway Train that much to me. For one thing, Runaway Train sucks and this is good.

It's just that first line of each verse

Like, if that one melodic phrase was removed, I don't think people would be saying this sounds like Soul Asylum, even if it maybe does a little?

tearing up the tracks: runaway train vs runner

My kid — not well versed in Soul Asylum or Alex G — walked through the room while "Runner: was playing and immediately started singing "Runaway train never blah blah ..." — not making fun of it, it's what song he thought it was. Still catchy all these years later tho.

#77: TOPS - Perfected Steps - 120 points - 5 votes
#76: DJ Sofa - So Soft - 121 points - 5 votes
#75: Wet Leg - Ur Mum - 123 points - 4 votes
#74: Perfume - Spinning World - 124 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#73: Asake - Peace Be Unto You (PBUY) - 126 points - 5 votes
TIE - #71: Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Perfume Genius - Spitting Off the Edge of the World - 127 points - 4 votes
TIE - #71: Bad Bunny - Tití Me Preguntó - 127 points - 4 votes
#70: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul - It Hit Me - 128 points - 4 votes
#69: Carly Rae Jepsen - Talking to Yourself - 131 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#68: Beyoncé - Virgo's Groove - 132 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#67: Alvvays - Pomeranian Spinster - 135 points - 4 votes
TIE - #65: Panda Bear and Sonic Boom - Edge of the Edge - 135 points - 6 votes
TIE - #65: Horsegirl - Anti-glory - 135 points - 6 votes
#64: Vigro Deep ft. Murumba Pitch & Lady Du - Asijabule - 136 points - 3 votes
#63: Alex G - Runner - 137 points - 6 votes

I can't listen to "Runner" and not think of the melody from Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train"

"Asijabule" is cool. I definitely should be more experienced with this genre by now.

In contrast I *have* dabbled with the Amerindie placing overnight, but this is probably the last time I'll hear any of it lol.

I can't listen to "Runner" and not think of the melody from Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train

Runner was on my ballot, because this poll isn't dad enough.
(is it written from the perspective of a dog??)

I too thought it was from the perspective of a dog at first but I think it is actually about his drug dealer.

I nominated a bunch of these but instead voted for "Western Wind" and "Burning" and.

Love this Panda Bear song and can't explain why. Agree with forks there's something of the Magnetic Fields about this. The insistently repeating synth line I guess? Certainly the cricket noises at the end.

I thought my Animal Collective liking days were far behind me but this Paul Simon / 'Holland'-era Beach Boys pastiche by Panda Bear is lovely. Really like it

A lot more indie rock and a lot less pop qua pop on this poll than usual in this poll so far

No strong feelings about Alvvays, Horsegirl or Alex G at this stage. Just not for me. The Carly Rae song is nothingy compared to last efforts

obviously at this stage of the poll we are tilting at the choices of just a few people, sometimes as few as 3 of you, so i do feel a teensy bit bad calling something RUBBISH and TERRIBLE but what can I say, that Panda Bear song flipped my Tame Impala alarm

which makes me wonder why on earth I haven't gone harder in recruiting just 1 or 2 more likeminded ones to join the quest. we'd be feasting on the lower reaches if so. FEASTING

wonder how many #1 picks are in the 77 - suspect mine languishes around the 100 mark

My #1's not even my nom but I will be rapturously flummoxed if it appears

not an amapiano dude by quite so many means, but the segue from Runner into Asijabule is nice, i do like those little playlist accidents

(also when Tim F spoke of the objectionably abrupt and unconsidered nature of hot takes...again, my Panda Bear hot take was 18 years of 'okay, will I like THIS Animal Collective thing NO IT'S BLEEPY DRECK AGAIN' in the making, soz lol)

I don't really think it's fair to compare Panda Bear negatively to Tame Impala really. Granted, his band's work was tangentially responsible for spawning that whole psych/folk/rock craze in the late 2000s but they were first and arguably a whole lot more creative about it. If anything they're cribbing from similar 60s/70s influences here

Still think Sung Tongs is a masterpiece. Never really jibed fully with their later "bleepy" style

derivative indie placing in the poll

less piffle, more bobbins!
less piffle, more bobbins!

honestly, the chances of me liking an indie track that is 5 minutes of the same unchanging chord loop are pretty much nil, I hardly regard this sort of thing as music even, so when I lump it in with soft-neo-psych Tame Impala vibesy drivel it's a lazy lumping, granted - it's all stuff which feels to me like it gestures winsomely towards the profound without putting in any mental effort to achieve it

i have been generally liking the bobbins that's been placing over the last few years, i too would like more bobbins. BOBBINS PLS

and not even just bobbins elevated by having awesome Belgian lyrics over the top!

the chances of me liking an indie track that is 5 minutes of the same unchanging chord loop are pretty much nil, I hardly regard this sort of thing as music even

what about a hip-hop track that keeps the same beat for five minutes? or a two chord krautrocm song a la neu?

hip-hop has a literal unfolding narrative framed by lyrics and delivery, kosmische tends to feature a play of dynamics, shifting intensity, the subtle creation of otherworldliness, can't hear any of that here. a dialup modem is not uncanny lol, no matter how much it tries to signify it

anyway why are you talking about hip-hop and krautrock like they're separate things

Yes, why are you talking about hip-hop and krautrock like they're separate things?

ok lmao

Honestly that post wasn't even making any kind of point, I just love that Parappa the Rapper has the same piano riff as 'Turtles Have Short Legs' and bring it up any chance I get.

um

(Parappa thing is amazing though)

While everyone decides whether the Panda Bear track is actually music (I say... yes), I was surprised they made the tracks poll while the album stalled at #78.

LJ's username is "imago" not "everyone"

the good piano news is that I can see Paris on the horizon

- plus Crush Yam, if heaven allows

(and, Last but not least, maybe even one more?)

LJ's username is "imago" not "everyone"

Contrary to any grousing, I listened to the playlist-so-far last night and even though I only voted for one of them I liked most of the tracks and found it overall a sporty, spiffy collection. Looking forward to more.

(I even like the Panda Bear/Sonic Boom track, despite having the same objections to bleepcore Animal Collective as many others.)

Adore that Parappa the Rapper song

The Panda Bear/Sonic Boom album was a pandemic project; they found themselves listening to old 50s/60s songs like "Denise" during lockdown and became interested in the warmth of the recordings and songwriting that they felt was unique to that period. They decided to write new music around the opening chords of a few of them to try to channel those vibes into something new.

I'm sure words like "warmth" and "vibes" are going to go down about as well with imago as Mike Pence seeing a woman who's not his wife at dinner.

save us forks!

My album of 2021 was the Lil Ugly Mane album, which used old-timey samples to create a psychedelic 'vibe' that was tragic and transcendental, not mere warmthness pablum :p

but yes, save us!

Xpost: Find it odd if that’s the explanation behind the album since this is pretty much Person Pitch Vol. 2, it’s not as if Panda Bear just found out looping 50’s and 60’s can sound amazing.

Iirc for Person Pitch he was listening to a lot of hip hop and electronic music, which sparked the interest of doing sample loops to write songs on top off.

Didn't like any PB from last year. Did like 'Playing The Long Game' for some reason.

They talked about it in some interview I read but I went back to the Bandcamp description. Seems this was more Sonic Boom-instigated.

Sonic Boom’s notion was simple enough: After lugging his records to Portugal years ago, his fascination was renewed by old favorites and standards he had not heard in years. Something struck him, the way the ornate intros by Eddie Cochran or the Everly Brothers felt largely like stage curtains, compelling in their own right even if they had very little to do with the hits that followed. Sonic Boom began crafting loops from these preambles, twisting and bending the parts like scrap metal before sending them onto Panda Bear.

The kernel of Reset emerged not long after international lockdowns began. If making it supplied temporary medicine for the duo, it is now permanently so for the rest of us, a reminder that sometimes playing and singing along to old favorites with friends can be enough to make the world feel a bit better.

Those of you who thought you dodged a lot of PB/SB talk in the albums poll had better... "reset."

the Panda Bear is his most Brian Wilson sounding thing yet imo.

it's a lame, simplified simulacrum though

evidence of Panda Bear being able to compose songs by structuring chords in a manner even vaguely comparable to Good Vibrations or God Only Knows, my desk, pronto

it's my birthday week I'm allowed to be Rockist

Xpost: lol wouldn’t have guessed Sonic Boom was the one behind the loops.

Loved Person Pitch. Reset came too late (or too early?) in my life for me. I liked it a lot but didn’t really revisit it much… I think it would’ve been easily one of my favorite albums of the year idk a decade ago.

Kinda getting worried about forks

I wasn't bowled over by Reset but maybe I should give it another try, Person Pitch has steadfastly remained my favourite AnCo-related thing.

Person Pitch is one of my favorite albums of the 00's and this does nothing for me. They share similar sonic qualities, but that's about it. Reset's more traditional pop song structures. Person Pitch's long, stitched-together, looping sequences and offbeat samples (bubbling water, hooting owls, etc.) make it a more interesting listen. I also think it's easy to remember the first few tracks and forget how murky and dark some of that album is.

Just realized https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS3tNHYdvoA these guys were the Panda Bear and Sonic Boom of the late 80s.

Sorry, didn't mean to embed the video.

Please don't take this the wrong way, imago, but I do sometimes wonder when you talk about chord sequences being interesting or not... do you actually hear a song and identify what chords are being played and like, say, if they're in Lydian mode or have a diminished 7th or something? Or do you just go by a general vibe of if it sounds interesting to you?

(The latter is absolutely what I do, I may be a musician under some definitions of the term, but my pitch hearing is atrocious and my musicological ability fairly poor.)

Lol that is on point

Xpost to chris’s yt video

xxp Oh the latter ofc! No idea what a Lydian is, but I know a juicy modulation when I hear it

If I knew music theory I'd be even more insufferable, think about THAT

FORKS

Okay, so basically when you're critiquing someone's ability you're actually just saying 'I don't like the way this sounds and I'm going to assume it's because their technique is poor and not just because it's not to my taste'. Got it!

If I knew music theory I'd be even more insufferable, think about THAT

Never change, imago <3

Person Pitch is one of my favorite albums of the 00's and this does nothing for me. They share similar sonic qualities, but that's about it. Reset's more traditional pop song structures. Person Pitch's long, stitched-together, looping sequences and offbeat samples (bubbling water, hooting owls, etc.) make it a more interesting listen. I also think it's easy to remember the first few tracks and forget how murky and dark some of that album is.

― Indexed

Yeah agree that Reset felt more like the “pop” version of Person Pitch. Probably the reason it didn’t make me come back as much. The template was familiar and it works but there wasn’t as much mystery in the music itself.

I'd argue there is a middle ground where you can identify the presence of more complex chord sequences, harmonies or modes without being able to identify the specific chords, harmonies, or modes being employed. Whether the presence of such make a piece of music better or worse is a different matter entirely.

I'm never critiquing a musician's ability! (Plenty of amazing musicians whose work I dislike and vice versa.) Only their imagination and taste, lol

seems somehow relevant

imago: you’d probably hate it too but maybe give Person Pitch a listen. There’s much more going on, it’s more of a “collage” of samples than simple loops.

Sweet, airy and delicately charged as low voltage candy floss, Morrison’s breezy ballad has all the accessibility and crossover appeal of a Glass Animals song. Lest that sounds like I am damning it with faint praise, give it a quick spin and see if it doesn’t work equally well for your pre-brunch warmup, post break-up morale boosting, or entertaining your non-Spanish-speaking grandma with “what the kids are listening to.”

http://i.imgur.com/XnX0yOQ.png
#62: Carla Morrison - Diamantes - 138 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
Video

Carla Morrison — Amor Supremo (2015)

“This career is so demanding, I had no idea who I was as a person anymore. I was also scared and defensive, because that part of my life had destroyed me. But this two-year break of not writing or touring really helped me heal. It’s like I had to die in order to come back. I thought, ‘If I were to write again, it would be in baby steps.'”

Yay! Great song :)

The vocoder backing vocals make this song for me

It's a very pretty song, if not the sort of thing I usually go for. And then everything is improved by the addition of vocodered backing vocals, oh yes.

xpost with Moka - another high five!

Still think Person Pitch is cobblers

is that good or bad?

it's peaches

Diamantes was my no.1. It’s absolutely delightful.

Lol high five emily

Yeah this is not my kind of song but the vocoder vocals won me over. I appreciate how tasteful and subtle they are, but I actually wish they were higher in the mix, they’re easily heard in one part of the song but they’re all over it. Didn’t noticed them the first time I heard it.

Regretting not voting for this one right now.

I need to thank whoever posted this in the rolling summer jams 2022 thread (I never would’ve discovered it otherwise).

Never got around to this album but this song and "Contigo" are both great, the latter's chorus always reminds me of that Glasser track "Home."

oh hello

"diamantes" is lovely, hadn't heard it before

the verse melody is intensely familiar, can't quite figure out what it's reminding me of

come on eileen

Still think Person Pitch is cobblers

― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, February 15, 2023 4:12 PM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

is that good or bad?

― Muad'Doob (Moodles), Wednesday, February 15, 2023 4:13 PM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I like a lot of PB and AC's work but Person Pitch just sounds like the kind of mess someone comes up with when they first buy a loop pedal and don't know what to do with it yet

the verse melody is intensely familiar, can't quite figure out what it's reminding me of

no to both

Smalltown Boy?

It’s a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything when I say Moobles’ post

When I saw

Carla Morrison excels at making super simple songs memorable. I still can't believe that Disfruto is nearing 700 million views on YT. Diamantes is like an upbeat slightly faster version of all her songs and it works really well. Glad that I brought it to place, even though it hardly counts as a summer jam lol.

For my money, _the_ Beabadoobee song of the year was the perfect pair, a spunky samba that showcases her ability to make a lot out of a little. Talk represents the flip side of that coin, blasting multiple curtains of fuzz, smashing percussion and guitar effects as blown-in insulation to swaddle Beabadoobee’s disarmingly delicate voice. I am hearing Avril without the petulance, Olivia Rodrigo sans bravado. What’s left is a lot, an evocation of an internal voice amplified in density to match the emotion’s intensity.

http://i.imgur.com/aZLCHB2.png
#61: Beabadoobee - Talk - 139 points - 5 votes
Video

the indie-ish singer-songwriter known as Beabadoobee

“Forget the bedroom sweet-sounding pop songs from Patched Up, Bea is now showing all of her confidence and she wants to talk about ‘doing things that aren’t necessarily healthy or great for you, but you can’t help indulging’.” 

we place stuff like this every year day

― imago, Tuesday, 14 February 2023 17:25 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

FR, this is a sound ILM loves for better or worse

please enjoy the next hour of:

very standard US indie with slightly elevated presentation?
― imago, Friday, March 25, 2022

gtfo
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Friday, March 25, 2022

AI did Bea's underarm dirty

And apparently imago and I were born in the same week. Cheers. Always good to follow someone who's just slightly more insufferable than yourself, although his kind is very much of the enjoyable kind :)

the verse melody is intensely familiar, can't quite figure out what it's reminding me of

Hopefully won‘t be a FP, but it reminds me of Near Wild Heaven.

Nothing that has placed was in my “longlist” yet… I tried as hard as I could this time but only got about half way through the nominations and then noticed it was too late to vote :D

ftr i listened to the Carla Morrison song a few times and it was better each time, vocoder bridge is A+

I'm just surprised at how high 'Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes' must be, we're at #61 already!

i don't hate the sound of this beabadoobee song but it's pretty boring melodically and beabadoobee is one of the worst band/artist names i've ever seen, to the point where i can't imagine how anyone felt comfortable voting for something with the name "beabadoobee"

Beabadoobee song reminds me of Veruca Salt more than anything else.

not even Chewshabadoo voted for it!

xp

Talk is the first of mine to place! That single gave me high hopes for the album, but I thought it was a bit uneven. I love how mechanized her shoegaze sounds, like half of the noise is digitalized distortion, while it's still extremely catchy. She'll make a great album someday.

This is fairly catchy. That's my hot take.

Hopefully won‘t be a FP, but it reminds me of Near Wild Heaven.

― Chewshabadoo, Wednesday, February 15, 2023 12:20 PM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

haha this is the closest, but i doubt if i'll ever figure out exactly what i was thinking

This track is so basic and the multitracked vocals on the final chorus are grating. Sounds like bad Weezer. "10:36" is pretty good though.

I'm wondering what the audience is for Talk

Another big thumbs up for Carla Morrison from me, for what it‘s worth (very little!)

A sophomore release can be an opportunity to explore (and monetize) new personae. With Pull Up, Koffee has a go at her first love song, particularly choppy waters for a 23-year-old star who has thus far gone out of her way to avoid sexualization. The result is musically crisp but a bit thematically generic: she’s not impressed by your bankroll, you will never find another gyal like her, she can’t keep her eyes off of you, etc etc. Koffee’s proven herself a generational talent and has a penchant for keeping her cards close; perhaps, by leaving the specifics genderless and inexplicit, she’s keeping her options open for the future?

http://i.imgur.com/An3ks13.png
#60: Koffee - Pull Up - 139 points - 6 votes
Video

gratitude is a must: the Koffee thread

”A winning meetup with the producer and Afroswing maven JAE5, is one of the album’s liveliest celebrations of life and love, elevated by a swirling sax line that winds around Koffee’s jubilant closing hook.”

wow Carla Morrison count me in

best chorus of the year. my #3

koffee seems to place every year, but it's always pretty good, this is no different

how massive a star could she be in the world at large i wonder, she seems to have be an ILM banker for ages but a paltry (compared to a lot of stars) 11m views on that video seem to indicate she has a way to go before household recognition is possible. but she brings quality every time

she sold out a 3500 cap venue in nyc, but still hasn’t reached the hot 100

she def has more motion than any new dancehall/reggae act in a while

yeah, i was gonna say that she's huge as far as live ticket sales go. her newest thing is a jessie reyez/sam smith song, maybe that will do it for radio?
The Gunna and J Hus and Bieber features were all very big for her.

Love "Pull Up," voted for it. Not her first love song tho! "Lockdown" made the 2020 77.

Granted "Lockdown" is also a broader pandemic song, but I mean ...

Put yuh body pon lockdown, mmm
You got me pon lock now
You got my passion on lock, woah

i wouldn't argue that she hasn't touched on romantic issues in other songs but pull up feels to me like her first song devoted to love

also a generally sweeter riddim and approach

The Soft Pink Truth is an AKA for erstwhile ILXor Drew Daniels, best known as the shorter half of the wonderfully omnivorous experimental duo Matmos (not to be confused with another erstwhile ILXor, Momus). SPT’s central defining characteristic is whimsy, not genre specificity; over the years, Drew has produced lovingly rendered covers of songs by Venom, Coil, Minor Threat, and Vanity 6. Is It Going to Get Any Deeper Than This?, our recently anointed #11 album, blows up and reconstructs house music with playful caprice at its foundation. Our pick for this countdown, Sunwash is a plump and proggy slice of berry pie, gently warmed on the windowsill until it has begun to sweat a bit. I am hearing a bit of Steve Reich and Ashra and LCD Soundsystem and Wendy Carlos and DJ Koze and plenty more but mainly I’m hearing Drew having a good time and inviting us to join in. How very kind!

http://i.imgur.com/dmSv4fi.png
#59: The Soft Pink Truth - Sunwash - 140 points - 5 votes
Video

Soft Pink Truth -- Why Do the Heathen Rage?

”The thirteen-minute drone piano piece 'Sunwash' soaks up the light jazz and neo-classical elements that have peaked through so far, and pours them out over an alien synth arpeggio. It's restless and comforting, like lying in the hot sun for a whole weekend.”

i'd say "lockdown" is sweeter and more devoted to lasting love than "pull up," which is more about an intense in-the-moment attraction

I have a different take on Lockdown but could be! I think the notes on playing it careful still apply to everything she's done.

Very little venn overlap with the ILM audience, but Koffee headlined Boomtown last year. If she's not quite a household name, she's definitely one of Jamaica's biggest crossover stars

i don't hate the sound of this beabadoobee song but it's pretty boring melodically and beabadoobee is one of the worst band/artist names i've ever seen, to the point where i can't imagine how anyone felt comfortable voting for something with the name "beabadoobee"

― na (NA), Wednesday, February 15, 2023 11:27 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Just hearing this one for the first time. Maybe not my favorite song of hers -- I prefer "Last Day on Earth" and "Care" -- but I like it well enough.

re Koffee: i like the playfulness of "show you what me Lex'/Legs can do"

Amazing 2022 for soft pink truth releases

#59 is my first track to place!

having your tracks place is for the weak

Pull Up is my first infidelity to Koffee, I still like it but didn't vote for it.

The Soft Pink Truth image is in the style of Hilma Af Klint... with more abstract concepts (such as this or 'diamantes') it usually interpreted her style as colorful, round shapes. further up in the poll when paired with images of the artists it gave some very trippy results.

I fooled around a bit more with AI after the images for the poll were already completed with Bill Traylor's style and it gave some very charming results, I didn't end up using them but I'll share them either way. This was then the alternate image for 'soft pink truth - sunwashed' in bill traylor's style:

https://i.imgur.com/PqdxsW3.png

af klint is a good stylistic companion to the soft pink truth, has the cosmic feel

Connection with your horsegirl image!
Xp

Yeah I like how that one turned out, these are the variations on it...

https://i.imgur.com/6ZySNyM.png

For some artists I did sooo many variations in different styles and prompts... I might have not chosen the most interesting ones half of the time tbh... I'm not sure how to even share them but if there's interest I'll find a way to do an album with them.

https://i.imgur.com/739Jmxs.png

home was among my favorite finds of the pre-poll, one of those songs that announces on contact that it intends to take up permanent residence in the back of your head. Beginning with a hyper-caffeinated stampede of digital horses, Two Shell’s manic gumbo of shimmering vocals, unpredictable percussion and bonkers Percolator-esque synths flails in defiance of the song’s insistent and mammoth drive. Something is owed here to PC Music, but unlike its predecessors’ relatively better known songs, home never feels compelled to break character. Two Shell’s recently released new single, love him, suggests the vibe is replicable and that the London duo are destined to become more prominent voices in 2023.

http://i.imgur.com/U0vDHlx.png
#58: Two Shell - home - 140 points - 6 votes
Video

Current bobbins

Juke-spiked jungle pop riding high at 160 BPM, hitting like a flood of dopamine. Caffeine-jitter drums, a wobbly melody and a pitched-up vocal lifted from Chinah's "Away From Me" look back to the rich post-dubstep era (around 2011) when every new anthem was based around some audacious vocal sample. And like those tracks, home feels big.

It's on a whole different style but the sample for 'home' comes from Chinah's 'away from me' which I find very charming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM-gImQT2SE

crap didn't meant to embed sorry

This is cute

fuck cute tbh

Everything Two Shell put out last year was quality, and "Home" was tops. Recommended for runners.

quite enjoy this. in the battle of the UK bobbins, this definitely sounds more au courant than DJ Sofa (even if the latter's piece has more...body?)

Voted two shell, first of my votes to appear

Love the ep, but they sound very annoying as people lol

oh how so?

quite enjoy this. in the battle of the UK bobbins, this definitely sounds more au courant than DJ Sofa (even if the latter's piece has more...body?)

Everything Two Shell put out last year was quality, and "Home" was tops. Recommended for runners.

― Indexed, Wednesday, 15 February 2023 19:37 (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

can verify, have run to this several ttimes. first of mine to place

xp yeah but the style

And now for something completely different: every year almost without fail, ILM organically rallies around at least one unknown song, often but not always discovered during the pre-poll campaigning period. This year’s surprise grass roots breakout is a bit of navel-gazing silliness from the German-by-way-of-New-Jersey novelty microlabel Strategic Tape Reserve. Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes, the only song in the 77 available digitally only on Bandcamp, is a nearly eight minute free-form set of absurdist math-based monologues punctuated by the cheers of children and backed by a rudimentary electronic loop. If this seems an arbitrary and willfully abstruse pick to highlight on our VERY serious poll, what can I tell you? It outscored Beyoncé.

http://i.imgur.com/W00yAWS.png
#57: The Center for Understanding New Trigonometries - Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes - 141 points - 5 votes
Bandcamp

Strategic Tape Reserve is a confusing lil’ joy that sometimes feels more like a moving box full of basement-lived VHS tapes than a cassette label. Even their logo has control track damage. The tapes look like they smell mossy and are described with ceremonial chunkiness: “In full compliance with most international regulations in relation to the trafficking of ferrous materials,” Hamill wrote of the label’s first release “the Strategic Tape Reserve is now able to disseminate its inaugural commercial offering, The Modern Door Live cassette album.”

WHAT

Voted this too
This label rules

Didn't even need (or get) my help! As a shape expert, I know when a song is destined for the 77 regardless

I really wasn't expecting this to make it! High fives to all my shape experts!

I voted for this, really enjoyable

maybe the weird stuff is destined for the midsection of the tracks poll, as with albums!

It's our Andrea Riseborough pick

AFter a pretty long stretch of tracks the last couple of days which pretty do nothing for me this is very much appreciated

TOO LOW

The bit where it goes into slowed-down Katie Melua kills me every time.

NOTE: this is a high-level program of study and is NOT suitable for beginners. Please make sure you are familiar with the basic shapes (rectangle, etc) before attempting to listen to this track.

where do i collect my medal for separating a square from a circle?

Nice

anyone have other strategic tape reserve releases they'd recommend?

A veteran of the 77 from 2012 (#7) and 2013 (#11 and #17), model and pop singer-songwriter Sky Ferreira’s 10 year drought between 77 placements is (I think?) second only to Joy Orbison’s 12 year pause before his boomeranging back in 2021. Don’t Forget is Ferreira’s first solo headlining release since 2019 and is meant to herald the release of her much delayed second album.

http://i.imgur.com/bhkLdXg.png
#56: Sky Ferreira - Don't Forget - 143 points - 5 votes
Video

SKY FERREIRA

“It’s a ridiculously long time, really, and it’s put me in this position where I feel like I have to be Fiona Apple or something. And I’m not Fiona Apple. I don’t feel like I’m a genius or anything. I also don’t have millions of dollars behind me or a gigantic team of people, and I never have. People are gonna get so mad if I say it’s DIY, ’cause they'll be like, Oh, she’s on a major label, but in reality, it kind of is.”

https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/visiting-places-learning-by-listening-vol-5

Personal fav
Xp

Do we post tracks like this every year? I forget.

Lots of good stuff from STR, but I recommend the HAWN album (top track: 'Strange Vision')
https://strategictapereserve.bandcamp.com/album/for-a-ride

only every 10 years xp

re that long interval:
not implying *anything* with this question, but has Utada Hikaru ever placed a song in the 77 before, and if so when?

this year probably

trying to establish a potential imterval here, work with me now

Although Utada has been massively popular before (in Japan and the world) I don't think any tracks registered at ILM in that way before.

thanks for the s.t.r. recs, emil.y and nxd

If Yeah Yeah Yeahs didn't place with anything from Mosquito, wouldn't it have been 13 years since whatever made it from It's Blitz?

anyone have other strategic tape reserve releases they'd recommend?

Their tweets mostly

the photo used for Sky Ferreira….. isn’t Sky Ferreira….

lmao

i mean, that's not a photograph...

Lol it was so hard to get a sky ferreira lookalike, i’ll post the variations when i get home.

There were closer ones but images got all fucked up when upscaled, wonky eyes and weird mouths

sky ferreira song is fun, but slight imo. my fav parts are the parts that sound like david essex's "rock on"

Here’s an album of several AI sky ferreiras

https://imgur.com/gallery/k7HjnCD

The opening image is the reference

Should have used a different reference image in retrospective.

You're doing a great job Moka, thank you for all the work.

Last one for today

Last seen at the #8 spot on our album countdown, New Zealand power pop band The Beths is the group most everybody on ILM kinda likes but no one would get in a fight over. It’s tempting to suggest that The Beth’s sunny sound and sing-song vocals don’t inspire zealousness among the cognoscenti the same way that something less polished but more innovative might. I’ll let ILM’s own Stevie D provide the best rejoinder I’ve seen to that argument:

On paper they DO seem sort of paint-by-numbers but there is a je ne sais quoi about them, the harmonies are so perfect, the melodies are so perfect, they make so many smart and efficient decisions in their songwriting and instrument playing. They’re kind of like The New Pornographers where they do something seemingly simple but they do it so fucking well that when you step back and go “wait, surely there are tons of other bands that sound like this but WHO?” you can’t come up with anything bcz no one is doing it nearly as well as they are. This band is the epitome of a bolt of something indefinable that elevates songs from competent to great

#77: TOPS - Perfected Steps - 120 points - 5 votes
#76: DJ Sofa - So Soft - 121 points - 5 votes
#75: Wet Leg - Ur Mum - 123 points - 4 votes
#74: Perfume - Spinning World - 124 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#73: Asake - Peace Be Unto You (PBUY) - 126 points - 5 votes
TIE - #71: Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Perfume Genius - Spitting Off the Edge of the World - 127 points - 4 votes
TIE - #71: Bad Bunny - Tití Me Preguntó - 127 points - 4 votes
#70: Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul - It Hit Me - 128 points - 4 votes
#69: Carly Rae Jepsen - Talking to Yourself - 131 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#68: Beyoncé - Virgo's Groove - 132 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#67: Alvvays - Pomeranian Spinster - 135 points - 4 votes
TIE - #65: Panda Bear and Sonic Boom - Edge of the Edge - 135 points - 6 votes
TIE - #65: Horsegirl - Anti-glory - 135 points - 6 votes
#64: Vigro Deep ft. Murumba Pitch & Lady Du - Asijabule - 136 points - 3 votes
#63: Alex G - Runner - 137 points - 6 votes
#62: Carla Morrison - Diamantes - 138 points - 4 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
#61: beabadoobee - Talk - 139 points - 5 votes
#60: Koffee - Pull Up - 139 points - 6 votes
#59: The Soft Pink Truth - Sunwash - 140 points - 5 votes
#58: Two Shell - Home - 140 points - 6 votes
#57: The Center for Understanding New Trigonometries - Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes - 141 points - 5 votes
#56: Sky Ferreira - Don't Forget - 143 points - 5 votes
#55: The Beths - Silence is Golden - 144 points - 6 votes

I voted for the Beths album but no tracks — but this is the one I would have!

I agree with the above assessment that The Beths are really good at what they do and although I have never voted for them I don’t mind their inevitable yearly spots at the top 77.

oops i forgot to vote for this one. didn't love the album but this single was great

"silence is golden" is so good and so heavy. the shape of pop-punk to come

my #4

All very well saying 'having your votes place is for the weak' and then one of your votes places lol. low on my ballot but it is a damned Banger my friends, it Rules

In fact, this is way lower than I expected! Rest of the album is fine, this towers above it (not to mention anything else Of This Nature from 2022). Take it from me, these are good, good chords ;)

(but really, the rhythm, the soloing, the harmonies, the songwriting, the dynamic shifts, the surprises, the PERFORMANCE of the whole thing too, it shows what can be done with modern pop-rock, absolute lightning in a bottle stuff)

For future reference, according to the internet, the "good chords" in "Silence Is Golden" are mostly B variants.

Obviously I was being facetious - lovely as the chord sequences are, a lot of the fun comes from the consonance and dissonance between the two guitars - often playing very different things!

Seriously though, are we going to be able to buy full-size prints of our favourite Moka artworks when this is over? Because I would pay reasonably good money

New Zealand power pop band The Beths is the group most everybody on ILM kinda likes but no one would get in a fight over.

I assume this is a joke(?), as there was most definitely a fight about liking them (or not) in the Beths thread last year!

This Shapes thing is the best thing I've heard in a very long time

Lol doglatin, can’t take much credit since I was more of a “curator”, AI did all the heavy lifting.

Still

Damn, completely forgot about "Common Shapes...". That's very much the sort of twaddle I could get behind. Possibly a victim of my heinous Sp*tify-centrism during these things.

Still haven't listened to the Soft Pink Truth record very thoroughly. This track again suggests I really should have.

I did manage to vote for Koffee though, from this lot. Yaaay, etc, etc.

"Silence is Golden" has been reminding me of "Out of Routine" by Idlewild

feel like Bethsheads would be well served by The Remote Part

lovely as the chord sequences are, a lot of the fun comes from the consonance and dissonance between the two guitars - often playing very different things!

Another Television echo (if maybe as passed down from Sleater-Kinney).

woah @ a STR Learning by Listening track making the 77. Well done, ILM. I recommend STR’s twitter account too, very droll.

Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes, the only song in the 77 available digitally only on Bandcamp

Bought by like 100 people in the world. And only mentioned on ilxor.com here and on the nominations thread. FAP conspiracy?!

"Silence is Golden" my #2. Some surprising artists seemingly already out of the running.

Two Shell my discovery of the day! Added to workout playlist. Look forward to playing more of theirs.

Can't remember why I had images turned off, but the prettiness of this thread has forced a change of settings...

"Silence is Golden" my #2. Some surprising artists seemingly already out of the running.

― maf you one two (maffew12)

Hoping that Expert In A Dying Field is still to come.

naaaa. outside chance for "Knees Deep"

I'm betting that's it for the Beths. Though I'd love to be wrong about that.

dammit I wish I had known about Common Shapes and Uncommon Shapes I would have so voted for that

Sorry but a day later "Runner" still sounds like "Runaway Train."

never going back

Koffee "Pull Up" is a great song and I uh spaced out and forgot to vote for it .

I went to check the chords to 'Silence Is Golden' fully expecting to make fun of imago, but they kinda are good, I think? Yeah, the verse is variations on B, but then the chorus goes E-A-G-F#-E and then back to B. There's a couple of chords foreign to both E (the G and F#) and B (the A and G, but F# is the dominant, making it feel so good when it goes back to B a while after), making it unclear what key the song is even in (though I'd say B? Except all the 'variations' makes it seem less like the home key) Anyway, I'm no expert either, but it's pretty inventive, right?

Fully expect the Beths' title track to be top 30, or I don't know my ILM