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?

14 voters deciding the best song of 2022 for all of ILM … what is this, a U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION?

ILM 2022 Tracks Poll: The Battle of Ballads: Verse Your Ballot and Join the Rhyme-Fueled Debate!

Thanks again pollrunners! Couldn't even vaguely follow the thread this week so I have much reading, image-gazing and playlist-listening in my future...

I guess I haven't been paying attention (and I didn't vote this year), but I'm a little surprised "Break My Soul" didn't make it. I don't have strong feelings about Beyonce, but that song has always struck me as an undeniable jam. Did people just want to avoid the obvious critical favorite?

I'm surprised it didn't make it but I don't especially like the song either so

I'm guessing everyone picked their favorite cut on the Beyonce album and split the votes (I had a different one on mine, Break My Soul is definitely not my fave).

as far as Beyoncé in 2023 goes (and as someone that listed Renaissance as #1 in the album poll) I would only have countenanced a vote for the Queens Remix of "Break My Soul", despite the original technically being my most played track of 2022 (this is because it was released before the album, so I played it a bit then, and then once the album itself arrived it demanded a complete listen from beginning to end every single time, so, there wasn't much opportunity for any other track to beat it out in scrobble count).

A great song but I'd pick, like, 12 other tracks from the album over it easily. "Cuff It" not getting a single vote is more surprising to me honestly.

"Cuff It" wasn't nommed

I spent barely seconds on nominations this time, but I doubt I've had two of them ("Saoko" and "Gary Asby") making the top 100 before. Finger secretly very much on the pulse, lol.

I'm surprised it didn't make it but I don't especially like the song either so

― the forces of darkness making making us laugh ourselves into DEATH?? (dog latin), Wednesday, February 22, 2023 7:11 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sorry, "Cuff It" was nommed. I guess the only way to know is to show all posts on the nominations thread.

Giving my head a shake.

ILX is officially an anti-Beyonce zone

great poll outcome, sick images and excellent work as always from our pollrunners!

Wait … Kate Bush was used as a prop herein?

Do you wanna know that it didn't hurt her?

I was out for the end of the rollout but enjoyed it all. I think 14 things off my ballot placed, so no complaints from me. Curious, is this the least Anglo-American top 10 ever?

I don't quite the rationale of all the fake-outs... seems there's plenty of reaction/argument over the actual placements anyway, and the fakes don't really generate an "extra" response or do anything except cause confusion(?) A friend who's been monitoring the Spotify playlist had to ask me if certain ones were real (after he brought up "Bruno," I said no, that's fake)... and I got Drake wrong, didn't realize that was a fake-out. What's the point(?)

Just my 2c... thanks to the poll-runners, as always!

Beyonce album made the top 10 so I don’t think ILM is anti-beyonce, it got vote splitted. Also I don’t really follow her but as an outsider I didn’t see any singles - other than “break my soul” - being pushed?

I’m checking her youtube page and I don’t see any music videos for any other song

There isn’t even a video for “break my soul” just a visualizer and a cliquebait video whatever that means.

The ongoing lack of Renaissance music videos (presumably, due to protracted contractual negotiations with a streaming giant - it seems like she needs their cash before she can release them) has been a source of great agony for all Beyoncé fans over the last ~7 months. There was also a rumour that the videos for all songs had to be reworked in December as Beyoncé wasn’t happy with the final cuts.

Anyway, “Cuff It” is currently in the Billboard top 10 so I think it counts as a bona fide hit.

annoyed that I'll be travelling when GIRLFRIEND wins

― rob, Monday, February 20, 2023 3:18 PM (two days ago)

well dang, I did not expect this joke post to turn true wtf

I don't really have time to post right now, but what a result, amazing!, genuinely bummed I was on a long-ass flight for today and didn't get to celebrate with yall

big big thanks to forks, Moka, and seandalai as ever

not that surprised that "break my soul" didn't place given that people here were a little underwhelmed by it overall, and there wasn't another big single to rally around ("cuff it" was pushed to radio a few months after the album but didn't get a big promo push with a video or anything) which is why "virgo's groove" ended up the closest to a consensus pick

i am a bit surprised kendrick got vote-split so badly though because i loved "the heart part 5" but didn't care for most of the album, and it was the pre-album single (even though it wasn't actually on the album)

Hahaha my placeholder images for tests were Saoko and The Heart Pt 5. Thought Kendrick Lamar was a lock and was unsure about Rosalia.

'break my soul' is excellent f the haters. and the terry hunter remix is where it's at imo.

Yeah I was the same with "The Heart part 5" — it set me up for an album that wasn't the album he released, and I mostly like it better than anything on the album. (I considered voting for "N95" too.)

Rich Spirit has become one of my fave KL tracks. Love the sound design on that one.

But after that one The Heart was my favorite one of the tracks released last year.

two favourite tracks of the year placed 1&2 tho i would have had them the other way round (voting crept up and past me unfortunately).

having, slightly unexpectedly seen charlotte adigéry et pal last week, can confirm live it all works really well. certainly better than the belgian jive bunny bullshit that headlined.

saw Alewya last night and it was *so fresh* with an amazing crowd, but iirc the one i woulda coulda shoulda voted for turned out to be 2021.

anyway, really good poll rundown imo - thanks to moka, fct etc!

Wow. We won. Congrats, everyone!

I was one of the "Break My Soul" voters and considered it one of the standout pop songs of 2022, weak rap verse and all, but was thrilled to see a track I didn't know finish at #1. Always nice to walk away from these with a dozen or more discoveries, and this was definitely one of those years.

Many thanks, poll runners. Loved the images this year and spent way more time staring at them than usual. 3 or 4 thumbs up.

🪬

listening to the spotify list now...really great stuff

nia archives is amazing as is daliwonga
really like the weyes blood song, they are better in small doses for me

Speaking of Weyes Blood, I was surprised only 2 people (including me) voted for "Grapevine." I know there was an underwhelmed reaction to the album but that song just washes over you.

Oh wow, I missed that there is a Nia Archives in addition to Sudan Archives.

People had archive fever in 2022

yeah is there some pop culture thing with "archives" i don't know about or is it just a coincidence?

Seems like just a weird coincidence, since I think it comes from Sudan Archives was studying ethnomusicology?

Loool

tha nia archives x sudan archives link up just happened 2day n let me tell ya we made a mazzaaaaa pic.twitter.com/eEm2BPlfMM

— Nia Archives (@archives_nia) February 23, 2023

wow, that's great and what a coincidence!

shd form a group called 'archives' and call the album 'nominative determinism' imo

thx 2 pollrunners! (and voters)

Despite the slow roll-out pace, I still didn't manage to comment while it was running. Just wanted to say that I've discovered lots of interesting music and read some great and insightful comments. So well done, everybody!

Yes, thanks all, without fail I always discover great new stuff in the poll.

The tracks I keep coming back to ITT that I didn't previously know are:

High School In Jakarta, Anti-Hero, This Is Why, Munch, 23, Expert In A Dying Field, Holiday, Edge of the Edge

I don't like Step By Step much but the Axel Boman remix is really good.

I do love the original but yeah, that Boman remix gives off pure Bangalter/Falcon vibes

forgot to vote and just caught up today. but I hadn't heard the Shabason & Krgovich song before and its great, gives me very One AM Radio vibes.

Just listened to "Girlfriend" again and, well, let's not piss about. It is the best isn't it

finally finished listening to the results recently, and... great job ilm, for real. i'm not sure why, but i enjoyed nearly all the placing tracks that i hadn't previously heard, certainly not a typical response for me to any poll. idk, maybe having listened to much less music than usual this past year, and not being too enthused abt most of the mainstream stuff that crossed my awareness w/ no effort on my end, has made me more enthusiastic to belatedly enjoy some things. thank y'all for continuing to have great taste even when the conversations aren't quite as busy + dunderheads like me can't bother to figure out which threads to keep even minimally plugged into throughout the year

my ballot only had like 20 songs on it and was frankly rather reflective of my very limited horizons this year, but a few of the songs i voted for placed and i was happy to see them. i don't think it's worth posting my ballot in the other thread but i was the #1 vote for "provenza" (the only track in the weighted section of my ballot) + i was glad to hear what y'all thought abt it, even imago's distaste for it. rly cool to see "calm down" so high, i thought i didn't know it until i clicked play and realized oh yeah it's that quite-lovely afrobeats song i've heard every now and again w/ or w/o selena gomez (lol). "last last" i also knew but didn't recall until hitting play -- frankly the toni braxton sample turned me off it for a while due to my increasing annoyance w/ ~2/3 of all radio hits in america now being reliant on samples of highly recognizable old hits, but i came to like it just fine. tho i certainly don't dislike afrobeats, i tend not to be as enthusiastic abt it as its fans on here anyhow

fav discoveries were real lies ("dream on" especially but both of the placing ones -- just getting into the album too now!) and "step by step" lol

thanks to the pollrunners and the voters for introducing me to a lot of good stuff :)

Gal I am waaaaayward

Man, I'm still so chuffed "Girlfriend" won this year. I overplayed it at the time but it just came on again and it's just the best