ILM’s Top 77 Tracks of 2018

need to get out four in the next thirty or so minutes so we're gonna have to pick it up.
LJ, here's a song for you and for you to argue with people about.

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

15: Julia Holter – “I Shall Love 2” – 296 points – 8 votes – 1 first place vote
video

Julia Holter

”I Shall Love 2” seems like a continental divide on this album; from then on the waters flow another direction. – alex in mainhattan

I've had the beginning of “I Shall Love 2” in my head all morning where her vocals are indeed very mimsy, and it's made me realize how enamored I am becoming both with this album and with those sorts of affected, contorted vocals more generally. All her albums have drawn power and dynamism from a sense of scale, that comfort and delight in personhood, the intimacy of being your small self in a vast swirling world. - ogmor

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=26319

The magical realist dreamscapes of Julia Holter’s songs are always compellingly strange. “I Shall Love 2” feels like waking up on a tropical shore, surrounded by fallen fruit and parakeets, but with the color of the sky just odd enough to make you wonder if you might, in fact, still be dreaming. It’s a fitting space for a love song, delivered without irony or trepidation; maybe this is what it’s meant to feel like? Julia, dazed and blinded by the sun, wonders “what do the angels say” and is answered by a celestial chorus; the song builds to a Deserter’s Songs-ish climax of swirling, entwining vocal parts, strings and brass, strands of the entire galaxy uniting in imperfect synchrony to celebrate her newfound love. I mean, sorry Julia, there’s no way this isn’t a dream. – Vikram Joseph

Julia Holter’s left looking pale upon facing the song’s central epiphany, and what really pushes “I Shall Love 2” is her follow-up question: “what do I do?” It peels back how truly daunting it can be to get hit by the feeling when you least expect it, and how you’re never prepared to respond to love’s arrival. The creaking music, too, sighs and crashes on its knees as powerless as Holter. The final swirling of voices that declare her breakthrough to choose love despite its known terror, then, echoes with bravery. – Ryo Miyauchi

everybody out

Not the best song on the album but I like it. Sounds a bit like a VU&N outtake.

Love this but voted for the LP instead

Oh, cool. I didn't think she'd make the tracks poll. This song is wonderful.

Julia Holter, she's great. She's been through a lot apparently w/r/t that asshole formerly from Real Estate, and i have warmer feelings towards her for personal reasons too. a friend of ours took his own life a couple years back and she was a friend of his as well, and sang a lovely song at his memorial service along w/a couple others.

Excellent - voted for the album instead but pleased to see this track place

Is this rollout always this unpleasant? The sniping is quite tiring.

― L'assie (Euler)

I don't think we've even had a proper argument break out this run. I try not to be actively mean about things but a little snark is part of the fun.

baby snark do-do-do-do

Great song, definitely an album thing for me but if I was going to pick an individual track this'd probably be it.

Re: the Beths, I can't get excited by them really but I do quite like the tracks that have placed, they remind me of now-defunct UK indiepopsters Standard Fare.

i'm frankly pleased this has been such a chatty rollout; we're poised to hit the same number of posts from the entire 2017 poll before the end of today.

[snark]overripe tin-eared avant-fluff[/snark]

(obviously you can all have at anything i rly like in this manner - but there hasn't been any for two days!)

Read that as [shark].

aaah haha

http://i.imgur.com/IySF71U.jpg

14: Sheck Wes – “Mo Bamba” – 297 points – 9 votes
video

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=26388

I saw Sheck Wes at the beginning of the summer when he played MoMA PS1’s Warmup series. He played “Mo Bamba” three times. It went off every single time. I’ve since heard “Mo Bamba” on what feels like every single dance floor that was tangentially hip-hop related, and honestly, it still goes off every time! I’m astounded that “Mo Bamba” is all build with no cathartic release, but I can’t argue with the energy this brings to a room. - Crystal Leww

“Mo Bamba” is a masterpiece of negative space. Sheck Wes gives the track the room to unfurl, to expand and contract without adhering to a strict beat or structure. The second “bamba” is what really kills me. It sounds like Sheck Wes spitting a sour taste from his mouth, then followed by a bratty string of “fuck, shit, bitch!” — an artful encapsulation of the blunt boredom of young angst, feeling like you know everything but where your next thought is going to bring you. - Ashley John

TOOO LOOOOOOOOOW

there we go

xp that Julia Holter track is really nice!

hah this comment on the Krystal Klear vid:

Jenny Higgins6 months ago (edited)

Does anybody else get a New Order vibe from this? Love it

idk if that's supposed to be sarcastic or not

Probably not.

NB for those of you who don't know better and that work in open offices that "Mo Bamba" is very much a NSFW single and (imo) best imparts whatever enjoyment you're likely to get from it at earsplitting volume

"mo bamba" my no. 3

New Order is dinosaur synthpop these days.

i'm guessing tyga's "taste" got 78'd? shame

guys mo bamba is so good

the song bangs too, lol ;) ;)

Is the rest of the album on par with 'Mo Bamba?' Liking this.

imo yes

Oh, "Future Me Hates Me" and "I Shall Love 2" are the third and fourth tracks from my ballot to place. Good to see. (I had voted for "Geyser" after all.)

Oh, "Future Me Hates Me" and "I Shall Love 2" are the third and fourth tracks from my ballot to place. Good to see. (I had voted for "Geyser" after all.)

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Thursday, January 31, 2019 1:47 PM (seven seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*dramatically fistbumps you on a beach*

Didn't hear the Holter album this year (as I have probably said many times, her doomy electronic songs were the ones that hit me and she moved away from those), but oooh the ending of that track is fucking gorgeous.

how much is a #1 vote worth? 40 points? add that to the 'future me hates me' me total and that's where it would have landed had i not been a lazy ass

mo bamba was my #2 and i prob shoulda put it as my #1

jsut checked my ballot and i had it #7 and i kinda wanna yell TOO LOW at myself????????

i mean putting mitski songs at 1-6 was probably overkill (jkjkjkjkjkjk it was only 1-2)

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

13: Rosalía – “Pienso en tu mirá” – 306 points – 10 votes – 1 first place vote
video

Rosalía (Post-Flamenco Art-Pop From Spain)

so good

lol at today's ring composition

this, as established earlier, grew on me a little

I feel like more of a tourist in this year's poll than any I can remember.

I don't dislike it, but the hype did her a disservice imho (not financially, of course).

Holter gorgeous
Sheck Wes cool
Rosalía my number #1

huh i should've voted for this, it's beautifully constructed

Not my Rosalía pick, but I won't argue.

Love that Rosalía pick but will both that one and Malamente place?? Didn’t expect her to get both songs so high!

Very good, and I guess “Malamente” is yet to come? My fave of hers is “Di mi nombre”, but I only voted for the album (too low, as I realized when I played it the next day).

I like how thug that track is

im more of a "malamente" stan

yeah that's my pick

oh yeah?