ILM’s Top 77 Tracks of 2018

anyway, i heard you liked ariana grande so...

http://i.imgur.com/bz4ihHo.jpg

5: Ariana Grande – “No Tears Left to Cry” – 596 points – 19 votes – 3 first place votes
video

Ariana Grande - AG4 (2018 album)

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=25434

I cried the first time I heard this, sobs so big and violent that I was glad I work from home so nobody could hear me. The Manchester attack shook me more than many other terrorist attacks, in part because I’ve always viewed pop music as a sacred space: when I’m listening to my favorite songs, nothing bad can ever happen to me, and I’m forever angry that thousands of people had that joy snatched away from them. I expected a sweeping, mournful ballad from Ariana as her comeback tune, and was delighted to get a dance number that stares hatred down in the face and refuses to give in. We’ve heard protest pop over the past year, but I can’t think of many, if any songs, this effervescent and fun and hopeful. I didn’t know mainstream pop could be this defiant, to be honest. It’s a brave and bold move, and I love it. – Alex Clifton

A disco song half-submerged in pop-radio melancholy, the sort from “Disturbia,” “Say It Right,” and — particularly on the verses — the brooding synth chords from “Don’t Play It Safe.” But only half-submerged; it’s never quite joyous, never totally moody and charged, though the resulting tension does tilt it toward that end. I guess the “loving living” (no “laughing”?) bit is this single’s “become who I really are.” - Katherine St Asaph

wow big jump

5th best song of the year, huh.

i do love this song

it's a good song

no complaints here

#78 must be Kali Uchis

idgi at all.

this ones more than 20% better

three doubles, has that happened before?

So happy to see Overtime in the top ten and a high placing for "Pienso...". Rooting for Itgehane as a surprise winner.

#78 must be Kali Uchis

― forrest drumpf (Eric H.), Thursday, January 31, 2019 4:12 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

considering all the back-to-back placements, i would not be shocked

still room for 2 more doubles

I think this is the fourth double, isn't it?

xposts wasn't #77 Kali Uchis lol

That's the joke.

mcbain voice that's the joke

lol

No Tears is a banger.

i like the chorus bit that sounds like a bridge

“No Tears” still sounds as great to me now as it did the night it premiered! Hasn’t lost anything with time.

And to think that just a few years ago I was complaining how lim was snubbing Ariana when ‘piano’, ‘baby i’ and ‘the way’ were all ignored, despite them being better than these 2

I love No Tears Left To Cry, but for a while it was slightly tainted by how disappointing her album was.

Huge hooray for Jessie Ware making the top 10. I liked the Glassheart album plenty, but hearing her do a banger like this just felt so right. Apparently she's already got half the album done and it's going to be similar in spirit to this single. Can't wait!

5: Ariana Grande – “No Tears Left to Cry”
6: Ariana Grande – “thank u, next
12: Rosalía – “Malamente
13: Rosalía – “Pienso en tu mirá”
26: The 1975 – “Give Yourself a Try”
27: The 1975 - “TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME
38: Simmy featuring Sun-El Musician – “Ubala”
39: Simmy – “Umahlalela”

surely it couldn't happen again...

lol here it comes

Is this the part where the 1975 wins 1 and 2 and then the site goes down permanently?

Yes this is the fourth double... might be a record:

Simmy, the 1975, Rosaliia and Ariana so far.

I don’t know stats from previous years but this year’s results have also been fronted by women led acts in almost 70%

Also the year with most LGBT winners?

Yes.

xp

This Is America has definitely been 78ed.

Forgot there was a Jessie Ware song at all this year tbh but overjoyed to see her make the Top 10 with what is clearly her best song in years.

and ILM has been 75'ed

two sada baby tracks coming right up

very excited for the Tropical Fuck Storm hat trick

Yesss

Look who showed up!

Fake Love by Wizkid must be #1!

Holding out for that bloom and my my my double

#1 = BB
#2 = Alarms
#3 = Song to a Succulent

http://i.imgur.com/q82gDc5.jpg

4: Lana Del Rey – “Venice Bitch” – 674 points – 19 votes – 4 first place votes
video

Lana Del Rey

She reminds me of Roxy Music a lot and this is her “Mother Of Pearl”. – kornrulez6969

“Venice Bitch" is not a second too long. It's a wonderful song ballad flowing gracefully that takes its time. There is indeed an early Mark Kozelek vibe in there. – alex in mainhattan

“Venice Beach”’s mood and guitars remind me of “Les Fleurs” by Minnie Ripperton; it’s oddly elegant. - Moka

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=26341

From its first lines, this feels overwhelming and intimate all at once, like finding a diary in the ruins of an ancient city. “Venice Bitch” still works on every level, with its psychedelic, proggy form, studded with guitar solos and synth breaks and false outros pairing perfectly with the kaleidoscopic, fractured lyric that Lana delivers, a sort of “Tangled Up In Blue” pastiche. She’s in prime form here, finally reaching a sort of apotheosis of the sepia-tinged love and obsession tales of the American West that she’s always told, delivering it with the exact combination of sincerity and camp that it deserves. – Jacob Sujin Kuppermann

Short pop songs are a product of format constraints and capitalism, so let’s be happy that any established pop artist is deciding to make her ten-minute track into a single. Fortunately for us, “Venice Bitch” finds Lana Del Rey at her most convincing. Her songs are somnolent drugs meant to slip listeners into a nostalgic bliss, a falsely created America that is nonetheless a panacea for troubling times. The future looks grim, so why not pine for an ostensibly better past we weren’t able to experience? Her music is thus a peculiar problematization through embrace; the myopic liberalism that shouts “America is still great,” she is not. On “Venice Bitch,” Lana Del Rey finally transmits the failure of “American-made” patriotism by capturing the final flickers of summer — the most American of seasons, surely. In the song’s first half, she’s at her most achingly romantic. Accompanied by her least tiresome arrangement to date, her vocal melodies swell with a grace that has you believing in these idealistic images of old: “You’re in the yard, I light the fire”; “You write, I tour, we make it work”; “Give me Hallmark: one dream, one life, one lover.” Her pouting and sass flesh out the persona and performance, contributing to the lyrics’ believability. Before long, it transforms into meandering psychedelia complete with wonky synth melodies and skronking guitars. It’s in this meditative stretch that one can envision the onset of fall. The reddish-browns of leaves, the subtle shock of crisp air, the warmth of layered clothing — they overtake the golden hue of summer twilight, leaving it beyond the point of periphery. What initially feels like words to a song suddenly becomes palpable when out of focus. The source of all emotional weight has transferred to something strictly instrumental and we’re faced with this transitory place between art and life, past and present, imaginary and real. As “Venice Bitch” closes, we hear Lana deliver a final line: “If you weren’t mine, I’d be jealous of your love.” It’s here that we fully recognize that this love she spoke of was never really hers — that is, Elizabeth Woolridge Grant’s. The American Dream was really just that. – Joshua Minsoo Kim

Unreserved love for “No Tears Left To Cry”

we’re way too fly to partake in all this hate, we’re out here vibin’, we’re vibin’, we’re VIII-bin’

WOOOOO

ahhhh fuck i had a meeting from 230 to 4 and i was like "well at least we're done for the day"

that was a lot of rollout to miss

anyway, nobody too low

this is def going to be my highest placing vote

LDR i lurve her

wow @ 4 #1s!!

This is actually quite nice

Decent. Gonna mention Weyes Blood again and leave it there. ILM be selectively listenin'

venice bitch the best ldr track ever

boo'd up
itgehane
love it if we made it

would love any combination of these three tbh

I was being a dick pro forma re: 'No Tears Left to Cry', it's actually a good song.

'Venice Bitch' is alright. No Weyes Blood, that's for sure.

2xp