ILM’s Top 77 Tracks of 2018

Saer: I love you and you’re surely a candidate for mvp but what’s the point of following a poll for music you have completely alienated yourself from? Contests are based on lowest common denominators anyways.

The whole rollout would have been like 25% less fun without those Saer posts and it's obvious he's enjoying himself.

Zeitgeisty stuff that feels like it got completely passed over in this poll - Soundcloud rap, UK drill and afroswing, dancehall, London hipster jazz, any kind of dance music that isn't house, techno or disco. I was delighted by that Top 10 but it felt like the most Pitchforky poll in a long time.

Meanwhile I'm not convinced there's anyone who really needs even a single additional record featuring winsome female vocals over gauzy faded 80s synthpop.

I like hearing the different things, certainly the first two days and mostly the third though I kind of tire a little on the home straight.

I've no idea what is going to place and the chances are I won't have heard it before. It doesn't really matter whether I enjoy the music or not, its all valid! Its true none of my choices made it in (or even got a second vote!), but I don't know that beforehand!

Also I like the graphics, and actually I quite like the videos. The jumpsuit outfits in the Natalie Prass video were very good and also the colour palette was very nice

And every video had a play count more than 100x the population of my canton, these are entrepreneurs at work doing a bang up job at the youtube coalface, the edicts allow for the occasional downvote!

considering that they’re way too long in the tooth to be considered anything like hip, the hit rate that ninja tune have been having over the last couple of years is pretty impressive - Peggy Gou, Marie Davidson, Helena Hauff in this poll, and then Young Fathers, Bicep... probably a fair share of duds in there too that I’m blanking on, and yeah it says a lot about their pr nous/resources, but compared to xl or whoever, they’re having a bit of a golden patch

Hard to argue against the bobbins selection, especially the top ones.
Pop was overall good especially if you put it all together, ("Spanish language" genre lol)
I think I just hate most indie rock, at least when it's this wimpy. 2 TFS tracks are worth more than that entire batch.
More r&b and hip hop would be great, but I haven't helped much there.

And I wanna see saer's top. And understand what he's on about, if he's misanthropic or a madman ILM puts up with or what.

Zeitgeisty stuff that feels like it got completely passed over in this poll - Soundcloud rap, UK drill and afroswing, dancehall, London hipster jazz, any kind of dance music that isn't house, techno or disco.

― Matt DC, Friday, 1 February 2019 07:56 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, agreed, many genres of dance music seem to be invisible here, but even more glaring for me is the absence of stuff from the UK charts in general - not only is there no MNEK, no Sigrid, no Clean Bandit, but nobody even notes their absence. Contrast this to the early 2000s when a similar poll would surely be packed with this stuff.

I'm not surprised, the UK charts seem to be at a historical low of local product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_top-ten_singles_in_2018

All that stuff is dreary AF though and doesn't deserve to be in the poll. The more afropop-slanted stuff - MO/Mabel/Not3s/Kojo Funds/Yxng Bane etc is a lot more lively and creative right now and that's also been largely overlooked.

Wow the ILM Years & Years love really fell off this year didn't it?

Years & Years really fell off this year so that'd be why

i really do need to keep up with the uk afroswing stuff more, there's clearly a lot of exciting stuff happening there but it's hard to keep up with as an outsider as it doesn't seem to get much coverage or attention from anywhere at all despite some success in the uk charts these days. Common Sense is absolutely one of my albums of the decade at least

https://itunes.apple.com/au/playlist/ilms-top-77-tracks-of-2018/pl.u-GoB6SZyPM8g

Full playlist on Apple Music (for those who might have missed it upthread)

And I wanna see saer's top. And understand what he's on about, if he's misanthropic or a madman ILM puts up with or what.

― Nabozo, Friday

They are visible on the ballot thread. I think (hope?) misanthropic is an overstatement, its a good experience to hear what is happening in the other divisions, ours is a tough league and even the playoffs are a distant dream so this really is a window into another world for me!

But if you're looking for solid lads that stand the test of time you're looking in the wrong place, only ephemeral canalside jaunts down the wing by tipsy dockers with hats askew on day release allowed innit

<3

<3

xp to nabozo: as i just mentioned to tuomas elsewhere, "Spanish Language" functions as US radio airplay genre shorthand for me; though that's changed fairly radically in the past year or three and is increasingly inappropriate and inaccurate so thanks for calling me out on it.

Really loved this - brill no 1. Best as almost always is the bobbins and rap/r&B and love how ILM does what sued to be called world music, like Simmy and Rosalia (the latter calmly bringing a Flamenco vibe to perception on those tracks).

There wasn't enough rap and the countdown did take a couple of days to warm up. In the past the first day would have some interesting stuff. Not sure if it now just appears higher or what. Anyway, its a lot of fun.

Also iirc there might've been one nice straight-up experimental thing and its bad not good that Autechre are filling that role.

Just one? Adorno wept.

Autechre piece didn't seem particularly experimental tbf.

KKB otoh

Anyway I've got the 177 playlist going. Will report anything I particularly enjoy. Yves Tumor song is preferable in isolation

does someone have a link for the 177?

Linked near top of stats thread!

i see it - cheers!

I've been trying to 'enjoy' Yves Tumour for a while but I'm not sure I can quite get my head around them. It's not very 'pleasant' music and yet it's all over the place stylistically, unlike other stuff they get compared to like Chino Amobi which is just pure apocalyptic all the way through, or serpentwithfeet which is more like chamber pop

Just one? Adorno wept.

― pomenitul, Friday, 1 February 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Its old skool experimental (though not as old as 1912), a few textures that drift along that kind of thing.

Seemingly throwaway CRJ track much better than almost all the pop in the actual 77

Oh I'm just saying there should have been way more than a mere token pick (which I like btw).

KKB doesn't quite cut it. An outro is not enough to épater le bourgeois.

xp

KKB is just some indie rock that gets noisy at the end. lol

I don't think there shouldn't be any space for that stuff unless its good. Which the autechre (from samples) wasn't. At this point its as much of a look back as Oasis.

(from samples)

This is where you went wrong.

It makes more sense in the context of the NTS sessions as a whole.

Absolutely. It's a cathartic closer.

I'm unfamiliar with a lot of autechre's back cat, have they ever used samples?

anyway this was fun, I quite liked the top end of the list, thank you all

There are a few tracks, especially early on (notably Basscadet, Under BOAC) that use samples, but if they make any extensive use of them, they're manipulated to high heaven

You wouldn't just say to people you need the whole of a big book or whatever to get it. Its perfectly fine to sample.

I do think of All End as more of a statement track or some sort of contextual piece than something that works alone. It's not representative of their sound and while it's fairly interesting in the way the drone shifts around, I don't think of it as being much different from other extended drone pieces that exist

Something like violvoic or e0 fromt he NTS sessions would have been a more representative highlight, although I see why All End was chosen.

Yeah, I described my ambivalence earlier, but an hour-long noise drone probably needs to be listened to in its full duration to be evaluated. xp to LBI

You wouldn't just say to people you need the whole of a big book or whatever to get it.

Actually…

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend judging Moby Dick based on excerpts either.

(But it may be weird to see it pop up on a short-story poll...)

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend judging Moby Dick based on excerpts either.

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r), Friday, February 1, 2019 10:16 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmmm i judged it on its name (moby dick) and one of its covers (whale) and i judged it as "VERY good" and so far as i understand i was correct

Does "tracks" imply brevity? xp

I listened to all of All End and it certainly wasn't groundbreaking. Was it different from all the other tracks? Yes. Would the poll results have been better with (a lot) more variety? Yes, as Matt pointed out even within popular music this was a rather narrow vein.

we're all getting old

xxp No, but its length does make it an anomaly. I’m not saying it should be dq’d or anything... it’s actually pretty impressive that it placed, given its nature