ILM Top 77 Tracks of 2018 Poll Afterparty: Ballots, Recrimination, Statistics and Damned Lies

Re: the Burna bloodbath: not surprised by the vote splitting, but the dismal showing of “Ye” is kind of shocking nonetheless. It does bode extremely well for the album poll though. Looks like we have at least 8 people who have Outside very high on their ballot.
― breastcrawl, Saturday, February 2, 2019 9:17 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think I've voted for it. I only vote for real music on the albums poll, the singles here are just for kicks.
*checks, no I lie, I did vote for it.

I only vote for real music on the albums poll, the singles here are just for kicks.

haha this is my approach too

Albums are just singles with more extra tracks on them

Most of the time, yes. Anyway, cheers to rob, breastcrawl and everyone else keeping the afro-caribbean threads rolling. Wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.

Spoilers: the albums poll has way more genre variety than the singles one and ilm delivers better results than most eoy lists

You're preaching to the choir :) I think that self-congratulation is probably exactly what gives us 1975 feasts though :P

this year's tracks poll just felt like there was barely any consensus at all so it was mostly just established ILM favourites doing well by default? at least compared to say the last two years which felt a little more unpredictable over the first few days

The albums poll is where it's at, though I'm pretty sure not a single one of my classical noms will place. Not that I did much in the way of campaigning, mind you.

My focus is totally on singles/individual tracks. Every year, there are at the very least 50 tracks that I could put on my tracks ballot with good conscience. Whereas with albums, there are only about a dozen that I’ve lived with enough throughout the year to confidently place them. This is purely a matter of priorities and time management. There’s many more albums that I know I like because I’ve listened to them once or twice (and I do fill up the rest of my ballot with those), or would/could like if I’d only make time for them, but first things first, you know, and the genres I (want and need to) listen to the most are heavily singles-focussed.

Amen.

(And of course, I’m missing out on a lot, but aren’t we all? As we speak, I’m listening to my “2018 catch-up albums” playlist, filled with albums that sounded by their recommendations (mainly here on ILM) like stuff I would like, and “Warrior Dance” by Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids came up, and wow, just wow!)

tracks poll > albums, idk why but it’s more exciting to me

A nice thing about the tracks poll is that you can listen and comment on the rollout in real time (unless some hour-long ambient thing gets in). Albums are generally too long to do more than sample them. It also helped that I was hearing almost everything for the first time.

Still, I'm excited for the albums rollout.

Historically the tracks rollout makes for a better thread since people can listen to the songs more or less in real time, or at least do those end of the day round-ups, and talk about them so it tended to be the livelier one. (xpost)

Usually I'm with breastcrawl and longneck on tracks over albums, but this year I think I'm slightly more invested in my top albums than my top tracks? Plus if Burna Boy and Popcaan both place (latter is a little doubtful), the resulting list will better reflect my taste than the tracks did--it also helps that I got into a bunch of jazz last year. That said, I didn't even vote for a full 25 albums while culling my tracks ballot was as hard as it always is.

The whole Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids album is awesome!

I'm more of a tracks person than an albums person in general but the albums poll has been consistently more diverse, surprising and interesting than the tracks poll for the last few years. And you can set up months' worth of listening from it.

Yes, as Simon might point out, it probably helps that you can't generally nominate multiple albums from a single artist

Strong list this year. Of the tracks that I hadn't heard before (ie almost all of them) I particularly enjoyed Mo Bamba, Mariners Apartment Complex, Holding On, Powerglide, Donnie Darko, Womp Womp, Lemon Glow, Smoko, Nice For What, Girls On The TV and In My Dreams, so thanks to whoever nominated them and thanks to all the organisers.

Here's my list, unweighted

(7th) CB - Talk On My Name
(Hit Squad) Mad Max x (Zone 2) Karma – Facts
Ambush - Man Can't
Cadet x Deno – Advice (Dele Alli)
Carla Dal Forno - Summertime Sadness
CS + Kreme – Husk
DigDat - Air Force
Dizzee Rascal - Don't Gas Me
Domenique Dumont - Sans Cesse, Mon Cheri
Eris Drew - Hold Me (T4T Embrace Mix)
Headie One X RV - Know Better
J Hus - Dark Vader
James Blake - If The Car Beside You Moves Ahead
Jay Glass Dubs - The Sweetest Dub
Julia Holter - I Shall Love 2
K Trap - Anything Else
Kasper Marrot – Keflavik
KO - Never Know
Lady Leshurr – RIP
Mr Fingers - Crying Over You
Ossia - Dub Hell
Parris - Puro Rosaceae
Peggy Gou - It Makes You Forget (Itgehane)
Shackleton - Wakefulness And Obsession
Unknown T – Homerton B

The whole Idris Ackamoor & the Pyramids album is awesome!

oh I did, yes thank you!

not sure what the Ackamoor album's chances are. tbh I heard it so late in the year that I didn't even rank it very highly (see also: Simmy), but given its mix of jazz and afrobeat (singular) it could have wider appeal than some of the jazz I'm assuming is going to show

My comment above was half-trolling half-teasing, but since a conversation emerged I'll weigh in.
I appreciate >sum-of-their-parts albums just as I appreciate albums that go for bang / rely on track strength. No album that contains 3-4 bangers can be bad in my experience, and I prefer to tolerate filler next to greatness than settle for applied, well-crafted, consistent mediocrity. Many genres have always sit in-between being track-based or album-based (even dad-rock albums had their focus on hits for ex.) and that's maybe the ideal combination to have the best of both worlds. And nowadays we have this movement presenting pop more and more as albums, more and more perfected (well, it's not really new). Just as indie did, and ILM at least seems convinced or we wouldn't have it appear in the tracks poll. It's not easy and pointless to cut in the middle. So, based on the same genres and taste, I think I still get surprises and that pushes me to be flexible, like I almost get to choose how I want to experience and keep something.

I thought the 2017 tracks results were garbage, and 2018's tracks are a huge improvement. Also congrats to ILM on getting over your guitar phobia.

Slightly preferred 2017 I think? Had L'Rain, introduced me to Akrakabo. TBH I miss the days when Jute Gyte and Oranssi Pazuzu could just mosey on in amongst the pop-house

Oh and Blue Pedro ffs!

OK I've scrolled through last year's tracks 77. It's about 10x more interesting, diverse and fun as this year's imo

as/than

tough to separate the two

must've been the lower participation

I don't recall any huge discoveries from last year's list, although the tracks results from every year as long as I can remember help me re-discover stuff I forgot. The big one from last year for me was "Girl Front."

lol i was listening to "girl front" when i opened this thread, such a good song

for anyone enjoying the ongoing genre-blind listening mix and looking to get a jump on 2019, feel free to join us here:
Listening to ILM Listen: February 2019 - Collaborative Listening Project

another re-discovery from 2015's results. the song that got me into ty$
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFzOQO1jBIU

I got *extremely* lucky and found a sealed vinyl copy of Raveena’s “Shanti” EP on vinyl (filed under “S”, lol) for a few bucks. Released awhile back, purple wax, OOP R@RE! Eight tracks including Honey and...she is really, really good.

^ weirdly, this was released by VNYL, that bullshit subscription service from the “shady scams” thread (i think)

??

sorry, didn’t mean to throw water on your find, which is awesome !

just thought it was peculiar

Heads up for anyone planning on voting in 2019 who doesn't quite feel plugged into that ILM vibe that I've been on the watchtower pulling tracks from all the yearly genre threads and organizing them by month. If you wanna take a blind stab at the past eight months of talked about music (or, you know, about the 75%-85% of it that shows up on spotify), give these 1100+ songs a go and you'll be zeitgeisty as can be:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3DNL9a5Dp8YC35dFInBRvt?si=7iX5VgKHTOeZxvbfG8Pb5w

13: Rosalía – “Pienso en tu mirá”

think this would've been #1 on my ballot if I'd heard it soon enough