ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2016

r|t|c must have wild opinions about impressionist painters.

w/e jackasses. "i incoherently hated myself but now i incoherently hate u instead, finito" is some bleak shit to me, sorry

With Ana Tijoux, I think.

Xxxpost

Thanks gr8080 and sean, fine work on the rollout and stats as ever.

I'm about to go all Marie Kondo on my record collection, pick up every record and ask "does this give me a sense of what the terms of structural submission/domination are?" If not, throw it out.

i'm sure if you have a third go at this joke you'll nail it

wading through this now, v enjoyable list this year, well done all

Mitski: The absolute ordinariness of the music combined with the 'I'm way too different to be here' sentiment in the lyrics is so paradoxically all-american it hurts...

I
I'm so unique
IV
So very different
iii
Oh how can I function here
V
When I'm so special and differeeeent...

Nailing it twice is enough for me.

I think the Låpsley / Koze track was my favorite discovery of the poll this year. I never listened to it before it appeared because every other thing I'd heard from Låpsley was garbage.

Ban Fred B

I understand Tuomas' objections to the casual sexism of "Black Beatles," but the sexism is diluted through these snotty brats' boasts about being on top and as big as Beatle Paul. They've never seemed particularly interested in women -- they prefer their own company and their bad falsettos and wack rhymes.

"kevin shields moobs feel like bags of sand"

this amusing short sentence review and King Bubba Fm were moments I enjoyed in this thread. I'll be picking over loads of these other tunes later for the young un's ipod.

Thanks to the pollrunners for all the hard work. I would have loved Solange to win but I'm happy with how high she placed. The whole top 10 is solid.

Well after playing contrarian for most of the poll a whole bunch of my faves turned up right near the top - "Into You" and its hugely camp synths, "Cranes In The Sky", the ultimate salve, and then Mitski. I don't care if that song sounds like "Teenage Dirtbag"; if anything I'd see that as a positive. I read "YBAG" as a triumphant song about self-actualisation and yeah ymmv but for a Japanese-American woman in these times I think that's an important artefact.

"All Night" was my #1. I'm sorry lex sees it as flaccid st8 boy bait. I remember the first time I heard the song properly and felt like light was emanating from my body. The bridge where she sings "with every tear came redemption" etc etc etc made me cry on like 5 different occasions last year, it's one of the most astonishing vocal performances of her entire career imo. It exudes a warmth and beauty that again, like "Cranes In The Sky", acted like balm.

I understand Tuomas' objections to the casual sexism of "Black Beatles," but the sexism is diluted through these snotty brats' boasts about being on top and as big as Beatle Paul. They've never seemed particularly interested in women -- they prefer their own company and their bad falsettos and wack rhymes.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn),

This makes them sound like Beavis & Butthead.

well aren't they

I think it makes as much sense as any other take I've seen. I can't stand to listen to them long enough to find out for myself.

It felt like there was an explicit critique in Sremmurd's early songs of traditional machismo which went a long way towards mitigating their own sexist tendencies (though I'm willing to own that that's kinda fucked on my part)

Black Beavis & Butthead feels pretty otm to me

90s nostalgia again

No ballot in there for me this year.

The interface kept failing, so I sent my votes in a Word file that must've gotten lost along the way.

Ah well.

Whoops wrong thread

Another song I was surprised to find out no one nominated was Maxwell's "Gods." That's been my favorite bSn track since it came out, but I guess I'm fringe.

'sremm black beavis & butthead' holds about as much water as 'alfred soto sophisticated cognoscente'

dude, you can float a loan to Mexico on my steez

the sexism is diluted through these snotty brats' boasts about being on top and as big as Beatle Paul. They've never seemed particularly interested in women -- they prefer their own company and their bad falsettos and wack rhymes.

This is actually a pretty common feature that's typically identified in hegemonic masculinity (not saying Rae Sremmurd can be totally hegemonic though, 'cos that also requires being white). Homosociality, being with (masculine) peers, is the preferred kind of social interaction, but even then tales of hetero conquests and dominance need to be constantly repeated because they're, A) sort of social currency, evidence that you're at the top of the pack, and, B) proof that you're not gay even though you associate mostly with other men ('cos hegemonic masculinity is fragile, despite its proponents’ claims it's not inborn or “natural”, so it needs to be constantly reinforced).

http://i.imgur.com/wUz4xhi.gif

Tuomas mad for whatever reason

"Into You" and its hugely camp synths, "Cranes In The Sky", the ultimate salve, and then Mitski. I don't care if that song sounds like "Teenage Dirtbag"; if anything I'd see that as a positive. I read "YBAG" as a triumphant song about self-actualisation and yeah ymmv but for a Japanese-American woman in these times I think that's an important artefact.

"All Night" was my #1. I'm sorry lex sees it as flaccid st8 boy bait. It exudes a warmth and beauty that again, like "Cranes In The Sky", acted like balm.

― monotony, Thursday, 26 January 2017 22:24 Bookmark

i'm sure u mean well but no one has to punch themselves in the face this many times in a row

I won't stop you though.

how mindful, how active, would you all say the inclusion of solange on these lists is. i'm not asking that to make a point about the album's quality like for blond. but really i don't have any confidence in the dialogue being there

― r|t|c, Thursday, 8 December 2016 22:23 Bookmark

fyi is the 'sex with me' write up really any less reductively banal than a paen to solange as supposed tranquilising oatmeal balm cocoon

― r|t|c, Wednesday, 14 December 2016 20:03 Bookmark

this shit is so fucked up and i claim my £5

v hopeless depressing song imo

― r|t|c, Thursday, January 26, 2017 4:50 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, yeah

can we just take a moment to celebrate Drake and "One Dance" at NUMBER 247 lolololololololol

The mathematician and philosopher Alex Bellos suggested in 2014 that a candidate for the lowest uninteresting number would be 247 because it was, at the time, "the lowest number not to have its own page on English Wikipedia".[4]

the best was the year of drake's breakout album (2011?) when we just collectively failed to even nominate it

I couldn't even clearly make out the YBAG lyrics when I first got into it but:

i wasnt trolling, i feel like the catharsis in the mitski song & underlining video comes from a place of exceptionally juvenile and self-defeating spite

ofc no one should mutilate their psyches to fit in anywhere and with anyone but the song gives you no sense of what the terms of structural submission/domination are or of any desire to examine them and find a path beyond. there is vague culture clash and the strange glory of striding away from it. v hopeless depressing song imo

...
"i incoherently hated myself but now i incoherently hate u instead, finito" is some bleak shit to me, sorry

Well, "hopeless and depressing" isn't exactly the same thing as "promoting cultural apartheid", which was what I described as trolling. But afaict the resolution isn't really "I hate you" as much as "I'm beginning to appreciate my own background instead of judging myself by your standard".

Mitski: The absolute ordinariness of the music combined with the 'I'm way too different to be here' sentiment in the lyrics is so paradoxically all-american it hurts...

― Frederik B, Thursday, 26 January 2017 17:09 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I
I'm so unique
IV
So very different
iii
Oh how can I function here
V
When I'm so special and differeeeent...

― Frederik B, Thursday, 26 January 2017 17:11 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Frederik, would you read it this way if she belonged to a different minority group? "Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me/But I do, I think I do" says almost the opposite of what you're suggesting it does: she IS different but she's beginning to recognize that she's NOT unique and alone, that there's a tradition behind why she's different, she's becoming OK with it, and she DOES belong even if she's not the best American girl in someone else's eyes.

despite j0rd's simple affection for 'one dance' hitting the "ann coulter is pretty" bell yet again, i must confess i myself am currently struggling to deny that 'hush up the silence' is a nice wave

I
I'm so unique
IV
So very different
iii
Oh how can I function here
V
When I'm so special and differeeeent..

Four Ways of Looking at a Blackguard

Missed this rollout, bah. The only real discovery for me was the de Biasio track, though it was good to get a chance to hear Solange, as I'd not spent any time with that record last year. I voted for 'Formation'.

Also lol @ ILM handwaving away sexist lyrics and then coming down hard on a woman for talking about how she feels marginalised.

afaict the resolution isn't really "I hate you" as much as "I'm beginning to appreciate my own background instead of judging myself by your standard".

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), Thursday, 26 January 2017 23:32 Bookmark

she dead-ends the relationship and makes a video of herself rocking out in front of two yakubians bumping ugleez draped in the american flag

it's not like i'm out here saying hey hey let's not punch nazis. that's not what this song is about

i miss nyan cat

Artists that didn't (deservedly) make it on the top 77:

Frank Ocean, car Seat Headrest, Blood Orange, Bon Iver.

Artists that should've made it:

Noname, Maggie Rogers

eh i think maggie is gonna do ok without us

I'd not heard this Mitski song before. it's lovely.

ILM really needs to grow out of this 'aw no I am allergic to guitars!!' steez. and I don't just mean Tuomas. comparing this to Weezer or Wheatus or whatever is sloppy AF. it's like someone popping up after every rap tune and going 'oh no, not more of this Will Smith talking-over-the-music bollocks'

i would like to thank forks for not subbing in kidzbop covers for the tracks unavailable in spotify this year

Also lol @ ILM handwaving away sexist lyrics and then coming down hard on a woman for talking about how she feels marginalised.

Otm, thank god. This is exactly how I felt, but was too upset to put coherently.

Frederik, would you read it this way if she belonged to a different minority group? "Your mother wouldn't approve of how my mother raised me/But I do, I think I do" says almost the opposite of what you're suggesting it does: she IS different but she's beginning to recognize that she's NOT unique and alone, that there's a tradition behind why she's different, she's becoming OK with it, and she DOES belong even if she's not the best American girl in someone else's eyes.

― My Body's Made of Crushed Little Evening Stars (Sund4r), 27. januar 2017 00:32 (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's kind of what I meant by hipster-patriotism.

Also, come on, this is Weezer. Check the BNM Pitchfork track review, it says Weezer too. And I love Weezer! But this is not as good as Weezer. Teenage Dirtbag, yeah ok, that's a slur, but it's a lot like Teenage Dirtbag. It just is. The chugging rhythm and the quiet-loud dynamic, and the ironic self-deprecating-but-not-really lyrics.

Oh, and big thanks to the poll runners from me as well!