Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Trax Poll Results: TOP TEN TODAY)

do you feel it's kind of manipulative and bossy, like superobvious john williams style strings in a movie soumdtrack? xp

Joy Orbison - I guess you have to really be into dance music to understand why this is great.

― _Rudipherous_, Monday, February 1, 2010 7:52 PM (22 minutes ago)

i'm really into dance music and don't really get the fuss over that track

― jabba hands, Monday, February 1, 2010 7:55 PM (20 minutes ago)

same here, i mean it sounds nice, but i really don't get what makes it such a breakout track. but i guess i feel that way about a whole lot of dubstep and dubstep-not-dubstep-crossover type stuff, though. it just doesn't cohere for me the way that techno and house do, the structure of the beat doesn't click in the same satisfying way, it lacks the infinite/hypnotic feel that connects techno and house to disco and kraut for me. i wish these dubstep/not-dubstep producers would more often just go with the 4x4 a la Burial/Four Tet's Moth (speaking of which, i guess its not showing up here.)

moth is a house party heard thru a wall

Close to what the Rev said. It feels engineered for that one purpose, which in turn makes it feel forced. You can plan all you want, but a really great night out just happens. 'Lahyme' makes me laugh tho.

Also, Working for the Weekend has that great synth, so I can get with that song.

xposts

oh god "Moth" isn't going to make this list. should have placed it higher on my ballot. one of the non-album trax that should be preserved on this list for generations to look back on and discover.

yeah a lot of times people actually do have to force it though, the prospect of staying in or a glum night is a non-starter, for instance if you don't go on nice vacations, or have good tv, or something in between, the weekend's gone and it's a two week grind not a one week one and that can break you down. anyone buying this at all?

i dunno, i like it.

kind of think that if someone needs 'I gotta feeling' to get excited about going out, they're the ones that need to be mingling with people

ice cold

will give you that it works well in that 2009 mix that kicked off this thread.

tru.dat

i'm all for people with shitty jobs going nuts to a fun pop song on saturday nights, i'd just prefer it were a less grating song. also i don't associate 'i got a feeling' with blue collar normal folk as much as i do popped collar leather shoed douchebags.

fuck this class shit imo. keep that in the VW thread.

^^^

btw "i gotta feeling" was in my top 10 y'all suck it

do you feel it's kind of manipulative and bossy, like superobvious john williams style strings in a movie soumdtrack? xp

― zvookster, Monday, February 1, 2010 5:42 PM Bookmark

yeah, exactly, but more annoying than that

I no longer care for this list now that "I Gotta Feeling" was named the 12th best song of 2009.

fancy at #11!!! this was awesome news to come home to

i don't think i've ever heard i gotta feeling. i'll check now.

can't believe you have internet access under that rock you've been living under

nope, i had never heard that. and christ on a stick is it awful.

goddammit can people not pull the fucking "how could you possibly avoid mainstream song x" thing on me?

well dude not only was it the #1 song in the country for like 3 years, it's in every commercial

don't know what to tell you man, i watch my share of tv and i've never heard that song in my life.

it's funny because except for stuff from england i've known the vast majority of this poll so far!

PTSD

yeah this is like the opposite of last year where i didn't know half of the picks

MUSICALLY: can you email my ballot?

Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time!

This was feasible up until #12.

Man - it's still better than pretty much every other 2009 poll I've seen. One BEP track does not scupper the entire thing. Like...better this than 20 trax of glo-fi and chillwave.

hilarious when the indie people act like the big dumb pop hit pissed in their pool and now they can't enjoy any of it

chill-fi & glowave

it hardly ruins anything, tho i wld be curious to hear from people who voted for it about its good qualities

yeah i'm no fan of the BEP or that song but getting upset over its placement is dumb on a few levels

Indeed! Especially when it's really not as awful as everyone's making it out to be.

I mean, is Boom Boom Pow the weirder and better BEP track of the year? Probably. Was I Gotta Feeling a totally ubiquitous presence any time I was drunk and in a club this summer? Totally. Unavoidable, and once it beat you into submission, sort of awesome.

NB: I didn't vote for it, but I have discovered that mysterious zone of inebriation and sleep-deprivation wherein it suddenly becomes AMAZING.

TS: Lust for Life v I Gotta Feeling

In that ever-so-dire predicament, I'd go BEP.

imo "I Gotta Feeling" just has a very effective combination of wistful and celebratory, it feels like summer, and the way the drums never seem to get going like they seem like they're gonna, and eventually get overpowered by the vocals, creates an interesting dynamic. calling it 'manipulative' only makes any sense if you think that other fun or moving songs just happen by accident and there's no intentional pulling of strings on the part of the songwriter.

the idea that "i gotta feeling" is somehow more poisonous to this list than fucking "empire state of mind" is crazy -- at least one is open about its shamelessness and is better because of it

xp sure, but the difference is that in this case, I can see the strings

haha, I hadn't thought about it that way, but both those songs have the same effect

Feel like we should have a thread on the relationship between catchiness and annoying-obnoxiousness in current pop music. It seems like there's been a lot of singles in the past twelve months or so which some people love immediately and some people hate immediately, but a decent proportion of people in the second category grow to love it, while perhaps an equal number of people in the first category get sick of it - e.g.

"I Gotta Feeling"
"Party In The USA"
"Poker Face"
"Hot 'n' Cold"?

I guess "Tik Tok" falls into this category but it's too soon to know whether people will come around to it in the future.

Obv a big unifying factor is this big, brash, perhaps kinda grating electro-pop production.

Was it ever thus? It feels like a heightened trend at the moment. I would assume it was a case of "lol u old" (as applied to me) but I actually like or don't mind a fair amount of these tunes.

it's a song that sounds better in the moment -- it's a big ass stadium song that you have to submit too -- i didn't really like it the first few times i heard it, but the "tonight's gonna be a good night" part is undeniable no matter how corny it is

xp: I haven't at any point liked any of those songs.

i like all the songs tom lists except for "hot n cold" because it's so brittle & flimsy and doesn't have... a world beating, submissive quality that i think the other three have

i guess there's vapid and then there's exceptionally vapid.....like, i don't care if ppl sell their songs for commercials but you shouldn't write with that goal in mind

haha i dont really like any of those songs but i'd rank them "i gotta feeling" > "party" = "h&c" > "poker face" > "tik tok"

I've come around to Tik Tok, Poker Face, and Hot 'n' Cold, but can't get there with Party or I Gotta Feeling...and part of it has to do with being annoyed for extra-musical reasons with Will.I.Am and Miley Cyrus. If someone else were singing those songs, I could conceivably be a-okay with them.

i guess there's vapid and then there's exceptionally vapid.....like, i don't care if ppl sell their songs for commercials but you shouldn't write with that goal in mind

― call all destroyer, Monday, February 1, 2010 7:28 PM Bookmark

this goes for phoenix, too

i mean, i don't think it's an undeniable song like other big pop songs of the year (i don't even like it half as much as "boom boom pow" which i voted in my top 8 iirc) but i mean to absolve yourself of this good & eclectic list because of it is kind of crazy imo