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)

I voted for it!!!

xp for Omar S

nb we know KBP has not heard I Will Come Back or One Day

dfa need a vini reilly-esque figure

I didn't have a particularly good tracks list (though that doesn't stop me from being "ugh" about a lot of the choices here) but I did vote for Omar Souleyman... and 'In the NA' (who was it who was the big repper here? I am sceptical about some of their other stuff, but this particular song is fucking excellent).

dfa need a vini reilly-esque figure

russom

posted by trax ballot on the original nomms thread:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!~~~FINALLY - 2009 ILX Albums 'n' Trax Poll voting thread ahoy~~~!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (VOTING CLOSED: lol Whiney)

*by=my

russom

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/7572/veryimpressed0ul.gif

I am not really a tracks person either which was why the Omar S really stood out, I listened to those LPs a fair amount in 09.

am really glad the the constituency of ilm has changed to move away from scandopop-fetishising

this is so not a good thing. i'm beyond disappointed by the lack of el perro del mar and air france in this list.

also- hurray for "one day"! i almost voted for it but went with holy ghost instead, so i'm glad it placed. it's probably the better of those two songs anyhow

and seriously shameeeee on ilx for not getting "love the night away" somewhere into the top 50

^^^^was a total shock. that, phoenix, and the meanderthals were my summer jamz

hey Musically, you are awesome for running this!

(and while I'm at it please send me my ballot in case you didn't get my previous request)

whoa no meanderthals votes! weird

Meanderthals album is top ten for me but it would be weird to vote for any one song as a track I think.

dfa need a vini reilly-esque figure

I hear that.

yeah, they don't really work that way for me. that said, nothing got me in the mood for a warm, sunny day like Kunst or Ars.

xpost

all you ocd list guys should catch up with the I Love Games Coint and Plick.
The Third Annual Coint and Plick Poll: ILG’s Best Video Games of 2009 - Part One: #77 through #93

Musically: if you've already got those past ILM lists somewhere convenient, would you mind posting that recap of the past ILM polls in its own thread (for future reference)? I don't know how far back you went, but I think it would be great if we could have all those top 50's in one thread.

They're upthread right here.

I hear that.

russom

y'know, I'm glad that this board's relationship with mainstream vs. indie is more nuanced and ambiguous now than it was a few years ago, but i really have to say goddamn there's some corny indie fux up in this bitch.

once a song has sold a couple million on iTunes it's kind of moronic to act surprised when 20 people on a message board, no matter what demographic the board represents in your mind, voted for it in a poll

on point of course

no matter what demographic the board represents in your mind

this surely depends on how closely the real demographic matches the one in your head!

ie if blackmetalmurderers.com's forum voted for 49 black metal trax with Taylor Swift at #3, it wouldn't be moronic to say "gosh!". a lot of people have encountered very different ILXes depending on what time period they joined, what boards and even threads they interact with, and what they seek to get out of it.

that said, still keen for Phil to tell us exactly how many songs on this list are shithouse (and how many he's heard)

yeah but this isn't a metal site or whatever, it's a pretty pop- and pitchfork-leaning board, and that's the list you got

and! if that Swift song is the one where she plays two people in the video, I've heard that exactly once; if it's another, I've probably not heard it at all unless J. Brad1ey sang the chorus at me in disbelief that I hadn't heard it. I have no idea how many physical singles Swift has sold of the song, how many albums with it on she's sold in Wal-Mart Exclusive Editions, or how many downloads she's sold on iTunes specifically in the UK; so would any surprise that I expressed not be honestly earned, regardless of the demographics of my falsely-encountered ILX?

it's a pretty pop- and pitchfork-leaning board

not necessarily! what if someone just reads Jazz D-Bags, Rolling Metal, and all Hongro polls? plus best animal friends and look at these fuckin cats.

you don't need to know exact sales figures, but you were aware that she's a pretty big deal, right? (xpost)

I'm aware that some people on ILX/Singles Jukebox like her, so I'm not surprised she's appearing in this poll; apart from that, I know she played the same room here that I've been to to see Art Brut, the Reels, and the bassist from Pink Floyd do stand-up.

i wanna know who voted Omar Souleyman... I never in a million yrs imagined that was gonna be 7 votes popular. So glad I nommed it, just for that

I did. No surprise there, I guess. I actually want to say more about Souleyman at some point. I heard that CD for the first time around the same time my PC got clobbered with trojans, 01/01/10, and I never got around to saying anything about it. I really want to be all: "I was listening to stuff like this seventeen years ago [which is true] and this isn't really even an especially good example of it," but actually while I have listened to similar material, I can still see the distinctive appeal in the heaviness of this. Though for something lighter, you might want to try Ali Al-Dik: Ali Aldik: new debka star!

I do have some live Saleh Abdel Gafor stuff I like better, but Dabke 2020 is pretty damn good.

Also people could check out this thread which I've been throwing some great youtube stuff onto in recent months: Arabic music (not elsewhere classified)

I'm aware that some people on ILX/Singles Jukebox like her, so I'm not surprised she's appearing in this poll; apart from that, I know she played the same room here that I've been to to see Art Brut, the Reels, and the bassist from Pink Floyd do stand-up.

― see also cockfarmer fanbases (sic), Tuesday, February 2, 2010 9:10 PM Bookmark

I realize this is a US/UK divide thing, but on this side she had the biggest selling album of the year and two of the top 6 in 2008.

a) no you don't!
b) that would argue in FAVOUR of my point, that different people in the voting bloc and commenting on the thread have widely disparate media experiences
c) ha I just googled and she had the #4 album of the year in my country for '09

I've probably not heard it at all unless J. Brad1ey sang the chorus at me in disbelief that I hadn't heard it.

lol

xp: fwiw I never heard her until "You Belong With Me" came up on the singles jukebox

Mannnnn, these threads always go too fast. Thanks again, musically. I really wanted to keep up this year and listen to all the songs, but my internet is too unreliable for Youtubing as they show up in the thread so I'm trying to DL the backlog and work through from there. Lots of intriguing stuff just going by things with cool names and good video thumbnails.

The #1 is fucking atrocious and I say that as the trolly guy from way upthread who kept complaining about all the elevator music blah songs and liked Trap Goin' Ham best because the guy sounded so happy and upbeat about his grocery business. So I have no problem with catchy pop, it's basically my point of departure, but YBWM bores the hell out of me. If it had come out when I was 16 I would have some kind of fond memory for it a la "Candy" by Mandy Moore or I dunno, "This Kiss" by Faith Hill which I even started a thread about, but I just have no way to relate to this thing. Overexposure to the tedious video did not help either. It's not "for" me, okay, well, I don't have to like it or vote for it then. That's basically how I break it down to an extent.

Note, the "thanks again, musically" is sincere - i realize it may come off as sarcastic "oh thanks a LOT" in context - but these threads are always such an amazing goldmine for me. Really appreciate it.

HEY THIS IS JUST WHAT THE "DOCTOR" ORDERED

http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/playlist/ILX+Tracks+2009/24472666

The person I know IRL whose taste is closest to mine and overlaps almost always also draws the line at Taylor.

It occurs to me that many people have a certain notion of pop music as expressive of a kind of escapist unreality on a musical level which allows them to like R&B, populist dance music, electro-pop, the rap which qualifies as pop, even "Since U Been Gone" style rock-pop, but not Taylor. I was trying to work out what is a single point of distinction which captures this and it occured to me that it might be that Taylor is so antithetical to dress ups. Whether it's Beyonce or Gaga or Kelly Clarkson or Britney there's an extent to which the music or the artist is definitely portraying themselves as larger than life - but even stars that don't fit this description (Annie, say) feel heavily aestheticised, like some thought or intentionality went into the presentation (musically and visually...).

There's an "artlessness" to Taylor which I think bugs a lot of otherwise-pop-listeners - I suspect this is why I hear infantalising put-downs of her from people who wouldn't necessarily say the same of Britney (who still plays with "I'm just a little girl" allusions).

You might say that Taylor does play dress-ups - all the playing with princesses/fairy tales stuff - but even this comes across as somehow pre-pop (and not anti-pop in the way that might render her artlessness indie-friendly or "authentic"), like she hasn't realised that she's the master of her own aesthetic existence yet.

This has basically only just occurred to me so maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like it might explain why Taylor forms a sticking point for a lot of people otherwise into pop, at least above and beyond the "I don't listen to country" issue.

But Taylor is dressed up as all kinds of characters in the video for this song (and the unconvincingness of those characters is part of the problem, as someone pointed out above - the whole issue that IRL it seems hard to buy that Taylor Swift would be the underdog in this song's scenario)!...

Setting that aside, I don't think she's as naive or unconscious of what she's doing as you suggest, but I don't know much about her beyond this one song. I think it's an interesting argument that you make, but it's not artlessness that gets to me, it's.... I dunno exactly. I have no particular hostility to country but I don't inhabit its landscape and don't know its tropes and techniques well enough to fully "get" the song maybe - I mean "Sk8er Boi" has basically the same plot and I understand that very clearly. It's also annoying in a lot of the same ways that maybe do brush up against annoying ideas of authenticity and ownership of identities - who the fuck is this snotty, conventionally pretty, boring as hell blonde chick to pretend she's an outsider LIKE I ACTUALLY WAS AT THAT AGE??! The problematics of this are probably pretty obvious, but it's definitely at least a part of my resistance to the song.

But honestly, I don't know that there's so much to resist, or that this has to be understood in terms of "why WOULDN'T someone like this song?" It's not the kind of giant-size, hook-jammed ear candy that made me eventually vote for "I Got A Feeling" even though I spent months decrying its unabashed stupidity and dippiness. It's just got the goods. The Taylor Swift song doesn't have that kind of arsenal and it also doesn't tug on my heartstrings or call forth tender memories or do any of the other things that pop does to make me FEEL things. It's just a dull song.

I voted for "You Belong With Me" #1 and I loved it orders of magnitude more than any other 2009 single. That's because of the massive power chorus, whose rush never fails to take my breath away. I can sympathize with the character but that's not important to my love of the song: more important than the underdog character is the throbbing of its narrator's longing, from verse to chorus to verse to bridge, the way a crush ebbs and flows each day, the logic of its hopelessness only driving it further toward climax. I don't know why you don't want me, she says: would she write this song for you? This chorus, that's how strong my love is. But you can't make someone love you, hence the resignation of the title each time.

you don't need to know exact sales figures, but you were aware that she's a pretty big deal, right?

btw is there anything else that sold a million copies on iTunes this year that isn't on the list?

It's not the kind of giant-size, hook-jammed ear candy that made me eventually vote for "I Got A Feeling"

it's pretty hook-jammed really -- i've played the video for my 5-yr-old son and my 60-plus parents and gotten positive responses from both ends of the spectrum (plus my contemporaneous sister) -- so i don't think it's a problem of inaccessibility. which doesn't mean everyone has to like it, obviously. but by whatever objective standards there might be out there, it's really a pretty huge pop song. (and it uses one of the all-time great chord progressions, a variation on the G-Em-A-D, except basically it just runs it in reverse -- this is like Pop 101, but it's done well.)

i can think of one song

Much as we like Taylor Swift in this house the growing connections to Avril Lavigne need to be recognised.

really if you add up what she owes to avril and shania, she's practically half-canadian.

haa