ILM Top 100 2005-2009: TRACKS

If this song had come out on January 1, 2005, I'd still have been voting for it.

The Hitchcock verse is pretty great

Somehow I expected "Bad Romance" to sound more modern. But is there any sense in which this couldn't have been a hit in 1988? Maybe the nonsense singing at the beginning, but that's it. Also, I think the woodblock sounds like was recorded in a different room from everything else.

This one should've been top ten.

But is there any sense in which this couldn't have been a hit in 1988

Yeah I get that. I think it's got a very specific type of naffness that you don't get much of these days that I find really offputting in pop - its got a female Adam Ant vibe to it and that is total DO NOT WANT as far as I'm concerned.

my favourite thing about "bad romance" is the way the synths go a bit mental under the first round of "rah-rah-rah-ah-ah"s. my second favourite is I DON'T WANNA BE FREEEEEENCH

"telephone" is the better song tho, yes! but "bad romance" is a classic and also i can't really deny a song that has the power to make me do a 180 on a previously-hated artist

Well, the whole reason why it's so remarkable is that's it's basically a big new beat pastiche that managed to become a massive pop hit; it totally could have come out in '88 but no one outside of a goth club would have paid any attention to it.

xp: uh I'm pretty sure that's "I don't wanna be friends"

The chorus always struck me as very Cher-ish, like from the "If I Could Turn Back Time" era.

gaga can sing, adam ant couldn't

xp yeah but the way she slips into french just before the last iteration of it always makes me think FREEEENCH, and i'm pretty sure she was at least aware of that

I loathe and despise the production on Lady Gaga stuff. It just makes it sound so weak and joyless - I can't understand why anyone thinks it is fun.

but then again her yelping on "WATCH OUT BAD ROMANCE" sounds kind of like "WHACHOWBARUMASS" so it really could be anything

haha isn't that WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE?

to its credit, i did like bad romance's production... and the song is good, just not terrific imo. i was actually surprised the production was done by redone considering everything i'd heard from him before was godawful.

It's only the chorus that I really hate, it's so self-consciously wacky in all the worst ways. It sort of reminds me of Boney M in a weird way as well that I can't put my finger on.

14. BURIAL "Archangel" (2007) [446 points, 17 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQIQ_muEKHk

haha isn't that WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE?

ha this proves my point re: wtf did she just say?

is that the one tuomas was talking about earlier?

Archangel is the only Burial record I ever want to listen to these days, maybe the only one I really wanted to hear at the time, probably the only one you really need, and yet I still go back to it time and time again.

It's got exactly the right euphoric-melancholic balance you want in the best dance music as well, I remember Ripperton playing it in the middle of a set of ultra-dry minimal and it was like he'd suddenly sprayed the place with water. Amazing record.

Maybe it's because I wasn't listening to pop music in 1988 but Bad Romance feels very modern to me. So much current music has obvious genre touchstones but Gaga sounds like, well, Gaga.

The point is that pop music in 88 didn't sound like Gaga; one particular branch of club music (new beat/industrial) sounded like Gaga.

Bad Romance = Come On Eileen I think. It's 1982 rather than 1988 - the sort of nonsensical chorus with huge wide intervals that is designed to be bellowed as loudly as possible.

Come On Eileen + Lords of Acid, maybe?

if it was really the "come on eileen" de nos jours then i would LOATHE it => ergo it is not

burial is still nothing more than background music to me, and if i was gonna isolate any individual track it's be "in mcdonald's", not "archangel"

Yeah I think of him as background music as well but that track just has this silvery quality that the rest of them lack. Helps you can sing along to it as well.

Things are heating up. The top 20 so far paints a pretty vivid picture of the era.

if it was really the "come on eileen" de nos jours then i would LOATHE it => ergo it is not

eh, that depends on what qualities Matt is picking out that makes it the new "Come On Eileen" (which I kind of disagree with; so much of that song is built around the arrangement that I can't really translate the detail Matt picked out to "Bad Romance")

this is the first time I've knowingly heard Bad Romance and christ is it a bloated pustule of crap

Burial track has something ruminatively intense going for it but it doesn't quite leap at me - maybe I need to hear it in a club for it to fully work

You're supposed to listen to it on the night bus on the way home from the club, but it works better on an actual dancefloor I think.

That's the song I mentioned earlier. I haven't listened to much dubstep, and the few things I have heard haven't impressed me that much, but "Archangel" is a really unique and evocative tune. I should've voted for it, if I'd known the title.

this is the first time I've knowingly heard Bad Romance

Do not understand how this is possible unless you live in the most remote parts of, say, Mongolia.

Great top 20 so far. I think Paparazzi > Bad Romance (although I voted for both) but yeah, BR's huge chorus makes it sound more iconic and therefore more memorable, if that makes any sense.

Probably works well on a night-bus too. Have not heard Burial on a night-bus but have been hallooed by a hauntology blogger on the N21 before - similar sort of thing maybe

Burial track reminds me most of ICBYD-era Aphex, albeit with the edges rounded and the bass deepened

so much of that song is built around the arrangement that I can't really translate the detail Matt picked out to "Bad Romance

Yeah I'm not really talking about details, I'm talking about the feeling I get off the chorus, like I said great wide intervals that can be bellowed along to and bits in the chorus that don't mean anything.

I can't remember anything about the arrangement, it's only the vocals that stick in my mind, but I'm not suggesting the production has a Dexy's Midnight Runners quality or anything.

13. CIARA "Promise" (2006) [456 points, 14 votes, 3 first place votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vPyzCHgZ88

fever yr going too fast

but yeah well done ciara and the lex and all else who are ciara fans, iirc this song is quite good

burial is actually better music for when you get home and just want to vibe a bit. on the night bus it WILL make you fall asleep and you WILL end up in south motherfucking woodford.

FUCKING YES IT'S MY NUMBER ONE!

"promise" >>>>>>>>> your favourite song

I'm doing about 4 an hour, which = 20 in 5 or so hours. How much more do you want me to drag it out?

fever yr going too fast

Nonsense.

<3 <3 <3 Promise. That one really IS all about the details, so much going on in the arrangement. Would love to hear Prince cover it.

Also, three number one votes! The Lex, Kevin K and who else?

Matt DC kind of OTM about "Archangel", although I like "Unite" too. Saying it's the only track one needs by Burial is doing an injustice to the man's oeuvre (which is genius as a whole), but yeah, it's a transcendent track which sits next to "Hyph Mngo", retaining a kind of cool euphoria that only usually translates through house and trance music. The rest of his stuff is great, but it's the ardkore continuum version of something like Sunn O))), where it works better as aural texture to soundtrack your day-to-day life rather than something hooky you can play at a party. "Archangel" is both.

fever yr going too fast

Not at all.

i love that video as well

i love that "promise" has not one but two intros, and two separate spoken word sections

whoops for some reason I thought there was only a 10-minute gap there

listening to Promise now, yeah it's good - a zillion miles more natural and affecting than Bad Romance

Actually without wanting to get all Geir Hongro on you all, I think the melody in Promise is also much, much stronger than it is in other similar slow jams - ie Devotion by Electrik Red and several other Ciara tracks. The "open my heart" bit gets me every time.

I still don't get "Promise" (although I probably would if I ever listened to Ciara because of her voice). Every time I hear it, I wish someone else was singing it.

god "promise" is such an INCREDIBLE track. i didn't dislike her before or anything, but this is what really won me over to ciara. i remember the first time i heard it i was driving home and it was playing on the radio, and i was shocked that a song so good was actually being spun on top 40 formats considering i wasn't crazy about most top 40 at the time.

I feel bad now :( Sorry JF

For me, "Goodies" is pretty much all the Ciara I need (with an occasional sprinkle of "1 2 Step" and "Get Up" with honorable mention to "Lose Control" which isn't even her song)

no probz xp