ILM Top 100 2005-2009: TRACKS

Wish Girls Aloud were represented higher. I think their best stuff has aged wonderfully.. their shoddier approach to what once made them good on Out of Control sounded instantly dated, but Tangled Up still sounds like a timeless (in the literal sense), fantastich chaos and Chemistry is still as odd a mix of ballads and night-out songs and experiments like 'Biology' as it was back then. I love Biology, but they've got better tracks. Perhaps. But it's a natural choice for this time period, and Tangled Up is best appreciated as a whole, going through its highs and lows and shouts of disobedience.

It would of course have been more poetic if the girls split up after Tangled Up, instead of after Out of Control: Ever under-the-radar even when filling the tabloids, ever barely scraping through as a sound, commercial project, leaving on a high artistic note. Then OoC was released, with a brit, and then Cheryl as the ever-present mother/sister/friend. It's easier to pretend they weren't any good now than it would've been then, easier to find arguments. But they were bloody great.

(off-topic to that: "Promise" was my #1 on a decade-list I sketched at the end of 2009)

Great video for Promise too.

he "open my heart" bit gets me every time

yes, so incredible, and the way she segues into it from that intense spoken word "i will NEVER. never EVER hurt you. I OPEN MY HEART" section

btw did polow da don ever produce another track as good as promise?

I've come around to Promise, but it still feels like lesser GA. OTM about Tangled Up. xposts

I said this about "Promise" in 2006:

I must confess, I don't understand how Ciara's "Promise" has become the only single this year by the so-called crunk'n'b diva worthy of having praise heaped upon it: it's #47 on Stylus's year-end list, #42 on Pitchfork's, and Andy Kellman's AMG review calls it "tremendous, one of the sexiest, slow-tempo, non-breakup songs of the past ten years" and one of the only real highlights on The Evolution.

It's not that it's bland*, at least in terms of instrumentation and production: the slathered-on vocoder certainly speaks to me (even though T-Pain is making better use of it these days), and I'll even buy Alex Macpherson's argument that Ciara's vocal limitations are capable of creating a certain emotional effect (even though it's hard to hear her usual breathiness here as anything other than weak and unengaging). It's just kind of muddled, and there's little about the song that sticks with me at all.

Which would be par for the course as far as a lot of modern R&B goes, except for the fact that this is Ciara, and she's had two far superior singles in 2006 alone! I can sort of understand critics ignoring "So What," since it's not technically her song, although she dominates it so much, both in personality and sheer time behind the mic, that the mere "ft." credit she receives hardly seems fair. Not to mention how the blase, sing-song refrain is perfectly suited to her glamorous reserve: the Field Mob dudes sound scrappy, but she's too cool to even eke out the entire word "you" at the end of a line, rhyming "thug in yuh" with "here for yuh" as though swallowing a yawn.

The melancholy air of "Get Up" is reminiscent of last year's brilliantly simmering "Oh" (although not quite as much as Cherish's "Do It to It," which is a copy right down to the creeping chord changes), and it features the same midtempo dance-floor exhortations as "1, 2 Step" -- but it's also perhaps Ciara at her most joyous. For instance, note the playful way Ciara doubles that light pizzicato line that's introduced as counterpart several bars earlier: the tick-tock cadence ("the. club. is. jum-. pin'. now.") works as a neat build to the excited rush of "Get up!" And then what about the way that Chamillionaire's fluid rap transitions into him suddenly singing the third verse? It's unexpected -- since when does the cameo rapper ever step on the singer's turf? -- but it flows so naturally, it's a sweet bonus.

total lols at me confusing GA discussion with Promise (which is amazing, obv). loathed "love sex magic" though.

Oh and I know that must be really confusing considering my long post about GA, but the Promise I hold as my #1 is Ciara's, not GA's!

Just listened to "Promise" again, for the first time in a couple of years probably, and I stand by what I said.

my favourite bit of the "promise" video is the 15 seconds or so after "got me goin cra-a-zy!" - those crunk moves feeling so right for a ballad!

btw did polow da don ever produce another track as good as promise?

short answer: no - but he's done plenty which is worth checking out, there's a polow thread around here somwehere

I MAKE THAT 20 MINUTES JOHNNY FEVER

Sorry, dude... I was making a sandwich!

12. KELLY CLARKSON "Since U Been Gone" (2005) [460.5 points, 23 votes, 2 first place votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41LG2k-ivVY

mmm sandwich, imma make one now. i wonder if i have mayo.

4Ever > Since U Been Gone

that song was produced expressly for shitty youtube videos and mobile phone speakers.

"behind these hazel eyes" >>>>>>> "since u been gone"!!!!!! (though SUBG is obv classic)

i also prefer about a quarter of my december to SUBG. i miss that kelly clarkson, i don't like the way she seems to want to be katy perry at the moment ;_;

go cici! two of my top five slots!

The Kelly track I still love the most from that album is "Behind These Hazel Eyes," but I didn't even bother voting for it here because I knew it wouldn't have a chance. That note she hits (and holds) towards the end of it still gives me a shiver. "Since U Been Gone" is still deece, though.

"never again" is criminally underrated. she's really, really good at being angry. i think it's because she's one of the most honest pop stars right now.

I really like K.C. albums 2-4 pretty much entirely, and there are even some songs I love on the first one ("Low" in particular). She seems to fall in and out of public favor, but she's crazy consistent.

"never again" is criminally underrated. she's really, really good at being angry.

otm - also "hole" and "one minute" off that album

Couldn't give a shit about any other Kelly Clarkson songs and never want to listen to this one but there were about two years where the chorus of this would cause mayhem on a dancefloor and it was always great.

i didn't really like never again. i liked sober though. and irvine.

Since You Been Gone - do not enjoy this song at all. It sounds like P!nk at her most obtuse.

11. KLEERUP ft. ROBYN "With Every Heartbeat" (2007) [461.5 points, 19 votes, 1 first place vote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vfLvZCdT9g

^^^^^^^ yes

It's the best Robyn track by an absolute mile but I am amazed to see that placing so high.

so fucking gorgeous, and the way it never actually climaxes brings this incredible tension to the lyrics that really makes the song transcendant

I love how this song keeps building and building and never resolves. Normally that would drive me insane, but in this case I credit it for that because it makes me want to keep listening to it.

"Since U Been Gone" was my #1, and no song's placement this high up makes me happier than that of my #2, "Promise." i barely even like any other Ciara songs, but that one's absolutely perfect.

Lady Gaga - Kinda good, don't get how it makes the top 20 esp when Blackout-era Britney hasen't made the list at all.

Burial - If the rest of dubstep sounded like this I'd fucking love it. It sounds like I'm drowning, which is how heartbreak and being alone should sound.

Will listen to the Ciara now. Feel bad about how behind I've got on R&B in the past 5 years.

yeah, best Robyn track by a mile, with no tonic in sight. Pretty cool.

not trying to be "that guy" but the lyrics to "With Every Heartbeat" slay me:

Maybe we could make it all right
We could make it better sometime
Maybe we could make it happen baby
We could keep trying
but things will never change
So I don’t look back
Still I’m dying with every step I take
But I don’t look back
Just a little, little bit better
Good enough to waste some time
Tell me would it make you happy baby
We could keep trying
but things will never change
So I don’t look back
Still I’m dying with every step I take
But I don’t look back
We could keep trying
but things will never change
So I don’t look back
Still I’m dying with every step I take
But I don’t look back
And it hurts with every heartbeat

wow, i'm absolutely shocked that with every heartbeat placed so high! after be mine placed so low i was afraid it wouldn't even place (i was the one who gave it the #1 vote btw). the chord right after the first "and it hurts with every heartbeat" gives me chills without fail.

it absolutely would have been on my ballot had I voted

Promise is so good! And its on the same album as Like A Boy? Is the rest of the album as good as those two tracks?

#
xEmilayeex
2 weeks ago 25
Damn, I sure miss back in '06-'07 when we had nice songs like this . [Example: "Irreplaceable - Beyonce" "With you - Chris Brown" "Promise Ring - Tiffany Evans" "Unfaithful - Rihanna"]. Now all we got is "Tik Tok - Ke$ha" and "Oh Lets Do it - Waka Flock Flame" . I miss the REAL MUSIC! <3 .

Promise is so good! And its on the same album as Like A Boy? Is the rest of the album as good as those two tracks?

it's a great album - i also love "c.r.u.s.h.", "bang it up", "get up", "i proceed", "get in, fit in" off it...

I prefer "Be Mine!" to "With Every Heartbeat," but both are great.

Is the rest of the album as good as those two tracks?

No but there are some decent ones on there though.

Robyn and Kelly both tug at the heart strings. I don't think Gaga has that sincerity yet and compared I think its even more obvious she's not top20 worthy yet. Still think the natural progression in her lolindustry career is to go away for 10 years and make her classic tho.

Gaga's biggest problem is that she is entirely incoherent unless she's talking about partying, so it's relatively difficult for her to evoke an emotional response aside from brattiness. (Sometimes, though, that works really well in her favor a la "Telephone".)

burial kind of sounds like witch house

"witch house" kind of sounds like burial.

sry, can't bring myself to leave out the scare quotes

ilxors, I present your TOP TEN...

10. LCD SOUNDSYSTEM "All My Friends" (2007) [488 points, 19 votes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXp1TQPf2pY

Faster.

WTF