ILM'S TOP 77 TRACKS of 2010

as a result the only way it ends up coming here is gonna be thru the idm nerd/critic /stoner super-male circle jerk

otm post in general, but why cloud the issue w/ concerns about the kind of people who presumably promote and/or like the track and whether or not they're the right kind of people doing it the right way? understand that club music has a functional aspect, but isn't it okay to approach tunes as tunes, social politics aside, even if you're all indie or whatever?

^^^ all indie

we prefer our rhythms danceable :O

Hah, complete lack of danceability is one reason I don't like Hard In Da Paint.

american posters never really got mnml techno either, did they?

i know what you mean tho; i get the impression that the clubs in AUS and the USA where this might be played are not as banging as those here, can totally imagine the snobby unfun mentality too. it's pretty frustrating to see those outliers being used as a stick to beat night slugs with when it, and similar nights here, are as banging as you obviously want dance music to be - really heavy on ghettotech, chicago house, bits of mainstream hip-hop and r&b as well as juke/grime/uk bass. night slugs' first ever tagline back in 08 was "gutter house".

i think NYC and LA might have nights like that? like the one kingdom puts on. it's telling that the productions by US affiliates of this sound - kingdom, brenmar, nguzunguzu - are much more overtly uptempo and jacking (check kingdom's "fogs" and "mind reader", brenmar's "taking it down" and his "what's my name" rihanna remix, nguzunguzu's "caresss$" and "mirage"...and yeah listen to my list!)

find it weird when ppl get to arguing about what is 'danceable' or not. everything is danceable in the right context imo.

otm post in general, but why cloud the issue w/ concerns about the kind of people who presumably promote and/or like the track and whether or not they're the right kind of people doing it the right way? understand that club music has a functional aspect, but isn't it okay to approach tunes as tunes, social politics aside, even if you're all indie or whatever?

― normal_fantasy-unicorns (contenderizer), Friday, January 28, 2011 9:55 AM (30 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

my approach involves looking at the intersection of aesthetics and to what degree aesthetics are coded for their audience -- the audience interests me insofar as it helps i.d. what values are place on certain aesthetic moves by that audience -- doesnt mean there's something wrong w/ these choices, until u start constructing heirarchies that privilege certain values over others. i find that certain *types* of uk dance music that do make it over here seem to crossover w/ idm nerds but not 'people who like to go out & dance,' and that the reason for this isnt a simple matter of exposure but is based in intrinsic aesthetic characteristics of the music itself (or at least, how populations relate to that)

i think "hard in da paint" is super danceable. the objections are for the same reason though? neither "wut" nor "paint" have a particularly high bpm so you do have to slow things down a bit. def think that an entire night without anything at a higher bpm would bore me but that's not really the point with consciously BIG ANTHEMS like those two.

yeah i dance to hard in the the paint most mornings before work

find it weird when ppl get to arguing about what is 'danceable' or not. everything is danceable in the right context imo.

― whitney from mtv's the city (tpp), Friday, January 28, 2011 10:02 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im 100% on board w/ this as a dj but it requires contextualizing of 'obviously-danceable' to play 'is it danceable?' tracks. for the purposes of discussion here, im suggesting that 'wut' would never be contextual-'obviously danceable' music in the states

Wut has considerably more bounce than Hard In Da Paint. It's weird that the only rap songs in this poll I wasn't 100% down with were that and the Rick Ross song so maybe I just can't 'get' this very particular aesthetic.

i think something that puts me off from 'wut' and nightslugs / that scene's music in general is that there is no comparable club scene in the states that it could fit in w/ and as a result the only way it ends up coming here is gonna be thru the idm nerd/critic /stoner super-male circle jerk

Actually there is, Kingdom has (or at least had) a couple of regular nights in New York. As a "scene" Night Slugs is pretty small, it and stuff like it don't really exist outside a handful of nights in London either.

i dont really 'dance' to hard n da paint i mostly mean mug, headbang & make rapper hands

Actually there is, Kingdom has (or at least had) a couple of regular nights in New York. As a "scene" Night Slugs is pretty small, it and stuff like it don't really exist outside a handful of nights in London either.

― Matt DC, Friday, January 28, 2011 10:05 AM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark

this is exception-that-proves-the-rule type ish. hipster club in bk, probably all dudes? hmmmm

Yeah, I spent the better part of the year dancing my ass off to this kind of stuff (and Hard in da Paint lol) at Kingdom's monthly night in NYC so idgi.

hipster club in bk, probably all dudes?

Lots of gay dudes! And a good number of chicks too.

probably all dudes?

see this is the kind of o_0 projection/assumption that really pisses me off. no, fyi, and why don't you go and find out more about it and maybe look up pictures of it before dismissing it as some kind of strawclub?

thing that puts me off from "wut" is that while it's damn good for what it is, it doesn't strike me as broadly appealing or timeless. i don't mean that i don't like it, but that i can't see in it the sort of cross-genre unifying power that even the tracks i most despise from lower in the list so obviously possess (e.g., jamie woon). maybe i'm wrong, but i can't imagine that it's gonna define 2010 for a wide variety of people years down the road or even be particularly well-remembered outside the circle of UK clubgoers. could see it crossing over to dance-curious US indie types, but only on a very small scale.

^ maybe this is the dumbass version of what deej just said. hmmm...

fwiw none of the nights in this scene that i attend regularly - night slugs, wifey (more of a dancehall/funky slant), so bones (str8 r&b and hip-hop but "wut" and other uk bass stuff will get played), tactile - are in any way male-dominated, lol. so please quit that particular accusation.

see this is the kind of o_0 projection/assumption that really pisses me off. no, fyi, and why don't you go and find out more about it and maybe look up pictures of it before dismissing it as some kind of strawclub?

― lextasy refix (lex pretend), Friday, January 28, 2011 10:09 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is missing the point lex. this is like .0000000000000000000001% of american clubgoing audiences

fwiw none of the nights in this scene that i attend regularly - night slugs, wifey (more of a dancehall/funky slant), so bones (str8 r&b and hip-hop but "wut" and other uk bass stuff will get played), tactile - are in any way male-dominated, lol. so please quit that particular accusation.

― lextasy refix (lex pretend), Friday, January 28, 2011 10:11 AM (41 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

IM TALKING ABOUT THE UNITED STATES

find it weird when ppl get to arguing about what is 'danceable' or not. everything is danceable in the right context imo.

― whitney from mtv's the city (tpp), Friday, January 28, 2011 4:02 PM (8 minutes ago)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgy1E4YFef8

deej do you consider it at all relevant when britishers who never encounter rap like waka flocka flame or gucci mane in the wild complain that they don't get it?

my approach involves looking at the intersection of aesthetics and to what degree aesthetics are coded for their audience -- the audience interests me insofar as it helps i.d. what values are place on certain aesthetic moves by that audience

this is tricky b/c there's not usually a set-in-stone "audience" for artists these days.

if we're considering waka flocka, for example, which audience are you considering-- the Gucci fans who've crossed over due to Waka's association w/ Gucci? folks who know him locally from the atlanta scene? the college kids and indie-leaning young adults who see his album get an 8.0 on pfork? the folks who notice his album on P&J? or people who are really into from-the-streets Southern hip-hop as an aesthetic preference, the "true fans"? how about people who saw him on MTV in the last year or so? there's crossover between all these touchpoints, but there's not one specific audience-- it's extremely fragmented.

i don't think these producers would have really 'considered the U.S audience' when making a song like 'WUT' so why consider it when listening to it?

we do not exist purely to export kewl new music to brooklyn hipsters and canadian idm nerds u know

i guess you stopped doing that in like 1982

can I just say that "timeless" shouldn't really matter because we're not making a canon for posterity. end of year lists should represent that year, and I played "Wut" an awful lot this year.

caribou - sun: yeah this is gd, already heard, already liked, the wibbly organ and underwater vox are neato, rpt ad infinitum, yay. prefer 'odessa' tho coz of the aforementioned drum-break which is as sweet as ear-candy gets

wiz khalifa - black and yellow: bling amirite, dnrgi tbh. yeah it's big and catchy but there's nothing there soz. dude's not rly saying anything or bringing good music, just rly avg pop-rap. doesn't have the joie de vivre or novel execution of 'whip my hair'. suppose I'd better listen again 2 make sure tho. nah. you're boring me. this is all big blaring synths i hear in most every chart-rap song. cutting-edge rap is abt lil b now, read yr blogs

mia - born free: ok I have often had a go @ mia 4 being dull and obstreperous but this is all of the latter, none of the former, i.e. whooooooohooooooooooooooooooooooo. n.b. that is just referring to the beginning, it might GET dull! we'll see. ooh but unlikely, this is a fucking noisy nasty riot! :D drums! mia shd make her music basically like this and not like paper planes tbrr. anyway this ain't particularly great but I like what it's doing, wdnt go outta my way 2 hear coz I can get my riotnoize w/o concessions 2 marketability but do not object

these new puritans - we want war: obviously this is fucking brilliant, gripping, incremental etc and those of u who have found weird and wonderful ways to dismiss it ('sounds like muse' being my favourite) are just revealing how closed-minded u truly r. embrace variety u pophouserap dullards haha I LOVE U N UR OFTEN BRILLIANT MUSIC RLY

lol

mebbe tnp aren't yr thing

thats ok

i am calm now

tensnake - coma cat: listened to this when it was posted, didn't rly get it. fair enough, I need to go clubbing more, but listened to as musical art in my own home, it just seemed a bit rote. nothing to grab me. BUT I AM SURE IT BANGS

earl sweatshirt - earl: :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD ok this makes a fine companion to that mia song. rly rly gleefully nasty shit. awesome perversion of how metallic synths are usually used in modern rap. kinda wants you to die. only 2 1/2 minutes. yes. approve. only misgiving is how relentlessly one-mooded it is, but as a bolt of vitriol it'll more than do

i mean...isn't understanding the IRL context of the music (not the context it's artificially transplanted to online or outside of its home environment) exactly what you're always asking others to do, deej? building projections and assumptions and strawmen around gucci mane based on who digs him in the UK (hint: no one except stoner boys) is exactly as useful as everything you've said about night slugs in this thread.

in the u.s., im fighting for gucci to be taken seriously on a critical level. in the u.s., night slugs has that appreciation built in already

'exotic dance music -- obv better than the trash americans listen to am i right'

(^^this is an american talking)

i should make it clear i dont think critics need to cover only critically uncelebrated music & i have no problem w/ lex covering this stuff -- i believe him that its a big deal in the uk -- im just saying that knowing how this aesthetic would function in the u.s. is what is driving my disinterest, personally

the audience interests me insofar as it helps i.d. what values are place on certain aesthetic moves by that audience -- doesnt mean there's something wrong w/ these choices, until u start constructing heirarchies that privilege certain values over others. i find that certain *types* of uk dance music that do make it over here seem to crossover w/ idm nerds but not 'people who like to go out & dance,' and that the reason for this isnt a simple matter of exposure but is based in intrinsic aesthetic characteristics of the music itself (or at least, how populations relate to that)

― *kl0p* (deej), Friday, January 28, 2011 8:03 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

great post. i often try to parse the relationship of aesthetics to culture, so i get where you're coming from. it's clear that serious idm heads and clubgoing partiers are circles with limited overlap. i recognize that different groups like different things for different reasons, but i try not to privilege the values of one over the other. i mean, i might say something like, "i'm a nerd, so i'm more on board w/ the nerdy stuff." that awareness doesn't make me object to the values coded into legit dance music, though, and it doesn't make me suspicious about the aesthetic agenda of those who enjoy it.

^^^ i say that cuz i think you do sometimes close yourself to stuff if you think the wrong people are digging it for the wrong reasons, or at least you diminish the validity of those people's appreciation. i say this not to "call u out," but just cuz it causes friction in threads and is maybe kinda questionable at root.

im just saying that knowing how this aesthetic would function in the u.s. is what is driving my disinterest, personally

well that's absolutely fine - i don't really expect americans to be into it any more than i expected them to get berlin minimal techno a few years ago, and like i don't expect most british people to get street rap - but it's the off-putting and inaccurate things you're projecting on a scene you don't know that's frustrating.

find it weird when ppl get to arguing about what is 'danceable' or not. everything is danceable in the right context imo.

― whitney from mtv's the city (tpp), Friday, January 28, 2011 11:02 AM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

EVERYTHING?

this opinion is formed ever since i saw this one dude doing the most hilarious dance to sun 0) ) ) ) ) ))0))))

just danced to that post

(hint: no one except stoner boys)

I'M NOT A STONER BTW FTR LOL

and none of the uk ppl i know who dig gucci are stoners either #justsayin

"everything is danceable (with the right drugs)" would be a more defensible statement imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8Q-4adwVck

context bro, context xp

(Oops, sorry, I thought I dis-embedded that.)

'Wut' is so obviously influenced and inspired by US rap that I find the idea of it being inaccessible over there (in the ways deej claims at least) kinda ironic. I consider it an instrumental tho which would be a factor and partly why it's popularity in this poll is unusual and interesting imo (altho not that surprising as i suspected it might win back in October).

Deej not understanding that the creative output of the whole world does not revolve around American audiences seems to be the problem here. He's just sticking pins in the rhetorical map blindfolded basically.

Find it kinda strange that people say "Wut" is undanceable. I've made this criticism of all sorts of tunes and styles throughout the years, but I seriously don't see why shit wouldn't go off if this were played on a decent speaker system at the right time of night.

Deej not understanding that the creative output of the whole world does not revolve around American audiences seems to be the problem here. He's just sticking pins in the rhetorical map blindfolded basically.

― Matt DC, Friday, January 28, 2011 10:39 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

except that as i said im talking about 'in america' so ...?

i mean matt dc i read your comments upthread, its not like u are incorporating some sort of universalist outlook when u listen to gucci or waka

'Wut' is so obviously influenced and inspired by US rap that I find the idea of it being inaccessible over there (in the ways deej claims at least) kinda ironic. I consider it an instrumental tho which would be a factor and partly why it's popularity in this poll is unusual and interesting imo (altho not that surprising as i suspected it might win back in October).

― idgi fridays (blueski), Friday, January 28, 2011 10:38 AM (26 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i cant imagine dancing in a club to rap instrumentals either