ILM'S TOP 77 TRACKS of 2011 (Los resultados!)

of today's tracks, i voted for 'romance' and 'hey moon.' i didn't discover 'hey moon' until i was going through the spotify tracks playlist and at first i thought it was kind of dirge-y and blah. but when it was over i wanted to hear it again and it ended up growing on me quickly.

really happy to see '1 + 1' place even though i didn't vote for it. i love the production on the studio version, but i think i might prefer the live dressing room version someone posted in the album thread. also happy to see katy b even though this wasn't the single i voted for.

Yeah true xp and xxp.

I didn't really carry the goon flag at all this year. Even the rap I voted for was like Trina and Ying Yang Twinz. I ended up having to cut Trouble and Cousin Fik at the last moment. :(

Lots here to fritter away the last of my monthly Spotify minutes on (yeah, YouTube - but the sound's always inferior there, isn't it?). Maus track is pretty and reminds me a little of a smearier Mag Fields circa House of Tomorrow.

Invisible Conga People, Danny Daze, Talabot/Glasser all good, second GGD track a pleasant surprise; Bush and Battles standouts but I knew I already liked those (I'm very out of touch).

I love that Invisible Conga People track so much.

think the most depressing thing now is the impending inescapable odd future invasion of the top 40

i'm 9/37

think the most depressing thing now is the impending inescapable odd future invasion of the top 40

― Jamie_ATP, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 6:51 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wait what

"yonkers" and "novacane" MIGHT be in the top 40, but that's hardly an invasion

the full length version of the nadia oh track is great, such a weird combination of chintzy and epic. tim f otm about the slowness being totally key.

otm, they had nothing else of note. xp

I didn't vote, but of things that placed I would've voted for:

65 - JOHN TALABOT ft. GLASSER "Families" (204 Points, 7 Votes)
51 - KONSHENS "Nuh Pull It Up" (230 Points, 6 Votes)
47 - KATY B "Easy Please Me" (244 Points, 9 Votes)
41 - THE RAPTURE "How Deep Is Your Love?" (257 Points, 11 Votes)

i'm doing p good this year i voted for invisible conga people, the two john talabot tracks, the nina sky and the benoit and sergio one

everything i didn't vote for is super terrible

so upthread I said "lol Kanye/Jay-Z" and then went back and spent the rest of the day listening to Watch The Throne, which is maybe the most overtly political album I bought all last year and really, really, really fucking excellent

love "Banana Ripple". It was my #2. It just really hit me at some point in the late summer.

really hoping that Seany Mac - One Of Those Days features

I bet it will

really hoping that Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song features

yeah love that, such a jam

im not sure ringtone cru really rallied around anything this year

― I Love Pedantry (D-40), Tuesday, 24 January 2012 23:23 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have a feeling that goons will have quite an influence on the album list more. hiphop was more about really good mixtapes in 2011 and no real singles to pick from them imo. Like it would be easier just picking Return of 4EVA than just 1 KRIT song? I dunno.

i love that rapture single.

also anyone wanna give me the scoop on CREEP and John Maus?

more thoughts:

69 - INVISIBLE CONGA PEOPLE "In a Hole" (190 Points, 8 Votes)
I think these slowed-down male vox are my least favorite trend in dance music. Otherwise this sounds great sonically, but they really need to pick up the pace.

68 - BARBARA PANTHER "Moonlightpeople" (192 Points, 6 Votes)
I like the sound of this record too, but the vocals are a mess.

67 - 3BALLMTY ft. EL BEBETO & AMÉRICA SIERRA "Inténtalo" (200 Points, 7 Votes)
Oh damn, why had I not heard this before? Total jam. I need to hear more tribal guarachero for sure. Definitely my favorite new discovery so far.

66 - TUCCILLO "Disco en Paradiso" (200 Points, 8 Votes, 1 First-Place Vote)
Kosmische! This gets better the more synths come in. Cool track.

65 - JOHN TALABOT ft. GLASSER "Families" (204 Points, 7 Votes)
This is alright. I like the sunny sound and the vocals. Again, I wish it was a bit faster though.

64 - DIDDY-DIRTY MONEY ft. SKYLAR GREY "Coming Home" (208 Points, 6 Votes)
This should by all means be just as cheesy and bad as everything else Alex da Kid and Skylar Grey have ever touched, but wins on strong writing and pure honest emotion, which I love even more given Diddy's rep for cynicism. It might be Diddy's greatest vocal performance. I probably would have voted for it if I didn't think of it as a 2010 song.

63 - STEFFI ft. VIRGINIA "Yours" (208 Points, 10 Votes, 1 First-Place Vote)
Oh! Nice, nice nice. I love this. This is making me dance. Restrained, but syncopated in the exact right way and always feels just on the edge of going mental. My other favorite new discovery other than 3ball MTY.

62 - LOCUSSOLUS "I Want It (Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas Remix)" (212 Points, 7 Votes)
Damn, while I love Lindstrom, I'm not quite his most obsessive fanboy on ILX and this somehow passed me by. Such goofy fun. I love the horns, piano, and the chord changes in the bridge. Another keeper. The autotuned vocal sounds way out of place though.

61 - ST. VINCENT "Surgeon" (214 Points, 6 Votes)
This is nice. I expected it to totally not be my thing. I like the slurry synth-strings, the busy (keyboard? guitar?) during the chorus, the sudden bursts of repitition. Oh and this keeps getting better! That Bernie Worrell synth-bass, the screeching lead synth! Oh, this is good.

CREEP f/ Nina Sky = dark, depressing witchhaus with intimate r&b vocals. made my longlist

johnmau5 = joy division-y synthpop iirc?

really the best thing about 'hey moon' was that it prompted me to read that "john maus is a a worthless idiot" thread and therefore exposed me to his classic anthem 'rights for gays.'

Hey Moon is really good, but I think I voted for Believer. I think HM must be a duet with the girl who originally did it. Or maybe he's just singing over her version? They sound practically identical.

Katy B - I had to vote for a track off this album and I realised I'd be kidding myself if it wasn't this one. Maybe not the danciest thing on the LP but the production, the lyrics, the all-round charm of this is what sells it.

Lots of neat bobbins tunes I hadn't heard before. The Tucillo is just one of these great little grooves that turns into this incredibly catchy tune that could have been bobbing around in my mind since birth for all I know.

Walk & Talk I also voted for. I'd become fascinated by the morbidity of house tracks like Art Department's 'Without You' and then I heard this on the Wolf + Lamb / Soul Clap mix (have to thank Tim F for pointing this one out). "My baby does K all daaaayyyy" - what a horrible, depressing thing to play to people who are dancing in a club - but maybe not? There's a bittersweet poignancy to lyrics like this, and the message changes with set and setting. I can imagine people dancing to this in a club and adopting it as a subversive anthem. And then the production - it's so hazy and tracery - it's almost as though you're being placed in the k-hole state - blissful and anxious.

I didn't vote

― DO NOT CALL (The Brainwasher), Tuesday, January 24, 2012 3:54 PM Bookmark

lol a torpedo to 75% of my ballot

Agree with everything the Rev said about Locossolus.

The Tune-Yards track is brilliant - forget about the vocals, there's some great musicianship/song-structuring going on here.

battles have some great moments but make really horrible ~songs~ imo, ice cream being a case in point. benoit & sergio, danny daze, john maus, quik all great, don't think any were in my ramshackle ballot though. really adore walk & talk's warm narcotic sadness, should have been right up there. frank ocean also has a sort of soft conversational quality which i find v appealing, really played the tape to death in spring.

lol a torpedo to 75% of my ballot

― lag∞n affiliated (The Reverend),

lol sorry bro :(

I don't know if I love or hate this Go! Team track. Sounds like a French chanson singer doing a cover of Of Montreal with Cure as her backing band, or some sort of Belle & Sebastian pastiche... Or I dunno... Something or other on acid(!)

as if i didn't actually vote for the selena track wtf

could've made it higher :(

i have never heard of john maus and have literally no idea what kind of music this could be - i shall listen in the morning (as long as there are no really off-putting posts while i sleep)

i don't even hate the rapture but a) this is 2012 b) "thong song break" = i shall not be listening to this in the morning or at any time

mdc i am going to need to have words with you about your judgment re: waka and nadia oh

the rapture song is cool... i really love the final song on that album, it would've been perfect on the "greenberg" soundtrack and i 100% mean that as a compliment

hiphop was more about really good mixtapes in 2011 and no real singles to pick from them imo. Like it would be easier just picking Return of 4EVA than just 1 KRIT song? I dunno.

I'm holding out a vain hope for "Money On The Floor". Better than anything on Return of 4Eva anyway.

That Mogwai track sounds so familiar... Is it BoC? Tortoise? Something from that era...?

The Rapture song is great, but there are also a couple of other good tracks on the album:, the title track "In The Grace Of Your Love", and "Come Back To Me". It's sort of a shame they got so easily figureheaded in the DFA/discopunk era that nowadays see them as old fashioned. I think this is their best album by far.

yeah I love the title track. That dudes voice is a lot less annoying than it was in the 'House of Jealous Lovers' days.

i have never understood why anybody thought anything the rapture did except for olio which i love is any good at all

"ice cream" is forever married in my mind to the amazing music video which really makes it a lot more exciting and memorable (same w/ the el guincho track from 2010)

heard that danny daze song a lot this year but never knew what it was tbh! super in to it. really feel like louisahhh is gonna blow up in 2012, too.

can't remember how i first came across 3Ball MTY (could have sworn it was latin american hipster shit but it looks like i'm wrong) but its one of my most-played tracks of 2011. also forever married in my mind with the music video

i never would have heard the mogwai track if it hadn't shown up in the first hour of michael mayer's total 12 megaset for kompakt from last year-- a 20 minute song sounds really short in the context of a 12 hour mix, and it works really well

feel like the invisible conga people track is everything i should love but i'm not feeling it at all

steffi & benoit & sergio were both p huge songs this year and despite being relative no-shows in p+j and pfork, were rated pretty high on resident advisor's top 50

tuccillo is just so perfect-- big up Matt DC and Croatian DJs for blowing that up before the hed kandi/defected/naked comps did

really hope Oliver $ - Doin' Ya Thang gets in

"thong song break" = i shall not be listening to this in the morning or at any time

lol this is a lame joke you dork

benoit & sergio are soooooooooooo boring. do not get them at all.

i get why ppl would think they're boring. especially "walk and talk"

i voted "what ive lost" w/o knowing it was old

also i'm stoked on a lot of the indie stuff i didn't get around to this year: that Yuck song is great, and the Joy Formidable song was so good i listened to the whole album twice in a row yesterday

go team, however: still terrible. please tell me los campesinos didnt put anything out this year

they did, they put an amazing record

i'm sure it will amaze me.

also i'll never understand the "junior boys keep getting worse" narrative!!!!!

imo they go from strength to strength and "banana ripple" is a great track

I voted for Nadia Oh as my #1. I think its divisiveness is part of what makes it brilliant: it's a song about partying and decadence and wealth and silliness and made-up words so its only fair it's entirely loud and brash and obnoxious - in many ways, its the perfect dance/pop song for 2011 and the VEVO generation. Also - and this is especially true if you've had a few drinks - it sounds completely affected by its own messiness, in which I mean it's got those queasy background vocals that are slightly flat, the tempo is just a little too awkward, and those vocals stuttering and pitchshifted in parts, all adding up to the wtf-is-this sense that booze can give you when you're clubbing and you hear something a bit alien. It's got so much humour too: the dead-eyed "swag!", the opulent production, the Mean-Girls hand-flick of "gurl, do you follow?"

The rest of this list is really good, a lot of stuff I did or should have voted for has appeared so far so I'm really happy.

i'm pretty whatever about moombahton in general but i really enjoy that nadia oh track-- its just stupid enough

have totally underrated the Nadia Oh due to only hearing the radio edit. Listening to the original mix right now and while I'm not drunk, a lot of ^^what boxedjoy said is otm, especially about the humor.