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

NEXT YEAR, PLZ DO ME A FAVOUR AND EXCLUDE PITCHFORK PLACEMENT FROM THE TRACKS’ WRITE-UPS 3/10

otm! (res adv rankings could've been pertinent to this list)

Lana Del Ray – Video Games

THE HARP THAT MAKETH PROFUNDITY 8/10

irl lol

sure thing & drums, from a critical perspective, are ILX-only phenomenons, as far as I'm aware

the problem is not "us" going into our "wormhole", the problem is other critics as far as i'm concerned

b/c both of those songs should have been ubiquitous and universally lauded

woohoo
great list
wonderful to see britney and todd terje in the top ten

" heh is "once a week is enough" LJ?"

Took you long enough to notice!

I think the very ILMness of this list reflects how songs work in real-world social spheres rather than critical ones, one of the most fun things about music is having group anthems that feel like they're personal to your circle of friends. That's what Drumz in particular feels like.

Thanks for all the work JF, especially the jpegs. A great finish too.

Makes me want to change the way I use ILX a bit. I tend to get locked into posting a lot on certain debate-heavy threads and bypassing the individual song ones, hence my "wha?" face in response to tunes that Tim, Matt, Lex, etc have been raving about for months.

I think my favourite new thing from this list has to be the Cass McCoombs song, I'm getting Wichita Lineman rather than Wicked Game but it's not really hugely like either. It totally nails that whole blue-eyed country soul vibe though because he's a good enough singer to pull it off, in a way that someone like Kurt Wagner isn't no matter how great the songwriting may be.

seany mac, 3ball mty, cass mccombs and 2ne1 were the new-to-me tracks that are keepers for me. seany mac would certainly have got a vote from me if i'd heard it last year.

breakdown by nationality of lead artist (i counted nyan cat as japan and assumed "confounded" is american):

USA (22): Selena Gomez & The Scene, Gang Gang Dance (2), Pistol Annies, Tune-Yards, Big Sean, Invisible Conga People, Diddy Dirty Money (2), St Vincent, DJ Quik, Battles, Wild Flag, Danny Daze, Beyoncé (3), Confounded, Frank Ocean (2), Teengirl Fantasy, Creep, Benoit & Sergio (2), Waka Flocka Flame, John Maus, The Rapture, Wilco, Pitbull, Jay-Z & Kanye West, Rebecca Black, Big K.R.I.T., Tyler The Creator, EMA, Kelly Rowland, JoJo, Cass McCombs, Kreayshawn, Desloc Piccalo, Britney Spears, Lana Del Rey, Azealia Banks
GBR (15): Mogwai, The Joy Formidable, Locussolus, Yuck, The Go Team, Kate Bush, Katy B (2), Nadia Oh, Terror Danjah, Seany Mac, PJ Harvey, Joe Goddard, Emeli Sandé, Blawan
CAN (5): Junior Boys, Fucked Up, Destroyer (2), Jacques Greene
AUS: Gotye
BAR: Rihanna
ESP: John Talabot
FRA: M83
GER: Barbara Panther
ITA: Tuccillo
JAM: Konshens
JPN: Nyan Cat
KOR: 2NE1
MEX: 3BallMTY
NED: Steffi
NOR: Todd Terje
SWE: Robyn
TRI: Nicki Minaj

Germany and Jamaica can be a bit disappointed with their performance - the tabloids at home are photoshopping the manager's face onto a turnip.

really thought meek mill would place somewhere

Little disappointed that there wasn't enough of an Ill Blu bandwagon to get them in.

Also WTF Nadia Oh is British?!

i think there were almost too many great dancehall tracks of roughly equivalent quality and little consensus around which ones were the best.

nadia oh's real name is nadia oates

Germany and Jamaica can be a bit disappointed with their performance - the tabloids at home are photoshopping the manager's face onto a turnip.

and GER's one representative was born in Rwanda! (moved to GER as a child though)

Barbara Panther isn't German, she's Belgian (of Rwandan descent). Her English accent most definitely isn't German, though I think she lives in Berlin now.

It was an interesting rundown, just kind of a shame I didn't really like very many of them all that much (still around 15 I haven't played yet though). That being said, I'm not sure this is the best way to hear new things, at work, one after the other, forming an opinion right then and there

xxp in that case, shouldn't Nicki count as an American?

But yeah, was surprised that there are no (if you don't count Panther) German artists in the poll this year... Bad year for German electronic music, or doesn't ILM love it anymore?

maybe, like the metallers, that faction just didn't vote.

Number of tracks in this year's list that I'd never heard of before (not(not just "never heard" - "never heard OF"): 31.

I'm getting old. :-(

I had assumed Steffi was German because she's so associated with Berlin. Generally it does feel a bit like the focus has shifted a bit away from Germany and towards Scandinavia and Britain over the last few years, if only because Germany was so dominant for so long.

Germany still feels like a hub, it just happens that this year's dance anthems were by people who don't actually *come from* Germany, though Steffi lives and works there and Talabot has released his album on a German label

one of the most fun things about music is having group anthems that feel like they're personal to your circle of friends.

Huh. I don't think I have ever had this experience.

Less and less so for me I think - maybe when I was a teenager. I really need to get some IRL friends who like decent music.

Huh. I don't think I have ever had this experience
butter rolls!!!

Ha, I don't know if that counts, but maybe.

that Blawan track is amazing! cant remember a track poll with so many songs i wasnt familiar with!

that Blawan track is amazing!

Yes, totally. Hadn't bothered checking it out cos I wasn't really into his other stuff that I heard this year but damn. Has been totally lodged in my brain for the last 24 hrs w/ no sign of leaving any day soon.

Blawan is the guy who makes big clonky drum-led post-dubstep, right? Don't know if I've heard this track yet.

Yeah that's right. This is just a liiiittle bit catchier though.

Bass is still pretty aggro though.

uggh must stop writing though

any chance of the complete results or did i miss them?

different thread: 2011 Tracks Poll: Conclave of Stats, Ballots and Debriefing

I think the very ILMness of this list reflects how songs work in real-world social spheres rather than critical ones, one of the most fun things about music is having group anthems that feel like they're personal to your circle of friends. That's what Drumz in particular feels like.

― Matt DC, Friday, January 27, 2012 3:22 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yes exactly

maybe what i'm recognizing is just the 'group of friends' happening to also be a 'group of critics' but part of my purpose here is to highlight the element of subjectivity & randomness of these kinds of things (which is the point I think Lex is missing)

Al I know "Sure Thing" was a big song but it also is one of several big songs that didn't make this list at all, and it beat motivation which for ex. i think is the better song. I didn't lose that war b/c i'm wrong, I lost it b/c more people agreed with you and j0rdan than agreed with me. there was lots of stuff that was good & charted that didn't come w/in a stones throw of this list, like "Ima Boss"

& fwiw these aren't in any way criticisms of the results, just an observation that this subjectivity/randomness feels more evident to me in the results at LOTS of polls / year end lists I've read this year than ever before, like the critical 'canon' is really breaking down to a lot of different perspectives

then i'm recognizing that maybe I'm just noticing it more this year, but it *feels right*

I think deej has a point, but I'm coming at it from the opposite perspective. In the last two years, I have felt more alienated from the results of the ILM poll than I had in years previous, and I'm guessing that it's because a lot of the excitement around certain songs is built up socially in threads I don't frequent, and therefore I'm not aware of them. It seems like that the growth of specialist cliques on ILM has resulted in the emergence of unofficial voting blocs, rather than just individual dilettantes, in the year-end poll.

(I guess I'm also probably not digging as deep as I used to.)

We occasionally share around YouTube music videos on a Friday afternoon at work; I went with Invisible Conga People (OK, not much of a video), Battles and Azealia Banks - keepin' it 2011 for once. Azealia got the most +ve reaction from my 50yo Swedish lesbian colleague - "I honestly hope you play this sort of stuff to your girls - maybe not just yet but soon; they'll hear all the misogynist stuff anyway, it's everywhere, but they need to hear this as a remedy."

xp But, OK, here is the ILM top 20 of 2006:

1. Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy"
2. T.I., "What You Know"
3. Justin Timberlake, "My Love"
4. Hot Chip, "Over and Over"
5. Peter Bjorn and John, "Young Folks"
6. Nelly Furtado, "Promiscuous"
7. Junior Boys, "In the Morning"
8. Lily Allen, "LDN"
9. The Knife, "Silent Shout"
10. Lupe Fiasco, "Kick, Push"
11. Justin Timberlake, "SexyBack"
12. Cat Power, "The Greatest"
13. Cassie, "Me & U"
14. TV on the Radio, "Wolf Like Me"
15. Beyonce, "Irreplaceable"
16. Ghostface Killah, "Shakey Dog"
17. Hot Chip, "Boy from School"
18. Liars, "Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack"
19. Chamillionaire, "Ridin'"
20. The Hold Steady, "Stuck Between Stations"

This seems a lot closer to whatever would've been on the P4k/P&J lists at the time, without a whole lot of ILM-specific fare.

this year was the ilxiest list ever

almost the entire top 25 of this year's pazz & jop featured in the ilx list. notable exceptions: adele (and when has ilx EVER enthused about her), foster the people (i remain happily oblivious about this group), lady gaga (we've talked about why she might not have shown already)

xp But I guess the point that I want to make is that because ILM isn't monolithic, "ILM-y" influences on the poll tend to be passionate factions that by definition don't represent the entirety of the voters.

Don't get me wrong: this isn't a bad thing. There are lots of songs on the poll I never would've heard otherwise. But when the poll is described as "very ILM," it makes me (as someone who doesn't participate in the goon crew or the bobbins threads) feel aloof from ILM.

when the poll is described as "very ILM," it makes me (as someone who doesn't participate in the goon crew or the bobbins threads) feel aloof from ILM.

THIS.

there wasn't a huge influence from either of those threads?

maybe bobbins

this year felt like there would've been mycrossover with resident advisor than p4k which, well, that's only a positive. why is p4k a litmus test again?

what even were the ilx-specific oddities? desloc obv. the memes showed up in a lot of places. the lulu cover. jojo? but no one even stanned at length for that on ilx, it just happens to be the kind of track that pushes ilx buttons, and would have in 2006 too.

a lot of the stuff on old lists seems obvious in retrospect for various reasons - ilx being ahead of the game (critically), a particular aesthetic becoming absorbed into ilx &c &c.

that said this year's list did feel fragmented, and i think the relatively low number of voters needed to place quite highly bears that out. but pop in general was pretty fragmented! "countdown", which was a consensus pop pick in every list i've seen, wasn't even a particularly big hit!

*more crossover