ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012

sorry my new years resolution was not to respond to posts with the word "subjective" in them

to the 7 who voted for javiera mena, thank you for introducing me to my new favourite popstar. also i was just "ugh" when i heard references to 'jackin house' but that donkie punch track is the bomb.

Right, so I was ignorant re funky/jackin. I noticed all references to funky are in the past tense. Is it dead? I guess the Soul Jazz comp should have been a tip-off.

Even as a fan of house music it's hard to keep up with this stuff especially as this music has almost no profile in the US.

Rap has never needed to operate the same way because rap djing isn't driven by beatmatching or hours of continual dancing and it's less dj-driven to begin with. Rap songs can be all at different tempos with different rhythms and fit together better than a bunch of dance tracks with different tempos and rhythms, which is a recipe for a total mess.

good points all

(Incidentally, since I jumped into this discussion, if anyone is thinking "since when is he all into funky house," I'm not really. I still am put off by the vocals in a lot of it, but the beats tend to attract me and I'd probably dance to it if I were to hear it in a club (not likely to happen). And one of my favorite tracks from last year was Andy Jay and S-Tee's "Spiralling.")

imo jackin, funky, afrobeats are cool names cos they're simple, bear some (if not literal at least intuitive) connection to the actual music, are necessary because the sound really catches on, and aren't invented simply for marketing purposes

"Jack" holds a funny place in the English language, with its very elastic meanings.

errr....um I just ducked in to say I'm enjoying the rollout, A+ work on the images J0rd they look fab and uh MOAR NICKI and that is all

continue jacking in yr houses etc

Catching up with this now - starships beating out beez hurts, but nice to see dawn richard (twice!) and the goddess JAVIERA and her orgy of cowbell

losing hope that stupid hoe beats out both

crunk, trap, drill. they're simple, bear some (if not literal at least intuitive) connection to the actual music, generally feel more necessary because the sound really catches on, don't invent genres every time some british dude is befuddled at a club night.

This is a cute characterisation but really in the case of jackin' the development of a name was very similar, it's very much a localised phenomenon that - by the time a befuddled british dude becomes aware of it - already has a name, a sound, a code, a set of practices. There was no "what do you call it" moment as such.

It's different in the case of something like minimal which really coalesced already in the media spotlight, and where there was a discursive contest that lots of listeners/producers/critics/etc. were aware of before it had resolved. In that sense there was some legitimacy to people querying whether the music "should" be called "minimal" (though obv this was still largely a timewasting discussion) - whereas in this case the same kind of conversations don't occur because implictly we recognise that what befuddled british (or american or french or german or australian) dudes think isn't really pertinent.

I kind of wish someone would speak to how genrefication works in metal, because this is something I'm ignorant of and I'm curious to how it parallels/diverges from that in dance music.

― The Reverend,

This year what with NM and I running the metal poll we did not have any bother with metal subgenres mainly because AG and Aerosmith were not posting/fighting with each other.
It did in previous years as AG & Glenn produced stats with results split into stupid sub-genres and sub-subgenres and sub-sub-subgenres. I dont think anybody missed those stats, arguments or AG himself. Most metal people do not care about sub-genres imo in the real world.
Better to trust xhuxx than the others.

It makes sense to me that dance music would have lots of fairly specific genre names. When a DJ walks into a record store it helps if they can say "Have you got any new 'Jackin House'?" rather than "Do you have anything that sounds like some records I heard in a club the other week?" Non-DJ, regular music fans probably don't go to a store looking for such a specific sound.

I missed today's rollout, but my favorite discoveries so far have been the non-Anglophone tracks: Javiera Mena, G-Dragon, "Lapaz Toyota". My least favorite was Japandroids - reminds me of The Thermals - maybe it's a Northwest thing. Most of the others I wouldn't mind hearing again. Maybe not the Tame Impala either.

My perhaps incorrect sense of the key difference between metal and dance music sub-genrefication is that metal (like rock generally) remains band oriented, such that it's likely for bands to be classed as working within a particular sub-genre. This presumably makes it easier to split things more cleanly into sub-genres and sub-sub-genres (i.e. even if we argue over whether band X is sub-genre y, the argument is still most likely to be had at that level).

This is true for dance music as well to an extent but often genre names stand in for artists, both in the sense that for particular scenes there's not much attention paid to artists qua artists, and in the sense that one artist may make tunes in a variety of styles, all bearing the same moniker but played by different DJs at different nights and embraced by different audiences. For the audience, it's the consistency of the music heard on the night (encompassing the music of dozens of different artists), rather than the consistency of a single artist's discography, which matters.

In this sense, (sub)genres become more important as ways of grouping things together rather than ways of splitting them apart, in circumstances where the particular sound or context of a tune (on a tune by tune basis) may seem more relevant to the act of grouping than the identity of the creator.

^awesome. pwning everything again...

i love japandroids but i wouldn't place "the house that heaven built" in my 10 favorite songs of theirs, which is probably saying a lot since their catalog only has about 30 songs so far (including 5 or 6 covers).

the tame impla is the first song i voted for, probably also the last one. i still quite like it. what is so bad about being obsessed with the beatles and making a half decent psycedelic song out of it? there is not much besides the title line in that song but that is already quite a lot these days.

That song sucks. Guitar shite imo.

i like it, but at this point i'd rather hear some of the other songs from Bonerism.

Most metal people do not care about sub-genres imo in the real world.

i do! i care about sub-genres because they tell me something about the established traditions a metal band is accessing, looking to refine, etc. and holy shit it helps to know the elements of death metal vs. the elements of black metal vs. the elements of doom vs. prog vs. whatever just in terms of figuring out why you like the stuff you like

most dont care about differences between death metal and black metal. Its just all extreme metal with blllllllllllllaaaargggggggghhhhhh Singing

.... okay

oh, unless you mean most people, whereas i initially thought you meant most metal people

the former

like most posters in this thread or out in the real world

most dont care about differences between death metal and black metal. Its just all extreme metal with blllllllllllllaaaargggggggghhhhhh Singing

― ɷ, Monday, January 21, 2013 11:15 PM (4 minutes ago)

I can tell you for sure that black metal fans and death metal fans, while they generally get along all right, do not in any sense not care about the differences in the subgenres. But I agree that most people who are not fans of extreme metal neither care nor can distinguish these differences. But the same can be said for dance/electronic/techno music.

At least dance music doesnt have a manowar saying death to false metal.

Anyway, I've been posting less because I feel like there's too much nonmetal on here, but I don't want to be That Guy (although I guess I just became him).

― Bound by Habitrails (J3ff T.),

Are Goat, Swans, Converge metal as the voters said or not metal?
Metal Poll 2012 - The Countdown

i mean, i feel like the metal/not-metal distinction is a completely different conversation from like subgenre overlap

well its not as if it doesnt happen with house/non-house.

isn't the charge that dance music and metal fans are elitists?

ehhhhhhhhhhfkajdlkjfkj maybe we shouldn't clutter up the tracks thread with this conversation

Does Lex count as dance music's Man0War?

IMO this is the off-time. Once tracks start rolling out again then no, this conversation would be clutter, but is it really clutter in the middle of the night and also helps to keep this thread bumped up to the top of SNA?

its healthy debate no worse than earlier IMO and reverend did ask about it

ɷ, who did you used to be?

I think he's another sock of NM whomever that is. ɷ posted all the rollout results for the Metal Poll.

NM and I are 2 people.

Well he isn't me, AG, JJJ, sendalai, or Mordy so AFAIK Mr. Butt/Nuttz is a previous lurker now poster.

its a latin small letter closed omega dammit! Don't you know your IPA?

and for the purposes of this thread Oɷ = hoe

Omega, eh? I think I've figured out who Mr. Buttnutz is:

http://www.doctor-who.fr/wp-medias/2011/12/Omega_moche.jpg

How's Anti-matter Universe life going?

Feels Like Only We Go Backwards and Elephant were the only songs on Lonerism that really stood out to me. Mostly I kept thinking I'd rather be listening to Grandaddy. I found that style of production they use was much more effective on the Melody's Echo Chamber album.

The Chromatics album loses steam half through but there are some great moments, the title track rivals In The City for my favourite thing they've done. I saw them supporting Hot Chip last year and they were amazing. They played a short and perfectly picked set, they will have one hell of a Best of one day.

That Pulp song is an odd one, they've been one of my favourite bands for almost 20 years but that new song just leaves me cold. Agree that Jarvis on the radio is quite annoying. Kind of hope they don't make an album or anything.

The Javiera Mena song is great, her last album was the best thing I discovered from the 2010 list.

The AlunaGeorge song is cool. I hadn't heard anything by them until I went through the Spotify nominations playlist. I think I ended up voting for Your Drums, Your Love instead.

Really good list so far. I have a feeling I know how the top three will look but it's probably a little too early to start predicting.

House and dance rivals only metal for having the most inane subgenres

What statements like this translate as is "I don't understand why the distinctions are relevant and instead of making an effort I'm just going to sit here and act like I'm above it all" and should be treated with the attention and respect they deserve ie NONE.

3. AEROSMITH "LUV XXX" [1007 points, 6 votes]
2. LUMINEERS "Hoo Ha (ft. Mumford's Smiley Hat Banjo Band)" [2316 points, 87 votes]
1. FAKE R&B "the Entire Genre of False/Fradulent R&B" [6969 points, 96 votes]

what's with all the "british make up the stupidest dance music subgenres" talk in this thread.....'trap' anyone?

"EDM"

johnny fever is otm more often than not itt

(I know the discussion moved on but I felt deprived of my cathartic eyeroll and decided to go ahead anyway).

Incidentally I am delighted this morning to discover that Lapaz Toyota is on Spotify and that Abrantee comp it's on is a great entry point for anyone interested. Loads of awesome shit on there.

Working slowly through tracks. Most of these I've only heard once, but fwiw:

77. DAWN RICHARD "Pretty Wicked Things" [188 points, 6 votes]
I hadn't heard this before although I liked Armor On. PWT is interesting because it's constantly fakeying and wrongsiding, changing up into different forms. One minute it's an loveworn ballad but then it switches to a sort of avant-dance exercise before breaking into little bits and reassembling itself before doing it all over again.

75. CHROMATICS "Kill For Love" [188 points, 7 votes]
Never really got into Chromatics' whole Sunset Strip on mogadon schtick - I generally like it for about a minute and then get bored. But I guess if I were to get into them, this track has enough blood flowing through it to catch my interest.

75. ALUNAGEORGE "You Know You Like It" [188 points, 7 votes]
I really liked Alunageorge's old band My Toys Like Me. This is slightly more accessible and works well for it. Not sure I have my head wrapped round it yet, but I'll give her a better listen soon.

74. ANDRÉS "New For U" [190 points, 6 votes]
This reminds me of Theo Parrish's 'Solitary Flight' in that it uses a really nice loop to great effect. Yeah, could do with more going on, but I'm not sure that's the idea really. Like SF it's more a thing to put on and get absent-mindedly wrapped up in for a few minutes than anything else.

73. JAVIERA MENA "Luz de Piedra de Luna" [190 points, 7 votes]
Just awesome pop with some interesting sonic anachronisms flicking around it. Somehow on first listen it didn't quite elicit the 'woah amazing!' response I'd hoped from reading the comments, but I'm sure I'll be a big fan after a few goes.

71. PULP "After You" [192 points, 6 votes]
Still unclear as to whether this is a new or an old song. It's Pulp doing what they do and had it come out around the time of This Is Hardcore it might have changed their commercial fortunes maybe. It's got a pretty good groove, but lacks the classic Pulp choruses of their peak period. Still, listening to a 'new' Pulp song with a self-parodic 'disco/Tesco' whispered rhyme scheme in 2013 feels a bit weird.