ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012

British vocalists, enough with the fucking mockney though.

Yeah, they're rubbish at it too. I reckon Mockney of the Year award goes Nicki Minaj for Roman Holiday, needs to be some sort of official ceremony where Whiney passes over his pearly king's flat cap to her.

talking of Nicki, both of her songs to have placed so far are 10/10 flawless and amazing, yet neither were in the top 5 Nicki 2012 tracks I considered voting for (The Boys/Come On A Cone/Gun Shot/Pound The Alarm/Stupid Hoe). Her entire commercial strategy is so all-over-the-place and she's so happy to alienate various demographics at any given moment that she hasn't had enough credit for the impressive quantity of excellent songs she's made.

No personal interest in genre names, totally malleable anyway - the way anything and everything has become 'deep'. I get that people like to tag things but prefer "lady if you have to ask"

The day after and My Cabana is just something above all the tracks so far...can't get that hook out of my head, both its strength (the blankness as ppl pointed on the thread which I had a skim through) and weakness (bcz it can come off as funny). Not sure how puritan I want to go but I'll be chasing that mix tape.

omg it's toby!
that has to be the same toby right? hi!

looks like a great first day, dudes. awesome images and tons of stuff for me to listen to. only one thing i voted for placed "faith" but hey this is the first time i even did a trax ballot so

it's odd to me that the house that heaven built became the token japandroids song, i think adrenaline nightshift is the jam from that album, and really that album is only for ppl who slept on their first album.

Onwards and downwards:

(tie) 71. G-DRAGON "Crayon" [192 points, 6 votes]

70. TY DOLLA $IGN "My Cabana" [193 points, 8 votes]

69. FUTURE "Same Damn Time" [194 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote]

of my year ;-/

68. NICKI MINAJ FT. 2 CHAINZ "Beez in the Trap" [198 points, 9 votes]
67. NICKI MINAJ "Starships" [200 points, 8 votes]

It's Nicki. She can do little wrong in my eyes. 'Beez In The Trap' is a down'n'gritty, syllabically precise roller that's really satisfying to my ears. Maybe one of my faves of the poll so far. I've heard 'Starships' loads of times before, but I don't like this kind of production - it's just way too Saturday night lightbulbs for me and that ruins a lot of the better bits, like Nicki's delivery and the bit where it all kicks off in the last quarter.

65. JAPANDROIDS "The House That Heaven Built" [203 points, 7 votes]

I guess, no matter what the technological advances, there'll always be a place in the world for straight-down-the-line fuzzy guitars and drums and Japandroids do it fairly well. Whether they're ever likely to blow my mind would probably depend on how much I listen to the album, which isn't likely cos life's frankly too short. Whoever compared it to Bruce Springsteen wasn't wrong.

64. GURU "Lapaz Toyota" [204 points, 6 votes]

How did I not know about this? Fantastic!

back to work now - great list so far, or at least there's been nothing i've outright hated and loads of stuff that makes me think i need to pay more attention to it in the new year.

'samn damn time' fans, fyi: check out the remix for diddy's verse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMAKYu7NJM0

revelation of the thread for me has been that british people still say "tune"

choon innit

CHOOOON!

will be saying choon til i die.

OTM. My kids will laugh, but I'll be too busy pissing in my pants to care.

choonhouse

afrohouse of the august choon

We gonna get more tracks today? I gotta go to the bank and take a dump at some point today so I just want to plan out my schedule...

So it appears I've been completely ignorant of the term "afrobeats" (thinking people were talking about "afrobeat"), while really craving loads of African dance music and starting a thread on it. Duuuuh... So does afrobeats refer to all dance music from out of Africa? Does it include people like Sdunkero, the Aboyaness! sound etc... or is it more specific?

we actually have a canadian presenter on radio 1 these days (b traits of 'fever' fame) and she's always going on about "ahsome toons"

Afrobeats = Ghana (where they dance the Azonto) & Nigeria. Aboyaness ain't included. This was my introduction: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/19/the-rise-of-afrobeats

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

Apparently, it's on that album. It's still not clear to me whether there was any sort of significant release of this song (as a single in the U.S., say?) last year.

x-post

Thanks for the afrobeats clarification. I didn't know where that came from.

2012 rolling Afrobeats thread
2013 thread

Should probably mention it's an umbrella term rather than a genre tag per se - azonto is a genre that fits within that, but not all afrobeats is azonto. Generally speaking its African pop music (mostly Ghana/Nigeria but maybe not entirely) that's influenced by modern US and UK urban pop.

Javiera Mena's song is listed on the Spanish language wikipedia as a 2012 single: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javiera_Mena#Sencillos

Plus a few UK artists of African origin who are part of an ongoing discourse with the Ghana/Nigeria scenes. There might be US afrobeats artists as well by this point but I'm not aware of any.

And peaking at 77, no less.

xp

Afrobeats = Ghana (where they dance the Azonto) & Nigeria. Aboyaness ain't included. This was my introduction: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/19/the-rise-of-afrobeats

― mike t-diva, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 17:01 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thanks Mike t-Diva, will check.

I've always found that first thread title offputtingly grotesque (I don't know, it's partly the dialect). Also, if I just see a genre term in an ILM thread title I never assume it's "real."

x-post

Javiera Mena's song is listed on the Spanish language wikipedia as a 2012 single: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javiera_Mena#Sencillos

Thanks, I didn't get that far in searching.

Well if anything, this conversation has made me want to check out Afrobeats music.

Is the latest LV album Sebenza considered Afrobeats? He recorded it in S Africa with some local rappers. I think it is quite wonderful but I am probably the only person to have voted for it, never seen anyone mention it on Ilm threads. Check it out Afrobeaters and Jackers or whatever.

Whoever compared it to Bruce Springsteen wasn't wrong.

This is probably what I really meant when I thought it sounded like Arcade Fire. IMO the style doesn't work as well for them, although it's their most recognized song yet, so what do I know...

omg it's toby!
that has to be the same toby right? hi!

yeah it's me, back for my annual burst of ILM posting... Hi!

toby or not toby

gonna get this started today in like 20-30 mins

Is the latest LV album Sebenza considered Afrobeats? He recorded it in S Africa with some local rappers. I think it is quite wonderful but I am probably the only person to have voted for it, never seen anyone mention it on Ilm threads. Check it out Afrobeaters and Jackers or whatever.

― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Tuesday, 22 January 2013 17:11 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny, I was listening to this for the first time just this morning. It was pretty good.

gonna get this started today in like 20-30 mins

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 22 January 2013 17:13 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm always on the train home when the new tracks start getting posted. Wait all day at work w/full internet access and then I'm watching results from my phone :-(

revelation of the thread for me has been that british people still say "tune"

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, January 22, 2013 6:37 AM (44 minutes ago)

still cant believe Rev used "wot does it sounds like?

gonna get this started today in like 20-30 mins

― J0rdan S.

Thank god I have time to relieve myself w/ the newspaper now.

u need an iPhone Viceroy.

or at least some bath tissue.

still cant believe Rev used "wot does it sounds like?

― ❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Tuesday, 22 January 2013 17:23 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

http://youtu.be/e1YKFV45M18

^ reference to this u pleb

xpost or a catheter

ha, was gonna say xp

u need an iPhone Viceroy.

― besides Sunny Real Estate (dog latin)

Funny enough by paper I meant today's WaPo digital issue I downloaded onto my iPhone. Which is new BTW and was given to me as a gift from a relative who put me on their family plan. I am still poor as fuck, personally.

If I could afford a fancy smartphone I'd have gotten the Galaxy III but I'm not complaining about having a free iPhone...

point stands, xxp