ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012

Would wish yuna - live your life to place but you guys suck.

I'll be happy if inspector norse and pachanga boys make it.

Moka your second list looks much more likely than your first. Would be amazed if Lapaz Toyota placed but not Oliver Twist given that the latter is the certified pop hit and afrobeats gateway drug/rallying point.

d'banj, pachanga boys and "aaliyah" were all dead certs from the start - v pleased this means they end up in the top 20.

diplo has v little credibility among the producers i know - no one denies that he's involved with some jams (or...his name is on them, anyway), and "climax" is another dead cert, but no one would ever be like "oh diplo u are such a genius", if only because there's too much controversy about him repeatedly thieving tracks from other people

others i'm hoping will place but might be in doubt now - "au seve", "springsteen" (thought this was a dead cert but top 20 seems way too high considering it didn't have the profile of eg lady antebellum in the past), huxley...i wouldn't be surprised if one or even both of the biebers is still to come though

i think i'll be most happy about "aaliyah" placing - december freebie that came out of nowhere with no hype build-up that just slayed everyone with its sheer quality

guys, which bigbang songs did you vote for? i'm concerned about votesplitting. i gave "monster" a pretty high vote myself

Blawan ain't gonna place at this rate, is he?

If Tame Impala place again, it'll be Elephant.

diplo has v little credibility among the producers i know - no one denies that he's involved with some jams (or...his name is on them, anyway), and "climax" is another dead cert, but no one would ever be like "oh diplo u are such a genius", if only because there's too much controversy about him repeatedly thieving tracks from other people

but that's been diplo's thing since the beginning - he's considered a "genius" not for any production chops but rather for having a good eye for next big things

did 'inspector norse' blow up much globally? obv it did here (ilm i mean not the uk). hoping it had an outside chance of sneaking the top spot like 'wut' did a couple of years in 2010.

but that's been diplo's thing since the beginning - he's considered a "genius" not for any production chops but rather for having a good eye for next big things

is that a thing people really revere people for? i mean it's certainly a skill, i just don't think anyone would call it "genius"

his "business savvy" and "influence on the culture" become more virtues in and of themselves to some people the bigger he gets

is that a thing people really revere people for? i mean it's certainly a skill, i just don't think anyone would call it "genius"

― lex pretend, Thursday, 24 January 2013 08:55 (13 minutes ago) Permalink

I think it arguably is. Think about all the figures in hip hop etc who sampled rock and disco tracks who are considered, well maybe not "geniuses" but true greats. Is this not the same thing? I'm ambivalent about Diplo, personally. Most of his productions feel superficially energetic, but after a few tracks I find my ears getting fatigued.

* admittedly I don't know the whole story re: track thievery.

There's been relatively little dance music in the list compared to last year in particular, that's possibly because fewer ILM dance people have been voting, but I suspect it's also been because there have been fewer consensus tracks. Those that have served as some sort of rallying point - Au Seve, Time, Bodies maybe - could find themselves placing quite high as a result. Inspector Norse is a force in itself above and beyond all that and yeah will probably be top three.

I would be overjoyed if Adorn were to win this but Call Me Maybe is such a juggernaut I wouldn't be surprised if it won by a massive margin.

Have to admit I didn't listen to much dance music last year. Quite a bit more hip-hop, actually.

I guess B.Traits would be an outside contender for the top 20 as well.

really don't get 'au seve' but that's probably because the only time i've heard it "out" was in urban outfitters. it does seem to plod on and on tho.

the tensnake remix of lauer doesn't have a hope now does it? ;_; might also have expected 'smells like gasoline' to place above 'tocatta'. joy orbison maybe?

Remind me what Time is?

Oh yeah Pachanga Boys

xposts Yeah I was gonna say about the lack of dance tracks. I'm sure that by now I'd have discovered a whole clutch of nice bobbins and partisans stuff. In fact the whole list so far has felt very much staying within a rough category of styles, save a few examples. I know the tracks list is usually more pop than the albums list, but I don't remember it being quite so r'n'b and hip hop leaning than this. Or maybe it's because a lot of tracks seem to fall into multiple categories - stuff like Bring In The Katz can be appreciated by dance and rap audiences pretty much.

This Scott Walker song is amazing by the way, almost operatic in its scope. I suppose I should give 'Bisch Bosch' a go.

Yeah, I think that the whole album is very operatic in that you need to be following the words in order for the music to make any real sense.

today>>>>>>>>>

I still think Springsteen might sneak in, even though I wasn't a huge fan of it/didn't vote for it

The Scott album is a gem. I'm glad you like it Matt DC. It is wilfully cryptic in places, but that's part of the fun. You don't have to use the lyric sheet really, much of it reads like gobbledygook, the rest is fractured and/or obscure as heck. But yeah, it is much more fun if you understand the subject matter behind a track like Zercon, or that Epizootics is kind of a deconstructed pre-50s hipster track with its references to Hawaii and zoot suits etc.

Re: Bat for Lashes I'm sure I remember her finishing in the top two in a previous tracks poll and being really surprised. She hasn't really got the kind of intangible something required to really pull of the kind of weirdness she's going for so she either comes across as mannered, contrived or just a bit naff.

Laura is an amazing song though. Wasn't it co-written with the Video Games dude?

yeah i think 'daniel' did? and as much as i like her she's just not quite there is she? the kate bush comparisons just come off as lazy.

Loved this run, last night was best of the three days (close run thing with Monday):

40. MIGUEL "Use Me" [260 points, 8 votes]
39. CHERYL COLE "Call My Name (Royal-T's Back to 99 Remix)" [260 points, 10 votes, 1 first place vote]
38. DEATH GRIPS "I've Seen Footage" [268 votes, 8 points]
37. RIHANNA "Birthday Cake (Funkystepz Miami Bass Mix)" [271 points, 8 votes, 1 first place vote]
36. KALENNA "Matte Black Truck" [286 points, 9 votes, 1 first place vote]

Need to process Cartoon and Cereal a bit more, chase more Angel Haze tracks. Ima Read had probably the best video so far. Was the single released during Halloween?

No, but Kate Bush is one of the artists I was thinking of when I was talking about having that intangible thing. Alternatively that kind of Karin Dreijer Andersen absoluteness of vision and mastery of her chosen musical landscape. With Bat for Lashes you get the sense that she's just a bit too conventional (and I think her best songs are when she isn't to be trying so hard to be weird).

Finally had a track place in the poll, predictably it would be Saint Etienne. I didn't rate this highly on first listen but snuck up on me and ended up as my #2, just a perfect blend of the ecstatic and the wistful.

I listened to more new music in 2012 than ever but large stretches of 40-21 were just a wasteland to me, just seems impossible to keep on top of what's happening. Look forward to checking out the spotify playlist to see what I've missed.

A nice surprise to see Scott in the list, though it seems impossible to pull one track off the album. Looks unlikely that my #1 will place now. Like the BFL track and album, but they seem flimsier compared to the 'Two Suns' material.

yeah it's not her fault she's no kate bush, who is? i doubt she's even trying to be. i go back to her latest album much less than 'two suns' but 'laura' brings genuine shivers and i voted for it. otm re k.d.a.

xp. ha

Yeah Bat for Lashes just didn't land for me. At all.

Yeah she's not trying to be Kate Bush (and articles comparing anyone to Kate gets the serious side-eye from me) and I wouldn't fault anyone for not being. But Kate when she's doing bonkers would at least throw herself in at the deep end, whereas Bat For Lashes' weirdness comes across as both tentative and self-consious. This may be at least partly down to the constraints of a modern major label deal, and I suspect they would be quite happy for her to just become Florence Welch or something.

Are we doing the top 20 tonight or is it 10/10?

20

It ends here.

:-(

The 77-73 run from Monday has been my favourite stretch so far but the tracks I've really enjoyed have been fairly evenly spread out over the three days. Only three songs I've really disliked (G-Dragon, TY$ and Japandroids) and those were all Monday too. Top 3 new discoveries: Alunageorge, Alex Anwandter and Haim ('Don't Save Me').

Didn't vote for it but seeing BFL do Laura live this year was an incredible and moving thing - the whole audience sat pretty much on the edge of their seats in rapt silence, and this relatively humungous venue was turned into a very intimate space for the duration of it. She comes over like a very warm person, and the compassion and love for a friend she's expressing in that song sound very genuine, it was hard not to feel emotionally involved in that moment. Maybe that's where the seeming ordinariness of her voice comes into play? Not that I'm disputing her technical ability - live she hit every note perfectly (even on those leaps from a lower register to the upper notes that had me a bit nervous in advance) - but she's not overly ostentatious or extraordinary in any way, she just sounds like a normal person and that makes her maybe more believable on this song? The miracle for me is that I don't find it icky or cloying in the slightest. Maybe it's because of the delicacy of the performance... the brass arrangement in the second half is a good move there, the bittersweet coolness that it brings lends a bit of distance and for me it's almost like a sad recognition that you can only be of so much comfort to another.

i remember being very moved by laura the first time i heard it, and even now it still resonates. something about the way those doleful horns come in midway through the song. and she sings with an incredible freedom.

is there an external site/central spot where the runners & riders so far are compiled for easy viewing?

seem to remember something similar for last year

guys, which bigbang songs did you vote for? i'm concerned about votesplitting. i gave "monster" a pretty high vote myself

― cocktail onion (fennel cartwright), Thursday, January 24, 2013 3:28 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

voted for 'bad boy' myself =(

Voted "Fantastic Baby"

*sigh*

'Fantastic Baby' here too, though it only just snuck on my ballot anyway, so I don't think my meagre points-giving would've had much effect.

Great 30-21 sequence. Laura's astounding. I like the story about her writing it with Video Games dude in a couple of hours while hungover - the whole lyric came from an incident with her best friend at a party the night before. Directness serves her well.

Surely Chairlift will make the Top 20 with the help of the Talabot remix. I agree the top 3 will be some combo of Carly/Miguel/Terje.

My k-pop votes were G-Dragon, Block-B, f(x), and Exo-K. Sorry. Was gonna vote for 'Monster' but didn't for some stupid reason.

Only 3 of my picks placed and the only other possible one that still may is 'Turn On The Lights'.

Fully expect CR Jepson to win, people seem to genuinely love it, tho it doesn't do anything for me.

I gave loadsa points to f(x), that was it as far as K-Pop goes.

Voted Bad Boy, and I think forapper did too. Right, so votes split then. :(

BFL has always been more conventional than Kate/Karin/Bjork that she's always compared to. Tori would be closer I think?

So what are we missing?

iamamiwhoami - goods

I thought the song that might have a chance was "Play", but not this high unfortunately.

Chromatics - Cherry

I really like this one too, but I voted for "The Page", my favorite song on the album. I think the title track is all we'll get in the Top 77 due to vote splitting.

Beach House - Myth

Crossing my fingers for that one. Just gorgeous.