ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012

Among the other things I learned during this poll, I learned that the "Taylor Swift dubstep song" was Trouble and that I have no idea what dubstep is because to me that sounded like a pretty normal pop song.

xpost my bad

i enjoy seeing any commentary tbh, positive and negative. even if someone doesn't like one of my personal favs at least they listened to it.

i did hold back on the trax that were so far out of my wheelhouse that it was less about me disliking it as just not remotely getting it, eg japandroids. but in general i enjoy reading any ilxors' thoughts on any of the trax. sadly there seem to have been fewer rundowns of that ilk this year so far!

i mean do you need to be particularly steeped in mainstream country to "get" springsteen? i'd think for a song to place that high it would hold some more universal appeal but it....does not

honestly "modern country" stans are mostly just addicts of guitar-based pop songwriting going where the action is, you don't have to understand "country" to understand eric church anymore than you have to understand "country" to understand bryan adams or fastball

very predictably, after finding "Ima Read" incredibly boring on first listen it has started earworming me

I still kind of wish I was listening to "If Madonna Calls" instead tho

Honestly I can't imagine anyone wants to hear what I think about most of these songs. I don't even want to hear what I have to say.

Also that is otm re: Eric Church -- part of what I don't like about it is that it's pop hamburger covered in gloppy country sauce, and that doesn't interest me.

Also I wanted Hot Cheetos and Takis to place so bad and it didn't :(

i guess, it's got a strong-ish chorus but he's not much of a singer and the way the "springsteen" line just hangs out there, not attached to anything, drives me fucking crazy

I'm listening to Eric Church now. This isn't as awful as I expected, and I find most pop-country utterly repellent. I wouldn't listen to fun, but it's at least fairly memorable, the piano motif is simple but catchy, the guy's voice isn't unpleasant at all. since I started singing in a band, I've found myself appreciating country-style inflections and harmonies a lot more.
It could have come out in 1992 for all I care, and it's pretty MOR by all accounts, but it could be played next to something like Gotye in this emerging continuum of neo-adult oriented pop that's been raising its head over the last couple of years. That said, it's nothing special - certainly not top 10.

omg who is rawhit3 on Spotify, lololol

i mean do you need to be particularly steeped in mainstream country to "get" springsteen? i'd think for a song to place that high it would hold some more universal appeal but it....does not

honestly "modern country" stans are mostly just addicts of guitar-based pop songwriting going where the action is, you don't have to understand "country" to understand eric church anymore than you have to understand "country" to understand bryan adams or fastball

― da croupier, Friday, January 25, 2013 10:36 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i wasn't suggesting at all that "Springsteen" is for real country goonz only -- the poll results clearly indicate otherwise. i'm just thinking that most of the people griping about it would never like anything by Eric Church or someone who sings like him though?

the way the "springsteen" line just hangs out there, not attached to anything, drives me fucking crazy

Ha yeah OTM, I thought the song was ok overall but this is pretty annoying.

I'd be happy to hear more modern country stuff as I don't follow it but there are probably a small handful of singles I'd like each year (the big one for me for 2012 was Eli Young Band - 'Even If It Breaks Your Heart', which I think I found from Al's blog). The top 77 is handy like that, I have the same thing with dancehall.

Also I wanted Hot Cheetos and Takis to place so bad and it didn't :(

― this customer is a jerk (La Lechera), Friday, January 25, 2013 3:38 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am also very sad about this :(

Woke up this morning with Ima Read playing in my head, it's still there.

For Americans, hating on anything country is like hating on religion: it kinda sounds like your childhood, & YOU'RE NOT A CHILD ANYMORE.

obv "Springsteen" was my #1

I wish I'd heard Kacey Musgraves' "Merry Go Round" before nominations, only got into it over the holidays but that's a real keeper of a song

For Americans, hating on anything country is like hating on religion: it kinda sounds like your childhood, & YOU'RE NOT A CHILD ANYMORE.

lol pls confirm that you're joking

'bandz a make her dance' shouldve placed, cmon ppl

D'oh on Cheetos & Takis.

I should've voted.

my tongue's a bit in cheek but it still said the words

'bandz a make her dance' shouldve placed, cmon ppl

― johnny crunch, Friday, January 25, 2013 3:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i did my bit

lol ok, it's true my childhood was all chevy trucks and dirt roads and (eric) church on sunday

here is a suggestion on how to listen to "Springsteen": Songs where it's fun to say HOOS in place of the actual lyrics

Funny how a melody sounds like a memory
Like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night
Hoosteen
Hoosteen
Woah Hoosteen

I try and try to appreciate the pro songcraft of modern country dudes like Eric Church — Jody Rosen, for one, writes very persuasively about them - but the songs just sound corny and hacky to me. Maybe idgi because I have no grounding in it this heartland stuff. Doubtless there are other kinds of pop that are equally corny and hacky but I love them because I grew up with them.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01004/sarah-palin-mccain_1004283c.jpg

well then lemme say: for REAL AMERICANS etc

For Americans, hating on anything country is like hating on religion: it kinda sounds like your childhood, & YOU'RE NOT A CHILD ANYMORE.

this is a shockingly dumb statement

my entire context for disliking country comes largely from it being championed by gigantic racists in a northern state who rocked Confederate flags and hated black people, and even with that context I still liked Kenny Rogers, Juice Newton, Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline; if the music is good, it's good, but don't act like country music is a universally appreciated genre across all demographics in this country

xp: well way to make it worse, even as a tongue-in-cheek statement that is an incredibly gross thing to say

if the that sentence started "For some Americans" i wouldn't really see that much wrong with it

omg who is rawhit3 on Spotify, lololol

that's me! why? (now checking for potentially embarrassing things)

you put a random EP on the shared playlist, it was great

omg so sorry. i thought a playlist seemed to vanish! ha

i mean do you need to be particularly steeped in mainstream country to "get" springsteen? i'd think for a song to place that high it would hold some more universal appeal but it....does not

I don't consider myself "steeped" in mainstream country, but there've been a handful of songs over the last decade or so that have appealed to me, including "Springsteen." Usually what gets me is a good melody and detail-driven, cliche-skirting storytelling. And I don't mind big, shameless emotions (which I'm guessing turns some people off). I don't love the genre enough to keep my ear close to the ground, but I'm happy to find a worthwhile single here and there.

What's maybe weird about "Springsteen" finishing #11 this year is that last year's consensus country favorite -- Pistol Annies' "Head on Heels" -- was only #75. Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" was #53 in 2010. None of Miranda Lambert's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend singles showed up in 2007, nor did Brad Paisley's "Ticks." For that matter, Paisley's "Alcohol" didn't place in 2005. No Dixie Chicks ("Not Ready to Make Nice") or Carrie Underwood ("Before He Cheats") in 2006.

However, Big & Rich's "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" did finish #15 in 2004.

i'm just thinking that most of the people griping about it would never like anything by Eric Church or someone who sings like him though?

99% of my interaction with modern country music is when my wife and i on occasion flip through the channels that play music videos at night (mtv hits, mtv jams, gac, whatever cmt calls their video channel, etc). modern country - as it has been for decades - is basically just hot adult contemporary with some rootsy stylistic affectations. part of the fun is seeing how many tropes from rock 15-25 years previous get picked up a long the way - i saw a recent papa roach video the other day and it was a tragic glimpse of how butt-metal alt will gradually slip into the format. but i think the "sings like him" is a bigger stumbling block than the meat of the music - I love pop-rock as much as anyone but the little cornpone, red-state-bait identifiers still get in my way a lot of the time (i am curious if pop-rock fans who pay more attention to country actually like that stuff now or have just learned to live with it). kelly clarkson could probably win people over with an eric church song, though considering that she's already making plays for his market, she'd probably play up the countryness of it if she bothered to cover one.

last year's consensus country favorite -- Pistol Annies' "Head on Heels" -- was only #75. Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" was #53 in 2010

yeah that's why i thought "springsteen" had missed out once we got to the top 20, but i think last year most people voted for the pistol annies album (which placed in the top 10) rather than the (unrepresentative) single; and iirc "need you now"s impact was spread over two years?

'bandz a make her dance' shouldve placed, cmon ppl

― johnny crunch, Friday, January 25, 2013 3:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fucking amen, man

DJP, I was being fast & yeah I meant "for some Americans, particularly those who feel like they have to comment on how they don't like country"; I don't know where you're from but if you grew up amongst racist country loving folks then you know the demographic I'm talking about: if those racist kids move away from home & get citied then they're gonna hate country too: it's what they're moving away from

where I grew up (down south) the racists also listened to metal, which is why I have a hard time listening to it now

I will admit to sticking mainly to the long ago timey folk/country for the majority of my country music enjoyment, but I went through a countrypolitan phase like...11 years ago? And it was fun, but I was also kinda trying to cheer myself up about life.

Contemporary country doesn't really interest me at all for a number of reasons, but I hear country songs on the radio occasionally (thinking in partic of that one with the lyric about people throwing rocks at things that shine) and I feel like "I'm way over this, next". I dunno, no one asked what I thought about country music, but Eric Church makes me feel like I am being forcefed something with corn syrup in it, and I don't like that.

'bandz a make her dance' shouldve placed, cmon ppl

― johnny crunch, Friday, January 25, 2013 3:53 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fucking amen, man

― 乒乓, Friday, 25 January 2013 16:10 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^ both otm

I've been trying to figure out what song it was that "Springsteen" reminded me of structurally (especially the chorus) and then I realized:

http://youtu.be/ne2uZFBl7Pw

"springsteen"'s cult is funny to me because while it's all drawly and sentimental on one side, it's also relatively alternapop sonically - why i referenced bowling for soup earlier. there's no "now my daughter's getting married" grab-the-gut third verse, no banjo interlude, just dramatic downstrokes and "woah woah woah"s

oh u dirty rotten fuck xp

awesome djp

it's also funny that the song is all "ohhh remember born to run and glory days" when it's way more Tunnel Of Love and "Secret Garden"

Honestly, I think part of what does attract me to (some) country music is that I had very little experience with it while growing up. I always kind of just assumed it was not for me, and even in college, when I began to say idiotic things like "Mainstream country music perpetrates capitalist hegemony!!!," I hadn't actually heard much of what I was criticizing.

Until I started paying attention to country music a couple years ago, I'm not sure I could name more than a few country songs from the past 20 years:

Garth Brooks, "Friends in Low Places" (1990)
Brooks and Dunn, "Boot Scootin' Boogie" (1991)
Billy Ray Cyrus, "Achy Breaky Heart" (1992)
Alan Jackson, "Chattahoochee" (1993)
Shania Twain, "That Don't Impress Me Much" (1998)
(if that even counts as country)

I know about Lonestar's "Amazed" just because it was the last country song to hit #1, and I know about Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" because of all the controversy it attracted -- but I can't sing you either of them.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, June 30, 2006 10:28 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the twinkly piano and flat thudding drums of "Springsteen" aren't very country but i don't think 'alternapop' is a good description. i mean it could be an adult alternative type record, but not Bowling For Soup, i have no idea where that's coming from.

totes ok with country music, not ok with boring music/music that bores me

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7109/7591110028_e4e4ac792a.jpg

i always think about doing more threads about popular country songs, but pretty much any list i think about using for a poll includes one or two Taylor Swift songs and i just get depressed thinking about the inevitable result and forget about it.

David Gray! Absolutely OTM

but i don't think 'alternapop' is a good description. i mean it could be an adult alternative type record

this may be your best pedantic distinction yet

also if you honestly can't hear jaret singing that chorus you need to check out more bfs ballads ok actually you don't

Ha, love that Kenny Roger + lil' LL photo.

s