ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2012

i had strobe/lazer light routine totally memorized for this track circa 07-08

I think I am just going to go back to saying I hate Dance Music and I don't understand it, even if I love some of it.

i really loathe blawan and bring in the katz but i ~get~ them

y'know what, man, you don't deserve the katz. they didn't want you to bring them in anyway.

FUNK DAT

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?

― fonkytimez lemonade (some dude), Friday, January 25, 2013 9:47 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i totally got excited about eric church when i heard about him, thought he might be an update of dudes like gary allen, etc but god he's just terrible. i went through an alt country phase that gradually went out into liking alan jackson and stuff like that

it's just a bad song, and i don't think everyone who doesn't like it has an anti-country agenda

yeah not anti-country agenda per se. Church's voice actually does really annoy me on some of his other songs, but i like it on that one.

he's not very good is one problem i have

he seems pretty impressed with himself, too

i don't follow the country threads but has there been any kind of "why are you into 'springsteen' when you could be praising (...)?" argument? while i think springsteen is merely profesh nostalgia pop-rock i can't say any random country dude stuff i've caught on GAC on late seems superior

of late, i mean

re: "Springsteen" and alternapop, when I hit play on it the first words that popped into my mind were "SHAKEDOWN NINETEEN SEVEN NINE"

He's all hat & no cattle imo

Eli Young Band "Even If It Breaks Your Heart" has a Tom Petty kinda vibe. I like it a little better than "Springsteen"

77. DAWN RICHARD "Pretty Wicked Things" [188 points, 6 votes]
—I love the part of this where the synths go all berserk. Dawn is great in general, but this song is special.

75. CHROMATICS "Kill For Love" [188 points, 7 votes]
—Probably the most "single"ish track on the Chromatics album, and album that really all kind of blurs together in a smokey neon haze. Dunno if it's amazing when extracted from context, but it's plenty okay.

75. ALUNAGEORGE "You Know You Like It" [188 points, 7 votes]
—I think AlunaGeorge are doing some pretty cool things, and I think this is the coolest thing so far. Don't buy the argument that her vocals are too weak for the track. This thing is amazing all around.

74. ANDRÉS "New For U" [190 points, 6 votes]
—I half-like this. It's a good idea that overstays its welcome.

73. JAVIERA MENA "Luz de Piedra de Luna" [190 points, 7 votes]
—Mena stan here. It's not my favorite by her, but I'm glad she waited so long to make it a single just so it could appear in our poll

71. PULP "After You" [192 points, 6 votes]
—I knew Jams Murphy would get into this poll somehow. He always does.

71. G-DRAGON "Crayon" [192 points, 6 votes]
—Because of the 2NE1 surprise last year, I checked in on K-Pop now and again this past year. I guess it's just personal preference, or maybe it's full blown sexism, but I prefer woman-made K-Pop to man-made. This isn't terrible, though.

70. TY DOLLA $IGN "My Cabana" [193 points, 8 votes]
—I like this beat. That's about all.

69. FUTURE "Same Damn Time" [194 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote]
—crut momentarily couldn't believe I'd never heard this track before it appeared in the rollout, but I can't listen to EVERYTHING every year. Future was never high on my list of get-tos. I can dig it.

68. NICKI MINAJ FT. 2 CHAINZ "Beez in the Trap" [198 points, 9 votes]
—Good Nicki.

67. NICKI MINAJ "Starships" [200 points, 8 votes]
—Bad Nicki.

66. DAWN RICHARD "Faith" [202 points, 7 votes]
—"Faith" isn't a favorite among the things Dawn released in 2012, but she's kind of everything to everyone and even the tracks I don't love I still like.

65. JAPANDROIDS "The House That Heaven Built" [203 points, 7 votes]
—I heard this enough in 2012 that I'll be cool with taking a break from it for the next 5-10 years.

64. GURU "Lapaz Toyota" [204 points, 6 votes]
—This was my favorite track to appear on Monday. It's nuts!

63. DONKIE PUNCH & LORENZO "Snapbacks n Tattoos" [206 points, 6 votes]
—This was almost as fun to discover as "Lapaz Toyota," but not quite as fun.

62. NICK HANNAM & TOM GARNETT FT. TOM ZANETTI "You Want Me" [214 points, 6 votes, 1 first place vote]
—After the last two, this one felt dud as fuck to me. Still kinda does.

61. TAME IMPALA "Feels Like Only We Go Backwards" [214 points, 8 votes]
—I voted for "Elephant" instead. It was the only track on the album I liked, primarily because it was the only track on the album that sounded like it sounded. This one here sounds like the rest of the album, which is no great shakes.

...more to follow

btw every time call me maybe gets discussed this gets posted so I'll post it again because I like it a lot

http://mabsonenterprises.bandcamp.com/track/call-me-maybe-acapella-147-times-exponentially-layered

i'll admit ILM's raging hard-on for this strand of dance music year after year adds fuel to the fire.

I kinda feel this but I fux with "Inspector Norse". I'm just taking the relatively high-placement of "Bring in the Katz" as a small victory for more break-based stuff, which I usually feel like has a hard time catching on beyond the same half-dozen people. Still curious as to why Grady finds it such an anathema.

Btw, everyone, if you liked "Katz", you should check out this track that I was the only person to vote for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ddwp0yU1_2Q

My favorite Todd Terje is still his remix for Lindström's "Another Station".

Ugg "Vibrate" would've been on my list and "Bring in the Katz" would've been in the top 3. :(

x-post

finally listened to inspector norse, it's a nice lil song in a style i have absolutely no emotional reaction to

had a pavlovian response to the beginning of 'vibrate'

my anxiety level is shooting through the roof

hmm feel like I heard this on one of benny b's nj club mixes

rev i guess we just prefer different flavors of corny

to everyone calling inspector norse inoffensive, it did manage to severely annoy at least one passenger in my car a couple weeks ago, ~~rep maintained~~

fwiw i continue to have no love for norse in case anyone was wondering

idk i could walk down the street to it i guess

"Inoffensive" is such a weird pejorative to be using in 2013 imo

I DEMAMD OFFENSE FROM MY DANCE MUSIC

I'm hella offended by bodies under my garage, that's why I won't listen to it anymore

v ambivalent abt norse, love that eurodans

People are saying "inoffensive" to avoid saying "bland and boring" because that's a step too far in that direction

Also some of the people feeling this way may still be bumping Alpha Team and Smart-E's in their downtime

like you?

thing is with norse i can accept to some extent when genre dudes with internalised balearic logics that are unknown to me are all over it but then to see man like j0rdan calling it a masterwork it's like... son really?

have u seen the video

like you?

I voted for Orbital in this poll so I think you already know the answer to that

haha yes, yes i have xp

had a pavlovian response to the beginning of 'vibrate'

― 乒乓, Friday, January 25, 2013 2:30 PM Bookmark

https://twitter.com/reverenddollars/status/279400794325917697

haha I wholly endorse "Vibrate"

best 2013 inspector norse memory:

got booked to DJ a Sunday nite gig immediately following a Future Islands set for a crowd largely expected to leave as soon as the band was done. I opened with New Order's Temptation within seconds of the band's encore finishing, played it almost all the way out, then mixed in to Norse. Ppl flooded the dance floor and by the time it was a few minutes in they were giving each other "holy shit!" looks. Most stayed dancing and drinking and hi-fiving me and each other for a few hours

have u seen the video

hate the video fwiw

I can't see "Inspector Norse" as a "masterwork" (vis a vis Todd's prior stuff) either though I still like it a lot.

But I think some dude's general line is kinda the wrong one here because being down the rabbit hole is actually important to even hearing what's exciting, like most people ITT seemed nonplussed by "You Want Me" too probably in part because they don't hear the absolute intentionality of every single element the way I do.

rev i guess we just prefer different flavors of corny

― ❏❐❑❒ (gr8080), Friday, January 25, 2013 2:31 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I mean, with a couple exceptions most of the dance music I voted for is pretty firmly populist, if not actually popular, stuff. But for the most part all based in black american (and a couple cases afro-british) music and no euro stuff whatsoever.

This is the third club track I voted for. It has gorgeous strings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHuvbJ1I3Jk

haha, looking at your ballot, gr80, the only thing we both voted for was "Bangarang", which is like the cheesiest thing either of us voted for

kinda can't believe "Bangarang" didn't make it tbh

has there been a thread of tunes with phone/pager sfx yet

haha admitting i liked a skrillex song was a big moment in 2012 for me. I can already name at least 5 tracks I wish I'd remembered to vote for instead.

a travesty xxp

Some of this euro dance stuff is like white person as other for me, which theoretically could be interesting, but doesn't turn out that way for me.

Bangarang first saw light of day in 2011 or 2010 tho iirc?

haha admitting i liked a skrillex song was a big moment in 2012 for me.

haha word, I just kind of sheepishly slid it in to the end of my ballot

lol rudi

it came out at like the very end of 2011, I think