ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014

It was between this and Digital Witness for my one St. Vincent vote. This won.

To 61 today I hear

as nonplussed by this as ever

17 today, 20 on T, W and TH.

77-61 today
60-41 tuesday
40-21 wednesday
20-1 thursday

why you wanna put a yodeller on and then drown her out with all kinda sci-fi marching music

What "sci-fi marching music"? Sounds like regular rock drums to me, and fairly subdued strings... The orchestration on "Empire" is actually quite simple for such a huge tune, certainly it doesnt "drown" her vocals, and I don't think it'd work if it just followed the ballady part in the beginning in all the way through; this is Momentous Pop Music, it requires those big feelings.

"Prince Johnny" sounds pretty cool, the combination of moody synths and trad pop melodicism reminds me of Marc Almond... Except that I hate that weird hi-hat sound that pervades it, the one that sounds like a screwed-and-chopped hamster fart, whoever thought that kind of synth drum was a good idea for a tune like this?

st vincent

sorry, anybody else I'd know when a question was rhetorical

Love this song. It's just so beautiful.

"monument" is definitely better than i remember it being (i remember it being boring, which it is kinda, but right now i'm enjoying how sleepy and inviting it is)

this was my St Vincent vote. she's great.

King: I totally forgot about this song and I stan for them so hard. It's nice, I guess? Their other songs have been better.

Katie Gately: This is the kind of thing that's interesting to listen to once but I'm never going to put it on again.

Ana Tijoux: Yeah, this is good! The horns, the anti-colonial politics. I like.

Anaconda: I maintain my stance that this is fun and has some good ideas until it becomes a total mess halfway through but the former wins out.

Davido: This is cool but I feel like don't love Naija-pop because it's too focused on mid-range. When I listen to this I'm just waiting some heavy bass to appear the whole time.

Robyn/Royksopp: What boring people. This is better than that song they did together that placed a few years ago but as others have said, it just feels so rote. This kind of tidy euro stuff was much more cute a decade ago. Really good video though.

Shakira: I had no idea she released music this year. This is very 90s alt-pop! Which is funnily kind of full circle for her, just not what I'd expect her to be doing at this point.

St. Vincent: This evokes no reaction from me whatsoever.

'monument' is incredible driving music imo

Davido: This is cool but I feel like don't love Naija-pop because it's too focused on mid-range. When I listen to this I'm just waiting some heavy bass to appear the whole time.

^^feeling this. still a good track and i'm happy to have discovered it

love her guitar playing, couldn't give a hoot for her songs so ah i dunno

st unconvincent basically

drums are so stiff and muted on that st. vincent record idk

I'm not quite that hardline on St. Vincent. She's usually good for between 2-4 keeper songs on each album, but for the most part I just admire her gitfiddle skills.

i've listened to this st. vincent track three times and i still don't know what it sounds like except i don't like it

^^feeling this. still a good track and i'm happy to have discovered it

― gr8080, Monday, January 19, 2015 11:23 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh absolutely, I'm just trying to suss out why I like not love this type of stuff when it seems otherwise so squarely pitched at me.

I've listened to it 0 times and feel the same xp

ouch! xps to NickB

i think she's a very admirable artist overall, i'm happy for her success (even though i'm not a huge fan)

"st unconvincent" lol

Ienjoygourmethotdogs

more like st wincent

never been a fan of her, but she absolutely crushed her performance at pitchfork this summer, pretty whack that neutral milk hotel got top billing over her because she totally outshone everyone.

very few artists i enjoy live more that listening to their recorded output, but she's top of the list.

http://i.imgur.com/IyOJlti.jpg

64 DUKE DUMONT "I Got U" Ft. Jax Jones [233 points, 10 votes]
http://youtu.be/FHCYHldJi_g

Oh hey one I voted for

2x lol @ wins

hip hop tracks showing very "Tanuki was right" so far

oh yeah this one

this duke dumont is kinda nice but it got old kinda quick idk, lots of better populist house this year imo

joyous stuff, gave it points

I voted for this one as well, played to death earlier in the year.

this is alright, i liked the duke dumont thing from last year way more, abrupt eq filtering kinda took me out of it

my ballot was >90% hip hop tracks and i am confident most of them will place

I Got U is a very fun track; almost as good as "Rather Be". It was a good year for populist house!

I like this too. it's the steel drums imo

omg i love this shakira track

I love the house piano and steel drums on that Dumont track but I never warmed to the rest enough to play on repeat? I gave this a 7 on the Singles Jukebox w/out being motivated to play it again.

hip hop tracks showing very "Tanuki was right" so far
― rob, Monday, January 19, 2015

and we're still in the sixties

I liked "Need U 100%" a lot but I've never been into this type of Ibiza vibe.

while a lot of these tracks sound like they came from the nineties

I've voted for a pop-rap song this year. Tanuki has no hope really

shakira and st vincent ive already forgotten what both sound like but i guess that means they werent annoying

dumont wasnt as bad as i thought it might be but was still bad tho i didnt mind the steel drums!

Ana's track is the epitome of "tanuki was born wrong and will die wrong and it's up to us to lessen the wrongspan between the two"

i found "i got u" a bit too unsubtle in its approach for me to be fully enamoured with it (even more so with latest tune), but those steel drums provided tons of fun every time i heard it this summer.

the RT line was a joke yall, just thought it kind of funny that so far (not far at all) the American hip hop has only been Nicki, who I like a lot