ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014

besides i LIKE that the ilx poll is an all-genre pop poll (not a total contradiction - everything is pop etc), nowadays - it's a brilliant basis from which to discover music & contextualise what you already like

agreed. the great thing about the ILM polls is that they open up realms that I don't generally pay attention to the rest of the year round.

I don't vote in these, don't know if the metal crew does

about 90% doesnt apparently. Seandalai said there's not much crossover in voters. I think last year about 5-10 out of the 60 voters in metal poll voted and it got a few things in. Might be less this year because as lex points out 5 or 6 votes would have been enough.
Bound to be a few token metal albums in album poll (Scott O))) will place, Swans aren't metal really but they get in metal poll.) Although that ,along with alcest, is metal that appeals to non metal fans. Not sure if Triptykon, Agalloch or Yob will place.
If that is all that places then we know metal poll voters didn't bother (think many feel their votes wont count here so dont bother)
Seandalai and I both kept asking on the thread for them to nominate/vote and there' not much else can be done.

as for other rock or 'indie' i dont know why the better stuff doesn't place and the crap does. maybe ilxors have terrible taste in rock music? ;)

I really like genre-based polls because they do a much better job than a global poll at not having hidden gems destroyed by high profile releases but that doesn't mean there isn't room for metal/etc. votes in the main one.

Wu tang clannad i meant im glad its a non rock/indie/metal poll.
A pitchfork style result would be the WORST

Yeah w/r/t indie/rock stuff I find the stuff that floats to the top (especially this year) is 'just fine' lowest-common denominator stuff that appears on all the other EOY lists. That or it's the poppier end of the spectrum, stuff like Against Me!, Paramore etc. This is a bit disappointing when you consider the uncommonality, quality and diversity on offer in other genres.

xxxp I think the Soft Pink Truth album might get a look in too, crossover appeal and all that. As a metal poll voter I can confirm I voted for albums, didn't have time to do tracks as well though.

Yeah w/r/t indie/rock stuff I find the stuff that floats to the top (especially this year) is 'just fine' lowest-common denominator stuff that appears on all the other EOY lists. That or it's the poppier end of the spectrum, stuff like Against Me!, Paramore etc. This is a bit disappointing when you consider the uncommonality, quality and diversity on offer in other genres.

― quinoa: how's it spelt? (dog latin), Friday, January 23, 2015 1:30 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nah some of the very highest-quality or noteworthy indie found representation imo - richard dawson & owen pallett in particular, altho you could number pc music with them too - the poll is an incredibly harsh filtering mechanism for the less populist genres, but this is probably a good thing. besides, the albums poll as everyone says is less harsh.

the soft pink truth album has a shot at top 30

There is tons of great stuff but like nobody cares about Blind Shake or Nathan Bowles or hell ilxor global tetrahedron made a great album this year, their loss IMO, it's not like the pop oriented ppl are gonna see it as anything other than an affront

What is gt's album?

Also being honest I'm terrible at remembering stuff for lists and I hate ranking stuff and doing a ballot seems like too much work

Xpost DL, got good notices in the little ilx brigade corner of the internet
http://dyingforbadmusic.com/dfbm22-steve-palmer-unblinking-sun.phtml

Richard Dawson is a folk musician. He's 'indie' in that he's on an independent label, I guess, but not in any other way.

808 rap jams and female fronted synthpop had rolling threads devoted to them which established consensus picks before the poll. Other genres are well represented in the lower placings, but suffered from vote splitting.

― excreting zeitgeist (Sanpaku), Friday, January 23, 2015 6:45 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait, there's a rolling female fronted synth pop thread? Sign me up.

Someone up thread mentioned Sleaford Mods as indie guitar music so who knows

Maybe it's the audience, like anything that appeals to undesirables

there is an unhealthy attitude espoused to anything slightly weird, but that makes it all the more gratifying when something weird does show :D

helg, *I* care about those things, potentially - there's always the yearly rolling time travel if you want to drum up support! it's all a case of knowing where to share

emil.y my lumping of richard dawson and pc music with indie shows my somewhat cavalier approach to indie, right :P my more considered genre-description of dawson can be found in the thread-title i started for him

you're right though - i probably shouldn't play fast and loose with the word, diluting what it actually is

it's not like the pop oriented ppl are gonna see it as anything other than an affront

― Wu-Tang Clannad (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

those reactions to anything guitar (white male esp) orientated makes me lol but if you think about it its exactly the same thing they hated rockists doing to non-rock music and not sure they realise it is the same. ILX can be just as prejudiced as anywhere else I suppose. But I cant help but laugh when it happens so at least they're entertaining with it.

there is an unhealthy attitude espoused to anything slightly weird

Not really true - the attitude is I am ok with this but there is nothing but I won't devote anymore of my time to it.

pop/rap/dance is a million times weirder than indie in 2015

the weird self congratulatory attitude while playing super conservative music is what turns a lot of ppl off to the indie

Not really true - the attitude is I am ok with this but there is nothing but I won't devote anymore of my time to it.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, January 23, 2015 2:07 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is slightly unhealthy, you know

jho i love quite a bit of pop rap and dance as can be seen on my ballot - there is weirdness and blandness in all genres. a lot of indie is great but it depends how you define indie and how deep you search. i would consider myself not a fan of bland conservative indie, but then who would?

I mean the whole idea of polls is p silly like the conceit that OK for real out of 7 billion ppl and countless cultures etc etc r of the best 77 individual songs made by humans on earth were on the new Taylor Swift album that even her supporters seem kinda lukewarm on

Lagoon - I don't think any of us are talking about indie proper & I don't think the stuff I like is weird just good

i was impressed with ilm's reaction to Dawson, I must say.

Def depends on what you consider indie, though I think there's been a very strange smudging of avant fans and indie fans here that just doesn't work. A lot of the 'indie' I'm into at the moment is pretty straight-forward and doesn't share anything with e.g. sound artists, but it's hella political and vital and young and angry and has even less in common with the dreardrear stuff that is likely to make an ilx poll.

idk what indie proper is im just sayin accusing ppl of being turned off by weirdness when five young thug songs placed is kinda sus

yeah srsly, they rly tried, it was cute. pity they couldn't deal with the vox, they being the best bit xxp

*them being /pedant

Rap is definitely pretty weird right now

Def depends on what you consider indie, though I think there's been a very strange smudging of avant fans and indie fans here that just doesn't work. A lot of the 'indie' I'm into at the moment is pretty straight-forward and doesn't share anything with e.g. sound artists, but it's hella political and vital and young and angry and has even less in common with the dreardrear stuff that is likely to make an ilx poll.

― emil.y, Friday, January 23, 2015 2:15 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you say avant fans and indie fans like they're mutually exclusive - the stuff you're into would appeal to a lot of 'avant fans', i'd wager

Again who's complaining about Young Thug? Not me. I'm also not saying people are not liking stuff because it's weird.

like that dude dawson sounds like a lot of music that has been around for a long time, he is weird by the virtue of being uncomfortably yelly not by like having interesting new ideas or anything

Again who's complaining about Young Thug? Not me. I'm also not saying people are not liking stuff because it's weird.

― Wu-Tang Clannad (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, January 23, 2015 9:18 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

duude i was responding to louis

this is slightly unhealthy, you know

jho i love quite a bit of pop rap and dance as can be seen on my ballot - there is weirdness and blandness in all genres. a lot of indie is great but it depends how you define indie and how deep you search. i would consider myself not a fan of bland conservative indie, but then who would?

― my shoes are deception (imago), Friday, 23 January 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This 'educational' mode forms a conseravtive attitude that turns people off to stuff they actually find don't engage them in a level that often doesn't communicates across.

Grow up - its not a duty to do healthy listening (lol).

aargh sorry so damn garbled but basically there is no need to force it onto people and make assumptions because they don't quite engage to things in the way you might want them to.

Haha OK Louis has now taken over the discussion per usual

i shd just let him do his thing but it was just so indicative of something

young thug is weird within the narrow-ish parameters of a very very very clearly-defined 'trap' sound, surely. not that he ISN'T weird, and he's vocally very striking, but he's not reinventing trap is he? or is he

bobby shmurda's song was imo weirder anyway, it was trap gone full evil, kinda electrifying

richard dawson's package (haw) is like nothing else i've heard - avant-folk-prog from a humorous & poetic geordie perspective & an ornate pastora melodic sensibility w/ wailed vox - it's out of the trad but utterly avant-garde imo. i would level it @ u that u aren't differentiating it v well due to lack of love for 'this sort of thing'. i do it too, but i'm trying not to

xyzzzz lol that is maybe the worst sentence, linguistically, that i have ever seen. am i rly forcing it on ppl? i'm not forcing it on ppl. 11 people voted for it in a democratic poll which ppl voluntarily followed. christ

evil & desperate & vulnerable too. like it more each time i think of it. get well soon bobby

whatever man

you say avant fans and indie fans like they're mutually exclusive - the stuff you're into would appeal to a lot of 'avant fans', i'd wager

― my shoes are deception (imago), Friday, January 23, 2015 2:18 PM (6 minutes ago)

Um, wut, no I didn't. I said that people have been referring to them like they're the exact same thing, which they obv are not. I'm not entirely sure how you could think that *I* think it's impossible to be both?!?!?!?!?!?!

like that dude dawson sounds like a lot of music that has been around for a long time, he is weird by the virtue of being uncomfortably yelly not by like having interesting new ideas or anything

― lag∞n, Friday, January 23, 2015 2:19 PM (4 minutes ago)

HE'S A FOLK MUSICIAN FFS.

oh well ok

He reminded me off the bat of Alice in Chains and an acoustic Modest Mouse song.

xyzzzz, just saying it's unhealthy to dismiss something alien on first listen, as i've learnt with, say, pop-rap

aaah emil.y but what then did u mean by the very strange smudging - when almost all of one venn set also fit in the other to some degree - it's natural to like both styles maybe?

ha, modest mouse otm.

lj did you ever listen to the Ugly Casanova album?

like that dude dawson sounds like a lot of music that has been around for a long time, he is weird by the virtue of being uncomfortably yelly not by like having interesting new ideas or anything

― lag∞n, Friday, January 23, 2015 8:19 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm, it wasn't what I was initially expecting but once I got to his guitar/vocal jam bit I realized I'd seen a ton of shows like that, but it's been a really long time

Does Richard Dawson do gigs with other Folk musicians? I can see he comes from there.

also not all folk is like that, for sure

I mean the whole idea of polls is p silly like the conceit that OK for real out of 7 billion ppl and countless cultures etc etc r of the best 77 individual songs made by humans on earth were on the new Taylor Swift album that even her supporters seem kinda lukewarm on

― Wu-Tang Clannad (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

Hardly surprising when voters include "taytay fan" who nobody has seen post (admit it markers it was you! ;) ) are taking part.

The question is why do certain types not vote? if they dont care enough then fine. But if they're not voting because of reactions such as "name and shame those voters" (however jokey they may be) then thats not good. I always recall several posters saying they left off anco one year because they were fearful of the reaction (one i think was blueski who no longer posts)
and i do know metal fans who wont vote because of similar reactions - theres still some ilxors who are snobbish about metal/fans and that puts people off.

As lex says however people should still vote and , unless its deafheaven, no one seems to object to metal placing , they just ignore it. But as much as seandalai asks them, they just wont vote here so you simply cannot complain about a lack of metal. If they wont vote then that is that. Obviously if a metal album ever won the reaction might be quite bad but it will never happen.

No idea why the actual indie or avant albums dont get enough consensus around them.

aaah emil.y but what then did u mean by the very strange smudging - when almost all of one venn set also fit in the other to some degree - it's natural to like both styles maybe?

I don't think almost all of the set of 'indie fans' fits into the set of 'avant fans' or vice versa at all. I know an awful lot of serious avant-garde musicians who wouldn't touch indie with a bargepole, and I know a lot of Geirite melody-central indie fans.

The 'strange smudging' is literally what I just said: people on *this thread* have been referring to 'indie and avant fans'. It's weird to have the assumption that they would be the same. It's not weird for them to overlap, but it's not necessarily obvious that would happen.