ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014

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.

because some music doesn't have universal appeal and that's cool? xp

I don't read singles jukebox or anything like that on the regular but I'm always kind of happy to see the occasional divisive song where it gets a middling score but it's due to one or two people really getting into it and giving it a 9/10 and others all thinking it's garbage.

Once again people are all defaulting into putting "weird music" and "popular music" into different boxes that never cross over. Go back to 2004 and play Young Thug to a load of rap fans and people would be pretty confused, take Richard Dawson or even Katie Gately back the same distance and play those records to folk or avant listeners and the reaction would be much the same as it is now, I suspect.

Go back to 2014 and play Young Thug to a load of rap fans and people would be pretty confused

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

― xyzzzz__, Friday, January 23, 2015 2:30 PM (3 minutes ago)

Yes, there's a v. vibrant folk scene in the North-East at the moment - a lot of it is pretty traditional, some of it is more experimental, they do a lot of Sacred Harp stuff up there too.

nay, but it is added to a list somewhere xps to gr80

when i saw dawson he was on a bill with *deep breath* a dutch folk musician, a drumming duo, an african folk musician, a legendary post-punk band and a jazz improv trio

Also not to be whatever but Dawson is fine but hardly unique in his approach to folk music and I think there are dozens I rate much higher

how many beards were there xp

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

iirc some Reactions to Katie Gately basically equate 'this is ok, not my thing'. And its fine, why should you force yourself to engage something that doesn't communicate in any way? Music isn't medicine.

how many beards were there xp

― mh, Friday, January 23, 2015 2:38 PM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

richard dawson was alone in this regard. the drumming duo were female, as was the drummer/singer of the legendary post-punk band

xyzzzz music is not medicine but i can say that i have benefitted enormously in a cultural sense from, say, forcing myself to listen to rap music

Also not to be whatever but Dawson is fine but hardly unique in his approach to folk music and I think there are dozens I rate much higher

― Wu-Tang Clannad (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, January 23, 2015 2:38 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

go to the dawson thread & post youtubes pls

It only makes sense that a pop-friendly board's EOY poll results would favor pop over niche genres like metal and avant-garde. The shunning of commercially-successful rock, indie & country might seem less axiomatically preordained, given the broad run of ILM's enthusiasms, but hostility to the former two genres has long been common among many of our most pop-centric posters. It's sometimes expressed directly, as when that War on Drugs track placed, but often takes more passive forms. However it's expressed, the message is clear: this poll exists to enshrine the primacy of certain genres over others. ILM is validated in its own eyes by its appreciation for chartpop, dancepop, rap and R&B. To the extent that they dominate the EOY poll, the system works. When indie and rock intrude, eyes roll and tempers flare. This simply reifies ILM's anti-rockist origins.

how many beards were there xp

― mh,

lol

Richard Dawson is an interesting one. Yes, there are similarities with other avant garde guitarists like Bill Orcutt and Derek Bailey, but those dudes strike me as being very deliberately deconstructionist to an almost academic degree whereas Dawson's playing style is 100% expressionist and very audibly so. His lyrical approach and the regional, historical and autobiographical references he incorporates into his work are truly unique. Also, the influence of art and world music in his work is as strong as any English folk music. Not to mention the way he amps his nylon string guitar through a Fender, which is considered highly unorthodox but achieves a very particular tone. There's a reason Wire mag has been going crazy over him this year.

xyzzzz music is not medicine but i can say that i have benefitted enormously in a cultural sense from, say, forcing myself to listen to rap music

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

haha oh poptimism look at what you've done ;-)

Hope you liked Rattle, imago, KB in particular is a top-notch lady.

as a subscriber to the wire (full disclosure) I think the reason they like musicians like him is that he hits a lot of checkboxes and is good enough to enjoy the music, too

Louis we have a whole thread on weirdo folk for like 2 years

I'm not dissing him! All solo guitarists tend to find their own voice and sound, one of the reasons I like it so. I'm just saying there's people who haven't heard Orcutt etc acting like he feel from heaven and isn't part of a long tradition. But he's good and glad he's getting notice

those dudes strike me as being very deliberately deconstructionist to an almost academic degree whereas Dawson's playing style is 100% expressionist and very audibly so. His lyrical approach and the regional, historical and autobiographical references he incorporates into his work are truly unique.

― quinoa: how's it spelt? (dog latin), Friday, January 23, 2015 6:43 AM (41 seconds ago)

to put it more bluntly, and this has nothing to do with his actual bona fides, dawson's work reads as almost anti-academic, as naive art. "here, i made this weird thing in my garage, check it out."

But like omg the show I saw Paul Metzger play, unreal compared to Dawson

It only makes sense that a pop-friendly board's EOY poll results would favor pop over niche genres like metal and avant-garde. The shunning of commercially-successful rock, indie & country might seem less axiomatically preordained, given the broad run of ILM's enthusiasms, but hostility to the former two genres has long been common among many of our most pop-centric posters. It's sometimes expressed directly, as when that War on Drugs track placed, but often takes more passive forms. However it's expressed, the message is clear: this poll exists to enshrine the primacy of certain genres over others. ILM is validated in its own eyes by its appreciation for chartpop, dancepop, rap and R&B. To the extent that they dominate the EOY poll, the system works. When indie and rock intrude, eyes roll and tempers flare. This simply reifies ILM's anti-rockist origins.

― deliberately clunky, needlessly arty, (contenderizer)

as someone who has read ilm for 15 years i can tell you that mark s, tom e etc never meant 'popism' to become like 'rockism' and have a superiority complex over rock. They simply wanted non-rock music to be treated equally.

But yes, lots of hostility to crit friendly guitar music on ilm now. Though chart rock/mall rock/pop punk/chart emo etc is beloved by pop fans on ilm very much. So its not all anti-rock pop/rab/dance/rnb fans. Just anti indie/metal really IMO.

anyone know what the highest placing track was for which the artist or album it's from didn't have its own thread?

great post dog latin, yeah Dawson is efflorescent, generous & maximalist - he's synaesthetically speaking a painter of intense depth and detail as well as startling violence - he is very literary. as jho said at the time

Rattle were really great! :D like three or four of their songs settled into the most absorbing of grooves. aw they were so humble though, clearly in awe of The Ex and saying as much! the whole gig was one of the best i've ever seen - so utterly overwhelming, everything so wonderful

No-one's hostile to metal, most people just don't like it that much and consequently never engage. It's not exactly the most welcoming of genres.

xp probably one of the rap tracks?

contintuing re dawson: going solely on the evidence of the track that placed here, he's offering his work to you with a wink and a grin, suggesting you wash it down with a beer, a toke, whatever

imago did you not just say The Ex initially because you thought we wouldn't know who that was or what

xp de la torre?

Yes, there are similarities with other avant garde guitarists like Bill Orcutt and Derek Bailey, but those dudes strike me as being very deliberately deconstructionist to an almost academic degree whereas Dawson's playing style is 100% expressionist and very audibly so.

Imagine a Prof. Bailey and Prof. Orcutt!

His lyrical approach and the regional, historical and autobiographical references he incorporates into his work are truly unique.

iirc Asda was menitoned somwhere?

;-) ;-) etc etc

No-one's hostile to metal, most people just don't like it that much and consequently never engage. It's not exactly the most welcoming of genres.

― Matt DC, Friday, January 23, 2015 6:51 AM (22 seconds ago)

yeah, i see metal as marginal - not included or excluded, really, just over there somewhere. the hostility is reserved for rock and pop.

mh i didn't say the ex because i was describing the sorts of act on the bill ffs

I will cop to my OWN occasional hostility towards certain indie acts and rock acts appearing - usually with far more virulence than towards any rap or chartpop - because it feels like a wasted opportunity to showcase something interesting. This is a really bad attitude though and it is just as prejudicial. I will try to cut it out.

yeah, i see metal as marginal - not included or excluded, really, just over there somewhere

Agree with this, I think it usually gets a reasonable consideration when it places. Unless it's FALSE like Deafheaven or something, hehehe.

Matt granted its hostile to outsiders (tho mostly not on ilm bar a few high profile posters) but ive found 'outsiders' being equally hostile. Look how many lol metal type posts that get made sometimes.

Anyway nobody can complain that there's no metal in this poll because quite simply metallers didn't vote when they could have. Im not complaining at all about none in it. I wouldnt expect any in a tracks/singles poll a its not that type of genre.
I'd just hope that the metal poll maybe tipped non-regs into hearing a few albums they voted for in the album poll.

Im just merely suggesting that some fans of niche genres dont vote due to what they perceive (rightly or wrongly) as hostility.

the qualities that make things interesting kind of appeal to a subset unless the overall package has some mainstream appeal, imo. the more avant appeal of, say, fka twigs is counteracted by the fact she's singing about pretty universally relatable things

folk guy sing-songing literary tales is kind of a diff thing

maybe it flattens the interestingness down to a kind of novelty for the young thugs

Though chart rock/mall rock/pop punk/chart emo etc is beloved by pop fans on ilm very much. So its not all anti-rock pop/rab/dance/rnb fans.

― Cosmic Slop, Friday, January 23, 2015 6:49 AM (4 minutes ago)

not much chart rock, mall rock, pop punk or chart emo on the rollout this year, though. there was even some grumbling about against me!, the only representative of those segments to make a strong showing.

I'd expect a lot on the albums poll. Plus in recent years fall out boy, paramore etc did get in the tracks poll.

Yeah FKA Twigs is closer in sound and approach to Katie Gately than she is to, say, D'Angelo, but it's all about perception.

I think the one album that bounded into my ballot due to the metal poll is really more dark psych-folk than metal, but still, thanks to you guys for bringing it to my attention.

I'm just saying pop/rap/dance etc fans dont hate on all rock - they like some - indie generally isn't one of those.