ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014

i genuinely cannot comprehend what kind of attitude to anything this is so i'm going to hush my big mouth now

yes. and you should listen to artificial brain.

xp

like, the kind of "agitation" i'm speaking of consists mostly of dumping youtubes in the noms thread

DJP just annoyed bc no one votes strategically for Lamb.

DJP i had alcest on my list but cut them at the last minute

jk no i didn't but i like that record ok

the kind of "agitation" i'm speaking of consists mostly of dumping youtubes in the noms thread

― deliberately clunky, needlessly arty, (contenderizer), Saturday, January 24, 2015 10:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think if the person "agitating" hustles hard enough it ceases to become a problem tbh. like i can't fault anyone for voting for songs from those sick-ass year end threads tim used to do where he posted luscious paragraphs about all the songs he had been hoarding from us all year, i probably voted for a few of them myself

did vahid go to stanf?

wrong thred

also "seasons" was huge all year, yes the letterman performance (first week of March) was a big part of it, but ppl forget that it was the first time anyone (indie fans or not, FI fans or people who'd never heard of them before) had ever heard the song (aside from maybe a handful of live performances at smallish venues in the preceding months). the single came out a week or two later and imo stands on its own merit

― gr8080, Saturday, January 24, 2015 9:15 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not that it really matters, but this isn't true, the song and its official video were out in late January, over a month before the Letterman appearances.

it is pretty funny how many if not most of the acts that placed in this poll performed on Letterman but we're only making it some kind of weird stigma against the band who bodied it so hard that it inadvertently became a major piece of their career narrative.

bodied by an old dude in a letterman beef

Tbc, my earlier post was about voting for stuff that genuinely impressed me from the noms list, not for voting 'strategically'. I don't vote 'strategically' even for elections that actually matter.

(Scare quotes reflect the amount of actual strategy that is actually involved with most 'strategic' voting as it is usually practised imo.)

If you were less strategic about your voting, there's more of a chance of your guitar music appearing in the poll, which would be interesting to others.

eh, it's not a big deal. strategic as in not completely overcrowding ballot with brick-laden deathmetal, pushing up "no type" & dropping "no flex zone" for the half-lolzy sake of ~team loyalty~, that kind of thing.

tho i didn't vote at all this year, i generally do vote for a lot of guitar rock.

deliberately clunky, needlessly arty, (contenderizer)
Posted: January 24, 2015 at 9:12:47 PM
there's nothing wrong with being a little strategic in your voting, right? i mean, if my eoy ballot had to authentically reflect my actual year in listening, it'd be 3/4 metal and garage rock stuff that doesn't have a hope in hell of actually placing. DJP seemed to suggest that we should either stay tru or stay out. i'd rather split the difference: agitate & vote for the music i love best, sure, but also comb other people's favorites for awesome shit from outside my world of guitar people that i can genuinely get behind.

Ok, I'll bite. Why?

I mean that seriously - why ballot anything that isn't your actual favorite 25 songs? No one gives a shit about this poll outside of here. Why massage it at all?

why not? i love to hear new things. i get caught happily running circles in my well-trodden ruts and EOY summary time is a great opportunity to broaden my horizons.

special snowflake syndrome

I love hearing new things too! That's why the poll is interesting. Voting for stuff you hear in the nom stage so it places is the logical opposite of hearing new things!

i hope some of us are still alive on monday to see the albums rollout

Everyone talks about wanting this poll to represent the community but instead it represents how people want the community to be perceived. If people voted for their favorites in a blind way then the result would be weirder and odder and actually cover a broader spectrum.

I'm still playing the shit out of ninos du brasil, but if I'd heard it three weeks ago I wouldn't vote for it

that last was xp to your first question, jjj. i'm not talking about denying my favorites - rather being open to potential new favorites, even those that arrive via the nominations thread, people's summary lists (yeah, like tim's, those were awesome, LJ's too), even site/mag toplists. again, why not?

agree that it does maybe encourage centricity, but it's not some either/or proposition. i know what i like and will likely vote for going in. that's most of my list. but if i hear something fucking AWESOME at the last minute, hell yeah i'm at least willing to consider making some room. frankly, the insistence that there's some right way to do this is a little bizarre. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ still otm.

What I'm saying is the whole point of these things (honestly, as exposed by my weird "not reacting on the actual thread" rule) is hearing what other people were listening to. I'm happy to submit my year in music, knowing that lots of it wont place. Changing gears in the last month and voting for something that randomly catches my ear seems counterproductive to me.

yeah, that's cool. i fully support the havingness of principles.

I mean anybody can do this however they want, idgaf, but I feel like sometimes people want to help "deserving" songs win? Or something? That's so weird to me.

"2 On"'s grandmother is sick and i just thought it could use the pick-me-up tbh

Xp: ha I don't see it as principles though, I just think this is a poll on a who gives a shit messageboard, why try to consolidate opinion and get it right? I mean, we still traditionally include comparisons to p&j and pitchfork in the rankings (no offense poll runners, not saying anything abt your awesome poll and hard work). That seems pretty bizarre and self-important to me. I get why that existed when this was a bunch of music critics, but that's not what ILM is anymore, it's a bunch of bored Internet peeps talking about whatever. Why not just let it be that?

I feel like sometimes people want to help "deserving" songs win? Or something? That's so weird to me.

― a strawman stuffed with their collection of 12 cds (jjjusten)

yeah, i get that. maybe i take the process less seriously than i should. like, if i had voted, my top two songs would probably have been slough feg's "laser enforcer" and audrey horne's "out of the city". and i would have been happily alone in that. less alone in voting for FKA twigs, d'angelo, future, owen pallett, migos, against me!, etc. i'd know all that going in. still don't see what's so wrong about being open to the odd last-minute addition.

here, check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dSt8Hg_J4Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBNxQWfx8gw

Xps: if I had realized that "2 on" was performed by someone's sick grandma I wouldn't have been so harsh abt it sorry nice tune deaf lady

this too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZwo3UJdcAU

\m/

Right but that's the whole point right? It's way more fun to see something show up that you are surprised to see and love and have been throwing down down for than something that gets a last minute groundswell - we pimp awesome shit at each other all year, why water that down by funneling the eoy poll down to consensus by circling the wagons during the polling period?

I dj'd between sets at a Slough Feg show, what has Taylor Swift ever done for me? Well guess what Tay Tay you're probably never gonna here how awesome Nazareth's Cibber of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" is deal with it

lol, now i wanna post entombed's "hollis brown". restraint.

I can see the point of strategic voting as in 'if I have a few tracks/albums that are pretty much equal in my appreciation I might vote for the one that is more likely to place' but I don't get not voting for favorites because they're not likely to place. I want to see the music that people like that is not the music everyone and their mother will list. I have death metal on my ballot. I have Artificial Brain on my ballot. Maybe if the people who loved that kind of music voted for it it would place.

And even if it doesn't place, by putting it on your ballot maybe someone will see it and check it out and fall in love with it, which is more important IMO than whether it places or not.

the idea of a "top 25 tracks of the year set in stone that you must not betray" is as odd an idea as any tbh. on any given day my ballot's 50% different and being overcome by rush-of-blood enthusiasm if you hear something on the noms list that blows your mind seems as good a way to determine it as any other. also dinsdale otm about strategic voting (def more likely to vote for something i know won't place - felt no need to vote for wither "two weeks" or "2 on") and also that the point, such as it is, is to share your love for the music that means a lot to you - whether this happens via the noms list or your ballot or the poll itself. and the lobbying/cheerleading for your personal faves to make it are because tracks that do make the 77 just get more ears on them.

Cant get my head around the idea of strategic voting. I didnt want anything either in or out of the list, thought it should be whatever it was going to be

re: voting for stuff at the last minute because of the noms, there's nothing wrong with that but I think what would be super super awesome is if the noms didn't start at the end of the year but instead they would start right now. Ideally there would be rolling charts to go along with it as people rate the things they listen to. Basically RateYourMusic but limited to ILX. So no more not voting for stuff because it's not gonna place, not more having to cut that because you can only vote for 25 etc. and probably a cool way to highlight/discover niche stuff that would otherwise be overlooked. It's just too bad RYM doesn't let you create a group of users and limit charts to said group otherwise that could be easily done. Hell a that's not even particularly complicated to code but I doubt I'll have the time to do it myself.

Actually I think this can be done via RYM's friends feature. It would take one neutral/inactive account to act as master who would add all ILXors participants as friends, then we'd just have to use the 'as rated by my friends' option in the charts form.

Eh this is still going, save us JF etc etc. The Pitchfork/P+J placings are just part of the theatre for me, nobody really believes that our list has a comparable (or any) influence in the outside world but it can be entertaining to pretend for a week that it does. Likewise hoping for a deserving winner and the other horserace aspects - if something I like is in the frame I'll cheer it on but it has zero impact on how I vote.

do people really think that these results have been gamed and are no longer an accurate representation of stuff liked by people on this board in 2014? cause I'm looking at the list now and uhhhhh

I do share my list outside of here. Wouldn't tactically vote per se but would maybe say there's a conscious urge to make the 25 representative of the scope of yr listening rather than have 12 songs from 2 adored albums you've caned all year.

Weirdest thing about this discussion is ppl sneering at & grilling contendo as to why he was voting for consensus picks when he didn't even submit a ballot (yeah I know he made a semi-aggro comment to flopson about wizards but still)

Anyways, voter participation has been growing somewhat steadily for the past few years, and I kinda feel like our special snowflake status is a big part of the reason why

clearly i didn't vote with my heart & i'm just a mastermind here to make ILX look cooler

http://cs313919.vk.me/v313919803/569e/17g4bYrdza8.jpg

Does the dreaded metal poll even have this handwringing?
Things are bad when the metal fans come out looking better than you.