ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019

xxp What's to complain about? Amazing song and "The Stage" is even better. I voted for the album though.

we can take the subway to the beach where there's a breeze, cuz we're in america! oh yeah!

this track was prob one of my most powerful listening experiences of the year but yeah i ended up just voting for the album

https://i.imgur.com/byGOyVm.jpg
57: Big Thief - “Cattails” - 191 points - 7 votes
video
Big Thief - U.F.O.F. (May 3, 2019)

The Singles Jukebox

At their best, Big Thief’s songs sound like incantations that run on memory, using looping structures and riffs to achieve symbolic power that goes beyond the simple cores that Adrianne Lenker writes. “Cattails” finds Big Thief deep in their own territory, sounding (like many of the songs on U.F.O.F.) like an organic expansion on Lenker’s solo material. It’s insular yet welcoming, a cascade of acoustic guitars that doesn’t quite resolve but instead ends on a question mark, leading you further down into Big Thief’s wilderness. - Jacob Sujin Kuppermann

It’s fascinating how close to the line between hypnosis and tedium this treads. What breaks it free on the right side of the line, for me, isn’t even the more obvious sonic changes towards the end (although those are also well done, if not as sharp as similar transformations you can find in, say, Sam Amidon’s work); there’s something about the guitar line and those basic drums and of course Lenker’s steady narrative that becomes spellbinding, no less because it feels like it easily could have gone the other way. - Ian Mathers

i assume this is... not the last we'll see of big thief

I see what u did there

I was going to say I didn't vote for this, preferring a couple other Big Thief tracks, but nope, I voted for this one as well! Fantastic track.

Cool bit of trivia about this track:

When the band thought they were rehearsing the single “Cattails,” a jaunty ode to making peace with feeling infinitesimal that Lenker had finished that morning, Monks secretly began recording them, and that’s what you hear on U.F.O.F. “We walked into the control room and it was captured, that was it,” she says. “We didn’t have to work at it at all.”

(from: https://www.stereogum.com/featured/big-thief-two-hands-ufof-interview/)

I went with the Adigéry EP instead, but very happy to see High Lights place. Weyes Blood doing even more ethereal and sublime work than usual, but every track was like 10/10 so again just had to vote for the album instead.

love U.F.O.F. so much, my big find of 2019 thanks to ILX and the radio station I do a show at, which had both records on rotation for most of the year

lol I haven't heard a single one of these yet, guess I gotta get listening

"not" deffo my highlight of a very impressive year

I fell hard for Big Thief last fall. Waited too long.

https://i.imgur.com/dwZgars.jpg
56: Raphael Saadiq feat. Rob Bacon - “Something Keeps Calling” - 192 points - 5 votes
video
Raphael Saadiq - Jimmy Lee- "He Was My Mama's Son"
Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It

ayyyyy

lots of songs by artists i voted for, but this is my first track vote to place.

voted for the album, not mad 2 see this here tho

yah top 3 for me. heartbreaking album and song.

My kids say I'll never come home again
And I know they're right, at least tonight
If I fail, my whole life goes to hell
And it don't seem right, I need help tonight

what i wrote in my personal year-end roundup

Named after his older brother, Raphael Saddiq’s towering Jimmy Lee album examines the personal cost of the crack epidemic, and the outsized role addiction plays in the lives of the destitute. “Something Keeps Calling” is the album’s crushing centerpiece, painting substances as at once a seductive lover and a heavy burden, one that overrides all common sense and decency: “My friends say I can never pull it together/Well they might be right, at least tonight/My kids say I’ll never come home again/And I know they’re right, at least tonight.” The song climaxes with Rob Bacon’s wailing guitar solo, which tries in vain to reach out to those beyond hope.

https://i.imgur.com/0a713Lv.jpg
55: Holly Herndon - “Eternal” - 192 points - 7 votes
video
i want a thread for Holly Herndon

The Singles Jukebox

Proto, Holly Herndon’s upcoming album, is being heavily touted as a “collaboration with AI,” specifically a machine learning suite called Spawn. I usually have two reactions to this sort of thing. The first, generally a grumbled “have none of you ever heard of Vocaloid,” is petty. The second is less, I’d hope: there’s a whole field of artists collaborating with machines, whose insights can be pulled in. In Emily Short’s The Annals of the Parrigues, explicitly billed as “collaborating with a machine,” she outlines five principles of procedurally generated writing: salt (systems for systems’ sake; perfectible code over perfectible output), mushroom (repetition, scads of data, Markov chains, bowls of oatmeal), beeswax (homespun/hand-crafted elements), venom (tight editing, surprise, connotation; a fish hook, an open eye), and egg (coherence, authorial intent, human curation). She applied the principles to prose, but they could easily be applied to music. Sampling is beeswax. MIDI may be salt. “Soundscapes” are mushroomy. Choruses are venom or egg (compare “Smells Like Teen Spirit” vs. “…Baby One More Time”). None of these are value judgments, or if they are, they only are because of what you value. I gravitate toward venom and egg — thrilling music with a purpose — but so much experimental/”AI-enhanced” music doesn’t seem to. “Eternal” gets closer than most, the beats thrill, the vocals stab. There does seem to be a point, albeit one that is mostly “this exists.” Mostly it just sounds like Miriam Stockley (who herself has a Vocaloid), but is anything really ever new? - Katherine St Asaph

“I don’t want to live in a world in which humans are automated off stage. I want an A.I. to be raised to appreciate and interact with that beauty.” Part of being genuinely avant-garde is that Herndon isn’t quite there yet, probably, but equally part is that you can hear and appreciate how this and her other work is moving us closer. I’m not sure how many others here will have been coincidentally listening to Sacred Harp singing just before playing “Eternal”, but try looking some up just after playing this song (and maybe throw, I don’t know, some Glasser or some of Julianna Barwick’s more outre moments in the mix) and see what kind of connections you start forming. - Ian Mathers

love holly
chorus still is all time <3

oooooh one of mine showed up finally! towering track.

vaguely remember being underwhelmed by Adigery on Patenipat, but this is cool and a lot odder than I expected

By a distance the third-best of the three Herndons nominated imo; still good

that video is cursed

And on a similar theme, Patenipat is by a very great distance my least favourite track on the EP but the rest is amazing, check it out!

couldn't deal with the herndon at album-length but "eternal" fuckin rules

"Eternal" is like one of those "all the instruments replaced with 'eeyit's been'" type goofs except it sounds fucking awesome

Yeah, the album was patchy but the highlights were high

Voted for the HH album, didn't pick out any tracks from it to vote for, still very glad to see it here.

And on a similar theme, Patenipat is by a very great distance my least favourite track on the EP but the rest is amazing, check it out!

― opden gnash (imago), Monday, January 27, 2020 2:47 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah I think I already like Cursed & Cussed more than Patenipat and Highlights

ooh that Vampire Weekend track was surprisingly low. unpopular opinion: it's one of the best tracks off their best album. everything before that was just warming up. Father Of the Bride is the record that converted me from 'meh' to 'okay this is interesting' to 'okay this is one of the most fully-realised pop rock albums of all time'

think I voted for Patenipat. not heard that Charlotte Adigery tune

Just catching up. Great results so far.

Something Keeps Calling is a highlight from Jimmy Lee. Still not sure why so many critics slept on that album last year. It's probably the best thing he's ever done.

Shura is one of the few artists who I had on both lists. BKLYNLDN wasn't really the direction I was expecting her to go in, but it suits her so well. It's so gorgeous and that switch up at the end is pure joy. Shura in loved up mode was one of my favourite things about music in 2019.

Also voted for the Mark Ronson/Angel Olsen track. The whole album was a bit of a revelation really. Beyond the odd track (especially that Boy George single in 2010), I haven't really enjoyed much of Mark Ronson's work. He seemed to be able to get the songs and production right for the talent he worked with. The title track with Lykke Li is brilliant too.

Father Of The Bride was half a good album. This Life is on the good side.

Didn't vote for Weyes Blood, Cate Le Bon, Big Thief or Peggy Gou but I'm happy to see them all here. 2019 was a crazy strong year IMO.

the Adigery thread is amusingly filled with similar "I like track [x] and hate track [y]" followed by "y is best, x is worst" sentiments

yeah I think I already like Cursed & Cussed more than Patenipat and Highlights

― rob, Monday, January 27, 2020 12:51 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol i was about to say, "wait'll you get a load of 'cursed and cussed'!"

https://i.imgur.com/f3Q541y.jpg
54: Normani - “Motivation” - 194 points - 8 votes
video
rolling r&b 2019

The Singles Jukebox

Motivation” just refuses to sit still. It snaps, fizzes, sways, pops, bounces off every wall in the building. It’s an unadulterated hit of pure summer that makes me want to dance in ways that would be deeply ill-advised for me to attempt. It’s incredibly immediate and possesses at least two instantly iconic pop moments (“ain’t regular, that ain’t regular!” and that sweet, delirious trumpet hook), and yet it’s sonically rich and intensely intricate. It’s irresistible, and really, why would you want to resist this? - Vikram Joseph

As someone who came of age in the 2000s, I remember a time when the radio played good R&B to dance to; it was the soundtrack of every bar mitzvah and prom I attended. There’s been a dearth of those sorts of songs since — we’ve had some EDM bangers, but I’ve longed for a song that was less like a rave and more like a late summer block party. This is everything I could’ve wanted: the best song Beyoncé never released, a powderkeg of energy and fun that overwhelms and delights. The video choreography is already classic (I’ve been thinking about the basketball-bounce move for a week solid), I anticipate seeing this memed to death, and I’ll enjoy every variant I see of it. Moreover, it’s so wonderful to see Normani finally get a song where she can let loose — rather than “Love Lies,” which I found rather wet, “Motivation” is an actual showcase of Normani’s talent. We’re witnessing the bona fide birth of a star. - Alex Clifton

xp to Herndon: oh hey, an artist I voted for and saw this past year!

this is obviously good even if it is manifestly Not My Thing

I loved this.

destined to be overrated, good song nonetheless

Eternal <3 Such an absolute jam. All melody and punch.

Yesss Holly made it! I felt SWIM and Frontier were better tracks, and voted for the former, but it's nice to see at least this one make it.

Last one for the day!

https://i.imgur.com/yXxu9iX.jpg
53: Erika de Casier - “Intimate (Club. Mix)” - 195 points - 6 votes - 1 number 1 vote
video
Erika de Casier - Essentials

The production comes from Casier herself and DJ Central, and there's definitely a textural influence from deep house. Casier's voice is soft and tender, it makes me think of #cassiefanclub in its unshowy plainness. I can imagine comparisons to Jessy Lanza and Kelela but this is much more of a purist's interpretation of r&b. ― boxedjoy
I totally love this. It’s like the sensuous yin to Abra’s yang
― Tim F
Also I was NOT prepared for the 1994 Neil Trix jungle realness of the club mix of “Intimate”!!!
― Tim F
Seriously this remix is one of the absolute best things I've heard this year. It has me flashing on Janet's "Empty".
Generally speaking the album is so lovely. I've often thought about how even before "One In A Million" came out some of the more sensuous, sumptuous R&B arrangements were almost there, stuff like TLC's "Diggin' On You" is the softest breath away from it. And I feel like this album really leans into that particular crossover point, everything is simultaneously involving and relaxing, seductive yet murderous.
― Tim F

Something Keeps Calling was good, but when Kings Fall came on after I was immediately like "what is THIS?"

Motivation is a great song that's made even better with the video. The basket ball dance scene in particular is a highlight.

here it is, my first "too low"

intimate was one of my favorite discoveries of the voting period. i'm pretty sure i've listened every day for the past two weeks (after i voted, natch)

damn I should have listened to this album huh