ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019

I haven't heard Ciara on adult R&B radio since "Body Talk" so ILM and critics may be her only audience.

i didn't vote for "thinkin' bout you"!

ha, i thought i saw you say it was the 'best song ever,' but then you say that a lot

My 25th vote. Not my favorite vocals but the bassline is undeniable.

if there's 26 songs tied for best song ever then one gotta go

^^^ basically what it comes down to

One step closer to the weirdness

"level up" is the song i will ride for on Beauty Marks; 'thinkin bout you"feels relentlessly middle of the road to me

I haven't heard Ciara on adult R&B radio since "Body Talk" so ILM and critics may be her only audience.

8.4m monthly listeners on Spotify = it's time for a cull of either ILM or critics and I don't care which

as an aside: The differential between #30 and #16 on the Top 77 Songs is 42 points. So everything that places today has more or less equal love on the board!

anyway it's finally time for that long awaited hot imago weirdness i know you guys love

Remember if you're planning to post fake tracks later in the rundown make sure they're as conventional as possible for maximum impact

http://i.imgur.com/YN3pBDH.jpg
25: Vampire Weekend – “Harmony Hall” – 320 points – 11 votes

YouTube Video

Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

“i think everything in harmony hall (the solo, the dead vibe, the piano, the meta chorus) has been done with extreme intent. it's an incredible song” – call all destroyer

“you know how when bands try and do a 'You Can't Always Get What You Want' thing and it's usually rubbish? This actually pulls it off.” – Matt DC

“feels exactly where they should be at this point in their career - a little more relaxed & not as frantic or with as much of the tightly wound baroque flourishes, a good way to mature” - ufo

Singles Jukebox

Bwahahaha

Craaaaaaaazy

having a chord progression that changes is a bourgeois indulgence

― opden gnash (imago), Wednesday, 29 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Adapting your 'this music isn't edgy enough for me' routine then. Good on you.

lmao i didn't think this would place above "this life"

i don't love this song

I guess this is as propitious a moment as any to sketch out a Marxist reading of VW.

threadban lj and xyz please

didn't we do this in 2008

It is breathtaking how terrible Vampire Weekend has become

yeh thought this life was a much higher lock but fair beans

boooooo

hadn't heard ciara's latest but she is a treasure

Fess up, who voted for this?

the best thing in this song is the screamadelica piano but the song hung around it is just... fine imo

i haven't listened to the whole VW record yet but liked this song as much as anything they've done

Harmony Hall is another one from the good half of the album, but I didn't consider voting for it. Unbearably White is the only one that got close.

That could mean any number of things.

xp

Wait, they have a song called 'Unbearably White'?

further evidence i am not ilm: a lot of ppl in the vampire weekend thread are new converts bc of this record, which i don't understand at all but good for them

VW have a song called Unbearably White? mind reeling

lol xp

yes but it's not as good as 'Fair Beans'

Of course you aren't Brad but can you think of another ILMer who comes as close to fitting the bill?

"What's that hot sound that indie's been craving...? I KNOW, how about a bland rehash of 90s baggy?"

Harmony Hall is okay but not as good as 'This Life'. I like the early-90s baggy house pianos

i'm not appreciative of my earbuds dying during tracks week

"Primal Scream is too threatening and too old; can you fix that for me?"
"WHY YES I CAN"

Of course you aren't Brad but can you think of another ILMer who comes as close to fitting the bill?

― pomenitul, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 10:23 AM (fifty-three seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

tim f, tag team of rob and breastcrawl, forks

tbh we're all members of the ilxuminati

Now I want to hear them do XTRMNTR.

I don't mind this song, actually. Enjoyed hearing it on the radio. Idg what makes it worse than other VW? I didn't vote for it, though, and tbh barely voted in the tracks poll at all.

I thought "This Life" was the automatic charmer

Yeah but you also haunt the metal threads, Brad.

I don't think it's any better or any worse than VW's usual fare.

Now I want to hear them do XTRMNTR.

― pomenitul, Wednesday, 29 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Begging for a Keving Shields remix tbf

This is a pretty pop song about death, pretty pop songs about death are good, what's so hard about this

A Vampire Arkestra would be kind of cool, actually.

xp

I don't mind this song, actually. Enjoyed hearing it on the radio. Idg what makes it worse than other VW? I didn't vote for it, though, and tbh barely voted in the tracks poll at all.

Early VW had quirks and took unexpected turns, plus spent a lot more time incorporating flourishes that hinted at a wider world music appreciation that they used to give their songs a distinctive sound/style. They then jettisoned all of that and became Another Boring Band With An Okay Guitarist.

Now I want to hear them do XTRMNTR.

― pomenitul,

Wonder if Ezra is a better rapper than Bobby?

I think the Primal Scream piano would feel like a boring cliche if that were all that were there but I really like the back-and-forth between that and the little finger-pick guitar move. (Then again you could argue that some of the best Primal Scream itself was built on the alternation between the house piano and big acoustic guitar moves.)

quite likely!

xpost