ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019

(I'm not actually going to do it but this isn't especially edifying for anyone concerned at this point)

There's only one poster who's relentlessly baiting, trolling and annoying a handful of posters at this stage.

xp Pom otm

Correct me if I'm wrong but the total of ballots received hasn't really declined much in ten years has it? Feels like it's always been around a hundred. This has always been a relatively small enough number for the results to be just whimsical and idiosyncratic enough while still roughly in step with broader critical consensus. But this is mostly just me re-assuring myself that it's OK to not like most of the top tracks perhaps - other times I've felt envious of how many tracks place for some voters (and so many tracks placing that appear early in the nominations thread makes perfect sense is these are the obvious important tracks by those most excited by the whole process year after year) but I don't do any lobbying so can't really protest.

The big change over that time is I guess more to do with who the loudest and most frequent voices belong to when it comes to lobbying. Matt's right about the importance of threads devoted to specific tracks and albums too though. I would prefer if it were there less "do the results make us look good?" ruminating although questions like why there is less hip-hop are usually worth exploring.

I decided I would stop making personal EOY lists after 2019 and instead just maintain and update playlists of things I stumble upon. ILM is most important in that process at this time of year when there is a huge playlist of peoples favourites to sample. Maybe I will make more effort with the rolling threads throughout the year but the time and energy required to not only hear the music but want to champion it is usually beyond me.

Yep xp

I threadbanned xyzz, definitely stepped over the line there.

the number of ballots declined a little in 2017 but has remained steady enough since

The results probably reflect the average age of the people voting more than anything else.

Test

Emily?

I'm not actually going to do it but this isn't especially edifying for anyone concerned at this point)

― Matt DC, Sunday, 2 February 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Ftr, not going to post on the album's one btw, I only engaged with the tracks countdown.

Huh, obv a glitch in the code. Well, if you could try to stop being a dick for a bit it would be much appreciated, b/c I'd really rather not have to resort to any full bannings for any of you guys.

I was really pleased to find the top 3 being very much in sync with my own favourites this year, and then I realised 'shit but does that mean I'm just conforming to ILM consensus? am I not my own person? am I a music fan or just someone who follows a message board and keeps running Spotify playlists of what's on there?'

perhaps you are being rewarded after years of service by becoming a Tastemaker

To recap (for my own purposes), these are the tracks I'd genuinely enjoy hearing again (a mildly positive response doesn't quite cut it):

7: Billie Eilish – “Bury a Friend”
9: Burna Boy – “Anybody”
12: Octo Octa – “I Need You”
18: Weyes Blood – “Andromeda”
19: Grimes and i_o – “Violence”
21: Purple Mountains – “All My Happiness Is Gone”
40: Underworld & The Necks - “Appleshine Continuum”
43: Weyes Blood - “Movies”
46: Charlotte Adigéry - “Paténipat”
47: Angel Olsen - “All Mirrors”
50: Purple Mountains - “Nights That Won’t Happen”
52: DaBaby - “Suge”
53: Erika de Casier - “Intimate (Club. Mix)”
59: Charlotte Adigéry - “High Lights”
61: Weyes Blood- “Wild Time”
63: Burna Boy feat. Zlatan- “Killin Dem”
66: Kasper Marott - “Drømmen om Ø (Forever mix '19)”
67: Jamila Woods feat. Saba - “Basquiat”
72 (TIE): Anna Caragnano & Donnato Dozzy - “Parola (Rework)”

That's 19 in all, 7 of which I discovered thanks to this poll. Not bad.

“am I a music fan or just someone who follows a message board and keeps running Spotify playlists of what's on there?”

TheElephantMan.jpeg

I would like to genially forward the possibility that, of course, one can be both and many more!

"bury a friend" being the billie song to rank highest is so odd to me, it's literally the most ordinary and unremarkable of all her songs to have been nominated (but still a good song)

as for past years' #1s, well... it's pretty normal for good-not-great songs to end up just kind of end up having coasted to the top for whatever reason. i'm not crazy about any of those except "212" and "black beatles"

also i seem to remember lex was not 'run out of' here but stopped posting here so he could spend more time on personal projects

Yeah, we actually lured him back enough to cast a ballot in 2017, even if he didn't participate at all in threads.

Kicking myself for not putting the Sun El track on my ballot. Pretty much anything this guy touches is sunshine and happiness. I truly hope he has a solid mainstream breakout in the next year or two

― octobeard, Wednesday, January 29, 2020 1:10 PM (four days ago)

i keep thinking about this. this is, what, the third year in a row, starting w/ "akanamali", that this scene has quietly produced wonderfully composed material with beautiful attention to detail + obvious, broad appeal? numerous tracks from this scene have effortlessly placed on our polls -- i would easily count at least one per year as being a classic -- and yet we appear to remain among the very few places with a european or north american audience where this music has gotten any exposure, outside of, like, the singles jukebox and very short, isolated end-of-year blurbs in american generalist music sites.

what would need to happen for this music to break wide open? which site/blog or podcast needs to do a piece on it? at which european or floridian edm festival would one of these artists' records need to be spun? i just don't understand how it hasn't happened already.

like, i actually heard "akanamali" at a bar once in my relatively unremarkable midwestern us city. i don't know who programmed the playlist that night, but i assume it wasn't, like, an ilm poster or tsj contributor, lol. so i guess this music is not entirely hidden out here? but it still feels so below-the-ground compared to where it could be.

"bury a friend" being the billie song to rank highest is so odd to me, it's literally the most ordinary and unremarkable of all her songs to have been nominated (but still a good song)

Yeah, that boring ordinary song with the digital shrieks and calls for suicide, ho hum

i never said it was boring and all the other billie songs mentioned also have qualities that are just as (if not more) unusual

billie songs nominated, rather

like hello, people were referring to it as "the one that sounds like (the song that has become clichéd movie trailer soundtrack)" upthread

You called it her most unremarkable and ordinary song on the countdown, which I strongly disagree with.

whenever people talk about billie it takes me 0.5 seconds to realise they aren't talking about ms piper

RE: dyl’s musing - I have had similar thoughts. Having had opportunity to talk about music with programmers of some pretty major venues and festivals in NYC - which while not the only place a movement can start, is as good place to take the cultural temperature of the zeitgeist as anywhere in the world - how NOBODY is familiar with or booking amapiano artists. Generally they are unfamiliar with the term entirely.

My guess is that these artists lack the infrastructure and connections (and possibly/likely the desire?) to go on the road to the pop/world booking festival circuits for free or near free just to get on the American radar. Also, the genre’s broad appeal makes it hard to pitch to niche audiences (is this house? Is this pop?) unless it is in unaccented singalong English. What’s likely needed, to my everlasting frustration, is a Drake or a Sia or a Beyoncé to champion them with a feature and an opening spot.

i have to admit that i also didn't know of the term 'amapiano' until recently, despite having been well aware of this music

i would guess that you are right about the relative lack of infrastructure or connections. desire, i imagine, varies by artist. sun-el having titled his album africa to the world seems to signal that he certainly wouldn't mind if he were heard and enjoyed more globally, but it's true that getting to that point might involve big sacrifices of time and effort that could also be directed to continuing to serve the more local scene that's already very into this music. who knows what will happen!

There was a South African evening at the local Cinemateque recently, and as I arrived they were listening to Akanamli, and everyone was dancing. It's such a perfect song. Everyone I've played it to loves it. Perhaps the language is a problem, nobody in power believes a non-English language song can be anything but a novelty hit.

But yeah, I also don't get why, for instance, Roskilde Festival isn't booking a big showcase of amapiano artists for their electronic scene one evening. Everyone would love it.

the other issue I'd consider is a lack of big label a&r engagement with many African countries' creative communities and national/local promoters and venues and studios and radio stations.
perhaps i'm wrong about that but there's lots of signals suggesting that's the case.

Rolling Stone, of all ‘places’, profiled Samthing Soweto back in October.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/samthing-soweto-isphithiphithi-897467/

and DJ Lag in November:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/dj-lag-amanikiniki-video-913148/

Both written by Elias Leight.

I have no idea how this fits in the bigger scheme of things.

ah yeah, i forgot about that samthing soweto profile! i do appreciate elias leight's writing

one of you folk should do a proposal for a show on nts, seriously. even just a one off

as far as South African house goes, Black Coffee has enjoyed a small amount of crossover success in the west, having played Coachella and a bunch of EDM festivals and collaborated with artists like Drake & Usher. though he has been around a lot longer of course.

Gqom has seemed like it's going to get some sort of greater attention in the west any day for a while now, having been cited as a hip influence on various electronic producers, and Busiswa and DJ Lag were on the Beyonce Lion King album. there was even that great BTS gqom single (though that's non-western but you know what i'm getting at). who knows if or when that will actually eventuate though

i think in 2018 Alicia Keys posted photos of her and Swizz Beatz in the studio with Sun-El Musician so maybe he'll show up on her upcoming album?

This music hasn’t really taken off because most of the western world can’t believe that Africa qua Africa can produce anything culturally worthwhile that can’t be repackaged as a celebration of black suffering

i listened through 78 thru 100 today and i dug it way more than most of 1 thru 77.

wrote a long post of reax going thru the whole list then when i hit 'submit post' ilx ate it :(

Code working as it should

:)

This music hasn’t really taken off because most of the western world can’t believe that Africa qua Africa can produce anything culturally worthwhile that can’t be repackaged as a celebration of black suffering

It was pretty fun watching so many "guitar solos are bad" poptimists losing their shit over the long version of "Not."

lol

Did we get a full list of all the rankings and votes? I haven't expanded the thread today, so I guess I could have missed it

ILM Tracks Poll 2019: Thread of Stats and Balloon Emojis

thanking u

Guys, as noted above there are two videos for (the audio of) “Balloon”:
The one on the Busy Signal account currently has 19.174 views, the one on the Love Star Music account stands at 10.058 views.
― breastcrawl, vrijdag 31 januari 2020 10:31 bookmarkflaglink
I will report back to you in 24 hrs
― breastcrawl, vrijdag 31 januari 2020 10:32 bookmarkflaglink

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0097/9841/8492/products/Pierrot-Sad-Clown-Costume-Fortune-Costumes-Lingerie-2_620x.jpg?v=1571239308

is there more than one version of Not?

yep, there's a 3:42 edit

https://open.spotify.com/track/2reSrhID8BC9HpM2CkT3hT

huh. I never even realised how long the original was. always figured it was about 4 minutes

i am still totally flabbergasted by the popularity of this third rate song.