ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2020

a vibe in search of a song imo

wow, just wow at “Jazzidisciples (Zlele)” placing! brilliant track, one of my top 10 tracks, and I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: South Africa is the world’s House Nation. this track was an actual South African top 10 pop hit.

and thanks for your wonderful introduction there, forks!

(will say tho, with all of the credit I and the rest of the afro crew might take for this, I doubt it would have placed without Tim F’s recent subtle endorsement in his EOY thread)

will give the links and playlist later, as requested!

a vibe in search of a song imo

thanks, Geir

xp
to be fair, if I'd been allowed to go outside this year, I think I would have enjoyed the soup a lot more I think -- ime amapiano is not ideal sitting in my apt with headphones on music :(

xp to rob. yes, i think that's it. i like the sustained tension too, but without being able to listen to all these tracks in some sort of context, they can all blend into one and the lack of release has a similar effect of hearing a lot of 4/4 techno: Brilliant if you're there in the moment and it's being mixed together or performed, but I'm not going to sit at my desk listening to all these shaker-fill intros. It's definitely cool music and a vibrant, exciting scene though.

love john vuli gate and the attendant memes

― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Monday, January 25, 2021 12:58 PM (seven minutes ago)

ysi?

I had "Ain't It Different" on my ballot but dropped it when I realized I actually just like the riff from "Butterfly," which, I now learn, is actually from Red Hot Chili Peppers? Sorry not sorry.

xp search #johnvuligatechallenge

Victoria Monét’s Jaguar EP packs a lot of disco and R&B punch into a sub-25 minute runtime. I’m partial to "Dive," her ode to cunnilingus, but the title track is also a banger.

https://i.imgur.com/vVrveJ4.png
#64: Victoria Monét - “Jaguar” - 150 points - 6 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
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rolling r&b 2020

Love love love the way the drums/percussion sound on Jaguar

yeah, it makes me think of Quincy Jones' production

Great! I voted for this one (and one other).

My cat died last year but this was his dying bop.

voted for "Experience" but really pleased to see Victoria make the list!

Oh yeah, I liked some stuff from this album when I heard it on the playlist. Pretty layers.

Ooh I'd have been listening to this non-stop if I'd known it existed.

A few #1 votes so far whereas iirc last year it took quite a while for one to show up.

Oh wait, I'm wrong! I voted for "Experience" and "Moment."

(there were just a few artists for whom I voted for two tracks of theirs, and Victoria was one of them)

I'm not sure about the whole fucking a cat thing tbh

lmaoooo

I think this was one of the songs I kept coming back the most through the year, it’s not my usual style of music at all but the production is so tasteful. It does sound linspired by Quincy Jones’ productions now that you mention it.

plenty of OOMPH! in amapiano, depending on where you look

you could try and do a work out to it at the very least: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIZyAfFBUXo

As noted in the other thread, I decided to follow the principle of not voting for tracks off of albums I also voted for (with one exception, to come later). Thus, I saved my Victoria vote for the albums poll. This is the album's clear highlight though IMO.

I was just trying to buy Jaguar on vinyl from her website but I was too slow as it sold out within minutes as I was checking out!

Voted for Experience but this is almost as good.

Lol emily. I’ll be honest I never pay too much attention to the lyrics. One of the blessings of not being a native english speaker is that I can switch off the part of my brain that translates lyrics that could otherwise ruin a great sounding song.

was pleasantly vibing to "jaguar" before the horns came in and made me move a little bit lol

Her lyrics can be a (minor) weak point of some of her songs.

If you like your cosplay J-Pop idol bands presenting at max levels of schizophrenia, have I got a treat for you.

https://i.imgur.com/xrjIv1l.png
#63: YOU’LL MELT MORE - “Surpriser!” - 151 points - 6 votes
video

The J-Pop Thread

I do get metaphor in songs, I swear, hahaha. But I could definitely see me doing a nashwan (RIP nashwan's cat, I'm sorry) and singing the 'supersonic pussycat' bit to my cat, but then I'd be about to go on to the next couple of lines and be all, erm, NO. BAD AND WRONG.

xps

omg! I voted for Go Out instead, but how wonderful! thank the lord

this one just makes me sad I didn't nominate Melt Yourself Down/Shabaka's "Born in the Manor"

Cool, didn't really want a headache today, but here one comes.

Omg omg omg

i incorrectly presumed the album also called surpriser had been nommed when i did a search :(

i might have voted for this regardless

Her lyrics can be a (minor) weak point of some of her songs.

― You have treated my messenger with contempt. (morrisp), Monday, January 25, 2021 1:26 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i could've sworn she was singing "bas-ket-baaallll" but no, she was singing "let's get wiiild." disappointing imo

didn't care much for Experience, but enjoying Jaguar a lot more

dog latin, you should try mixing some amapiano tracks together yourself. It's easy and a lot of fun. They're basically all the same tempo so you can concentrate on finding the perfect spots to mix in and out of, lol.

Oh this is a pleasant surprise! Felt morally obliged to put them on my list but didn't think they'd show up

can't believe I votesplit this and it still placed looool, so glorious

ok this one is insane

"jazzidisciples" roughly 1000 places too low

the disrespect from lj will not go unnoted

I’m so uh surprised this made it in! My god am I glad I got my first nominations in so early. I’ve listened to this on more or less every journey I’ve had to make over the past year as it adds a delightful urgency. The key change is glorious too.

longneck, yeah i have built some amapiano into my sets. as i say, i'm not against it at all, and even enjoy a fair bit of it, it's just i find it samey after a while

I had never heard of this track or band before, and I can't say I feel like my life was much worse off for it.

YMM are exactly my sort of thing and I do love some of their stuff, but I find that they're just not, um, surprising enough for me to really love them. Also weren't they the ones who did the video with them all in blackface? (I might be wrong about this and it was another JPop group who I'd previously liked, and you can be all 'culturally different meanings in Japan' if you want, but it was not good.)

heheh this You'll Melt More track is VERY INSISTENT on me enjoying it