ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2020

loool

If anything Notes is underrated.

The images are of course great. I had actively been hoping for some nod to graphic design trends from a hundred years ago and these fit the bill.

― nashwan

This is more or less on purpose, glad you picked it up! I was looking at a lot of 1910's and 1920's design at the time for inspiration. In the end it mostly reflects on the typeface used. I had a couple of tests where the image would be framed in a more art deco style but dropped it.

My second option for typeface was 'Voyage' http://toolsandtoys.net/voyage-typeface-by-vj-type/, https://vj-type.com/6-voyage which also has that same sort of mood.

Sorry 1975 fans, but the 1975 still suck.

at some point they fully morphed both aesthetically and lyrically into "trenchant social commentary: the band" and a switch flipped for me and they went from charming to intolerable

I can't even listen to the songs I used to like anymore :/

Beware of this painfully catchy “hard times” disco prog track; its running and closing chorus thoroughly earwormed me when I wasn’t paying attention. You may be next.

https://i.imgur.com/lDCJYiP.png
#51: US Girls - “4 American Dollars” - 156 points - 6 votes - 1 #1 Track Vote
video

U.S. Girls

re: "the birthday party": i love this song, i love its construction, the chorus only coming in at the very beginning and end, like a mantra that's been rearranged slightly by what occurs in the interim, and the interim full of free associative half-snatches of dialogue and monologue about self-indulgence and self-consciousness of that self-indulgence, it's like a weird stoned loop of someone embarrassing themselves, and i don't think i've ever heard a rock band's trademark acoustic ballad suspended inside such a warped cloud of production

this was not my US Girls vote but it's lovely. I know I just railed against "trenchant social commentary" which these folks are absolutely guilty of but at least they remembered to bring some jams

speaking of trenchant social commentary

one of the better moments from a lousy album. she was so good before :(

i think the only us girls track i heard last year was their xmas song

which i really liked

at some point they fully morphed both aesthetically and lyrically into "trenchant social commentary: the band"

a lot of ppl's disappointment with notes is that they didn't live up to that descriptor so i'm still confused by what happened with you and this band

US Girls my #1. Stay for the coda.

lol xposted again

so am I! xxp

xp to Brad

Sir, this is an Arby's.

im pro 1975 in case were still talking about this

"the birthday party" also contains little to no social commentary as a song

it does if you ask a jehovah's witness

Agree that "4 American Dollars" ends strong, but I just couldn't crack this album at all. Which is weird after loving the last one so much.

i quite enjoy the 1975's meta-social-commentary self-excoriation vibe and i will be taking no questions

gonna amend 'one of the better tracks' to 'clear highlight' re: us girls, it is a good song, the album as a whole really put me off tho

Nah it was a dud album overall despite a great start xp

^^ agreed

I really didn't understand the collective disappointment with Heavy Light at all. I liked it just as much as A Poem Unlimited.

Didn't vote for any 1975 tracks or the album this year. I didn't feel the need to revisit it that much beyond the first week of having it. If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know) and Me & You Together Song are the only ones I've really gone back to.

was it collective disappointment? iirc it was rapturously received

I am listening to "The Birthday Party" now and "Sex" is still the only 1975 song I like

was it collective disappointment? iirc it was rapturously received

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.)

I guess I've spent too much time on Rate Your Music this last year. It got quite a kicking on there.

"4 American Dollars" is the first US Girls song I've really connected with. It was one of the last cuts from my ballot. Glad to see it do well anyways.

another rule of mine: NRR (never read RYM)

There's been a lot of '70s-pastiche production on this list so far and this US Girls track is the first one where it really sounds fresh to me.

I am... unexpectedly into this U.S. Girls song

What both this song and the 1975 before it have in common is that it's completely impossible for me to listen to the song and hear the lyrics as words, in both cases the singing just comes off as sound. If you look at the lyrics on the page (I looked them up), the 1975 song is some kind of louche short story and this one is social commentary but I can't really hear those things in the songs themselves.

The upside of encountering a collaboration between Bon Iver and Taylor Swift titled “exile” (in lowercase) is that you are gonna immediately know if this is your jam or not and act accordingly. We should appreciate their honesty; it’s a real time saver.

https://i.imgur.com/haDiqUG.png
#49 (tie): Taylor Swift and Bon Iver - “Exile” - 158 points - 5 votes
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Taylor Swift - Folklore
Taylor Swift - POLLklore
consider the likelihood that taylor swift will predecease you

you might want to get that checked out xps

boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

you did your best, dan

I like this song a lot (though didn't vote for it, for anyone who cares!)

assuming you are a 45-year-old American man, tipsy, you have about a 3.1% chance of making it to 99 (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Tbl_7_1970.html)

Taylor Swift, as a 25-year-old American woman, has about a 72.6% chance of making it to 79 (http://www.ssa.gov/oact/NOTES/as120/LifeTables_Tbl_7_1990.html)

actuarially speaking, you don't stand a chance

― dichtgekitte discman (unregistered), Thursday, March 5, 2015 5:35 PM

this is one of the three i predicted would place. lower than expected

I just don't like the way Taylor Swift writes a song most of the time, regardless of the arrangement. Her bag of tricks contains, like...three tricks.

I wanna go back to Kelly Lee Owens for a second, because I did not at ALL expect that song to sound like that; based on the artwork, I was expecting something much more like Andy Stott, and it was a fucking great surprise (although I do like the Stott I've heard, I often just want music like this to straight up punch me in the face sometimes)

xps: je ne regrette rien

xp She has some new tricks on Evermore, check it out

I like Folklore a lot in general, but dislike this song in particular

i know this was co-written by the national and all, but idk why they both felt they needed to impersonate matt berninger

"histrionic" comes to mind

Oh, I've listened to Evermore and actually voted for No Body, No Crime, specifically because it was so atypical.

What's funny is that when I said that thing about not hearing the lyrics at words, the explicit contrast I had in mind is the Taylor Swift records, where the lyrics really do come off as words for me, they're like audiobooks with music.

This isn't one of the Taylor tracks I voted for. It's fine but I hate the way she refers to a movie as a "film" and Bon Iver's voice sounds bad in it.

This was already nominated when I dumped the rest of the Taylor tracks into the nomination bucket, btw