ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2020

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

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

blatant white national-ism

Love the album, probably rate this song at the very bottom of it. It's still pretty solid.

Listening to You'll Melt More! now and having got into the Aggretsuko show on Netflix last year makes this seem a little more reasonable.

Kelly Lee Owens has been on my list of artists I need to check out more, glad to see her show up on here.

Count me in as also having been greatly disappointed by the US Girls album.

listening to the Kelly Lee Owens album now, I think I might have gotten two tracks into this previously and then bailed, which explains why I never encountered "Melt!"

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

― You have treated my messenger with contempt. (morrisp), Tuesday, January 26, 2021 12:17 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The new tricks are that she's gone back to the old tricks.

I really don't understand voting for individual tracks off of Folklore. To me, the album works as a unit. (And works very well - I had it high on my albums ballot)

she's got some tricks up her sleeve, you know (to quote a track I did vote for)

wild that the difference between #77 and #49 is only 24 points

she's got some tricks up her sleeve, you know (to quote a track I did vote for)

taylor trotting out a tired idiom? that can't be right

ok ok no more sass today

The best Swift/Vernon collabs this year were "Ivy"/"Cowboy Like Me"

wtf I demand more sass

taylor trotting out a tired idiom? that can't be right

― stylish but illegal (Simon H.), Tuesday, 26 January 2021 18:31 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

:D

as i said in the japanese house thread, the best bon iver collab from last year was "dionne" which i forgot to vote for lol

critics rallied around "love it if we made it" due to the incessant need w/in the profession to highlight songs that "say something about the world" esp come year end time -- it's the apotheosis of a certain style of the band's songwriting but it also revealed that most ppl who write about music only engaged w/ them as provocateurs and jesters. critics have always misread the band and ended up rallying around their worst album (and most shameless song) as an overcorrection to earlier criticism the band was able to transcend. their newest album is in many ways their most intimate so i guess it's not a huge surprise that the same ppl who shaped the narrative of the 1975 as existing only to converse w/ headlines seemed to have no use for it whatsoever. there was an insane day on twitter when "the birthday party" dropped where critics began arguing that the band had crossed the line by merely mentioning pinegrove... meanwhile in the context of the song it actually describes a very normal situation (people not realizing that an artist had been accused of abuse) but one that is completely disconnected from the same myopia that has led the critical class into this very weird relationship w/ a band that they must cover but don't really seem to understand (ditto this thread more or less). anyway, i didn't vote in the poll this year but "the birthday party" was easily one of my top 5 songs of the year. i loved it as a piece of music and as an engagement w/ social anxiety

otm

The Bon Iver duet on Evermore was indeed much better!

Her strengths are the same as they always were, those long melody lines, finding the right, specific stories to hang the universal themes on (see: above observation that her lyrics are easily 'heard' and remembered). Just that her choices around that, the sound, who to work with, how to craft an album, not just various songs, managed to highlight those strengths like almost never before, when those choices sometimes tended to work against her strenghths on some of her wishy-washier album campaigns. But I guess more on that in the album poll.

Sorry, I’m out of the loop: did this guy ever get around to Wyoming?

https://i.imgur.com/Yl3bzTl.png
#49 (tie): Sufjan Stevens - “My Rajneesh”- 158 points - 5 votes
video

Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell

is the birthday party a reference to pinter

voted for this, better than anything on the album.

The best Swift/Vernon collabs this year were "Ivy"/"Cowboy Like Me"

― Indexed, Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:31 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol that's Marcus Mumford on "cowboy like me", not Bon Iver

Who can tell

I support Sufjan but this whole recent period of his feels like it's teasing something that will be better-realized later or something

More power to Sufjan for continuing to make records I don't listen to since the mid 00s.

lol that's Marcus Mumford on "cowboy like me", not Bon Iver

― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Tuesday, January 26, 2021 11:39 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

bon iver plays guitar on "cowboy like me" lol

made it about 5 minutes into this during my pre-poll scan

xp fair enough, but i doubt that's what he meant or what anyone goes to Bon Iver for, his guitaring

better than anything on the album.

― tiwa-nty one savage (voodoo chili), Tuesday, January 26, 2021 12:39 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think people go to Bon Iver as penance for doing wrong in their lives, like donning a hairshirt only for your ears

lmao

Yeah, I was referring to his general musical collaboration, not purely vocals, though I do like his backing vocals on the chorus of "Ivy". He did the drums and electric guitar on "Cowboy." Also the banjo on "Ivy," along with the triangle, apparently.

I earnestly love The National but I seem to be allergic to everything they and their associates touch.

xp fair enough, but i doubt that's what he meant or what anyone goes to Bon Iver for, his guitaring

― self-clowning oven (Murgatroid), Tuesday, January 26, 2021 12:43 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Nah, I love his electric guitar solo on "Cowboy" and commented as such in the Evermore thread. Reminds me of "beth/rest"

I earnestly love The National

In my world, Alligator was the last album they released.

ok i stand corrected

oh man i didn't realize it was ol bonnie playing that guitar solo, that's like the best part of the song and album

Every time I hear Swift duet with Bon Iver or Berninger I think, "Her characters can't be as smart or observant as I or she thinks if she dates these morose trembly dudes."

I like The National in bits, Dessner's a solid collaborator, just don't think their sensibilities mesh.