Hype and Slander: What are you voting for in ILM's 2021 End of Year Tracks and Albums Poll?

nice to see some love for Ari Lennox!

Ashley Shadow with Bonnie Prince Billy - Don’t Slow Me Down: I went through a Palace phase in college and keep an eye on Oldham because of it. Everything he’s on that I’ve heard in the playlist thus far sounds underbaked and that goes for this morose little shitkicklet too.

gfy

Tell me what I am missing

The harmony, the timbre of her vocal (reminds me of Paula Frazer from Tarnation), just the choices made re: the melody and structure. It's mournful in a profound way to me and not just some americana cosplay.

Avataar - Worldview: Entirely enjoyable, if somewhat unchallenging, coffeehouse jazz that I might fall harder for in person.

Cool, glad you enjoyed it. It's gentle but fairly complex melodically and there's a lot going on in the solos and interplay.

Does anyone have any non-Spotify tracks they wish to peddle?

album not track, but

https://anarchiveslabel.bandcamp.com/album/eihwaz

JF: Okay, I listened to it twice more and I'm still not hearing it. It's less that I'm accusing it of faking americana roots and more that it seems canned and a bit boring. I spent a fair amount of time in honkytonks as a kid and this doesn't pass the smell test for me.

sund4r: yeah, "unchallenging" for the listener; the composition seems pretty rigorous.

If there's a world in which I get through all these, I'll likely move on to the not-on-spotify tracks next.

I missed the nominations but there is quite a lot of Bandcamp bobbins I enjoyed this year that didn’t make it to Spotify, I might write in one or 2 of them. A few examples:

Obnoxious wobs bobbins: https://pondlifeparty.bandcamp.com/track/daseplate-the-clangers-vip-kontent-remix

Rolling breakbeat garage bobbins: https://dansudiscsuk.bandcamp.com/track/we-run

Jacking French house revival bobbins: Pilot - My Eyes: https://pilot.bandcamp.com/track/my-eyes

The Skeptical remix of Alix Perez - Trinity was probably my favourite D&B of the year: https://1985-music.bandcamp.com/album/5-year-remixes-onef037

Yeah, there's a lot of my noms (and I think a few on my ballot) that are Bandcamp-only. Will check those out.

listening to DJP's internet radio show of his & Fluffy Bear's favorite 2021 tracks and again I am just staggered by how MUCH music is out there these days now that almost literally anyone can make tracks. I haven't known a single thing they've played in the last hour-plus.

(for the record I believe this overload/excess/plethora is a good thing overall)

Forks, thanks for the in-depth ILM Consumer Guide. Totally enjoying it.

glad to hear! gonna try to keep it rolling.

Oh damn there’s a new Ashley Shadow album?? Not a Bonnie Prince Billy fan but otherwise looking forward to this! Thanks for trashing it Forks; I probably wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

Desperately trying to not let my tracks list be too repetitive this year, but those three Real Lies singles are making it hard. I don't see how I can leave any of them off. It's only just dawning on me how special their second album is going to be.

Favourite discoveries from the playlist so far include:

Honey. - Somebody To (So obsessed with this. Reminds me of Louise Burns)
Pi Ja Ma - Should I Call U Baby
Cabiria - DISCO-CAFE
Clara Luciani - Le reste
Telenova - Bones
India Shawn - Don't Play With My Heart
Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés - El Gran Silencio

Really feels like I'm playing catch-up this year. So much great stuff on the playlist that just wasn't on my radar at all.

Here's a Bandcamp-only song I'd like to rep for: https://patriciataxxon.bandcamp.com/track/mystic-folk

Dunno how to describe it really. Wild cutesy prog-EDM banger with a hint of Autechre and two guest vocalists trading fx-slathered verses that builds to the most almighty climax?

everybody please vote for the maria arnal i marcel bagés album

Ok cancel the whole thing and give it to Backyardigans - Castaway. Banger!

Lol I completely agree

someone should just make a whole "year of impact" ballot

xxxp That's one I heard on shuffle that I gotta hear in full.

the poppiest track off parris's album

album is great too! "restrained, bass-heavy electronic music orbiting the fringes of dubstep, grime, and techno." ... yep

someone should just make a whole "year of impact" ballot
― roflrofl fight (voodoo chili), Friday, January 14, 2022 8:04 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Charles Webster, Kali Uchis, Wizkid and Tems, SZA, Dunnie, Tyla, Elaine, Focalistic is not a bad start

MFR Souls and Bassie

First 100 done! 1000 or so to go!

Faves in bold

AYOCHILMANNN with Valee - HIMMYimmy: Rambling weird nerd hop needs the most love so I will pass some along here.

Ayra Starr - Bloody Samaritan: Perfectly lush coastal Afropop with the trustworthy London providing Starr with everything she needs - sax solo inclusive - to bring it home. X no fit kill my vibe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcR0PWGfUhs

Azealia Banks - Fuck Him All Night: The thing about Azealia Banks is that her toxic, mega-combative social media persona is generally worth putting up with because she mostly makes good music. Mostly. This is kinda garbage.

Baby Queen - Raw Thoughts: Mannered and precise in a way that means to make clear that it is absolutely not mannered and precise, ew, who would want to be mannered and precise when you can be weird and stuff.

Bachelor (Jay Som and Palehound) - Stay in the Car, Anything at All: I like the voices but man I cannot get with these songs at all.

BackRoad Gee with BG and TizzTrap - A Yo: Love it when my Clockwork Orange peoples rap so fast and so deeply accented that it reduces syllables to rainstick seeds rattling through the speakers. Relentless, minimal, lyrically impenetrable, good times.

Backxwash with Ada Rook - I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES: On paper, this has all the qualities of Death Grips and clipping that I’m looking for from folks that find machines and then rage at them and then become them and then break down. In practice, Backxwash’s sludginess and low BPM didn’t click every time I tried prior and this all caps offering isn’t bringing me around.

The Backyardigans - Castaways: Oh now this is a fucking brilliant nomination from dyl, buried innocuously amidst a raft of R&B and hip hop. As a childless fellow of a certain age, I had never even heard of the Backyardigans before this but boy do I EVER get how this lovely little samba about putting a good face on isolation could become a pandemic era tiktok meme magnet. It’s absolutely my fave 2005 track on the playlist so far, can I fucking stop singing it loudly in public is the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9b9xr1bVcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xToG2dRegMo

Bad Boy Chiller Crew - Don’t You Worry About Me: FUN! FUCKING FUN! WHEE! WE ARE HAVING FUN! SOMEONE PLEASE CALL FOR HELP! THEY WON’T LET ME LEAVE! PLEASE JESUS! FUN! SO MUCH FUN! I WANT TO DIE! FUN!

Bad Bunny - Yonaguni: Something about Bad Bunny's “i’ve been hurt” tone never fails to turn me off but this is about as non-abrasive as guy gets so that’s something. Still not anything I would seek out on my own.

Baltra - Baby, Dreaming of a Disco, I Want You I Need You (Darius Syrossian Remix) - All three are lovely house hits, mostly pulling from a late 90’s bag of tricks that times nicely with the short period I went clubbing at terrible discos with queer rednecks. The music was often good! “Baby” likely my favorite of this batch. As the narrator points out it's a VIBE to be CAUGHT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq0Gu48-Y4w

BAMBII - TWITCH: Dark nightmare dancehall doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that would work but this holds up nicely to repeat play and would likely demolish a late night dancefloor.

Band Gang Lonnie Bands with Young Nudy - Glocks & Choppas: I appreciate the Juvenile sample but the decision to rap way off the beat isn’t winning me over.

Banknulli and Not3s - Foreign: Solid Naija dancepop buoyed up nicely by Bank’s heavily accented, attuned flow.

Barbora Xu - Lintuseni: Oh no, I hear you saying, not another Czech singer/songwriter playing zither with Finnish folk tunes. I know it’s a heavily trammeled path but Xu is doing some very pretty things here even so; please forgive her obviousness. This album is likely worth a closer look for me, very much forksbait.

Bartholomew Kind - Memento: Haunting, throbbing, oceanic, deeply danceable. I love the repeated vocal, “And I deserve it, I think I deserve it.” Same here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pozBbxgXFo

Basside - NYC2MIA (Sophie Remix): Okay, so I listened to this three times so that you don’t have to and it’s the same thing over and over again for three minutes. It is not good. It is a bad song, really more of a bad sample beaten into mush then baby birded in your mouth for three minutes. Six if you listen to it twice. Nine if you listen to it three times. Which I did. It’s bad.

BATTEN GIRLS - Watashi Koi Hajimetatteyo!: I love how the singers and the production seem to be somewhat coincidentally on the same song at the same time. Love blooms nonetheless among the plastic people in space, pink blossoms falling from the underbelly of the spaceship as we gently zip off in jets of flavored seltzer.

Bawo - Starts with a Text: A bit too Drake-ish in its monotone accessibility and slightly sneering sensuality for me but there’s nothing inherently wrong going on here.

beabadoobee - Last Day on Earth, Cologne: How in the hell is this first song not “beabadoobee - shoodoodooshoodoobedoobedoo”? It’s the title America needed! It would be easier to hate beabadoobee, she of 2020’s ubiquitous coffee track, if only her music wasn’t so dang enjoyable. Cologne was a longer burn for me to come around but I finally warmed to the Veruca Salt of it and now I am in too deep.

Beach Bunny - Good Girls Don’t Get Used: I diggit lyrically and even musically but something in this Paramore-alike never gelled no matter how hard I tried.

forks OTM about that Sophie Remix. i was just listening to it while sorting out my DJ library and thought I'd run it in a ballroom/club set but not for more than a minute.

anyway, i'm here to rep "Notice," by Tammy Lakkis. i'm still processing a lot of music but this might the house jam of the year for me, and i hope it places.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnRkwcTJi9I

Haha completely missed the backyardigand nom, we obsessed about it for a weekend in early 2021, a friend wouldn’t stop looping it and we ended up loving it.

'Baby' was one of my noms - Baltra's been on a hot streak for the past 2 or 3 years, and I could easily have nommed at least another couple of his productions (Sunset Jam!). Anyhow, keep going forks!

Yeah I definitely voted way too soon… there’s at least 6 of my votes which I’d change

As Fred said somewhere upthread the whole Backroad Gee tape is really good

#lastminutegang

Faves in bold

Beach House - Superstar, Over and Over: The thing about Beach House’s plush bathyspheres is that one sounds more or less as good as the next to me. They’re fine but they don’t really move me to do much more than shop for affordable pants.

Beak > - Oh Know: This feels a bit like CAN’s Vitamin C which is a definite selling point. Pleasantly shambolic and stomping, great music to play in a hiding cave during a pandemic.

Beautify Junkyards - Reverie: Gossamer thin and weirdly indeterminate in its influences and concepts but no one said you needed to show your work. It’s a short dive in an aquarium tank to open the treasure chest bubbler for a face full of boba-size fizz.

BEC - Pleasure Seeker: In the right head state, this twisted firestarter is a rock rolling down a mountain would provide a path to follow. Under anxiety, it makes me feel like I’m the target. Approach with caution but, by all means, do approach.

Bendik Giske - Cruising (Laurel Halo Remix): This is another cut that spikes my anxiety but where Pleasure Seeker does it by short sharp shocks, this is more serpentine and oblique. It’s going somewhere and the process of getting there is very purple and dazed. That’s not to be discounted or ignored but embraced when possible. See where it takes you!

Benedek - Street Level: I like how this struts up in leg warmers and shakes its hips relentlessly for six minutes. Perhaps more GTA radio or house party than round-the-office listening when everything’s said and done but no one in my office has complained yet.

Ben Watts - That’s the Way Love Is: I like Everything but the Girl as much as anyone, but this is a valentine centerpiece made with used tissues and i don’t know precisely what those kleenex were used for. Painful.

Bethan Lloyd - Boss of Big Dreams: Balkan choir harmonies, weird skipping disco loops, ominous synths approaching and a galloping drum track? Did someone make this just for me? Lloyd is a new find for me and I’ll likely give her 2019 EP a closer listen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC9c0jWRjQc

The Bevis Frond - Dreams of Flying: I stopped three times to check to see how long this was gonna keep playing for, but it wasn’t until now that I looked to see the name of the artist. Hard pass.

Bfb da Packman - Weekend at Solomon’s: Some of the lyrics here are fun and I’d really like to like this more, but the production is meh and the slightly-off-the-beat rapping is a pet peeve of mine. Can the nominator recommend another track from this guy for me to try him again?

BIA with Nicki Minaj - WHOLE LOTTA MONEY: Nicki sounds bad here and BIA sounds hoarse while she's aiming for Cardi flow.

BIBI - BAD SAD AND MAD: Is this about rough sex or domestic abuse? Or is the point of the song the difficulty for the listener to easily make that distinction? Either way, this is a remarkably jaunty ballad for a song this violent. The juxtaposition works well and BIBI does some interesting vocal stuff over quirky production. The Timbaland Pony squiggle was a surprise but really, the whole track is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q36iGiqoCXM

Bicep - Apricots: I think this was my nomination, my fave track off one of my fave albums of the year. I get the impression that Bicep’s relative mainstream popularity makes them an unhip pick in the house world but I don’t know that I’ve heard a bad song from them yet. Apricots is extra generous, comfortably uplifting, good to run with and deeply open. It draws strength from Hugh Tracey’s field recordings and the Bulgarian Radio Choir and it has held me aloft through some unhappy moments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Govg_XmORLE

Biga Yut and Lithim - Cash Boss: What an amazing find! Primal, forceful, both of its moment and weirdly afrofuturistic. This slaps harder than any number of US/UK postpunk tracks in the playlist and never stops being resolutely weird. The joyous video, packed with A+ style is icing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2Ba1KS8-s

Big Red Machine with Fleet Foxes - Phoenix: Does Phoenix guest on a song called Fleet Foxes? Do I win hipster bingo if they do? I’m pretty sure I lost because I didn't want to play.

Big Thief - Spud Infinity, Little Things, Time Escaping: I am almost certainly missing something about Big Thief, right? It seems like every critic loves them and it’s not a total mystery why. I hear some of the elements! Something about the whole package turns me away. Like for Spud Infinity, the jaw harp and lap steel and the Gillian Welch vocals should have me caught, but it doesn’t. Somewhere twixt lips and hips this just dies on the vine for me. The other two tracks provide even less traction. Just not my party.

Big Wreck - Bombs Away: On the other hand, I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that a minor single from a proggy Canadian alt rock guitar band would land so incredibly squarely in my comfort zone. There’s something of Helmet going on here, maybe a little Stone Temple Pilots? In any case, this slouches into Guitar Hero territory in the best possible way and I would totally lift my lighter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZImrFEkGjGs

Bilal Nasser - Exiles and Orange Groves: Okay, fess up, is this an ilxor or someone’s significant other? Nasser hasn’t got much of a digital footprint but what he does have here is a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daAI2tU3UE0

Billie Eilish: Getting Older, GOLDWING, Happier Than Ever, I Didn’t Change My Number, Lost Cause, Oxytocin, Your Power: Instead of listening to this pile of tracks, I just listened to the LP a few times. There’s a few missed shots but taken as a whole, I think it’s stronger than her debut and it’s a fully defensible pick for one of the best albums of the year. My pick would’ve been one of the not-selected tracks, Not My Responsibility, a conversational confrontation which seemed like such an unlikely choice for any artist to slip into a mega-release that I wanted to give it the nod as a contrarian and as a show of appreciation for Eilish’s continuing willingness to do any damn thing she wants. Of the songs, I’d be hard pressed to choose! They’re all quite good for totally different reasons. Eilish's diversity of approach and how well she pulls it off is maybe the largest part of what makes her so impressive. Let’s go with I Didn’t Change My Number; the growling dog and the wurlitzer keep me entranced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oLfyzoCFpw

if off the best rapping is gonna get your goat every time, it’s possible that michigan rap isn’t for you, but if you want a more traditional packman track, try “northside ghetto soulja” or “frenchmen”

*off the beat, duh

Bilal Nasser - Exiles and Orange Groves: Okay, fess up, is this an ilxor or someone’s significant other? Nasser hasn’t got much of a digital footprint but what he does have here is a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.

An acquaintance and colleague of sorts, but not close. It was one of my favourite pieces of the year, though.

I was also surprised by how much I liked the Big Wreck single.

a delicate sugarcube of a song: sweet, energizing and crystalline in its detail.

Amazing description btw

Not saying he has Eve 6's digital footprint but he's got Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Instagram , a published score from d'Oz, etc, btw.

"Frenchmen" is strong and I forgot about him being the Free Joe Exotic guy. Not crazy about dude's production in general tbh.

Hooray "Foreign" by Bankullli and Not3s was my nom and very high on my ballot. Glad you liked it Forks

Holy shit @ that Bethan Lloyd track. I don't have much space for anything new on my ballot but I am making space!

That's sick, thanks for highlighting it

Also as a purely non-eligible public service announcement, saxophonist Kenny Garrett released an album late last year with Thundercat's brother on drums, and it's fantastic. Definitely would have nominated had I heard it in time.

Some kind of Special Citation, Laurie Anderson Award, whatever you want to call it, should go to Moses Sumney, director and star ov film x album Live From Blackalachia, which takes place during a day and evening in the mountains of North Carolina---no audience, so no "How ya doin Blackalachia" etc., but you are there. A seven-piece band total, I think (three horn players eventually appear in the gloaming, all in good time), opening with what I think of as psych metal then losing me a little in second quarter diffusion of prog-associated balladry, but coming back strong and then some with the rest, incl. slow motion acrobatics of falsetto, my least favorite (and then some) form of singing--even got a little tired of it on prev. Sumney albums---but this is incredible, incl even some use of microtones? reminding me of Arthur Russell's cello bow at times---and visuals are totally appropriate at all times---meant to compare w audio-only, as usual, but this time I couldn't look away.
(Only thing comparable in recent years: The Chicks' Gaslighter, with commissioned videos by female directors for each track, but those are discrete, while this is seamless---despite cut-ins of "low-fi video," like it says in the credits, also times of day and evening can switch, never twitch.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o406mzKAcvI

Will be voting for the Anz EP and probably You Could Be as well but annoyed I didn't nominate Last Before Lights - absolute banger

That Live From Blackalachia film blew my mind with its ambition. Loved it. Album's on my list.

Really need to check out the Moses Sumney, for some reason it just registered as an a/v project and I never did

Faves in bold

Billy Nomates - Heels: So much attitude and anger and straight up swagger, all entirely earned by the time we hit the song’s braying climax. The tone is totally different but I’m reminded of Annie Lennox at her most sneering. It took a listen or two to come into full view, but I was eventually fully won over. Great ass-kicking stuff!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPQW8GIVgB4

Birds of Maya - Busted Room: Overlong and overloud. The washing machine churn was kind of interesting but it never found another gear.

Black Coffee with Celeste - Ready for You: This is the sort of music my partner likes to listen to in the morning when she makes us pancakes: affirmative, hopeful, uplifting, disco spinning in one place. The sun-kissed, sax heavy and slightly amapiano-ish production is what wins me over.

Black Dresses - Concrete Bubble: Screamo angry clanking alternating with coffeehouse poetry slam. As a thermal vent its effective but it’s not doing much more to me than scalding.

Black Merlin - Scape One (Gordon Pohl Remix): An extremely long walk down a Tangerine Dream hallway while the trains rattle by overhead. Luscious loading music for eventual ascension.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_MZO4ybBqM

black midi - Marlene Dietrich, Slow: I’m a little embarrassed to say that i can’t entirely get with black midi? All my weirdo jazzbros go ape over this shit and I can’t quite get it in the groove. Feels squarely in the Mr Bungle / Ariel Pink camp of squeakadelica, a headspace I can generally play well in and yet… Nevertheless: Marlene has a very Destroyer-doing-Burt-Bacharach vibe and Slow is sorta mopey Zappa with a number of interesting motifs. These two are definitely my fave songs I’ve heard from them so far.

Blanck Mass - Phase I: I was gonna nominate In Ferneaux for best album before I noticed someone put the first track off the EP in the singles selections. Phase II is definitely worth your time but I will agree that the front half is the superior side. So many twists and turns and cracks against the curb, it’s a real atmospheric journey, deliberate and thoughtful throughout though mostly without part two’s friction and grime. I committed to this haunted house ride for a week early last year and I never had cause to regret it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onhnkc2wIzQ

Blaqnick - The Whistling Man: I promise I don’t ALWAYS mind when the song is unfinished. Case in point is this combo platter of vicious beat, super simple synth bounce, squelching electronic steel drum and a squad of basketball-playing baby birds squeaking new shoes across a newly waxed parquet court. It’s a bunch of odd elements that adds up to less than a complete track but who cares because it fucking slaps. CHIRP CHEECHIRPA!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi9t5Zm65m8

Blasterjaxx - Zurna (Dimatik Remix): Arena EDM digitalis that really wants to know are you seeing THESE LIGHTS OH MY GOD THE LIGHTS WOOO I LOVE THIS PLACE what time is mom picking us up HEY DUDE HEY DUDE DO YOU KNOW MOLLY WOOOO

Blawan - Under Belly: Fuck, this is such a spaced-out bubbly banger of a hit, a calliope on fire with the biggest ass you’ve ever seen. Look at the size of them pink Baby Elephants!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayzv3kIwyuc

Bleachers - Stop Making This Hurt: I’m going to say this once: Jack Antonoff is unhealthy for the culture and I look forward to the moment when our collective white blood cells clear him out of pop's arteries.

Blood Cultures - Set It on Fire: Totally new to me and absolutely tremendous, super busy and hummable but difficult to pin down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQUFBkYmc6U

Blxst - Don’t Forget with Drakeo, Overrated: Not entirely sure what this guy is providing that twenty other guys in exactly the same lane are doing much better already. Maybe I need to find the song that showcases him at his best? Neither of these were that for me.

Body/Dilloway/Head - Body/Erase: Nearly eighteen minutes of approaching storm, soft at first and then noisy as 2021. Hardly easy listening, but I could handle this nicely as the entirety of a live set. Unfortunately, as part of a listening project, it’s a bit of an obstinate minotaur.

Boldy James with Roc Marciano, Earl Sweatshirt and The Alchemist - Photographic Memories: A good showing by everyone involved but the understated production and slightly gloomy mood dampens my enthusiasm.

Bomba Estereo - Deja: I always forget that I like Bomba Estereo a lot. This has the qualities of their best stuff: sunny, rhythmic, blissed out and entirely pleasurable.

Borai with Denham Audio - Make Me: Ginsu-sharp ravebait with an undeniable vocal hook and enough energy to power the marquee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czfcRpxLVYY

Born at Midnite - Pop Charts: Twee self-referential navel gazing that suggests hyper pop has had enough of the 80's and is now coming for your 70’s AM radio hits.

THE BOYZ - THRILL RIDE: Answering the question of what Rockin’ Robin would sound like in a Kpop key. Badass boy band banger brings brazen beats, bare booty boppin’, bumpin' bass, bitchin' breaks. Good video too!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMs2CIiqRDI

Branco - HUNDO: Fleet-footed Danish rap with a trap beat and a solid guitar spine. Even though I’ll avoid giving a look at the lyrics, I bet I could likely win a handful of kroner betting on the subject matter. It's about Mette Frederiksen isn't it? And drug sales.

It's far too late to have any influence over the results, but I may as well mention a few of my favourite album nominations for no reason other than posterity:

Monogem - Gardenia sounds luxurious - like travertine, areca palms and humidity - and marks a turning point in the Mexican-American artist's career, in that it's her first release featuring lyrics mostly in Spanish, and her first one as a mother. One of the best lying-in-a-hammock albums since We Are KING probably.

Ngaiire - 3 is another album by a new mother, the latest from one of my favourite vocalists ever. When I shilled heavily for Blastoma about five years ago now, it finished just outside the 77, and I'm not sure 3 contains as "high highs", but it's very well made, consistent and beautiful. I'm mostly impressed that someone other than me nominated it!

While we wait for Javiera Mena's new album and for her to potentially conquer Eurovision (!) (oh, and vote for "Culpa" in the tracks poll, please), Princesa Alba - besitos, cuídate is fulfilling the coveted Chilean disco-pop spot on my ballot. She's been making excellent music for a while now - last year's Dua Lipa xerox "Ya No Quieres Quererme" one of many notable examples - and the full length delivers, despite not featuring that song. The title track sounds like self-titled era Britney.

I was very charmed by Joy Crookes - Skin - personal, political, and inventive, and if the UK is still anointing heiresses apparent to Amy Winehouse (RIP), then with this Crookes stakes out the strongest claim yet.

Agnes - Magic Still Exists came out shortly before the ABBA album and it was hard not to compare the two, especially as monster single "Here Comes The Night" seemed to riff gently on "Gimme Gimme Gimme". A storming mission statement, this album is utterly relentless (it's only at the final track, a ballad, that the pace slows) and gave 30-something gay men everywhere (myself included) an extreme case of heart palpitations. Another joy this year was finding her performance for Swedish television of 2009 worldwide hit "Release Me" in late 2020, in which a disco uplift was applied to fantastic effect.

An entirely different kettle of fish was Maple Glider - To Enjoy Is The Only Thing, a quiet, wintry meditation on loneliness from a Melbourne artist. Good to play while looking out the window at the rain during lockdown - I speak from experience!

I also presume every ballot will contain Rochelle Jordan - Play With The Changes, an alloy of Kelela, Aaliyah, Erika de Casier (vote for her too!) and Tinashe that floored me on first listen. If not, then reconsider!

Branco - HUNDO: Fleet-footed Danish rap with a trap beat and a solid guitar spine. Even though I’ll avoid giving a look at the lyrics, I bet I could likely win a handful of kroner betting on the subject matter. It's about Mette Frederiksen isn't it? And drug sales.

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), 20. januar 2022 06:47 (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

So glad you liked this :) Danish trap is awesome. I can already say this one from the biggest rap star in Denmark will be placed very highly on my 2022 ballot.

Did you hear Ieva Jokubaviciute's Northscapes, Fred? Some nice Sorensen on it.