ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2017

Fuck me was that Kanye bit 9 years ago?

It's weird how Boys, New Rules and Bad Liar all have really great videos that got a decent amount of attention and add to the appeal of the songs (I know that's not the case for everyone with Boys). Whereas Cut To The Feeling has such a poor video that I have to block it out when I think about the song.

Soooo... it's totally possible I'll change my mind by December, but I'm pretty sure this was the final EOY poll I'll be administering a part of. Eight years of doing it (4 tracks years, 4 albums years) is the most fun I've had on ILM, but I'm kinda beat. Thanks for being so enthusiastic about turning out and voting every year, for commenting profusely during the rollouts, and for somehow predicting exactly when certain things are going to show up (it happens in every poll). Really, thank you all.

Love,
JF

thanks for saving us Johnny Fever :)

thx JF

can we re-write history and swap numbers 1 and 2 tho

xp I'm sure it's a lot of work, and it is very much appreciated! (I hope you do change your mind)

Xx

It'll be refreshing to be on the outside looking in again.

Thanks JF. These polls have been so much fun and always give me something to look forward to during my least favourite time of year. Really appreciate all the effort you've put in over the last eight years.

thanks jf and everyone else, the slickness and pictures and rollouts has been so good

Great work JF - this is always my favourite time of year on ILM Nd always brightens up the January gloom

in a strange way less voters make a more interesting rollout

Can someone fill me in? Lurker here. Where is lex at? I like reading his comments in these eoy list threads.

He's on (permanent?) sabbatical from ILM to work on a book, but he did put together a ballot.

what's a bodak?

https://genius.com/a/how-kodak-black-influenced-cardi-b-s-bodak-yellow

i'm stoked for lex' book

Thanks for your service, JF!

yes thanks JF and seandalai!! awesome work as always!

Thank you JF for excellence in poll roll-outs.

He's on (permanent?) sabbatical from ILM to work on a book, but he did put together a ballot.

It's a cook book right?

Dunno, all I know I learned from the nominations thread.

I listened to like 20 new songs this year so I don't really have the standing to comment here but man..."boys" is pretty minor

not bad! just...minor

damn just now listening to "Nightwork," that's really cool

full disclosure i'm 68 years old but uh,,,the whole top 10 sounds like random album tracks to me

this list seems to me mostly a bunch of album tracks, which is cool, probably where ILM ends up post social media, but it's less fun for me than when there's more links with non-nerd zeitgeist...this may reflect lessening interest in ~~big music~~ irl though too

album tracks is quite off-the-mark; this is a singles-heavy list. and kevin you're like 28 stfu

there wasn't much in the way of ~zeitgeist~ at all with singles this year, not just here

ok I'm exaggerating a bit, I loved "t-shirt" already, and the afropop joint and CRJ song are dope, as is "DNA".... the rest tho seem like they'd fall in the 50s in any other year

Yeah I don’t actively hate or dislike boys but I’m a long way from calling it the best song of 2017. Probably not even in my top 100 songs.

I like Cardi B, but I can never recall 'Bodak Yellow' when I try to think about it, event hough I've heard it dozens of times

Boys got a shit ton of daytime Radio 1 play over here and the video felt like a genuine cultural event but its appeal is almost entirely in the Super Mario coin noise for me. It stuck in my head for weeks though.

The CRJ song is fine but just feels like comfort blanket stuff at this stage. There's a classicism to those two and Bad Liar (which I really like) that I'd be tempted to half bake a theory out of if it wasn't for New Rules in there as well. It does feel significant that, in the era of basic flat pack Spotify pop, these four and the Lorde singles were pretty much the only mainstream pop to feature in the list.

someone with a bit of time on their hands should do a nice plot of points accrued per genre vs. year for all the 77s ever

Now that virtually everyone's chasing that streaming money doing either plinky Clean Bandit synths and bombastic choruses or watery tropical house with dour Chainsmokers comedown vocals, you get a strong sense of yearning for more adventurous pop eras here.

(I know J-Hus and Stormzy are about as mainstream as they come these days but they're not really what I'm talking about here)

I like Cardi B, but I can never recall 'Bodak Yellow' when I try to think about it, event hough I've heard it dozens of times
same

very happy about the bobbins discoveries, I really should follow that thread - Pour Aisha is so beautiful

it was certainly the worst year for chart pop in a long time

I was very thankful kpop was so great this year to make up for that

Genuinely shocked that I was the lone voter for Dave "Question Time" (my #1) - you've all missed a good one!

Genuinely shocked that I was the lone voter for Dave "Question Time" Becky G - "Todo Cambio" (my #1) - you've all missed a good one!

'Question Time' is easy to admire and respect but found it hard to actively like enough to want to listen to much let alone vote for.

It's funny how many tracks I was like 'Everyone loved that one, it'll get at least a few votes if it doesn't break the 77', and then I look and I'm the sole voter.

When I first heard "Question Time", I thought it would be the sort of track which makes all of its impact on the first couple of plays, then quickly fades - but I've returned to it frequently, and find that it retains all of its initial power. Different details jump out at different times: the letters in the car (she doesn't want them found at home), the extra instrumental weight on the final Corbyn verse.

completely unsolicited opinions4u but i have had the 177 on shuffle today and here are my ~deep thoughts~:

#103 Ex Eye - Opposition/Perihelion; the Coil - big bad wolf music that starts off like iron maiden gone jazz but it does run out of puff a bit in the back half without inflicting too much damage on my house of sticks
#153 Johnny Jewel - Windswept - this is from twin peaks i guess? could see it working well in a corny sort of way in a cinematic context but it's not doing much for me as a soundtrack to sitting in an office listening to my colleagues whinge and fart
#140 Jute Gyte - Mice Eating Gold - actually enjoyed this a lot until the shouty man appeared, and then i realised he was angry cos the mice had been eating his gold again and the image of a burly man of metal really losing his shit at a mouse was just too funny for me not to like. it does go on a bit though
#156 Hugo Massien - No Return - sounds like music for sex people
#122 Zimpel/Ziolek - Wrens - this is pretty nice, like pink floyd at their most pastoral, some strong wind in the willows vibes on this
#89 The Horrors - Something to Remember Me By - lol remember the killers?
#112 Nabihah Iqbal - Zone 1 to 6000 - highlight of her album for me, reminds me a lot of that real lies record from a couple of years back
#114 Nite Jewel - 2 Good 2 Be True - third time i've heard this and i'm slowly coming to realise how awesome it is. especially fond of the little squiggly synth sound in the chorus, trying to think what it reminds me of... 'while you see a chance' maybe?
#143 Aldous Harding - Imagining My Man - i thought this was a quiet year for angel olsen, turns out aldous harding stole her larynx
#52 Mama - Unmask Me - not sure this justifies it's length tbh, the floating pointsy twinkliness is nice enough but the bassline and woodblock thing get a bit tedious after a while
#91 The Mountain Goats - Rain in Soho - genuinely impressed by this, it sounds amazing. well done to everyone involved!
#93 Oneohtrix Point Never ft. Iggy Pop - The Pure and the Damned - think all my favourite opn tracks are dan working with a vocalist, and this is another good one but it probably wouldn't quite have the same replay value for me as (the amazing) returnal or whatever
#85 Sufjan Stevens - Tonya Harding - remember that 'no sufjan, no credibility guy'? what the hell was he thinking?
#99 Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile - Continental Breakfast - definite improvement on the cb stuff that placed last year, mostly because of the last couple of minutes which is passable neil young bumble rock, but eh i dunno guys
#130 Baba Stiltz - Can't Help It - maybe my ipod is drunk but this sounds nothing like i would have guessed from the cover and the artist name. decent if not especially memorable housey business
#136 Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Holy Mountain - loooooool, this is basically a mud album track
#138 Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - A Song of Summer - this is what the eno/shields collaboration should have sounded like tbh, ten minutes of bliss topped off with the wonkiest of sun-addled guitar lines
#144 Beatrice Dillon & Call Super - Fluo - best clarinet solo in techno iirc, like a seagull wheeling over a dingily-lit dustbin outside the backdoor of the club
#144 Carla dal Forno - We Shouldn't Have To Wait - a strangely alluring trudge through dismal nighttime realms. made me think of that last htrk record
#149 Drab Majesty - Dot In The Sky - sounds like a-ha gone goth but i'm afraid it ain't no 'cry wolf'
#149 Jlin - 1% - this is the greatest thing ever obv
#79 Rita Ora - Anywhere - minus a million points for making me think of 'location location' with kirsty allposh and phil sentient potato-man
#82 Shinichi atobe - regret - one of the most maddeningly brilliant tracks i heard all year, kind of like a techno version of oval's do while
#90 Re-TROS - Hailing Drums - sounds like a cross between battles, circle and six-finger satellite so well done 2007 i guess
#78 Big Thief - Mythological Beauty - reminded me of 'flame' by sebadoh which only goes to prove that i am old and demented

#52 Mama - Unmask Me - not sure this justifies it's length tbh, the floating pointsy twinkliness is nice enough but the bassline and woodblock thing get a bit tedious after a while

That's what the single edit is for.

'it does run out of puff a bit in the back half' = 'i am totally impervious to the best post-rock build in living memory' :P

dude i am goretex when it comes to that shit

I'm listening to this Partner album people were talking about upthread when Charly Bliss placed.

No. This isn't even similar, and definitely not better. wtf

So, I have been obsessing over that Pour Aisha track and will appreciate any suggestions for similar tracks (have bookmarked bobbins 2018 in hope that it is where similar tracks will be posted going forward)

I haven’t listened to Pour Aisha in months but worthwhile House releases so far include the Seeing Aliens single by Dj Koze mentioned on the rolling favorite tracks of 2018 thread.

There’s also an STL single with 4 good tracks called “if time qould move backwards”, I specially like the b-side but they’re all very different so listen and see if any of those are close to what you’re looking for.

Closer to pop and breakbeat but with a hint of house there’s the Negativ Gemini single Bad Baby. “Infin Path” and the title track are favorites of the year for me.

Loved the rollout (thanks Johnny Fever!) as always, particularly the Afro, K and trap tracks, which are always new to me. Discoveries for me: Bicep, both Loona tracks, J Hus, the Mountain Goats (that was a shock), Red Velvet (for the second time), Algiers, Slowdive (I listened to it once earlier, and felt nothing).

Shocked nothing from either Charli XCX mixtape charted. Number 1 Angel is fun and Pop 2 is easily her best.

Other suprises to me (I guess these are just ILMy tracks I ranked highly that didn't place): No love for "Skywalker"? Do we need an Avalon Emerson remix of Ariel Pink's "Feels Like Heaven" for it to have a chance? No "It's Okay To Cry"?