ILM's 2010's blindspots

What were ILM's 2010 musical blind spots?

Some would say PC music at least based on convos I saw elsewhere, though I'm thinking more about styles of music that bubbled up and "we" missed or marginalized entirely, rather than things that were divisive ... although maybe PC music really was unfairly pushed to the side idk

I think of ILM as being fairly comprehensive what with it being like the only place on earth to cover tech house early on, or what have you. But I do see the average age of the ILM user creeping up there, so I imagine there are some scenes sliding through that we've been kind of checked out for ... any truth to this?

I'd also delineate between aesthetics that I think younger gens like that ILM is kind of blase abt (ie the late Neptunes-core sounds of Pharrell) and stuff that we've just completely missed

thoughts?

Contemporary classical.

Charmed by DJ Sabrina the Teenage DJ is currently #3 album of 2020 in rateyourmusic and this post right here is the first mention of that artist on ILM.

I'll have to check that out. As a side note, I don't know who Ichiko Aoba is, but I'm glad she dislodged that abominable Microphones album from the #1 spot.

Listening to DJ Sabrina right now... I think I'd describe it as 'what if the Avalanches did French House?'... it's similar to Saint Pepsi. I like it but the songs I've listened so far seem to go on for way too long.

i don't think PC Music was really a blind spot, just divisive for good reason, and like ILM has been very friendly to 100 gecs who are very much in the post-PC Music lineage, and the last few Charli albums etc. i'm sure there's more recent 'futurepop' in that vein that hasn't really gotten much attention here (or from anywhere much in the press) though, only bubbling up through spotify playlists

as far as actual blind spots, there's that whole drain gang swedish cloud rap collective whose popularity in circles of people only a year or two younger than me is completely baffling to me? idk

That kind of doesn’t feel that far off from hyperpop tbh— which I think your analysis is correct about

Late Neptunes sound I meant to describe as currently belonging to Tyler the creator, not Pharrell— among music heads I know that’s a big generation gap thing

oh hyperpop is what i meant, i got it mixed up because that scene has had like, 5 different genre names applied to it over the years lol

Cumbia, maybe? AFAIK it's been quite big in Latin America again for the last few years again, but I don't remember seeing much discussion on it here, unless it's all relegated to the "world music" bobbins thread or whatever it's called?

Drain gang/Brockhampton etc stuff just didn't land here, because we are lol old, but yeah, search RYM by yearly charts and you'll see loads of bubblegum/hyperpop-adjacent stuff that this place hardly touches

brockhampton got a little attention & discussion here, not a total blind spot

i'm looking at rym now and there's not actually that much i can see that's 'hyperpop' etc. on the charts (though it's not a genre there yet, they're still using the way clunkier 'bubblegum bass'). it has a following there of course but it's not that prominent on the charts beyond the big names

Obvious answer here is commercial/cheesy/uncool dance music, especially EDM. Lots of good stuff out there in the decade with no presence on here, when I look back at my lists for early 2010s, those things only seem to be completely missing from ILM, idk maybe you all just don't like it.

what kind of stuff are you thinking of?

the Tomorrowland axis of stadium bosh?

hmm, think I will make a playlist to demonstrate

Good idea!

yeah please do!

Difficult to call it a blindspot exactly as it triggered some furious debate, but it's possible that ILM in general underestimated the impact that the watching-the-end-of-a-party-through-smoke end of R&B would have, or quite how enduring it would prove to be.

ILM was arguably years ahead of the game when it came to spotting the potential of contemporary afropop (mostly Naija/Ghana but also iterations of South African house as well), as well as K-pop. But as a board we might have slept on the explosion of artists like J Balvin and Bad Bunny, who were global superstars before anyone outside the Latin thread really talked about them. Maybe the rise of Spanish-language pop more generally. When you consider how few references there for either artist compared with the excitement around early releases from Wizkid, Davido, Burna Boy etc.

More generally, the globalisation of pop is probably the single biggest musical 'story' of the past decade but I think we've acquitted ourselves reasonably well there.

The other big one is EDM and maybe tropical house, but it's not like we MISSED them exactly. We did sleep on the emergence of non-grime forms of UK rap in the first half of the decade, drill especially.

Pretty sure we all underestimated the shelf life and reach of Ed Sheeran as well.

What else, One Direction and side projects maybe?

Here you go with the playlist then - convinced that reaction from many to this will be "this stuff is all different, none of it is very good" but anyway, I like it, people never talk about it here, that's the brief.

I feel like Vaporwave was something that ILM was really late on catching up to. Like we didn't have a thread about Vektroid show up till 2016. Then again, Pitchfork also kinda ignored it for several years as well.

Matt, there was/is a One Direction thread with almost 1000 posts, with plenty of serious discussion about their work iirc: One Direction - is this a legit new threat wrt to a new boy band invasion? y/n

...as well as a dedicated Harry Styles thread, not quite as active, but still...

Good call on the reggaeton explosion btw, even on the rolling Latin threads it was quite a hard sell for the longest time.

thanks C@AL, I already know and love that Galantis track :)

It's a great track, there were a few other big hits which I didn't put on after I checked and saw they'd been talked about on here - not that one apparently though.

the vaporwave thread was started in 2012 but it is on the noize board I think

X-post re Cumbia, I feel like some traditional Cumbia was referenced in Latin threads but I don’t recall whether crossover Cumbia pop was discussed there or elsewhere in conversation elsewhere about the slightly problematic tropical pop music

OT but we do have a thread on Ichiko Aoba

Cool, thanks.

the vaporwave thread was started in 2012 but it is on the noize board I think

Ahh that makes more sense.
vaporwave and deriative products

Sometimes I forget this site actually has boards that aren't ILM or ILE.

And I really never understood what the noise board was all about.

I don't think there were any threads dedicated to music associated with youtube video game streamers or other game-inspired music.

Five Nights at Freddy's-core?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk-aCL6eyGc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB2VDBCg2Xs

Minecraft parodies of popular songs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTr6NASDdy0

Quasi-anonymous licensed pop songs for homebrew anime adaptations of minecraft animation soap operas that get 17 million views?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpVhmc80hRw

Minecraft parodies of popular songs = at least 50% of my kids' listening, recently they have moved on to Among Us parodies of popular songs though

I have had to listen to this too many times to count, for example

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

Yeah, my daughter and her friends listen to this stuff as much as I listened to Motley Crue or whatever when I was her age. Which isn't to say that the artists behind them are as big as those bands, but there is a substantial audience there. I feel like these songs will stick with people and influence them into the future.

Nu narcocorridos I haven’t seen a lot of talk about either on ilm or in the broader conversations of popular music, unlike the stuff like bad bunny et al. But natanael cano & junior h had a real impact on streaming this year and a pretty marginal media profile as well

Some styles ilm has always drifted away from or towards. I think it’s fair to say we didn’t “miss” party through smoke r&b or hyperpop as much as resist it ... altho we could be considered to have “missed” it if everyone comes around on it later, but less so if we’re comfortable with the decision. At least that’s how I’d break it down to an extent

Actually come to think of it I’m not sure what artists you’re talking about w/r/t party through smoke r&b. Weeknd himself had to abandon that style to have sustained success

Every time I hear a new Ichiko Aoba song I feel like it's a song I've carried with me since childhood, she really is the best

Everything that seems to come out of nowhere now is because of TikTok & Dubsmash memes/dances/influencers, right?

that seems likely

i don't really like him but Post Malone has been one of the biggest artists of the decade and you'd never know here

I'm kinda confused why OP suggests PC Music was a blindspot?
(tbh there were PLENTY of reasons the style became maligned and deserved to be pushed to the side imho, reread for classic ILX trainwrecks/pile-ons):

♥☮☯♫ PC MUSIC ♫☯☮♥ ☺☺☺ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°✌
QT - Hey QT

The one genre I think is a legit blindspot (could be my own search ineptitude) is shortly before quarantine I took some grad-school-aged folks out to lunch and they were all raving about lo-fi (vapor/chillwave subgenre), which i'd only encountered as this perpetual youtube live mix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qap5aO4i9A

"Indie folk" like The Head and the Heart, Avett Brothers, Lord Huron, Dawes, etc.

Also: Hip™ for Basics

if we're openly stating that entire styles 'deserved to be pushed to the side' then idek what ilm has become

just a whole lot of casual racism, let's be cool

actually it kind of always has been like this about certain bad & hated genres, but turning the guns on pop itself i mean cmon

can't believe we're relitigating this but the casual racism was an obviously cack-handed attempt to satirise racial fetishisation by someone who should have known better, and it was used to condemn the entire musical output of an entire disparate & multiracial bunch of people

let's push rico nasty to the side because of gfoty's awkward failed social commentary

I don't see lo-fi hip-hop as coming out of vaporwave (though there's def a relationship), so much as the eventual diluted endpoint of 'the beat scene' (post-Dilla Low End Theory/Brainfeeder + some UK post-dubstep, then Soulection, etc).

And now it's just algorithmic wallpaper music

however, ppl listening to old music alongside new music... smh get your priorities right

I'd hoped I'd put my point mildly, but I am sorry if it bothered you Brad -- your enthusiasm for all kinds of music and for talking about it are the polar opposite of what I was complaining about. There is plenty of music old and new that I love but don't talk about on ilm

You should imo.

Unless you don't feel like it 'cause that stuff does take effort, to echo Brad.

lol i feel like i got too annoyed sorry rob. i'm sort of with you that it sucks to have the SNA clogged with polls about 20-year-old records even though i often contribute to that situation

xp
Thanks pomenitul, that is genuinely nice to hear. And yes I can empathize with Brad, even in "normal" years personal enjoyment/enthusiasm isn't nec enough to generate something you want to say publicly, and ILM can of course be a source negative energy. Even after a decade here I still feel a somewhat embarrassing but undeniable sense of weight/anxiety when starting a new thread lol

No worries Brad! I should probably admit to myself that if I'd been on ilm in the '00s I would have almost exclusively posted about 20th c. music, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with being unengaged by the present

my personal balance between new releases and archive-digging is about 75:25, works for me

This year it's been more like 85:15 but otherwise it's usually 65:35 or so.

think it's a little odd that people nom & vote for stuff in a message board's EOY poll that they have never really posted about on the board

I've tried starting threads for stuff I'm enthusiastic about but they never get much traction, and life is tiring and miserable enough without forcing yourself to sit through no answers for everything you love.

BradNelson is correct, we need more polls about 50-year-old records.

I hear you, emil.y – it's an embittering experience, to be sure. My ridiculously optimistic take is that if at least one lurker is into it, then perhaps they're one step closer to actually joining the discussion. I think it can be intimidating to realize the hive mind heavily skews towards particular genres/artists/topics at the expense of others (which, to be clear, is a natural and inevitable process in msg borad land!).

Yeah, I totally get that emil.y: I've started enough go-nowhere threads to second guess myself when thinking about starting a thread for something that hasn't already sparked interest elsewhere (say, in a rolling genre thread). Anyway, safe to say my post was v badly put if board regulars I have a ton of respect for think they were its targets!

Start your own rolling genre thread and just keep posting in it even if very few others do :)

I think it can be intimidating to realize the hive mind heavily skews towards particular genres/artists/topics at the expense of others (which, to be clear, is a natural and inevitable process in msg borad land!).

Yeah, this is a big factor for me, too. I think the boards these days might be more receptive to a lot of the DIY stuff I've been into over the years, but there were definitely times I couldn't imagine *any* ilx regular caring about it. Even now a lot of stuff I like I'm just... "argh, it's not punk enough for the punk thread and not jangly enough for the indiepop thread, and nobody's going to think it warrants its own". It's always a surprise to see names I've seen loads/played with/am mates with pop up here because I just never think people would be into those things. I'm much more likely to post about experimental/electronic/pop music here, and older stuff that has had time to prove its staying power.

Also some people on here can just write loads of insightful and enthusiastic stuff naturally, whereas my posts are much sparer and less interesting. And having been here so long I'm mindful of the fact that stupid things I have written over a decade ago are still there to be found, so maybe I should just shut up and not risk cringing myself to death later.

I started a moon b thread and I think only Spottie posted to it

my posts are much sparer and less interesting.

Not true at all! I def post too much given my current workload lol but I find that getting such essential contributions as 'PINK FLOYD RULES' and 'yeah, I really enjoyed that album' out of my system actually makes it easier to write longer, more considered posts when the topic calls for it and I feel like I have something to say, whether rightly or wrongly. So I think less self-policing and more solitary enthusiasm (when it comes to talking about how much one Loves Music, of course) is a net plus all around.

xp I've listened to Moon B before and enjoyed it but I don't think I've ever had much to say about it

(I also think it's a little odd that people nom & vote for stuff in a message board's EOY poll that they have never really posted about on the board, but w/e, I'm sure they have their reasons)

what can i say i'm a music consumer not a music critic

(I also think it's a little odd that people nom & vote for stuff in a message board's EOY poll that they have never really posted about on the board, but w/e, I'm sure they have their reasons)

― loose Orwellian mobs (rob), dinsdag 15 december 2020 21:39 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

So much to be enthusiastic about, so little time! That's my "alibi" to be honest. Would love to write more about what I love and why, but.. no time.

I feel like "Mood" by Iann Dior and 24kGolden is a good example of something that would have been a ILX bullseye in the 00s that at the end of the 10s is bypassed or even shitted on

this isn't even shots at forks, well not mainly, bc i kind of 'missed' it too even though i knew it existed and was a big hit and was vaguely good, i didn't really advocate for it or rally behind it like i 'should' have

More for the thread in general as well as acknowledging a personal gap: I think it's interesting that the two TikTok threads are on ILE. Maybe we never really talked about platforms on ILM in the past that weren't exclusively music-focused, but it's a big piece of pop music culture that feels pretty unexamined here (and by me to be clear)

bad buny being a joke entry on top tracks of 2020 is very telling

The fakeouts are all better than anything by Haim.

I fell for it because he’s very good in my book (came close to voting for the first of his 2020 albums), but it still surprised me because I didn’t feel he had that much support on ILM, and I’m also not crazy about that particular track - I think it featured on some prominent EOY list(s) tho

(discussing the bunny here iciwc)

i'm pretty sure "si veo" didn't make too many lists, a very clear filler track from an album with lots of more obvious highlights

feel like you can glean something about the changes in ILM's taste from bad bunny (biggest pop star in the world) being the joke entry and 070 shake (no discernible audience beyond the internet) being the real entry following it up

It's a start.

he had two tracks in the Pitchfork 100 (one at #5<>, yes people), but not this one

<>just one notch higher than “Murder Most Foul” tho, so what does it all even mean?

i'm pretty sure "si veo" didn't make too many lists, a very clear filler track from an album with lots of more obvious highlights

― tiwa-nty one savage (voodoo chili), Thursday, January 28, 2021 1:44 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

opening track of the album, he made a video for it. not a filler track, whether or not you think it's any good (it's not one of my favourites on the album either)

1. bad bunny might still make it;

2. idk why but i object to the idea he'd have been an old ILX lock; to me hes more like travis scott, but maybe its just my bias abt the music. i think hes a 'great star' but musically just not exciting to me

ilm has always had big blind spots in popular music but to have the biggest pop star as a joke entry in tracks of the year? beyond parody

oh yea ... i mean tbf i dont understand the joke in those posts at all

the joke entries used to be more deliberate trolling but this time moka went for a different vibe i guess. like in the past it was usually "here's something you all hate lol" with ed sheeran (who is a gigantic pop star) etc. but this year moka went for something more vaguely plausible with bad bunny who people seem just more indifferent about here than active dislike or anything

yeah I didn't want to go on about it (more) in the thread, but the fakes this year were legit confusing to me. like it did not seem implausible to me that the BB track would place, I was just taken aback by the unexpected (false) enthusiasm

opening track of the album, he made a video for it. not a filler track, whether or not you think it's any good (it's not one of my favourites on the album either)

― Dusty Benelux (jim in vancouver), Thursday, January 28, 2021 4:52 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's a hip-hop tradition to have the intro be kind of a nothing track lol, and didn't he make a video for every song on the album?

oh yeah he did make a video for every song but it was one of the first batch to be released iirc

since we're on the topic: I don't speak Spanish, what is happening at the beginning of that video?

this is like when the consensus pick off the Rosalia album was Malamente rather than any of the ensuing tracks, all of which were way better by dint of not being a low-key intro

xp. from memory, it's a new years eve party, a guy is about to hang himself and a kid comes up to him. the gist is: the kid asks him (the dude about to hang himself) what he's doing. he replies that his life is a mess, his family doesn't love him, his friends don't listen to him etc. the kid says "my parents don't listen to me either. you know what i do when im feeling bad? listen to bad bunny". the guy says 'bad who?" or something similar, and the kid says "come, let me show you"

thanks jim

xxp iirc Rosalia had 2 songs - Pienso en tu mira and Malamente back to back in the poll 2 years ago.

also imago, ^that actually happened unlike the Bad Bunny placement

people were sleeping on “Di Mi Nombre”

Yeah Pienso en tu mira banged iirc

"Indie folk" like The Head and the Heart, Avett Brothers, Lord Huron, Dawes, etc.

― jaymc, Tuesday, December 15, 2020 1:08 PM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOz3VJD4L0o
I really liked this the first few times I heard it but could imagine getting sick of it.

Still in the Latin American & Caribbean zone, Brazilian funk carioca and its subgenres surely ? The Modern Brazil thread is also not the most active and artists like Elza Soares or Meta Meta do not have threads to their name.
I have also come recently to consider Spanish Pop as its own sub-world, not just as pop that happens to be in Spanish, if that makes sense.
Another could be folk maybe ? Rhiannon Giddens for example does not return any results

nabozo otp