**********Just the trax, ma'am: THE ILX 2007 POLL RESULTS, part 1**********

^depending on who voted this could sneak into the top 10 in albums

i forget whether i voted for it now

this list is ghey

Thanks Reverend, Johnny Crunch. I think in hindsight that my original post was about the same thing but with more words and hence probably worse. So...here's to screwing things up on the Internet!

"Sweet Escape" is good for A-Kon's hooting and chortling, but everything Gwen, everything Gwen...I don't think so. I like the idea of a song from the perspective of someone who kinda wishes they could be sweet, but can't really be fucked to accomplish it, but it's weirdly at odds with the hook, which seems to be about actually being sweet. That could be a productive tension, but somehow I just don't buy into it on this one.

Count me with those hoping for GIMME MAWR to top the mysterious "Piece of Me," which I've never heard of before. Is it good?

Not really. Al in Bmore used the word "inert" to describe it, and I can't come up with one more accurate. "Gimme More" is the better of the two, at any rate.

Piece of Me is the best thing from Blackout...the remixes are all aces too. The Boz and Lo mix (bascially an alt mix as it's done by the original's producers) is the best, but the Tiesto and Bimbo Jones mixes are worth checking out too.

i'm cool with sweet escape and i esp. love when she comes out of the hook and into the second verse. the melody on those first few lines is fantastic

'radar'>>'gimme more'>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>'piece of me'

25. Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around... Comes Around (88 points, 8 votes) (link)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8a/WhatGoesAroundSingleCover.jpg

Yay "Out There," boo "What Goes Around..."

24. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (90 points, 7 votes, 1 number votes) (link)

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/641/avrillavignegirlfriendsdq6.jpg

^this song sucks

'u + ur hand' came out like 3 months before and is infinitely better

Isn't Avril the punk chick supposed to hate girls like the video's protagonist? She's just a bully in the song and especially in the video, and the whole video is incredibly mean-spirited. I'm not familiar enough with Avril's work to cite specific examples from her earlier albums, but it certainly feels as if "Girlfriend Avril" is the girl the old Avril used to hate.

I swear I had just been thinking (after the Timberlake song), "Oh, good, maybe that Avril Lavigne song isn't going to make it after all."

one more for today:

23. Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life (90 points, 10 votes) (link)

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/6764/727793xx7.jpg

If you ignore almost everything about it, "Girlfriend" is a fun song the first few times.

50. M.I.A. - Jimmy (58 points, 5 votes)
49. Aly & AJ - Potential Breakup Song (58 points, 5 votes, 1 number one vote)
48. Jens Lekman - The Opposite Of Hallelujah (61 points, 5 votes, 1 number one vote)
47. Los Campesinos! - You! Me! Dancing! (61 points, 7 votes)
46. Malcolm Middleton - We're All Going To Die (62 points, 5 votes
45. Björk - Earth Intruders (62 points, 6 votes)
44. Low - Murderer (64 points, 5 votes
43. Kanye West - Stronger (67 points, 5 votes)
42. Von Südenfed - The Rhinohead (68 points, 6 votes, 2 number ones, + 1 vote for Pilooski Remix)
41. Rich Boy - Throw Some D's (69 points, 5 votes)
40. Chromatics - Running Up That Hill (69 points, 6 votes)
39. M.I.A. - Boyz (69 points, 7 votes)
38. National - Fake Empire (69 points, 8 votes)
37. Feist - My Moon My Man (72 points, 5 votes + 2 for Boys Noize Remix)
36. Spoon - The Underdog (72 points, 6 votes, 1 number one vote)
35. Groove Armada - Song 4 Mutya (73 points, 7 votes)
34. Radiohead - Reckoner (74 points, 6 votes)
33. Lil' Mama - Lip Gloss (75 points, 6 votes)
32. White Stripes - Icky Thump (79 points, 8 votes)
31. Roisin Murphy - Overpowered (79 points, 10 votes)
30. LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous (82 points, 8 votes)
29. Britney Spears - Piece Of Me (83 points, 7 votes, 1 number votes)
28. Gwen Stefani Ft Akon - The Sweet Escape (84 points, 6 votes, 1 number one vote)
27. Radiohead - 15 Step (84 points, 8 votes)
26. Studio - Out There (87 points, 9 votes, 1 number votes
25. Justin Timberlake - What Goes Around... Comes Around (88 points, 8 votes)
24. Avril Lavigne - Girlfriend (90 points, 7 votes, 1 number votes)
23. Gui Boratto - Beautiful Life (90 points, 10 votes)

Eclectic.

I know nothing about Studio, but that cover is great, makes me want to listen to it.

It sounds as awesome as the cover looks.

5 votes for Aly & AJ and they come in just by a hair. I had it top 5 or 6, and I imagine the other 4 voters did too.

I'm glad this list isn't pretending that it was a good year for indie rock.

Average for Aly & AJ is 9 or 10.

A whole bunch of other songs that only got 5 votes placed higher.

2007 was the worst year in the history of popular music.

^might be otm

Oh fucking Jesus. Why do people unfailingly manage to think themselves clever by decrying the current or previous year as the worst year for music ever, especially when, by fact of reality, it's only possible to hear a tiny fraction of what's available or even tiny fraction of what is great?

the fuck?

a. i don't think billstevejim said that to be clever
b. he said popular music, which is by definition music that most people should have heard most if not all of
c. it's a good and fairly common argument to have

a, b, fine. C, NO IT IS NOT A GOOD ARGUMENT IT IS THE MOST BORRRRINGG ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ARGUMENT THAT CAN BE HAD SOME HINDSIGHT WTF

It's a fairly common argument to have among people whose opinions I feel completely at ease to disregard, goddammit.

A side note, I'm interested in the wallpaper or whatever that JT's got on the cover of "What Goes Around"... the song I could take or leave, it's brilliantly headsticky but in a way that's SO insistent that, once you've had it stuck in your head once, you really truly want to never hear the song again for fear it will trigger that infinite loop of "goes around goes around goes around comes all the way back arouuunnd." It's also sort of retroactively destructive because I can't hear "Cry Me A River" without subconsciously expecting/wanting it to morph into WGACA. That's not a knock on either song, but it's the way it is.

xp: I mean, if you think having a "who's the most jaded" pissing contest is entertaining, umma do me, you do you.

why you so mad rev

damn dude

i don't think it's jaded to say that pop music this year wasn't as good as it's been in previous years

I think that's fine, but there's a difference between "not as good as it's been in previous years", and "worst year in the history of recorded music". Jaded people get in my craw, that's all.

ethan otm?

reverend is cool with me hes just kinda crotchety

-- and what, Wednesday, August 1, 2007 12:42 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Link

It's for a good cause?

(haha for a second I thought the "ethan otm" was part of the quote, and was like "wth, you can't otm yrself!")

Conrad Flynn wrote a blurb for The Underdog which I carelessly forgot to append to the track post when it appeared, so here it is in all its glory:

36. Spoon - The Underdog (72 points, 6 votes, 1 number one vote) (link)

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9519/gagagagagafv7.jpg

The Underdog is the type of uplifting and delightful song Belle and Sebastian used to release all the time (and stick primarily on their EPs and b-sides) but stupidly stopped making around 2002 or so. It's like a camp-fire sing-a-long that almost becomes power-pop but at the last minute decided that that would be too aggressive and so exchanges loud guitars for acoustic strumming, maracas, and horns. Producer Jon Brion might have helped Spoon make that adjustment and a lot of bands would improve overnight if they did what Spoon has done here: stop with the non-stop indie posturing and focus more on just making a song that is pleasant to listen to above all else.
-Conrad Flynn

I'm happy Gui Boratto placed relatively highly. Such an obvious sound but it just WORKS.

22. Spoon - You Got Yr Cherry Bomb (91 points, 10 votes) (link)

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9519/gagagagagafv7.jpg

"You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" is compact, lean, economical -- that's what Spoon do. But there's a lot going on in this track. For starters,
there's one of Britt Daniel's most engaging melodies, marrying angular
verses with a more linear chorus (built, as it happens, on the tail
end of the verse). Compared to the minimalism elsewhere on _Ga Ga Ga
Ga Ga_, the arrangement is downright lavish: the rhythm section --
snare drum, piano and rhythm guitar -- is brightened by a tambourine
jangle and augmented by vibraphone and horn parts. It sounds like
Motown, in fact, which is fitting for this bittersweet song about
breaking up ("It was the longest day that I ever known / I watched you
start that drive alone") and moving on ("Life can be so fair / Let it
go on and on").
-Paul in Santa Cruz

-'what goes around' is awesome

-jon brion produced the new spoon??

Just The Underdog, I think.

21. Of Montreal - The Past Is A Grotesque Animal (93 points, 10
votes) (link)

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/2341/o480487fp4za9.jpg

I can honestly say I don't get the love for that song. I think I read some end-of-year track list (Pitchfork, maybe?) that chose it, and I can't figure out why. There are some great songs on that album, but the 11 minute albatross in the middle puts me off listening to the whole thing.

i was actually just thinking i should have voted 'grotesque animal' way higher. i put it at like 19 or 20.

20. Timbaland feat. Keri Hilson - The Way I Are (93 points, 12 votes) (link)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/The%2Bway%2Bi%2Bare.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2183/2282654959_e7f6571a89_o.jpg

you ain't got 8 AmEx cards? wtf does that even mean? god I hate the nonsensical math on some of those rap graphs.

let's not go somewhere exotic SEVEN TIMES