ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2014

"Bang Bang" was the highest-scoring track involving Ariana Grande???

the bass drop on "2 on" is the endorphin rush of the year

the most underrated thing about "2 on" is that each part is sung in a different melody so it's like the entire song is just a string of choruses

otm

a quality shared by the best songs

My guess is 2014 was so good for singles that the consensus was more spread than usual.

Great job running this guys.

Great stuff grady (and seandalai) great graphics too

my thoughts & prayers are with anyone who doesn't like "german whip"

― J0rdan S., Thursday, January 22, 2015 1:08 PM (2 hours ago)

for me it's just a classic case of being less than the sum of its parts. the beat is actually really hot, his flow is pretty good, the lyrics are...eh, but there's a corniness that just hangs over it that i can't shake. it feels like a weird al song or something. plus the guest verses aren't all that great

"2 on" is the song that has made me most mad at myself for not having subs in my car in a long while

thanks to our lovely pollrunners!

but there's a corniness that just hangs over it that i can't shake

well it's british rap music

mad props to gr8080 for putting in that work

Los Awesome just missed out

I can get down with #78-#100 a lot more, and surprise surprise I voted for #78!

Also who was the one person who voted Tinashe at number one? They should win a prize.

Taylor Swift – "Blank Space" – A bit drippy, not a patch on "Out of the Woods", but not half bad. Really does sound like "Starbucks lovers" tho.

Clean Bandit ft. Jess Glynne – "Rather Be" – Horrid. Never heard this before, not at all happy to have broken that winning streak.

Taylor Swift – "Style" – Much, much better! Fucking monster tune. Not sure it tops "Out of the Woods", but a damn close second if not. Brad OTM: <3 guitar.

Rich Gang ft. Young Thug & c. – "Lifestyle" – First YT track I heard, still on board, though I’m starting to realize that a little goes a long (long) way.

Future Islands – "Seasons" – I know I promised vitriol earlier, but I don't really hate this song. The chorus is massive and the vocals sufficiently soulful to carry it. Indie only by (weird) association. Just sounds like retro-80s pop to me.

Rae Sraemmurd – "No Flex Zone" – "No Type" wuz robbed.

FKA Twigs – "Two Weeks" – Oh hell yeah.

Tinashe – "2 On" – Would rather have seen Twigs take it, but no complaints.

Thanks for the rollout, gr8080!

We seem to have snubbed: “Queen”, “Chandelier”, “Never Catch Me”, and “i”
Congrats to ILX for snubbing: "Happy", “Fancy”, “Problem”, and “All About that Bass”.

Stellar rollout, gr8080!

v psyched neither "queen" nor "chandelier" placed tbh

amazing job gr80, johnny fever, seandalai!!

two weeks is still like the most insane song, so intense

Also, I'm impressed ILM managed to hold Swift out of the top 5.

Top 102 on Spotify is complete:
http://open.spotify.com/user/forksclovetofu/playlist/57m9LpUGkWDzGOiIgNsTeR

here's what's missing:

94 Jack J - Something (On My Mind)
87 Lil B - No Black Person Is Ugly
85 A.G. Cook - Beautiful
61 HOLLY HERNDON "Chorus"
*57 NICKI MINAJ "Boss Ass Bitch" ft. PTAF (posted PTAF version)94 Jack J - Something (On My Mind)
55 MIGOS "YRN" Ft. Young Thug
50 QT "Hey QT"
*33 TAYLOR SWIFT "Shake It Off"
*23 TAYLOR SWIFT "Out of the Woods"
*15 SKEPTA "That's Not Me" (added remix which seems more or less the same)
10 VIC MENSA "Down On My Luck"
*8 TAYLOR SWIFT "Blank Space"
*6 TAYLOR SWIFT "Style"

All Taylor Tracks have cover placeholders

how are the rae sraemmurd kids 20 and 22 btw, they sound like babies

101 + 102 honorary

maaaaaan, i really, really wish some of those 78-100 tracks would've placed, would've made this list way more interesting.

i would've voted for '2 on' but i didn't because i wanted to punish it for having that awful schoolboy q verse on it

Was sure this morning that Queen would've been in the top 20, but by the time we got to 10 I stopped looking for it.

+ THANK YOU GR888000

Yikes, in all the hoopla I miss that Tinashe was #1. Cool song, voted for the album instead of it though

spotify:track:3ZuHoaPp0mQllnIzOyc2k6

^ Vic Mensa

109 Dierks Bentley - Drunk On A Plane

aw

Thank you based gr8080

around 8 songs in my ballot made it. I've had worse years.

disagree with playlist being 102, this is a top 77 dammit

"this track is not currently available in the US"

109 Dierks Bentley - Drunk On A Plane

aw

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, January 22, 2015 3:25 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ouch

but those are the bonus tracks. xp

Surprised by Perfume Genius no-show too.

ouch

six votes though! i was expecting two

I would've been a seventh.

thanks gr8080 for the rollout! and for ILM to have made me discover so much stuff this year, I love you all so much.

that awful schoolboy q verse

great song but yeah i hate that bit

thank you to gr8rs and feves and the boy seandalai btw, top work out there lads

Tracks that got a single #1 vote and nothing else:

Affie Yusuf - Rinse & Dry
CAZZETTE - Sleepless
Girl Talk & Freeway ft. Jadakiss - I Can Hear Sweat
Hannah Diamond - Attachment
Isaiah Rashad - Heavenly Father
Jessica Pratt - Back, Baby
Lee Ann Womack - Send It On Down
Mariah Carey - Meteorite
Róisín Murphy - Ancora Ancora Ancora (Severino & Nico De Ceglia Remix)
Samantha Jade - Sweet Talk
TV On The Radio - Careful You
The Nels Cline Singers - Companion Piece
Yhdentekevää - Pyhä Lehmä Anthem

a very fitting #1 and one of the best top 3s in recent memory. praise be for future islands getting shut out of it.

"rather be" - i hated this at first, and i still hate clean bandit for their twee, polite take on the pop-house revival. they are innocent smoothies advertising incarnate in music. song is so catchy and its ubiquity never felt oppressive though, i had downgraded my hatred to mild dislike by year-end. would really like them to fuck off now though.

"style" is a very special song and maybe the only real saving grace of 1989 - not that i don't love other songs on it but this is really peak taylor for me, and in a style i never expected she could pull off. is she really saying "take me home" at the end? i always hear it as "take me up", like despite the dysfunction of the relationship she's still going to give in to how good it feels. i also hear her "i said i've been there too a few times" not as a comment on how often she's had her heart broken, as seems to be the consensus, but how she plays the same game as he does.

i dislike "lifestyle" on a very visceral level. all their voices are like nails down a blackboard and the beat just adds to the chintziness. ugh i can't even listen to it. idk why people are surprised, if there's one thing i'm consistent in being against it's men who can't fucking sing.

future islands - thought it was funny that the indie consensus choice of 2014 depended so much on a "theatrical" attention-grabbing tv performance. like, one of the accusations lobbed at big pop stars tends to be "all spectacle, no substance" and yet i've rarely encountered a song whose popularity seemed so dependent on spectacle. do its fans think that without that tv performance it would have had the success it did? i thought the song was boring and his voice was a dealbreaker and the tv histrionics didn't even seem that notable

fka twigs - the way her vocals overlap, especially just as she starts swearing, is pure sensation.

tinashe - the way get ratchet go dumb then go mo dumb then we can keep it lit let's roll rolled off her tongue was maybe the finest enunciation in pop last year, and the moment when i first heard it last january and the sean paul interpolation dropped felt so triumphant - such utter confidence to use it at that exact moment. its placing at #1 feels very "summation of 2014" in that i'm unsurprised it got only one #1 vote: at no point in the year did it ever announce itself as The Song, but it encapsulated so many great things very neatly and honestly i can't think of anything better that deserved to be there. (so it makes sense that the dj q remix voters pushed it over the top.) i threw my vote to her album, though.

saer deserves some sort of a prize too, somebody shoplift him a gold-plated colander or something

Lee Ann Womack - Send It On Down

great song

it was a weird year for r&b

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, January 22, 2015 7:52 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it was as good a year for r&b as ever but ilx majorly diverges on r&b these days

nice words, lex

thx

looking at the whole list and i can't believe fucking "bang bang" got so close to the 77. ppl need to stop listening to the radio and giving these terrible songs the opportunity to grow on them.

country breakdown -

USA (36): Tinashe, Rae Sremmurd (x2), Rich Gang, Taylor Swift (x4), Vic Mensa, Future, Bobby Shmurda, DJ Snake & Lil Jon, Young Thug (x2), T.I., Dej Loaf, The War On Drugs, Becky G, Phantogram, D'Angelo & The Vanguard (x2), Shamir, ILoveMakonnen, Katy Perry, Spoon, Migos, Haim, Against Me! (x2), Jennifer Lopez, Holly Herndon, St. Vincent, Usher, Katie Gately, King, Tune-Yards
GBR (18): FKA Twigs (x2), Clean Bandit, Richard Dawson, Skepta, Meridian Dan, Charli XCX, Jessie Ware (x2), Hodgson, Indiana, Shift K3Y, Katy B, Aphex Twin, Rita Ora, QT, Mark Ronson, Duke Dumont
CAN (7): Kiesza, Caribou (x2), Owen Pallett (x2), Kira Isabella, Alvvays
TRI (3): Nicki Minaj (x3)
SWE (2): Tove Lo, Röyksopp & Robyn (½) (x2)
NOR (2): Röyksopp & Robyn (½) (x2), Todd Terje
CHI (2): Javiera Mena, Ana Tijoux
ESP (1): Sofi De La Torre
AUS (1): Tkay Maidza
GHA (1): Guru
COL (1): Shakira
NGR (1): Davido
ITA (1): Ninos Du Brasil

Also, the top three is entirely comprised of artists no one had heard of at the end of 2013. Big difference from the previous year's blockbuster overload.