ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2017

https://i.imgur.com/yFMU5Ko.jpg

74 GOLDLINK ft. BRENT FAIYAZ & SHY GLIZZY "Crew" [151 points, 5 votes]

lol I might have voted for "Despacito" had I noticed it on the list, which stands nicely for how I experienced the song this year: good song but once it was over I never remembered it. my dad loves it, I shoulda voted for it for him

Would love to see a youtube link under each entry like earlier years, if possible. If it's all set in stone though, no worries.

re: youtubes...sorry I didn't put those together in advance (forgot, tbh), but I'll add them going forward

Here's GoldLink- https://youtu.be/nhNqbe6QENY

Great song.

Not heard this one before. Short and sweet, but I can see it becoming a grower.

damn, this poll is amazing so far

excellent image on Crew! love this song. I kind of thought this had caught on more widely than only 5 votes though.

I don't remember 'Volumes' from the playlist but listening again now and it's lovely, the vocal clips actually took a bit of getting used to though!

https://i.imgur.com/iTgFcgz.jpg

73 KELELA "LMK" [151 points, 7 votes]

https://youtu.be/ePi5BLJogyA

I love this track from my favorite album of 2017.

wow i thought this would be way higher. i voted for the album and couldn't quite make room for it though

don't think i voted for LMK so maybe i shouldn't be too surprised to see it so low but good god, TOO LOW

great tune
think it just missed out my 25

wow this IS low. nice tune

The albums I really loved made me skip voting for individual tracks of it tbh. Great song.

Yeah this is great too.

fully on board with a one-track-per-artist policy but album-or-track feels insane to me. anyway we've done this to death

It's not album or track per se, just that personally it played out that way for me this year (also ran out of time to do it properly etc)

Kelela's stuff went right over my head in a similar way to FKA Twigs' stuff a few years ago. Shame because with both those artists they were touted as big innovators but there's something that doesn't quite click it for me.

i guess that at times i employed that strategy as a tiebreaker for some of my track selections. fine fine it's all fine

ha different strokes i guess
always go 'album or track' personally

Kelela, like FKA twigs, is not for me. This track's pretty decent though.

I'm generally an "album or track" person as well, though I made an exception this year

https://i.imgur.com/Nrs1jrJ.jpg

72 LAUREL HALO "Moontalk" [142 points, 4 votes, 1 first place vote]
https://youtu.be/sLcQ8zxyTTo

I like Moontalk a lot better than the other stuff I'd heard from this album, reminds me of YMO somewhat

Oh, good, I had a feeling I'd be Moontalk's only voter. Also voted for Despacito - we use the Bieber version every night in our panto (at my suggestion!) and, having never overheard it before, I find myself enjoying it more and more.

I'm generally an "album or track" person as well, though I made an exception this year

Same here - a big part of it for me is wanting to give credit to things like non-album singles or just one-off moments of brilliance. Also I think it makes both rollouts more interesting if there's less overlap between them.

I just vote for the songs I like the best, lol.

Same.

Within reason, though. There are a lot of songs I like each year that I don't even bother to nominate, much less vote for, because I am an island.

If it's a matter of choosing one track over another due to space, I'll take the one I voted the album for off, otherwise WGAF?

https://i.imgur.com/J4abuI1.jpg

71 TORNADO WALLACE ft. SUI ZHEN "Today" [153 points, 5 votes, 1 first place vote]
https://youtu.be/1W9Wn1RSp4c

niiiiice

now here's the real patrick bateman shit

oh this is lovely

i listened to the tornado wallace record at the beginning of the year but never really revisited it. it's so lovely

didn't really "get" the larger project of the laurel halo album but "moontalk" is nice

Nice. Think I voted for Voices over this but both are great

I realised today that these end of year lists are my favourite thing about January (maybe the only thing I like about this time of year).

Cool results so far. Avalon Emerson is one the songs I discovered going through the Spotify playlist in the last month. It didn't quite make my final list. Happy to see it place.

Take Me Apart is an album I enjoyed, but didn't spend enough time with before voting. Definitely an album where I'd find it hard to pick out individual highlights.

This is good!

This Tornado Wallace song is gorgeous.

Just realised that the version of Despacito I've been subjected to on a daily (see: hourly) basis over the last months has been the Bieber version. This version is so much better

hm maybe i should go back to the laurel halo album, i loooove "moontalk"'s sorta deconstructed scritti polittiness now

I have actual terrestrial college radio to thank for turning me on to Tornado Wallace. God bless the handful of stations left that haven't been relegated to streaming-only status.

yeh this tornado wallace song is so gorgeous

i didn't really click with the tornado wallace album, maybe it was just a bit too emotionally neutral for me

loved all of the laurel halo album, but moontalk sounds a lot more focussed that much of the rest of it and yeah, i totally get the ymo shout. didn't vote for it though

https://i.imgur.com/Wmw70pz.jpg

70 TAYLOR ALXNDR "Nightwork" [153 points, 6 votes]
https://youtu.be/ZsKhfKYrbc8

yessssssss

I like CXCX just fine, but this is the weirdest #1 in this poll since "Wut."

weirdest as in unexpected or weirdest-sounding?

Unexpected, on a personal level, because I had no idea what "Wut" was until people began saying it was going to win, and I was like "WHAT IS WUT?" Same thing with "Boys." I did not follow CXCX at all in 2017, and had never heard "Boys" until listening to it after seandalai gave me the results.

xp had I voted, that might have been my #1 track of the year

nice Ross, I definitely like what I'm hearing! Is Skee Mask's other stuff similar?

btw I was happily surprised to find out SAM is from Denmark and actually a friend of a friend, small world

I'm late, but Thank you to everyone who ran the polls and everyone who voted. I started to make a ballot, but realized that I knew 1% of the tracks nominated. This poll was full of surprises. I've been putting off sitting down and going through this thread until finally, while coming down off a microdose acid trip last night, I went through every song on the list.

First off, I loved this one from the nominations YT playlist. It would have blown my mind if it had placed. The story about it is interesting too - https://youtu.be/sWblpsLZ-O8

My favorites in no order:
Twice - Likey
Bullion - Blue Pedro
Chromatics - Shadow
Playboi Carti - Magnolia
Mondo Grosso
J Hus - Did You See
Loona/Odd Eye Circle - Girl Front
Loona/Yves - All My Life
S.A.M. - Pour Aisha
Susanne Sundfor - Undercover
Kehlani - Undercover
Avalon Emerson - One More Fluorescent Rush
Serge Beynaud - Akrakabo
Black Madonna - He Is The Voice I Hear
Sun El-Musician feat Samthing Soweto - Akanamali
Carly Rae Jepsen - Cut To The Feeling
Jason Isbell - If We Were Vampires
Patrice Baumel - Glutes
Kamasi Washington - Truth

Great poll. Really blew my mind a few times. Someone said that it's been one of the best polls ever. I agree. Can't wait to dig through the albums now!

we have similar tastes there mom, like almost weirdly so. A Mind was my nom.

we have similar tastes there mom, like almost weirdly so. A Mind was my nom.

― Chocolate-covered gummy bears? Not ruling those lil' guys out. (ulysses), Saturday, February 10, 2018 11:58 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's awesome ulysses! I'm glad you introduced me to that song. I love how moogy that filter on the bass sounds, like the tone is about to rip apart at the seams.

You know I noticed a common theme running through many of these tracks: an abundance of 7th chords, minor and major. 2017 seems to have really taken those tones to heart. (Not that 7th chords are uncommon to begin with, but they always strike my ear, and it seems like I heard them lots of tracks from this top 77)

Blue Pedro is in my head ALL THE TIME now

Thoughts and prayers.

Lol