ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019

Yeah I'm excited to hear Parola once the playlist is running and I've finished work!

Yessssss!

xp don't be too excited

https://i.imgur.com/WYZZi6I.jpg
67: Jamila Woods feat. Saba - “Basquiat” - 168 points - 7 votes
video

Jamila Woods

voted for the album but i am def glad to see this

Voted the Jamila album high, but voted for zero tracks (sideways glance at the Purple Mountains voters).

voted for the album but this ALMOST made my tracks ballot separately, AMAZING song

The album ended up right outside my ballot, so ended up voting for this, my favourite track, instead. Amazing.

Decent album, good song.

this album just kept blowing my mind more and more every time i revisited it, incredible songwriting and ocean-deep arrangements

I voted for Jamila. Excellent cut - and a substitute for the album in my case. Too many good albums last year.

Saba's verse one of the most exhilarating minutes of music this year

didn't vote for any tracks, but the album was one of my very very favs of the year and this is a highlight among highlights.

and yes, saba is one of the five-ten best rappers doin' it right now.

I enjoyed it but found the overall songwriting a little too… self-consciously classy? 'ocean-deep arrangements' is otm though.

xps

And Saba fucking rules, yeah.

are you mad? yes i'm mad

The drumming!

I meant to check this album out but never got round to it, this is sounding pretty good so far, though I get what pom is saying about "self-consciously classy".

From my #1 album.

at first the album sounds like a collection of amorphous jams, then it starts to gel; the arrangements are heady without losing sight of the goal. She's a good bandleader.

first track I've heard before! in the voted-for-the-album camp but this is a good choice for an isolated track

https://i.imgur.com/zGNiQ6A.jpg
66: Kasper Marott - “Drømmen om Ø (Forever mix '19)” - 169 points - 6 votes
video

Yeah, one thing about this (xp, still on 'Basquiat') is it sort of fades away into cool blandness but then another hook pops up and I'm back to being really engaged with it, it's an interesting trick.

Denmark!

Never heard

excellent rhyming with mr golden balls here

Liking it so far. It bears repeating that the bobbins crowd always delivers. Thanks, bobbins crowd!

voted for that jamila song. the drums are special. song has three distinctive sections.

it sort of fades away into cool blandness but then another hook pops up and I'm back to being really engaged with it, it's an interesting trick.

― emil.y, Monday, January 27, 2020

otm

Wow, when I nominated "Parola (Rework)", I didn't really expect it to make it to the top 77! Especially since I haven't seen much discussion here on it, nor the Anna Caragnano & Donato Dozzy album back in 2015. It is beautiful, subliem track and IMO better than anything that was on the album... The album's concept of using nothing but Caragnano's sampled vocals was admirable but ultimately kinda thin, where as this tune especially benefits from Dozzy adding a techno beat to it.

https://i.imgur.com/KDlaKql.jpg
65: KH - “Only Human” - 170 points - 5 votes - 1 number 1 vote
video
new four tet

setting a personal record for never heard/never heard of this year sheesh

we're really bobbin today

haha rob, same

This is dope and I wish Four Tet had spent more of his career doing tracks like it.

doing a run-through and Parola is fantastic, thread delivers

ohhh KH = Kieran Hebden?

I'd be cool with an all-bobbins top 77.

:|

😈

All bobbins no joggins

lmao

imago is too dejected to properly complain

This is cool, but about 4 minutes too long.

Pretty much.

https://i.imgur.com/dsBnlV3.jpg
64: Vampire Weekend - “This Life” - 172 points - 6 votes
video
Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

The Singles Jukebox

“Ezra Koenig doesn’t wanna live like this, but he doesn’t wanna die — he understands how these days intellectual curiosity depends on the financial means to satisfy it. So he pays for an iLoveMakonnen sample, strums a chordal pattern reminiscent of “Mrs. Robinson,” and hires Chromeo and Ariel Rechtshaid for an expansive, expensive polish. For the Koenig-led project known as “Vampire Weekend,” in which original members matter less than they used to, hybrid is both method and result. A shimmer of a single, “This Life” works, even if I tire of straight men discovering capital-m-Maturity with a vehemence that would astonish women, queer men, and every phylum in the animal kingdom.” - Alfred Soto

Ezra Koenig putting on “Touch of Grey” drag and quoting Makonnen in order to meditate on his own charmed life should be off-putting, and yet “This Life” is effortlessly charming throughout. Vampire Weekend’s success has always ridden on how the band perched on the borderline between irony and sincerity, aware of both their own ridiculousness and the utter seriousness that even ridiculous non-problems can become laden with from their own subjectivity. “This Life” feels like the unraveling of all of those prior Vampire Weekend songs, eschewing the high drama of a “Hannah Hunt” or “Giving Up the Gun” for a beautifully posed shrug on the way out. - Jacob Sujin Kuppermann

gaaaaah I'VE HAD ENOUGH

I've no idea what bobbins is but if the records described here is what bobbins is then no thanks I'd rather go down The Asda

Kasper Marott is great, the best new-to-me thing so far.

KH was on my long list, but I knew it wouldn't need my help. There's a radio edit, JF (in this case, useful).

i was expecting this to be much higher so small mercies lj