2024 soty ballot

Username: vayyiqra

aespa - Supernova: 11 it's just a huge banger. it's got the kenzie cowrite and dem jointz prod and that's a chaotic mix of two musical geniuses when it comes to kpop. aespa are one of my favourite groups and they bait me with their futuristic electro scifi bit and i listened to this song over 100 times last year it's safe to say it snatched the 11. i love aespa they rule so hard

Allie X - Galina: 8 i knew a russian lady called galina once. she was in a language learning group who met at a coffeehouse. she was impressed by how good my accent was even tho i only knew a little russian. this is the power of learning about phonetics folks. oh yeah the song it's good. allie x 80s LARP nothing new. hate the album cover it frightens me but i won't dock points for that. i see the backstory is galina was her naturopath who allie felt helped her a lot but it seems "lost her memory" (does that mean got dementia ... awful ...) and allie couldn't see her anymore. now naturopaths are bunk but i kind of get it, allie x has a lot of health problems and might have been desperate for anything that worked. i talked to her in a reddit AMA about this once, it heavily influences her work. now it would be quite a plot twist if the galina i knew and the one she knew were the same, as both were from toronto. they were not the same galina sorry

Bab L' Bluz - AmmA: 8 for songs in another language i like to know what they mean but all the lyrics are in an informal romanization that uses numbers (it's an arab thing) and i feel absolved because moroccan arabic is infamously !?!? and out-there; even most other arabs can't understand it let alone me. therefore i'm just gonna say yea its a banger

Cassie Ramone - Together: 6 having a boss baby moment and thinking this sounds like it could be a more washed-out alvvays song

Cindy Lee - All I Want Is You: 3 hybrid theory can't make me care about cindy lee indieheads can't RYM can't youtube recommendations can't. this album is not real. no really i just don't care for what i've heard of this album at all i can see how the retro concept might be appealing if you like indie rock but i am a fake indie fan and two hours of this sounds like something i wish to pass on. you may throw tomatoes at me now and curse my name like "dammit vayy do you like anything that isn't hana and kpop" maybe i deserve it

Creepy Nuts - Otonoke: 7 not otoboke beaver. unlistenable

Devours - Swordswallower (Zendaya's Fortress): 8 banger tbh. like the commodore 64 game soundtrack vibes. headcanon is that this a dune fanfic btw

Doechii - Denial is a River: 5 at first it was kind of a weird little ditty that banged but the lyrics were too wack. reading her defense of the song not being transphobic by instead implying that gay men are effeminate was very :emotistare: but not trying to cancel doechii, i just found the whole concept of the song including the drug addiction lines to be kind of offputting and i think she was going for wry and a little humorous but it didn't land for me. musically it's fine though

f5ve - UFO: 10 not sorry i am a bloodpop truther and a.g. cook enjoyer and am being pandered to with electro bleepbloops so deal with it. tickled by the concept being "what if a random japanese girl was inhumanly good at those rly hard claw machine games" (whence the "gacha" refrain), which dares ask the question "what if pinball wizard for our day and age" (author's note: i like the who but rly hate pinball wizard, this is my cross to bear)

Fer Franco - Ya No Vivo Aquí: 7 ummm ... franco ... ??? ... kinda problematic ... i guess ... anyway enough shtposting i thought "why can't i find a lyrics translation, at least written out in spanish i could translate that myself ..." then i saw "269 monthly listeners" so maybe forget that ! good song tho

Floating Points - Del Oro: 10 i love when the guy makes the bleepbloop noises with his keyboards and stuff electronic music is so back

FraÑ - Esta pena ni el mar podrá abrazar: 7 that's three songs with spanish titles in a row think about it. anyway sorry freav wasn't huge into it musically but i did like her voice and it was helpful i could find the lyrics and translate them myself (there were only about 8 lines of them lmao not trying to flex) pretty !!

Gavin Turek - Back On The Market: 8 see popheads has at least one gavin turek truther who rly wants to shill her music and in the past i've always found her kind of merely Okay but this is a good ditty it's got the energy it's giving disco and whatnot

Hamish Hawk - Nancy Dearest: 7 good 80s LARP yea this is coldwave ! :citationneeded:

Ichiko Aoba - Lullaby: 10 ichiko my beloved yes this is my song you might've guessed. i got so heavy into her in ~2022 and saw her live last winter and it was so healing and cleansing and needed. she just writes these strummy little acoustic ditties in japanese about a starfish or something and cliché but it is a balm for the soul. also need to plug she has the best instagram account all she posts aside from her concerts and radio show is wholesome stuff like photos of the ocean taken from airplanes and cute little drawings and her visits to shinto shrines in okinawa. i can only wish to have such vibes

Imagine Dragons - Eyes Closed (feat. J Balvin): 7 a bit cornball but j balvin dropping a verse about how, if my spanish is right, he has the power of god and anime on his side, as he fights lions like an early christian being forced to compete in gladiator games by the roman empire, is such a :sicko1: move i have to give this a dudes rock/10

Imogen Heap - What Have You Done To Me?: 8 imogen please delete this single artwork many are crying and shaking and feel like throwing up (just me, i have this niche phobia you see). anyway a tune it's uh dark ambient industrial :citationneeded: or idk yea this is so lingua ignota ! (i have never listened to her but this is what i want to believe she sounds like)

Jack White - Archbishop Harold Holmes: 8 despite historically leaning neutral on white stripes once i clocked the lyrics are 100% jack white shtposting about the old testament i became :sickos: and nearly auto-10ed it. headcanon this is also a dig at prosperity theology which i know jack white would do; politically he's pretty based there's this long rant on his wiki page of him bashing trump it rules check it out

JADE - Angel of My Dreams: 9 yea i recall the days when there was a not-without-merit hate campaign against her on popheads and was kind of :| to realize it was *that* jade but also this is a banger and a perfect Y2K electropop LARP like shameless *fever* era kylie minogue ripoff i can't help this is a sick tune. and then the halftime part at the end is so overdramatic what is this it has broken my brain i fear

Jensen McRae - Massachusetts: 6 being radically vulnerable i had a moment of "oh no this is that confessional acoustic indie singer-songwriter genre with overly specific lyrics that we like to clown on" but after looking up more and seeing she is at least self-aware of what a Trope that is and doing it on purpose, alright that changes things somewhat. also cool to see a black jewish artist (other than drake or doja cat) that doesn't affect the song but rock on. not sure i like her music but she seems nice

Joey Valence & Brae - BUSSIT: 5 "asian mfer cookin up spam" at this point i said What aloud and the lyrics having "[?]" in them are quite accurate What is going on i think they're two dudes doing a beastie boys parody and then there was the [spin wheel with names of british electronic genres beat] part and What is going on i think this is a shtpost [?] unrateable but also it's lol

Kali Uchis - ¿Cómo Así?: 9 idk why i haven't listened to this album i always like kali she never lets you down with atmospheric r&b and/or electropop ditties where she's [redacted] and/or sad it's always quality tho she kinda rules. more like calidad uchis aha (does this work idk)

Kendrick Lamar - euphoria: 6 i do **not** care about The Beef by this point never want to hear about it again we know drake bad was that ever in dispute. however i can't hate any song that has a stray against joel osteen; more songs should have that. also good reminder i need to go make a pilgrimage to new ho king this year, half for the bit and half because i like chinatown on spadina ave one of my favourite places to be on earth

Lady Shaka - E Tu: 8 this looks woke (unironic, complimentary)

Los Campesinos! - Holy Smoke (2005): 0 being open i never knew who this band is beyond their name so i was expecting yet another spanish song which we have a weirdly high number of this year, and then i wished it were in fact not in english because i hated and despised the lyrics. do i have to go into detail why ... i can if you really want but basically felt like it was trying way too hard to come up with a clever ~lament~ for millennial hipsters with radical veganism weirdly shoehorned in. maybe i'm just feeling threatened by the line about being 37 and washed up with no kids which i see happening soon in my own future so. sorry to whoever sent this but something about it provoked an "irrational hate 0" response in me please forgive

Meaningful Stone - Supernova: 7 not aespa. unlistenable ||joke but didn't realize this is that korean dream pop artist i know from the RYM album i found once where everyone memed "underwater lady lol copied *windswept adan*" then i listened and it was pretty alright !||

Merce Lemon - Crow: 7 lilith fair core (i can say this i grew up in the 90s and my mom was an alt rock fan)

Meridian Brothers - En El Caribe Estoy Triste: 6 okay by this point simply curious not at all against it but i have to ask why is half of this year's playlist in spanish anyway, was the latin american music scene popping off in 2024 and i missed it. also what's with the vague religious overtones to the lyrics and what is juepu especially. otherwise it's a fine ditty but don't like the vocals. i have never been to the caribbean so i can't judge why one might be sad there but i think i'd take it over the horrible unseasonably-cold-even-for-canadian-january weather lately

MJ Lenderman - She's Leaving You: 4 sorry it's not an awful song but don't feel in the mood for sparse alt-rock with bleak overtones rn not enjoyable. why does RYM think this is so country anyway i think that's a bit of a reach whatever

NewDad - White Ribbons: 7 this band claims to be dads but literally half of their members are women. explain that liberals

Nia Archives - Cards On The Table: 7 not sudan archives. unlistenable (yes this is a joke their music is not even that much alike)

The Innocence Mission - This Thread is a Green Street: 7 never heard of this band but i'm seeing indie-folk and long evocative~ song titles and stuff about christianity and nature and winter and that sufjan stevens is a fan of them yea this all tracks. pretty song

This Is The Glasshouse - Before Machinery: 2 feel bad saying it but something about this seems like it's trying too hard to do that "emotional breakdown over music see the singer's voice is getting all haggard" trope and the lyrics strike me as kind of fake-deep. yes before we had the technology we have now we did not have as precise an understanding of things, that is true, but what is the point though. there might be some true emotion behind it but this provoked a strong "i don't like this at all" reaction in me sorry it's very not my thing

tracey brakes - orphan source: 7 this kind of "bedroom" hyperpop (or is it digicore i still don't get what exactly that is) can be extremely hit or miss for me but happy to say i'd call this a hit overall, the lyrics are kind of gross with the body horror vibes but i'm going to ignore that and enjoy the shimmery synths and clangy drums

Twenty One Pilots - Next Semester: 5 idk i don't like this band at all but this is fine i'm not mad about it i hope mr. pilots got therapy for this event and healed and so on. even if i loathe the trope of lyrics like "maybe this year you'll have a really good year, too bad last year was such a bad year" and having bittersweet reflections on the year you had; i call this kind of song "yearcore", my own invention feel free to use it

Tyla - Shake Ah: 9 if anyone cares i have been able to determine this song is in zulu see i clocked it was bantu i am so wise. do i know what it means well no but it's a slapper. update there is an english translation online not too hard to find anyway sick ditty

BONUS TRACKS:

Phil Geraldi - Oklahoma After Dark: 3 sorry i find this kind of pretty but also boring and i have a lot of patience for long instrumental pieces; at age 14 i forced myself to listen to two hour experimental jazz fusion albums and i enjoyed them. once i even listened to all of that 5 hour ambient track by yeule and thought it wasn't bad. but this wasn't a hit for me

Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso: 10 look it's such a meme what do you want me to say but also it's unironically a jam so good bit well played. hi lomo

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