The Pitchfork People's List - top albums 1996-2012

eg truthiness, something Dog Latin is real good at

delete ilx

This sense of being hard to self-define is in part the same impulse that motivates dog latin to say he doesn't consciously consider himself to be a straight white male.
i.e. when your sub-culture considers itself to be "culture" (or alternatively "counter-culture") in general, it starts to lose its sense of specificity.

― Tim F, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 4:56 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^Truth Bomb, IMO

― my god it's full of straw (White Chocolate Cheesecake), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 14:19 (47 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's a key lesson that people need to learn from this debate. Culture and society do a spectacularly good job of making the arbitrary and enforced appear to be absolutely natural and normal. It's myth-making.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 14:42 (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cool cool, I completely understand this. I even alluded to this (the privilege of being able to consider myself in this way) when I originally said I don't generally go around defining myself in terms of gender or race. I'd prefer it if people stopped chewing my leg over it as it's greatly upsetting, as someone who is actively against racism and sexism, to be accused of prejudice when maybe I just don't understand a deeper issue, or wish to present examples in order to understand them better. Thanks.

i.e. when your sub-culture considers itself to be "culture" (or alternatively "counter-culture") in general, it starts to lose its sense of specificity.

The problem I have with this claim re:pitchfork is where is that drive toward universality actually coming from? The readers? The staff? As a response to criticism? Pitchfork could easily strengthen its sense of specificity by stopping coverage of chart pop, hip hop, dance music, metal, and any other genre that already gets extensive coverage and attention elsewhere. But that would go against everything people are asking for wouldn't it?

I'd prefer it if people stopped chewing my leg over it as it's greatly upsetting, as someone who is actively against racism and sexism, to be accused of prejudice when maybe I just don't understand a deeper issue

You're never going to get better at understanding a deeper issue if no one's allowed to point out when your perspective is coming from a place of unconscious racism/sexism. If you want to be "actively against" those things then you have to be committed to letting people call you out when you're wrong. And there are worse things in the world than being called out on racism and sexism. Such as being on the receiving end of racism and sexism, no matter how much it may be the result of "misunderstanding".

xposts above.

don't blame pitchfork.

start your own every-but-pitchfork site, and cover all the music you think should be covered.

just don't complain when you don't take over the world doing it.

top selling US artists of 2011:

1. Adele 6,744,000
2. Justin Bieber 3,393,000
3. Michael Buble 2,985,000
4. Lady Gaga 2,828,000
5. Lil' Wayne 2,651,000
6. Lady Antebellum 2,180,000
7. Glee Cast 2,104,000
8. Jason Aldean 1,884,000
9. Taylor Swift 1,847,000
10. Drake 1,591,000

Read more: Top 10 Selling Musical Artists, 2011 — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/entertainment/music/top-ten-musical-artists-2011.html#ixzz24BxlNQBW

Perhaps avoiding terms like "best", "definitive" and "classic" in general, and particularly when it comes to canon-building lists

I don't read Pitchfork much at all but why is it worse for Pitchfork to do this than for e.g. The Wire to do this?

You're never going to get better at understanding a deeper issue if no one's allowed to point out when your perspective is coming from a place of unconscious racism/sexism. If you want to be "actively against" those things then you have to be committed to letting people call you out when you're wrong. And there are worse things in the world than being called out on racism and sexism. Such as being on the receiving end of racism and sexism, no matter how much it may be the result of "misunderstanding".

― Melissa W, Tuesday, 21 August 2012 15:40 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I fail to see how this is wrong: "Despite being one, I don't necessarily identify myself on a day-to-day basis as a "straight white male". You could say that's because I see myself as a cultural 'norm' and therefore don't have to, which I understand" - isn't that exactly what everyone's been telling me anyway?

I'm semi-regularly petrified that I've offended WCC inadvertently by saying something laden with truthiness or suchlike. And it's a horrible feeling being called out like that, like being told off when you're a kid for something you didn't quite realise was wrong until its pointed out. But I'm glad that WCC does it, because it makes me think, and reevaluate, and hopefully not do it again.

xps Commercially, female artists seem to be doing ok (though I guess there's a question about how the money for pop albums splits across artists/producers/writers etc.). I think the debate here is more about bias in the critical ecosystem and maybe also listener/industry/critical bias in certain genres.

(Cool thread, though it's pretty hard to keep up)

so fucked that a #1 artist is selling roughly twice as many as a #2 artist. also RIP bands (because with that dwindles the prospect of there being more successful bands or more-than-one acts that aren't all or mostly SWM).

Man, I wish I was half as terrifying as you lads seems to think I am!

(Then maybe the boss's son would listen to me at work and not make the stupid cockups he does.)

I don't read Pitchfork much at all but why is it worse for Pitchfork to do this than for e.g. The Wire to do this?

It's not necessarily worse but the impact is probably more significant given the scale of Pitchfork's influence on critical discourse and the fuzzy boundary of its area of professed expertise.

Lists called "The Most Important Album Covers Of The Last Three Years" are extremely grating, but surely this is a necessary evil of headline journalism - I especially hate seeing it on the cover of the NME - so self important. Maybe it would be more productive for me to think of Pitchfork as a US analogue of the NME, a publication which is infinitely more myopic in its music coverage.

I'm semi-regularly petrified that I've offended WCC inadvertently by saying something laden with truthiness or suchlike. And it's a horrible feeling being called out like that, like being told off when you're a kid for something you didn't quite realise was wrong until its pointed out. But I'm glad that WCC does it, because it makes me think, and reevaluate, and hopefully not do it again.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 21 August 2012 15:51 (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This ^ I'll be the first to admit a lot of my posts can come across as naive or misguided, and I appreciate being explained what is wrong about them. But there is a difference between this and being on the receiving end of a hellfire sermon about what a terrible human being I apparently am. It's not about "Aw you hurt my feewings" (although it does hurt), it's that shouting at someone and accusing them of being a typical example of an oppressive cultural hegemony is hugely counter-productive and not an effective way to get a POV across. I've been on this board a very long time and yet I don't know anything more about you guys than you do about me. I hope something people do know though is that I'm not here to fight or troll and yeah, I'll play devil's advocate a fair bit and ask some dumb questions, maybe use hypothetical examples more than I ought to for the sake of argument. But this kind of debate is difficult enough for someone such as myself to participate in as I am A: perhaps not as au fait with the intricacies of the wider debate as I'd like to be, and B: a SWM myself and therefore a very easy critical target. Being chased away from such a debate - a debate which I realise involves issues that people feel extremely strongly about - and told "You deserve everything you get as yours is the stereotypical opinion of the oppressor" isn't miles away from WCC's experience of being chased away from genre scenes "You're a girl, you wouldn't understand" etc... Hope this makes at least some sense. It's not my intention to hurt people's feelings or agitate sore spots.

Please. Stop. Projecting.

The closest anyone has come on this thread, at all, to giving anyone a "hellfire sermon" was me joking - hey, maybe it didn't come across as a joke - that you had said women don't do anger, and I made a joke that that comment made me so angry I wanted my browser to assault you. I apologise if you did not read that as the humourous irony it was intended.

But apart from that, you are projecting something that no one on this thread has been doing.

You have said some pretty dumb things ITT. And people have been *astonishingly* gentle with you. But, you know, casting yourself as some kind of victim here is the kind of thing that really gets people's backs up. Stop being so defensive and read what people have actually said, and you might learn something.

I'm sorry you feel so persecuted for being a white man. :( The sheer nerve of some people to react to hurtful things you said when you didn't intend for them to be hurtful! x-post

Also, drawing straight comparisons between "omg, women are being contemptuous of my opinions in this thread!" and "men in this forum are detailing their graphic rape fantasies about me every time I post" is really quite seriously jaw-dropping.

I kind of want to re-engage with this thread but just to talk about how much I love the albums I put on my list

also to mope that I didn't remember to put Barking on it

You put at least one Lamb record on your list DJP so all is forgiven.

DJP please make a Spotify list of your nominations?

(I made a YouTube playlist of my top 5 for a date earlier this week when they hadn't heard anything I was waxing excited about.)

I have THREE Lamb albums on my list! Love them to bits

I decided to only go with one album per artist, or I'd have had more than one. Of course, I went with one (What Sound you didn't choose!

Pitchfork could easily strengthen its sense of specificity by stopping coverage of chart pop, hip hop, dance music, metal, and any other genre that already gets extensive coverage and attention elsewhere. But that would go against everything people are asking for wouldn't it?

― wk, Tuesday, August 21, 2012 7:37 AM (1 hour ago)

afaic, pitchfork has the right to cover whatever they want. the more the better. i'd just like to see critics and critical organs be straightforward about where they're coming from & who they are. for pitchfork, it'd be nice to have links from individual reviews to critic bios, photos (maybe, if people wanted to be seen?) and lists of their other writings on the site. plus maybe a bit more upfront honesty about the fact that pitchfork is still basically an indie site and the ways in which that orientation frames their overall editorial/critical philosophy. i don't think the wire is at all reticent about the fact that they're primarily interested in experimental & avant-garde stuff. like the pitchfork of old, the specificity of their interest is what makes the wire distinct and useful.

fwiw, dog latin, i think you're doing fine here. you've said some stuff i disagree with, but you seem overall to have been open-minded and to have engaged with the debate in a fair and honest fashion. that's all that can reasonably be asked of anyone, afaic. of course, i can't speak to whatever offense you may have given anyone else...

i agree

Aw, it's so cute, you guys giving him manpointz when he so clearly wanted the Feminist Cookie.

WCC is seriously one of the best posters on ILX right now.

"We, the white men, were so totally not ~offended~!"

Because news flash: no one on this thread was ever actually offended. Dude said some bullshit, some people with actual experience took the time to correct those fallacies and now he's crying victim coz he done got told. Yay, white men! Let's go make some lists!

http://open.spotify.com/user/djperry1973/playlist/43Zk2ca6q9IBEFPoIDV8xm

Here's my ballot as a Spotify playlist. There are some weird omissions due to some things not being online in the US, like the Prodigy singles comp, Music Has A Right To Children, the Moloko albums and the first two Basement Jaxx albums, and things that just wouldn't be on Spotify like my brother's hip-hop group's album from 2003.

incredibly ironic xpost

gonna go and play my ballot on shuffle now, it's enough music for three days

I think it's a (nice, liberal, open-minded) SWM instinct, when confronted with their SWMness by people who feel victimised by the dominance of SWMs and SWM culture, to go "hey, I feel victimised too; we're kind of alike!" which I can understand, and probably do myself (in fact I absolutely know I do, at least emotionally, but I'm trying to CBT it out of myself almost), but which, when you stand back and think about it, is actually almost like the epitome of SWM privilege: it's a privilege of SWMs not to think of themselves as SWMs, but rather to think of themselves as "normal", which, even if you're not assuming or insinuating that everyone else is "abnormal", is probably going to make them infer that you are.

Fwiw I don't thing you've been out of order on this thread, DL, a little gauche at points for sure, and I don't think you've been victimised at all either. Take a breath, and keep on.

maybe a bit more upfront honesty about the fact that pitchfork is still basically an indie site and the ways in which that orientation frames their overall editorial/critical philosophy

how much more upfront can PF be? If you visit the site, its orientation is obvious.

WCC is seriously one of the best posters on ILX right now

nicks on fire today with otmness

Somehow I must have missed Third when I was making my list. Such a huge omission.

I didn't make a list. So no such problems here. Would be too hard to decide plus I'd just get called a rockist or something.

Any of my top ten could have been my #1 album on any given day, except for when I REALLY started asking myself "how does this album compare to the others?" and shuffling them around, they ended up in this order with Third clearly on top. (Join The Dots is clearly cheating but I don't care, and prior to 2007 In Sides would have easily been my #1; in fact, I had to wrestle with whether to put that or New Amerykah 1 in at #3, probably the hardest decision I made in the list)

sad that I missed Barking and that the M.I.A. and Santigold mixtapes ended up sliding off the bottom along with Spiritualized

If you look at the Wikipedia page for truthiness it actually mentions the phrase 'dog latin' (not the person obv)

how much more upfront can PF be? If you visit the site, its orientation is obvious.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 21, 2012 9:57 AM (2 minutes ago)

yes and no. pitchfork doesn't deny anything, but nor does it clarify much. what is "indie" exactly? what does it mean to pitchfork that it's associated with this music? what is its place in the world? what are it's limitations (i.e., what isn't it)? most music publications wrestle with these sorts of identity-defining questions every once in a while.

i see pitchfork as being an "indie site" in much the same way that the rolling stone of the 80s and 90s was a "rock magazine" - as though "indie" were an infinitely extensible and plastic umbrella under which the whole world could be organized and evaluated. open-minded, explorative curiosity is always a good thing, but i have real problems with the pervasive dominance of one specific and fairly narrow critical viewpoint - again as negatively exemplified in those 70s/80s "acclaimed music" lists we were polling a while back.

i personally feel that the overwhelming ubiquity of these crushingly homogeneous (and unsurprisingly white-guy centric) views is, at least in part, the product of niche specificity passing itself off as universally knowledgeable generalism. it's the hyper-empowered will-to-canon that bothers me. you can see it being written in the here and now, the prime placement that will be granted artists like neutral milk hotel, the strokes, the black keys, LCD soundsystem, spoon and the arcade fire in a thousand "acclaimed music" lists yet to be.

looking at the top 20 2010 pazz and jop album finishers, i see 13 indie acts (including some crossover stuff), intermixed with a few "standout" rap and electronic sort-of-dance-pop albums of precisely the sort that pitchfork champions. and one country record. 15 of the 20 were made primarily by men. it's fine, people are gonna like whatever they want to like, but doesn't the constant critical celebration of this one rather narrow band of pop become rather stultifying after a while?

speaking of things that become rather stultifying after a while

^ the strongest possible counter to this that i can think of is the argument that the people who most want to read and hear music reviews are primarily attracted to what i'll loosely call "pitchfork music": ostensibly intelligent and forward-thinking pop that reflect's a certain culture's tastes and values. and the people who most want to write music criticism share the same basic bent. so there's nothing at all surprising about the fact that the tastes of this one rather narrow cultural group so completely dominate pop criticism as a whole.

i'd probably accept that argument, but no one's really making it.

speaking of things that become rather stultifying after a while

― Jandek at the Disco (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 21, 2012 10:52 AM

okay, i'll quit. i get caught up in these discussions and keep going as long as others seem interested (or engaged, anyway), but i should know by now that a little goes a long way.

a little late to the game. didn't see this thread until now.
unfortunately forgot to add the mollusk before the end date but other than that I stand by this list

http://peopleslist.pitchfork.com/list/7d38e3d1/

had a brief moment of panic where i thought "adding the mollusk" was some special thing i was supposed to do in order to officially submit my ballot that i didn't know about

adding the mollusk is still illegal in 38 states iirc

lol naw, i completely forgot about it until now. the ween album.