Pitchfork's P2k: The Decade in Music

COME ON UP FOR THE RISING!

Mark R, if you are still around these parts, your Kid A blurb is fucking excellent

at least with NME it seems less predictable which bag of shite they'll put at #1 now (btw i like Kid A but whatever)...probably Arctic Monkeys tho?

Southall: I hardly think we are pandering to our audience. One thing that a lot of you all, those of you who have been watching P4k very closely all decade and who spend som much time discussing music on the internet forget, is that you guys are the tip of the audience iceberg. How many people regularly congregate here, or at SOMB or lostatsea or Metacritic or HPN or DIS or whatever forums? I mean regularly: A few thousand? At the absolute most 10,000? OK, maybe the site doesn't surprise those people-- how could it at this point without being untruthful in some ways? Meanwhile, more than 2 million computers logged onto P4k over each of the past two months. We obliterated our pageview record last month, a record that was set the month before. I don't bring that up to be a dick but to point out that the vast, vast majority of the people coming to the site have never head *of* many of the records in our top 200, let alone heard them. It's still a difficult, eclectic, weird, nonmainstream selection of music to most people; once Stereogum posts something today, those comments will be about how pretentious and phony it is precisely because some of it is eclectic and weird to them. And I suspect those individuals are also readers who are more in tune to a larger amount of music than the "average" reader. (sorry to be reductive, obv not everyone fits in neat little categories like this.)

At first I was little bummed that all of those online forums, from what I saw, could rather easily nail down our top 20; but actually I think it's some sort of compliment. We've created a little part of the Internet in which records by the Knife, Avalanches, Panda Bear, Spoon, Ghostface, are to people "obvious" top 20 of the decade material. And yet they won't be anywhere else I imagine (the Knife will be with Sweden's Sonic Magazine, but nowhere else in the US/UK). I don't know what that means, but at the very least it means people pay very close attention to what we do. Including Nick, I guess, you.

Mark R, if you are still around these parts, your Kid A blurb is fucking excellent

He hits at exactly what I hate about "Kid A" -- other bands made catchier/dancier/more creative/etc. music, but "Kid A" "captured the complex feeling of the era", ergo, it wins. That's just projecting a load of social significance onto the album, which has nothing to do with the quality of the music itself.

I mean, if we're going to talk about e.g. the "gorgeous Brian Eno-like interlude of 'Treefingers'", then if this is the album of the decade then we should be talking about one of the greatest ambient pieces ever recorded. But it's not, and I don't think many people would claim that it is. How did the "drones and the hissy beats in 'Idioteque'" manage to capture the times any better than Autechre did with exactly the same drones and hissy beats recorded seven years earlier?

I mean, if we're going to talk about e.g. the "gorgeous Brian Eno-like interlude of 'Treefingers'", then if this is the album of the decade then we should be talking about one of the greatest ambient pieces ever recorded. But it's not, and I don't think many people would claim that it is. How did the "drones and the hissy beats in 'Idioteque'" manage to capture the times any better than Autechre did with exactly the same drones and hissy beats recorded seven years earlier?

OTM

Because Radiohead took those Autechre beats, married them to some much more accessible pop sensibilities and exposed them to a much wider audience right at the same time that mainstream America was figuring out how to use the Internet as a research tool and a source for music files.

This shouldn't be rocket science but it's NEVER just the music that makes a particular album great or memorable to a large number of people; it also has to occur at the right time and the right place. That is precisely what happened to Kid A. Is it highly derivative of a bunch of stuff I'd already heard? Yes. Had the vast majority of music critics, let alone the audience Radiohead had built off of their first three albums, heard and, more importantly, understood where that music was coming from and the emotional power it can have? No. Do I begrudge Radiohead for combining their cult of personality with someone else's musical ideas to make an album that basically checks off every box on a music critic's "best album of the decade" list? No, because I think it also happens to be a good album.

tl;dr version: lighten up and enjoy music more

the top 20 works pretty well as an artifact of the decade in indie sensibility, which is probably as it should be.

also how far do you want to go - a c major chord was first played in 10000 bc on a mammoth bone piano, how does Radiohead capture any better etc etc

Personally, I think Kid A works as a coherent album and reflects its times better than anything by Autechre or Eno.

xp to Notimebeforetime

This shouldn't be rocket science but it's NEVER just the music that makes a particular album great or memorable to a large number of people; it also has to occur at the right time and the right place.

Well duh, I never claimed otherwise. There's nothing wrong with being derivative (most music is). But if you're calling something the album of the decade, and the music is derivative, then it had better be the *best* derivative music that the genre has ever heard, or close to it.

Whether Radiohead's fans knew and understood that "Idioteque" is Autechre's "Anvil Vapre" with vocals is besides the point, it's not my fault that they weren't paying attention at the time (critics have less of an excuse). But as "Decade Defining Ideas" go, "Anvil Vapre" with vocals is hardly mind-blowing and deserving of these sorts of accolades.

tl;dr version: there's a reason everybody laughed at Al Gore when he said he invented the internet

Plus, it's fucking bullshit to boil Kid A down to ripping of someone else's old ideas/beats/soundscaping and nailing them an "accessible pop sensibility". I was listening to Autechre & Aphex at the time (I suspect most ilxors were), and I didn't pull my hair out when Kid A got all the credit. Kid A combines a distinct vision of the human present, articulated to some extent on OK Computer, with a soundscape that makes it emotionally accessible, resonant, meaningful. Undeniable, even. And I don't think that anybody was doing precisely this, or doing it anywhere near as well, prior to Kid A.

It's not bullshit, on the other hand, to talk about how Kid A "captured the complex feeling of the era". The record isn't just "music", a bunch of organized noise. It's a statement about living and feeling in a particular place and time. It has a point of view, abstractly aesthetic and more immediately personal. That it spoke to so many people does suggest that the record captured something about its era. Or maybe it's the other way round: in presenting such a compelling vision of technological dehumanization, maybe it invented its era.

and I don't even like it that much

That it spoke to so many people does suggest that the record captured something about its era. Or maybe it's the other way round: in presenting such a compelling vision of technological dehumanization, maybe it invented its era.

I don't disagree with your first statement. It's the second statement that I take issue with, I think that it plays a not-insignificant part in enhancing the album's mystique.

You're right, Scott, that ILM is a very... I was going to say "sophisticated" but let's say "aware", slice of demographic when its comes to nonmainstream music, and yes, PFM's audience does extend massively beyond that kind of informed milieu, out into huge realms of casual audience, which is an awesome achievement. And I think PFM deals with its large audience in a much better way than many other publications of similar (or even quite a lot smaller) size manage to do in terms of not treating people like idiots. I don't pay "very close attention" to what PFM does, though, or what any music publication does actually; my interest is piqued pretty much only by big ticket events like this list. About which my main problem is purely the crushing inevitability of the album that won. I think it's terrific that, as you say, there's a corner of the internet (or do we, in 2009, mean 'world' now, given how much of the world has the internet?) that can assume Silent Shout to be a top 20 album of the decade. I don't like that album especially, but you're right; it's not gonna end up in many other comparable lists.

My problem is with Kid A's inexorable position at the summit. It's been the winner of this poll since way before the poll was taken, and, like NoTimeBefore above, I just don't think it deserves it, on either musical worth or cultural impact. And now there's a huge wide audience of PFM readers, the kids who aren't familiar with things in the way that the little enclaves like ILM are, who are going to buy the talk about Kid A's significance wholesale. I don't think it has the cultural impact outside of a very small demographic; I think the cultural impact of it exists because it's been willed into existence, by things like this list. Subjective experiences writ large, writ authoritative, and becoming shared history when they really weren't. It's not even the "Autechre / Eno / Primal Scream / whoever did it better first" thing; that's pretty irrelevant. Music journalists certainly SHOULD have known about Aphex Twin, but again, no matter. It's the "reflection of its times" thing I think is bollocks. History isn't written by the winners, it's won by the writers. If you say something often enough and loud enough, people accept it as truth.

tl;dr version: there's a reason everybody laughed at Al Gore when he said he invented the internet

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp

You would have a more credible argument if its summation wasn't an urban legend. Also, claiming "Idioteque" is "'Anvil Vapre' with vocals" shows that you actually don't listen to music very closely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Zd8xPUQs8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AazG7yMTfFg

One is icy precision with iced-out melodic sine waves and vocals layered over it, the other is muddled up with distorted rumbles and pizzicato synth stings and multiple overlaid drum loops that build a much more complicated syncopated pattern that segues into sound effects; you would think someone waving the "IDM DID IT FIRST" flag as hard as you are would have noticed that.

It's a statement about living and feeling in a particular place and time. It has a point of view, abstractly aesthetic and more immediately personal. That it spoke to so many people does suggest that the record captured something about its era. Or maybe it's the other way round: in presenting such a compelling vision of technological dehumanization, maybe it invented its era.

can be applied to 'Discovery' just as much

Can be applied to ANY ALBUM that people apply it to, whether it's actually 'deserving' or relevant to that statement or not.

contenderizer viciously otm.

you know what is bullshit, btw? ian cohen's arcade fire blurb.

That it spoke to so many people does suggest that the record captured something about its era

can be applied to any album that sold more than kid a (ie quite a lot of albums)

I would not have been surprised by any of the top 3 albums being #1 and I don't like Arcade Fire and think that Daft Punk album is wildly overrated; that doesn't change the fact that they meant a lot to a lot of people who both write for Pitchfork and are in their audience. Kid A only really feels inevitable because it's Pitchfork's list.

btw i basically agree w/nick but don't care enough to argue - i just wish people would stop acting like soul, hip-hop and r&b lists are "niche" while this one isn't

re. the list being niche: the Sigur Ros write-up handled this nicely, I thought: "Punk had taught us to be skeptical of pure, unapologetic prettiness, so as underground music fans, we'd been conditioned to reject this sort of thing." P4k's "us" consists of underground music fans with a shared ethic learned from punk. So naturally its list is niche, and that's its niche, evidently.

It's not even that soul, hip-hop, r'n'b etc are "niche"; it's the idea that only Kid A / Funeral is "culturally significant" in terms of saying something about the way we live now. I guess in that respect, Discovery also being in that list is a fucking great big step forwards, even though I, like Dan, think it's overrated.

If the internet's taught us ANYTHING, surely it's that "the way we live now" is SO DISPARATE, so fragmented, so "special interest", that the kinds of records that are "culturally significant" don't exist anymore. And maybe Kid A is the last one that people feel they can hang that hat on.

Maybe that's also why dull-as-fuck comfort-blanket albums like that Bon Iver tossbag got so high.

P4k's "us" consists of underground music fans with a shared ethic learned from punk. So naturally its list is niche, and that's its niche, evidently

i find this sad - i love a ton of underground music, i love experimentation and harshness and discordance when it's done well, but to reject softness and prettiness and femininity and populism just seems...dumb. and that's the ethic this list, which a ton of people are taking their cultural cues from, is built on?

Thinking Guitar Hero and Rock Band are more "culturally significant" than any album of the last decade.

a prog perspective of the 00s

Top 250 albums of the 00s on progarchives.com with at least 5 ratings
http://bit.ly/12FlPZ

kid A 170 on this list

the number 1 albums of the 00s is a 2009 album (and it's NOT Animal Collective)

You're right, Scott, that ILM is a very... I was going to say "sophisticated" but let's say "aware", slice of demographic when its comes to nonmainstream music,

"Myopic" works too. Scott pretty much OTM

If the internet's taught us ANYTHING, surely it's that "the way we live now" is SO DISPARATE, so fragmented, so "special interest", that the kinds of records that are "culturally significant" don't exist anymore. And maybe Kid A is the last one that people feel they can hang that hat on.

But then again, Southall OTM here

I wasn't referring to the fact that Gore was misquoted, but that he tried to heap credit on himself for playing a part in creating something that had been around for a long time previously, but hey, enjoy arguing with your strawman (I never said that "IDM DID IT FIRST" was the crux of my argument either, and thought I'd made that clear in my follow-up posts).

that was xxxxxxpost to Dan

lex, I'm with you; but I think it's important to remember what (I think) nabisco said in his article on indie: that there's tension in indie in 2009 between its punk roots and other roots/ethics (and that he hopes new ways of resolving this tension will lead to musical breakthroughs in the future).

xpost uh i think dan knew what you were trying to say re: gore?

Thinking Guitar Hero and Rock Band are more "culturally significant" than any album of the last decade.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, October 2, 2009 10:12 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

first sensible thing you've said on this thread.

I think not if he's stuck on the issue of who did what first (which was never my point), but let him respond if he feels the need.

xpost

tbh i wouldn't remotely care about this niche list if it didn't seem to have a status disproportionate to the narrowness of its niche. twitterfeed full of people talking about it, this very thread heading towards 3000 responses...i wish the lists etc which contain music i'm interested in would get so much attention.

Maybe I'm strawmanning myself, actually; I'm imagining hordes of PFM writers all sticking Kid A at number 1 in their individual lists and having shrines in their basements to it, but maybe it's that everyone put it at 10, and had totally varied choices for their top 9s, and Kid A is the last point of consensus (if so, it's a rubbish point of consensus, still). Scott, any chance that PFM would publish individual writers' lists?

I think my main fear is lots of music journalists all utterly convinced that Kid A is AS GOOD AS MUSIC EVER GETS and that everything afterwards is merely a pale shadow. Because if anyone thinks that we might as well all go home.

lol lex pls. realize i migrated to the internet to talk about things like this list because none of my irl friends give a fuck.

To fall into the trap of re-canonizing the canon was a mistake five years ago. Today, it's a reputational disaster. You are what you hype.

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, October 2, 2009 12:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badassbuddy_com-slowburner.gif

I agree and disagree. That's all totally level-headed and fair though of course, I don't begrudge you any of those reactions or hopes naturally.

We have a pretty cynical staff, they get bored with things that are popular or obvious, and yet nine years later Kid A handily won this. Joe Tangari, who writes mostly about old soul and African records voted for it very high; Philip Sherburne, who writes mostly about techno, voted for it very high; almost everyone actually voted for it, mostly very high. The consensus was overwhelming. And maybe it's a little boring but even if we were tempted to throw a curveball just to throw a curveball, I'd be damned if I could think of how to explain in a blurb why any other album won. Wilco or Arcade Fire are a joke here; the kids at lostatsea are baffled that Daft Punk is #3; Stereogum commenters will snort at Jay-Z when they get the chance; The Knife and AC are small bands, who do things that Kid A also did, who have the same appeal in some ways, but on a much smaller scale. These are artists that arguably, with our audience, got popular in a small way because of the path Radiohead helped clear for them.

And I think it's faulty to say they have no impact outside of a "very small demographic." This was a #1 album in the U.S and UK. Radiohead has culturally impacted, for the most part, everyone in the more cultish/heavy listener sphere, plus can play large outdoor venues and pull in lots of more casual music fans. If Radiohead hasn't made a cultural impact outside of a small demo, who else did? The Strokes in the UK but not here. Off the top of my head only Kanye, Jay-Z, Outkast, and Timberlake are bigger artists than Radiohead out of everyone on our list, but did they make better records? And did they impact our readership and staff more than Radiohead? (a: no; nobody did.)

I guess it's boring. But it's not boring because this list crowned it. It's boring because they are the only band in our world that almost everyone likes to a degree, that almost everyone cares about. And not to sound corny, they earned it. As I remember it, that happened slowly and organically between 1995-2002 because of their music. The writers at the time, at the end of that run, were instead baffled by Amnesiac and hyping the Strokes and Stripes while trying to get people to give a shit about the Vines.

response to Nick of course.

also I keep saying "lostatsea" and mean "atease"

tbh i wouldn't remotely care about this niche list if it didn't seem to have a status disproportionate to the narrowness of its niche. twitterfeed full of people talking about it, this very thread heading towards 3000 responses...i wish the lists etc which contain music i'm interested in would get so much attention.

― lex pretend, Friday, October 2, 2009 10:21 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dude.

twitter is "niche"

ilx is "niche"

I wasn't referring to the fact that Gore was misquoted, but that he tried to heap credit on himself for playing a part in creating something that had been around for a long time previously, but hey, enjoy arguing with your strawman (I never said that "IDM DID IT FIRST" was the crux of my argument either, and thought I'd made that clear in my follow-up posts).

Several things are wrong with this:

1. Al Gore was trying to heap credit on himself for opening legislative pathways that led to mainstreaming the Internet to the public. He sponsored two pivotal bills that linked universities and library networks and opened the Internet to commercial traffic; without either of those, the Internet as we know it would not exist.

2. If your intent was not to argue that someone else did it first and did it better, why did you frame your argument with a bunch of examples of other people doing similar things that you thought were better?

3. It's really not Radiohead's fault that they said "we want to make an album that reflects how we feel about the coming decade" and a whole bunch of people went "oh hey, we feel that way too!" You are wholly conflating artistic intention with critical reaction.

Off the top of my head only Kanye, Jay-Z, Outkast, and Timberlake are bigger artists than Radiohead out of everyone on our list, but did they make better records?

uh YES

I guess it's boring. But it's not boring because this list crowned it. It's boring because they are the only band in our world that almost everyone likes to a degree, that almost everyone cares about. And not to sound corny, they earned it. As I remember it, that happened slowly and organically between 1995-2002 because of their music. The writers at the time, at the end of that run, were instead baffled by Amnesiac and hyping the Strokes and Stripes while trying to get people to give a shit about the Vines.

― scottpl, Friday, October 2, 2009 3:23 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

... nick is UK and so's this board, kind of, and the narrative is more like: non-one hears of them till 'creep' is a US hit. 'the bends' is massive and is source of about six hit singles.

'ok computer' is one of the most anticipated records of the late 1990s, is a massive hit, and is voted best album of all time (i think) in q magazine in 1998.

then they shit the bed with some vaguely warp-sounding ish with added mewling.

ok j/k, but it wasn't a slow/organic thing between 1995-02, here at any rate.

can't believe Pitchfork made Al Gore's record #1

"Punk had taught us to be skeptical of pure, unapologetic prettiness, so as underground music fans, we'd been conditioned to reject this sort of thing." P4k's "us" consists of underground music fans with a shared ethic learned from punk. So naturally its list is niche, and that's its niche, evidently.

― Euler

OTM. That anyone would act all surprised about this amazes me. You can draw a straight line from Lester Bangs-favored late 60s/early 70s rock -- through CBGB punk and late 70s power pop -- through 80s college & 90s indie rock to get to where pitchfork is now. The group speaking ("underground"-friendly music critics, mostly white, educated & middle class) hasn't changed much, nor has the audience (same people, not making a career of it). This voice and its sphere of concerns has dominated the just-barely-sub-mainstream critical discourse on American pop for decades, and its persistence is completely predictable.

I think it was a mistake not listing Love + Theft, even considering the Pfk brand/aesthetic/etc. But outside glaring omissions like that, it's hard for me to look at this list and complain about placement (omg, Kid A shouldn't be #1, it should really be [this other album they listed somewhere]), or about choice of album (don't they know that Our Endless Numbered Days >> The Creek Drank the Cradle). I figure anything anywhere on that list that I dig is enough of a crossover with my tastes that I'm happy (especially considering OTM'ness of earlier comment that I only read online lists to somehow affirm my own taste in light of some public post -- I feel the same way about watching the OSCARS too and seeing super-famous tho not quite mainstream screenplay writer win award over hack-famous screenplay writer).