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.
― scottpl, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:23 (1 month ago) Permalink
response to Nick of course.
― scottpl, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:24 (1 month ago) Permalink
also I keep saying "lostatsea" and mean "atease"
― scottpl, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:27 (1 month ago) Permalink
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"
― fleetwood (max), Friday, 2 October 2009 14:27 (1 month ago) Permalink
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.
― a misunderstanding of Hip-Hop and contracts (HI DERE), Friday, 2 October 2009 14:28 (1 month ago) Permalink
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
― lex pretend, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:29 (1 month ago) Permalink
― 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.
― history mayne, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:29 (1 month ago) Permalink
can't believe Pitchfork made Al Gore's record #1
― Mr. Que, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:36 (1 month ago) Permalink
"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
― 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.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 14:39 (1 month ago) Permalink
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).
― Mordy, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:40 (1 month ago) Permalink
I think the Kid A/2000-2002 lean in the top 10 has something to do with the fact that Pitchfork ca. 2000-2004 seemed to be a cerebral, indie-centric, avant-friendly version of the emerging '00s canon. And post-Arcade Fire pfork started trying to write their OWN canon, positioning themselves as leaders, not followers.
2000-2004 records like Kid A not only has the weight of the entire Pfork staff, but their collective memories of every early print outlet claiming it was the awesome next step of music. Everything after 2004 suffers from the "my ears are as good as anyones" spirit the internet fostered, and is basically a list of records that staffers would like to THINK are important but maybe secretly know they're not. This is why they can't FULLY put their weight behind obvious piffle like The Knife and why the list misses shit like American Idiot and System Of A Down and My Chemical Romance and 50 Cent and Bob Dylan.
If Pfork still had the same goals and mindset at the beginning of the decade that they do now, they would have never fallen for shit like the Strokes.
Not saying one way is better than the other, but i think it says a little something about why the older records on this list seem to "hold up" more. The early records are a little more universally indie and the later records are more Pitchfork(TM)
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:47 (1 month ago) Permalink
Not that either of those ways of thinking are a bad thing. And I don't think one is preferable to the other.
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:49 (1 month ago) Permalink
Second post will fit in a tweet = all bases covered!
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:50 (1 month ago) Permalink
i wish the lists etc which contain music i'm interested in would get so much attention
which lists are these?
― modescalator (blueski), Friday, 2 October 2009 14:50 (1 month ago) Permalink
pfork and indie rock both did a lot of, uh, growing in the 00s and the list is evidence of how it played out.
if everyone has more choices, we start to miss out on "moment" records (even admittedly nichey moment records) like Kid A or Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Blueprint.
Whether those are good records or bad records is besides the point
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:51 (1 month ago) Permalink
OTM, and why I suggested Funeral may have been picked for #1.
― sofatruck, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:52 (1 month ago) Permalink
The Strokes = rather basic strumming retro rock-pop joke band with whiney vocals hyped by the NME aimed at gormless simpleton sheeplike students
― djmartian, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:54 (1 month ago) Permalink
i don't remember singing for the strokes, djmartian
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 14:55 (1 month ago) Permalink
I don't know that that's true, Whiney. I'm not surprised not to see Idiot, SOAD, MCR or 50 because they seem so antithetically opposed to the PFork aesthetic. This is less true of The Knife and Kid A. And the music from the early part of the 90s has had more time to settle into a durable canon, while the last few years are still up for grabs. Time hasn't yet separated the durable goods from the momentary distractions. Suspect that in 10 years time, a revised P-Fork "Best of the 00s" would seem more uniform.
Not discounting your basic observation, which may be true. It might also be that the early 00s were the peak of confluence between mainstream and indie tastes. Dunno...
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:00 (1 month ago) Permalink
Yes, and that was important. But from that, nobody would claim that "Al Gore was the key technological innovator of our times" or something similarly silly. Claiming that "took the initiative in creating the internet" (i.e. what he literally said) is also a pretty ludicrous stretch (although I guess it's forgivable in the context of building yourself to make a run at the White House).
Radiohead made an album that was an original and daring step for a rock band to take, and there are some good ideas there, but nothing so inventive to make me say "album of the decade, cultural touchstone of our times, etc." It's all about the superlatives.
This leads into your second point ... I might prefer Autechre to "Idioteque", but that's not the point. If even some of the band's biggest defenders (I'm not pointing the finger at you here, so let's use Mark R's blurb as the scapegoat for argument's sake) won't claim that certain derivative elements of "Kid A" aren't among the best of their kind ever recorded, then what exactly makes it the best album of the 00's? It becomes that only once it is assigned a certain cultural significance long after the fact (thanks, in part, to things like this list).
Now I'm treading on some of the points that Nick has been making, but I pretty much agree with everything he's said here.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:01 (1 month ago) Permalink
If even some of the band's biggest defenders (I'm not pointing the finger at you here, so let's use Mark R's blurb as the scapegoat for argument's sake) won't claim that certain derivative elements of "Kid A" aren't among the best of their kind ever recorded, then what exactly makes it the best album of the 00's?
Being well-liked. And I think that many of the band's defenders WILL claim that certain elements of Kid A are among the best of their kind ever recorded. I certainly will, and I'm more a fence-sitter than a fan. Nothing makes anything the "best album of the 00s", but I'm not at all surprised that lots of folks rank it high among their favorite albums of the decade.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:04 (1 month ago) Permalink
Pitchfork ca. 2000-2004 seemed to be a cerebral, indie-centric, avant-friendly version of the emerging '00s canon. And post-Arcade Fire pfork started trying to write their OWN canon, positioning themselves as leaders, not followers.
[...] Everything after 2004 suffers from the "my ears are as good as anyones" spirit the internet fostered
waht? that isn't an internet spirit, it's the fundamental critical spirit. who's lead shouldd pdork be following?
it's depressing if the knife elpee really is one of the best 100 records of the decade. i haven't heard enough to say, but the knife are pretty mediocre.
― history mayne, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:05 (1 month ago) Permalink
why are there posts about al gore in this thread
― baby girl lemme snrub up on you (J0rdan S.), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:11 (1 month ago) Permalink
Whiney OTM. We had a lot of internal discussion in the office about why the consensus records happened earlier. You said "And post-Arcade Fire pfork started trying to write their OWN canon, positioning themselves as leaders, not followers." but I think more than that, around the time of Funeral *everyone* started writing their own canon, this was when the blogosphere mk. II started taking off, and I bet for a lot of the indie-centric ones it was in reaction to the response to things like Funeral-as-consensus.
I do think Funeral was a tipping point for the lack of consensus, but I also think it works both ways-- that record proved to a lot of artists that they could stay on indies, and so they did. And it's a lot harder for VW or Spoon or whomever to gain the sort of consensus today enjoyed by Stripes/Strokes a few years earlier (esp. since in the early 00s the majors were still pretty darn adept at kingmaking). Those bands "doomed" themselves to top out around "guest spot on 'SNL'" but also probably guaranteed they'd have a shot at long careers. (And with so many people with the indie, post-punk sensibilities you all are describing in creative power positions in the U.S., bands like that now can get guest spots on SNL, licensing, soundtrack work, etc.; indie rock and P4k def grew up in the 00s, Whiney is right there, but like [nabisco]'s essay pointed out "indie rock" is only part of that story.)
Not sure P4k would dismiss the Strokes these days, but I assume there was a lot more internal squabbling over VW than there was over the Strokes in 01 or so.
― scottpl, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:11 (1 month ago) Permalink
of course the internal squabbling was only because (full disclosure) an ex-pitchfork video editor is a cousin of one of the vampire weekend members!
― baby girl lemme snrub up on you (J0rdan S.), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:14 (1 month ago) Permalink
That's all valid, and almost certainly true, but it attaches all importance to the people evaluating the moment and their means of evaluation, and none to the moment itself.
It may also be that big, unifying, moment-creating records have simply been thinner on the ground in the last few years than they were in the early 00s -- in the indieverse, anyway. Stankonia, Discovery, Kid A, Funeral & YHF vs. Silent Shout, MPP and Fleet Foxes. Of course, you can't separate art from the perception of art, but I don't think that perception is the whole game, either.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:20 (1 month ago) Permalink
last one re: scott and whiney
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:21 (1 month ago) Permalink
The idea that critical perception is what makes art relevant is a form of myopia that critics are particularly prone to.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:22 (1 month ago) Permalink
totally
― Mr. Que, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:22 (1 month ago) Permalink
not really sure how to do a list any other way.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:23 (1 month ago) Permalink
not one that encompasses an entire decade at any rate
I'm pretty sure PFM follows P&J, RS, the defunct Stylus, and almost every publication I can think of in ranking albums according to how many mentions they get on ballots (with some subtle massaging), so I'm not sure what all the fuss here is. Of course Kid A topped the list. I'm sure it would top Stylus' list if we were still around.
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:23 (1 month ago) Permalink
Art is not art until it is written about furiously.
― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:24 (1 month ago) Permalink
this thread is ABOUT critical perception, though, contenderizer. i don't think anyone is saying Arcade Fire is an "important" band with a straight face.
Besides, there's not gonna BE those records, contenderizer, if the system is not set up to support them
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:24 (1 month ago) Permalink
Soto, no one's been talking about that for like 100 posts
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:25 (1 month ago) Permalink
Yes, in a veiled way we still are ("consensus," "importance," and so on).
More interested in whether the music is "important" than u like it. TOo many people.
― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:29 (1 month ago) Permalink
it's depressing if the knife elpee really is one of the best 100 records of the decade. i haven't heard enough to say, but the knife are pretty mediocre
not as depressing as this bs
― modescalator (blueski), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:34 (1 month ago) Permalink
Besides, there's not gonna BE those records, contenderizer, if the system is not set up to support them― Whiney G. Weingarten
― Whiney G. Weingarten
I see yr point, and I agree, but I don't know that it's necessarily the best explanation for the what we see going on in the list. I think the crux may have more to do with the records released in the last few years than with the mechanisms that greet and process them. After all, MPP and Person Pitch were received much like the event records of old (by which I mean the event records of more than a few years ago). And Vampire Weekend and The Strokes produced similar records to similar effect, bookending the decade. It seems looking back that the late 90s and early 00s were a particularly fruitful time in terms of commercially successful, boundary-breaking crossover between electronic, indie, and mainstream rock tastes, and that this has been somewhat (slightly) less true of the last 4 or 5 years.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:37 (1 month ago) Permalink
blueski OTM about Silent Shout. I'll take that over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (or American Idiot) any day of the week.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:38 (1 month ago) Permalink
good thing we'll have the inevitable ilx list to set everyone straight...
― extremely demanding on the hardware (ciderpress), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:39 (1 month ago) Permalink
u only like the knife b/c it's the same vox organ from "girls just wanna have fun"
― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:41 (1 month ago) Permalink
After all, MPP and Person Pitch were received much like the event records of old
If you think Spin and Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly and older critics were pissing their pants over Person Pitch like they were for Kid A, then
― Whiney G. Weingarten, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:42 (1 month ago) Permalink
hotly anticipating the ILX list xposts
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:43 (1 month ago) Permalink
Re Whiney:
Can't watch that at work, but again, there was a time in the early 00s when a whole bunch of streams were intermixed, and this doesn't boil down so easily to the cart/horse relationship of internet tastemakers to trends in pop music. I'm starting (ha) to sound like a broken record, but I think that the likes of Kid A, Discovery, Illinois, YHF, Elephant, Stankonia, Soft Bulletin, Blueprint (etc.) were intrinsically better able to speak to and unify wide swaths of the indie music buying/listening/blogging public than most of what's been released in the last few years -- and also to cross boundaries between indie folx and other audiences. I think this would be true whether not the game had changed (and I'm not convinced about the extent to which it has).
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:52 (1 month ago) Permalink
y'all duckin J0rdan's q
― a full circle lol (J0hn D.), Friday, 2 October 2009 15:55 (1 month ago) Permalink
― Mr. Que, Friday, October 2, 2009 2:36 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Mr. Que, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:55 (1 month ago) Permalink
I'm not too crazy about the lists, but [nabisco]'s "Decade in Indie" essay is fabulous.
― o. nate, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:57 (1 month ago) Permalink
waiting for the "Decade in Lists" essay
― tylerw, Friday, 2 October 2009 15:59 (1 month ago) Permalink