P2K: The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 20-1

voted for Discovery, with close runners-up: 2)Illinoise, 3) Silent Shout 4) Sound of Silver/ Is This It/ Since I Left You
I know Sufjan Stevens is not too popular around here, but when I hear this album now it still gets to me. Its density, the beautifual vocals/harmonies, the storytelling, the melodies, the semi-classical instrumentation all add up to something great.

I thought a lot of people here were cool with Sufjan.. I'm into it.

Voted for Discovery, it comes closest to being the 'decade's soundtrack'.

Are people honestly offended that a music website put out a Best Of list that doesn't perfectly line up with their personal tastes?

i don't feel offended or even that annoyed - the main emotion is pity w/a tinge of contempt

not particularly keen on radiohead, but kid A is easily the best thing in the list.

Nobody seemed to care nearly as much when SPIN's top 90 albums of the 90's or Rolling Stone's top 100 albums of the 80's were revealed, but the internet age gets people upset over stupid shit a lot more often and makes people think their exact opinions matter that much more.

― billstevejim, Monday, 5 October 2009 06:29 (4 hours ago) Bookmark

I'm sure they got a bunch of letters by people annoyed that Album X or Record Y didn't make it by people who had only one or two people to talk to about it. Now I can tell the whole freaking world if I'm annoyed by a list!

Not that I am, as I unashamedly love:

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Daft Punk - Discovery
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
Jay-Z - The Blueprint
The Knife - Silent Shout
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
OutKast - Stankonia
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
The Strokes - Is This It
Kanye West - Late Registration

Kind of like:
Radiohead - Kid A
Spoon - Kill the Moonlight
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

And either haven't heard or just don't like the last couple.

Lists are fun!

(Don't know what to vote. Most probably Ghostface as it has my favourite single of the decade on it.)

Always get Agaetis Byrjun confused with Agyness Deyn.

my vote goes to this amazing little album which we recently polled, but a lot of excellent albums on that list:

NeighborPolled: Arcade Fire - FUNERAL poll

10:
Daft Punk
The Avalanches
The Knife

9.5:
Jay-Z
Panda Bear

9:
Animal Collective

8.5:
Ghostface
Radiohead
Outkast

8:
The Strokes
Kanye
LCD Soundsystem

7:
The Arcade Fire
The White Stripes.

I haven't heard the rest.

I'm not offended that these lists don't "perfectly line up with my own personal tastes."

However, what I AM very much OFFENDED - no, actually - OUTRAGED about - is that half the human race just seems to be routinely totally ignored or discounted when it comes to making these "canonical lists."

That's kind of a bit different than "personal tastes".

But I've learned that complaining about this sort of thing is like pissing in the wind.

...the results of which also tend to be heavily skewed along gender lines

Kate out of interest which female artists are in your top 20 for the 00s?

I felt a bit self-conscious that I only had 3 female artists in my top 20 and 25 or so female-only artists/groups in my top 100.

I don't *have* a Top 20 for the 00s because, well, I'm not really a list-making type of person. I suppose I could come up with one if you gave me a couple of days/weeks. And even if I did so, it would be again, accounting for personal tastes.

And for the record, I don't want to only "count" all-female artists/groups. It's the total *lack* of women - I mean, there are only 3 artists in that Pitchfork list that have a woman anywhere NEAR them, even in a drumming or accordian playing role. Perhaps the 90s only looked more gender-balanced because of the cult of the female bassist in 90s indie behemoths like Sonic Youth or the Pixies.

I don't pretend this is an encompassing list at all - because it's so heavily slanted towards mine own personal tastes - but here's a list of female artists or artists with a strong female presence that I would have to consider if I were going to make a "best of 00s" for mine own use... (and this is going to be incomplete because I don't have my record collection in front of me to look at)

School of Seven Bells, Goldfrapp (either of the first two albums), Ladytron's first album, Annie, Asobi Seksu (Citrus), Bat For Lashes (Fur & Gold), Aaliyah, Ellen Allien, Natacha Atlas, Missy Elliot, Blonde Redhead, Sugababes, Britney Spears (Blackout), Je Suis Animal, The Long Blondes...

Sorry, that's what I can come up with off the top of my head as people that have released albums in the 00s that I've listened to a lot without looking at my CD collection or my proper MP3 collection, and I'm sure I'm missing out several people whose names are on the tip of my tongue.

And even though I don't personally like them, I'm shocked that, say, indie heavyweights like The Gossip, that woman with the harp and the helium voice, oh what is her name, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the like don't make the Pitchfuckingfork list.

8 of my 9 albums of the year this decade were made by women - kelis, aaliyah, trina, teedra moses, kate bush, ellen allien, britney spears, erykah badu. and my album of 09 is almost certainly going to be electrik red. all of those albums are superior by a long, long, long way to everything in the p4k list except jay-z and the knife.

This is by no means an attempt to make any kind of canonical list. Just spouting a bunch of things off the top of my head. Every single one of which, I would certainly think had more right to be on the Best Of 00s than some of the options up there.

xpost

Both the Joanna Newsom albums placed OK on that list I think but to the extent that I gave a flying fuck I wouldn't have held my breath for either of them to place higher than they did. I prefer them to almost everything on that poll, personally, but there you go

kate i'm guessing that people will just respond with the usual "oh but why would you expect pitchfork to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!"

as discussed on the other thread, yeah, you have to buy into a certain indie mindset to appreciate the pitchfork aesthetic. i'm not upset about it any more, but again...yeah, pity is what springs to mind. more fool you if you buy into that.

School of Seven Bells, Goldfrapp (either of the first two albums), Ladytron's first album, Annie, Asobi Seksu (Citrus), Bat For Lashes (Fur & Gold), Aaliyah, Ellen Allien, Natacha Atlas, Missy Elliot, Blonde Redhead, Sugababes, Britney Spears (Blackout), Je Suis Animal, The Long Blondes...

blonde redhead would be in mine, but none of the others im afraid.
But I only own 8 of the p4k 20 and none of them would make my own 20. Not even the modest mouse album and i love MM.

Joanna Newsom! That's her name. I kept thinking "Emily something..." but that was a single, right?

I mean, it's a cumulative effect here. People respond with the usual "oh but why would you expect pitchfork to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!" and then the Uncut list that we were discussing on twitter, and the same "oh but why would you expect uncut to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white indie male demographic!" and then the RYM list and "oh but why would you expect RYM to cover or acknowledge those acts, it's not in their white metal male demographic!"

and it gets to the point of... OK WHERE IS SOME OTHER PERSPECTIVE FOR PEOPLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE VAST AMOUNTS OF QUALITY MUSIC NOT MADE OR APPRECIATED BY WHITE INDIE MALES?!?!?

This makes me lose any kind of respect for even the idea of "canon" because it's already so slanted. (Not even getting into the gender politics of who gets to make and release records fullstop)

Oh god, I said I wouldn't talk about this any more, because it just makes me rant and rant and rant. But at least people on ILX are willing to entertain the idea that there *might* be some bias involved rather than "women don't make good music" or the crap I've heard elsewhere.

i like Joanna Newsom but again she wouldn't make my top 20. but then again i dunno who would. I like looking at lists but i hate compiling them.

This makes me lose any kind of respect for even the idea of "canon" because it's already so slanted

yes! completely. my brief period of conscientiously trying to get into the canon was marked only by disappointment. yet so many otherwise smart people seem to buy into the importance of it, the importance of lists like this, without acknowledging its flaws.

An Uncut review once made me buy a Neko Case album fyi, they don't all hate ladiez.

An album that didn't make the P4k list, so... I dunno, actually, forget I ever said anything.

My female picks would probably overlap a lot with a fuller list from Lex:

Teedra, Aaliyah, Kelis, Missy, Electrik Red, Foxy Brown, Sugababes, Trina, Stina Nordenstam, Maria McKee, Taylor Swift, Girls Aloud, Mis-Teeq, Robyn, Ada, Lhasa, Kylie Minogue, Bjork, Ashlee Simpson... And then mixed stuff like Gang Gang Dance, Low, Sonic Youth, The Knife, Fleetwood Mac.

Interestingly though of the non-mixed options the only one which seems Pitchfork friendly is Bjork (she made the list I'm pretty sure) (and Robyn ha). And then of the mixed options all of them seem pitchfork-friendly except Fleetwood Mac. Not sure what this means - possibly only that indie-friendly music is more likely to be comprised of mixed gender bands as compared to dance music, R&B, pop etc.

Other amazing ladies not yet mentioned, if we are in a macho-list making mode: Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power and Electrelane.

ha ha, the only reason I didn't list The Knife is coz they actually made the P4K top 20 list.

gah the obvious exception in my list is KATE BUSH.

god, you guys are getting worked up over nothing

Incidentally (for people that care about such things), I think the first Kelis album would have made Pitchfork's list but for being disqualified for being released in late 1999 in the US.

did 'aaliyah' make the list? i assume you voted for it but it deserved to be up there

Everyone is so busy accusing people of getting upset that Pitchfork didn't pick the albums they wanted, but when you really look, these people who are supposedly upset about the list don't actually exist. Its just a thread full of people telling people who aren't there to stop being upset over a silly list.

Kevin I did but for unknown reasons i totally fucked up the ordering of my ballot and it came in at number 12 when it should have been around number 7.

how many women voted in this btw

lol at lex for pitying those whose aesthetic doesn't mirror his own.

If their staff lists are anything to go by, a similar proportion of women as actualled turned up on the list. Funny, that.

Stankonia, easy. Completely blew my mind and it still sounds great, give or take a couple of ho-hum tracks. Discovery, Supreme Clientele, Person Pitch and Jay-Z still get regular spins from me, and all still sound magnificent. Been a long time since I listened to the Avalanches, but I loved it at the time. Perhaps I should dig it out again. I listened to Is This It? and White Blood Cells a LOT when they came out. Easy to hate on them, but they're cracking good records, if not masterpieces. Likewise YHF. Yes it's overrated, but it has some very good songs and sustains itself over the album.
Funeral I loved at the time, now it sounds pretty overwrought and clumsy, although it's still a million times better than the rubbish follow up.
I've not heard much by Spoon. Whatever I have head by them has completely passed me by. Find the pfork love for them pretty inexplicable.
It's a slightly dull and predictable list, but I can't really get mad over it. The only entry that makes me go NOOOOOO!!! is Sigur fucking Ros. They're the post-rock Enya.

Eh, the Venn diagram of Lex's and my taste don't really have a huge amount of overlap, and I still blame his comments on ILX for tricking me into listening to that Paris Hilton album, but I totally get the pity and contempt. There's a weird undercurrent here of stolid "serious" music, which is a pretty large part of why I've bailed on indie over the last decade. It's become the most resolutely boring genre, in part (I think) because the indie kids have grown up and assumed positions of middling power. While I'd say that it's reinventing notions of propriety and maturity, it's still propitious and mature, and those aren't always virtues that I think should be privileged. Looking at that top 20, there's hardly an anti-social or difficult or weird album on it.

I think that has to do with indie (if you'll grant me the self-aware genre conceit) finally realizing and grasping for canonical status, but in large part doing so by aping the perceived values of other works canonized by Rolling Stone (and Mojo and Uncut, etc.). It under-appreciates the weirdness of yesterday, and over-sells its own innovation and strangeness. I remember friends talking about their minds being blown by MPP, and it was like, really?

How would a collection of people come to the consensus that an anti-social record is one of the 20 best albums of the decade? Is it just me or does that seem willfully contradictory? Likewise, wouldn't the majority of people voting need to be weird in the same way for a weird album to do well, and how difficult is a difficult album if a decent number of people understand and like it?

I don't think this list is pointing out anything different from what lists like it have pointed out for decades, except maybe that indie kids now think it's okay to listen to hip-hop.

(or maybe indie kids have more black friends, ha)

Couple things re: the representation of women in the RYM and PFork lists.

1st: apples and oranges. RYL voting body is self-selected and democratic. Whoever wants to vote can vote. So the fact that the results skew this way or that isn't necessarily a problem. It may be depressing to see yet another male-dominated list, but there's no reason to take it as a slight.

PFork list is a very different matter. The voting body isn't self-selected, but rather hand-picked, and to the extent that it reflects their regular writing staff, it's probably overwhelmingly male. Of 30 reviews published since last Monday, for instance, only two appear to have been written by women: Amy Granzin on Port O'Brien and Rebecca Raber on Islands. Dusted Magazine, another similar site, skews much the same way: of the 33 "Recent Reviews" they list, only three seem to be by women (those by Josie Donelley and Jennifer Kelly). Since it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it looks like all 15 reviews on Uncut's main Music page were written by men.

This is a problem, and it may help explain why these canon-forging lists tend to be so male-dominated. A massively male-dominated critical culture writes about the things that interest them, and surprise! It turns out that most of the things they most respect are made by other men. I'm half surprised that indie-crit culture, so hand-wringingly progressive/PC in word, should be so retrograde in deed. But only half surprised. I mean, I'm sure it's all but impossible to find smart women who'd even be interested in writing about pop music...

I can only really compare it with Plan B - a magazine that actively recruited female writers and actively covered musicians of both genders. Thing is, the magazine didn't *have* a list-oriented culture, never used ratings. The end of year round-ups (which I participated in a couple of times) deliberately used non-rating non-list type ways of getting at your favourite music of the year - asking for moments or events or songs rather than albums or gigs or the like.

It was such a different way of *thinking* about music - but one that seemed a lot more inclusive. Both to the artists covered and the writers writing about them (and it showed in the demographics of the people that *read* - or at least subscribed to the thing.)

What was the distinction between an event and a gig?

I don't understand the question. An event could be anything.

Going to a gig. Hearing your favourite song on the dancefloor. Going to a party and hearing music you'd never dreamed of. A happening. An art party. A listening party. Anything.

A massively male-dominated critical culture writes about the things that interest them, and surprise! It turns out that most of the things they most respect are made by other men

i can see why this might be the case, but i'm vaguely disappointed that so few of these cultural commentators seem to lack the self-awareness to attempt to rectify it. also, i don't think it follows that "dudes like music made by dudes"; it smacks of the "black british music doesn't do well because the black population of britain is so heterogeneous and comparatively small in comparison to eg the USA" argument that i encounter so often. i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists. i am neither! and my favourite artists are almost all black women.

i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists. i am neither! and my favourite artists are almost all black women.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's like... women seem perfectly able to listen to and rate *male* artists and get something out of the experience. Are men somehow too stupid or narrow-minded to do likewise? Isn't that a bit of a negative thing to assume about your gender?

I don't understand the question. An event could be anything.

Going to a gig. Hearing your favourite song on the dancefloor. Going to a party and hearing music you'd never dreamed of. A happening. An art party. A listening party. Anything.

The way you wrote that was a little confusing because it seemed like going to gigs was something that was explicitly excluded, yet they asked you to name your favorite events and it seemed like your favorite gig would fit very nicely into that category.

I still kind of don't see how that's non-listy but that's just me being obstinate. :-)

Couple thoughts on yr Plan B reminiscence: It's a shame that the only music publications that seem to have a gender-diverse writing pool are those that make a point of it. Plays into that "male = normal, female = different" paradigm that feminists often (rightly) gripe about.

Also, while the Plan B approach might be more inclusive, it might also help explain why "the canon" (a list made of lists) is so male-dominated.

also, most of the ringtone rap crew on ilx are gay or bi! i don't think the assumption stereotypes is a constructive path to go down.

Dan - because it wasn't a list, it was "pick one of each" of these really open-ended categories.

It's a shame that the only music publications that seem to have a gender-diverse writing pool are those that make a point of it.

I really don't understand WHY this seems to be the case. It just seems so counter-intuitive.

I suppose it goes to that classic gender-divide thing of "men volunteer to do things actively, women wait to be asked" - why bother actively going around recruiting and asking women to write, when you have a pool of thousands of young male blogger just panting to do something.

i don't think you have to be black to appreciate "urban" music, nor female to appreciate female artists

but it HELPS, generally, is the point

bands with one woman in them are female, much like ppl with at least one black grandparent are black

All right, we'll give the female side two Sugarland albums, Now 31, the latest Black Eyed Peas album, and the Juno, Twilight, and Mamma Mia! soundtracks. That's still 41 to 26.

Include 2007 in the data, and it's even worse: 67 to 35.

The number of men vs. women actually making pop/rock records has been the elephant in this discussion for a while, or one of two. The other (perhaps disguised by the first in the sort of stacking maneuver that the species is known for) is the openness of the industry and audience to female artists of various sorts, relative to males. Scott calls attention to this by mentioning that "the vast majority of the pop/R&B performers who have placed on our year-end/decade/book lists have been female." Male pop critics do seem very willing to extend respect to female artists in the "R&B diva" role. Audiences and the industry are certainly more welcoming of female artists in some genres than others -- though exceptions will always be made for attractive girls who can sing moderately well.

All of that does suggest that it's unfair to simply count heads in search of proportional representation. Then again, it also calls attention to the pervasive and deeply-entrenched obstacles that female artists have to deal with in finding any kind of foothold in the industry -- especially if they aren't cute/sexy and don't fit into one of the obvious girl-shaped niches.

bands with one woman in them are female, much like ppl with at least one black grandparent are black

http://www.amalah.com/photos/when_you_marry/epson082.html

I tried to address lots of these issues (e.g. as between the representation of females and the discussions of particular genres) upthread.

With respect to Plan B I really do wish it wasn't being used as the yardstick as it always struck me as more indie rather than less than Pitchfork, columns and articles from people I like notwithstanding - and again, remember that Tom Ewing, David Drake, Philip Sherburne, Jess Harvell etc. all write for Pitchfork.

I would say the exact same thing that Kate says about pitching - I've never been told by Scott that something was outside the scope of what Pitchfork write about (the bigger problem is that I don't pitch or write enough).

That is meant less as a defence of Pitchfork and more of a way of saying that the difference between a writer's experience of what it is like to work for a magazine, and their memory of what their own articles and the articles of their friends covered, is very different from the overall perception of the magazine.

I mean you can say "oh but I always ignored the big cover articles on Plan B", but to say this is to apply a fundamentally different means of judgment which, if applied to Pitchfork, could be equally as complimentary of its non-indie-ness. e.g. If you just read the "Month In" columns you would assume that Pitchfork was about dance music and dancehall.

Remember that Tom Ewing, David Drake, Philip Sherburne, Jess Harvell etc. all write for Pitchfork.

^Real modest talk. Etc. = TIM F.

Don't mean to put him on the spot but I'd love it if Tim wrote and pitched more! (His forthcoming Electrik Red review will unite us all.)

Wow didn't even read the paragraph directly below what I quoted. Tim OTM about not getting a red light for coverage though which has basically been true since c. 2005. I got all kinds of crazy song reviews published, most originating in the teenpop thread!

Anyway I still don't think Pfork is the most useful target for this particular convo -- the real enemies are the network of music "coverage" sites that at best are incidentally uncritical and at worst actively disdain any form of critical thought or application of intellectual thinking to music. The worst I can say of Pitchfork is that it isn't [insert publication run for insane effort and no financial gain that is no longer with us -- say, Stylus].

But if you did like Stylus, note that a ton of their most frequent writers now have regular reviewing gigs at Pfork...

Now that it's been mentioned, and before anyone starts smelling conspiracy, I pitched an Electrik Red review to Scott before this thread was started.

By far the worst IRL example of what this thread is about is the "100 Greatest Songs of all Time" list as voted by Triple JJJ, the national "youth" radio station in Australia. If I recall it had ONE song by a woman in the entire top 100.

To be honest, the main reason I brought up Plan B was because they made a real effort - and showed genuine results - about coverage (at all levels, from new bands on MySpace reviews to cover artist coverage) of female artists *and* recruiting female writers.

Yes, Pitchfork is a scapegoat here - I don't think either of these threads are actually *about* P4k, but more showing discontent with the state of a thing of which P4k is the most obvious and visible example.