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

yeah dan that's def. fair and accurate.

It's funny, when I think of albums I admire more than I like, the first one that leaps to mind is Speech Debelle; I think she nailed exactly what she was going for and did a fantastic job of it, but what she was going for was not something that I am particularly geeked to hear. It was a very pleasant album and I'm glad I bought it but I'm certain my wife will play it more than I will, and she NEVER plays any of my albums except for MIA and Santigold.

If I Had A Heart is the worst thing on the album and can't believe it was the lead single but the album is excellent anyway

there's a pretty good reason why Dylan is being rated over Baez. I'll let you guess what the reason is.

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 12:57 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

a penis?

jk

If I Had A Heart is the worst thing on the album and can't believe it was the lead single but the album is excellent anyway

That's crazy talk, the worst thing on the album is "It's Not Over".

Yeah, I might agree that Heart isn't the best song on the album, but it's far from the worst.

hoping you don't mean I'm Not Done xp

but seriously folks -- 1) i think contenderizer was upthread defending ppl's right to let their taste be, that if u move away from your taste for political concerns you're being dishonest somehow ... i dont get that. I have to say that while my taste for individual songs feels very immediate, natural & linked to who I am as a person, I can't say that my 'taste' is so rigidly linked to my sense of self ... records i liked a couple years ago ive since rejected, & oftentimes for much more arbitrary & random reasons than politically-related gender concerns.

if anything, i think my worldview can be kind of self-correcting ... if i spend a lot of time listening to a certain aesthetic worldview for a while, i'll get kinda tired of it & autocorrect ... & gender (largely unwittingly) figures into this ... i mean, i listen to some super-gay house music one minute, then super-masculine gangster rap the next, and like both of them, & see how they complement each other within a larger rubric of my taste ...

i think at some level ive never been super-confident in the idea of 'taste'. there's stuff im drawn towards, but really your 'taste' always requires conscious effort in order to be engaged. & taking into account gender issues happens as a part of who you are. claiming that sexism is already written into your world outlook (probably true) is fine, but denying that its something u can be aware of & dialogue with internally is nonsense, your taste can absolutely be affected by self reflection etc

That's all true. Taste changes all the time. Geeking out for a couple years on lo-fi garage punk has definitely whetted my appetite for more interesting production. Listening to doom and black metal for a couple years chased me into lo-fi garage punk in the first place. That kinda thing.

And I agree that people should think politically. If you suddenly notice that you only ever listen to duderock and become curious about the rest of the world, that's great. Open-mindedness is a plus. But I don't think that people should be shamed into thinking they shouldn't like what they do, or that some enjoyments are morally superior to others. I don't think there's anything wrong, for instance, with wholeheartedly loving "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah", regardless of the associations. (All apologies.)

And I don't think there's anything wrong with genuinely tending to prefer music made/sung by guys. Not necessarily, anyway.

i think ppl already DO think politically

but heres the thing ... its so much more complicated than just listening to more women. its more like, being open to other kinds of aesthetical concerns that tend to be bigger with female audiences, for example

one record i think pitchfork really shortchanged was that amy winehouse LP. that really seemed like a huge demographic crossover record in so many ways, a really central record to the 00s -- > it was indie, but it crossed over; soul revivalist dudes liked it, but it also had a contemporary vocalist who sang w/ contemporary slang & wasn't trying to sound like motown, but like herself; & she was big w/ both black & white (female) friends I had. Dudes didnt really get into it too much, but even chicks started dressing like her around here. She was pretty huge indie-wise among chicks i knew anyway.

& i didnt vote for it either. But i liked it, & all my female friends being into it was what led me to check for it. but a lil more self-awareness on my part -- not 'politicization of my tastes,' but just further reflection when considering my albums list - would have probably led to me including it. there are like 5000 records i heard this decade maybe, & which ones i decided to vote for is less about "ooh so honest & true to my taste" & more about a huge multitude of different factors & concerns when i was constructing it

agreed w/ that second paragraph. without getting too far into the tedious gender discussions here, to answer something kate posed earlier, i think the mark of a critic are his/her interesting thoughts and perspectives on whatever he is writing about, not the horizontal scope of their tastes.

xp

Went for Daft Punk, but this lacks almost all of the central UK albums of the decade. I mean, no Franz Ferdinand? WTF?

so basically i'd rather read someone who writes about (and listens to) primarily, say, R&B (or punk or whatever) with valuable opinions than someone with a super self-aware politically correct taste w/ nothing interesting to say

xp

the mark of a critic are is his/her

a few other points --

1) tom ewing made this point in his freakytrigger thing on up-and-coming music writers suggest to him by his networks online, but there werent too many women, and the women who WERE identified very very rarely identified simply as music writers -- music was something they wrote about, but it was part of a larger project

2) we still havent addressed the fact that female ARTISTS dont necessarily appeal to female CRITICS, that Usher might do better among a bunch of female critics, Kylie might do better among a bunch of male ones (& even better among a bunch of gay ones? another demographic whose aesthetic concerns impact any discussions of gender)

i dunno this is all super-complicated

True, deej, but the all-girl pazz & jop lists do seem to include at least a few more female artists. Which is what I'd expect. Not looking for any huge transformation. Not in the short run, anyway.

Agree with you on the importance of being open to multiple points of view and different ways of looking at art, even art you're already familiar with. Still hesitant about the idea that cultural breadth in one's taste is morally/politically laudable (implying as it does that narrowness is a moral fault). I know that's not what yr saying...

I can't say that my 'taste' is so rigidly linked to my sense of self ... records i liked a couple years ago ive since rejected, & oftentimes for much more arbitrary & random reasons than politically-related gender concerns.

arbitry random reasons > politically related ones

There's nothing I really love on this list:

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion - Seems a bit manicured, and I'm not big on Beach Boys harmonies.
The Arcade Fire - Funeral - Seems kind of standard-issue indie rock.
The Avalanches - Since I Left You - Proves that one can combine lots of samples and still end up with boring instrumentals.
Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.
Ghostface Killah - Supreme Clientele - Good, but seems dated for a 2000s list, a leftover from '90s hip hop.
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights - Takes derivative to a whole new level (see also: Strokes).
Jay-Z - The Blueprint - He seems a likeable guy, but his music is curiously bloodless.
The Knife - Silent Shout - Not sure when I'd be in the mood for something like this.

I could go on, but I'll spare you my snarky comments.

politically related ones

― samosa gibreel, Tuesday, October 6, 2009 4:59 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i dont agree -- 'politically related' just means, like, 'i wonder why i havent ever paid attention to xyz...' & then u check it out. its not about being shamed by peta into checking animal collective or something

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

Just had to jump in on the Fever Ray praise. It's my album of the year thus far; even better than the Pitchfork consesus picks, Bitte Orca and MPP, I think.

Don't forget that Grizzly Bear disc in your list of P4K "consensus picks."

9 years later still feel Avalanches LP is a super fun happy slide borderline masterpiece

I just heard it for the first time, thanks to the P4K list and the Lala sale.

It is v. good.

(and immediately accessible, which helps, given my shortened attention span)

& i didnt vote for it either. But i liked it, & all my female friends being into it was what led me to check for it. but a lil more self-awareness on my part -- not 'politicization of my tastes,' but just further reflection when considering my albums list - would have probably led to me including it. there are like 5000 records i heard this decade maybe, & which ones i decided to vote for is less about "ooh so honest & true to my taste" & more about a huge multitude of different factors & concerns when i was constructing it

deej i think you are totally right and yr other posts underscore why this is so complicated (and why i didn't wade in for quite a while) but i wanted to talk about this a bit more--like, any critical list-making activity is going to have its share of different factors and concerns, but i assume every critic approaches this differently. you seem to be saying that if you had weighed a certain factor more youd have voted for the amy winehouse album, but isn't it just as likely and valid that other critics, with their own priorities, would prefer to make this a more internalized exercise and not take a wider range of information into account? (and, say, not vote for the album in the exact scenario you lay out?)

9 years later still feel Avalanches LP is a super fun happy slide borderline masterpiece

haha 9 years later still feel happy I never spent any money on or an appreciable amount of time listening to Avalanches

win-win!

dan otm

So how is this thread not overlapping with the other PFM thread? Are the joeks funnier here?

one thread just wasn't enough

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

― xhuxk mangione (deej), Tuesday, October 6, 2009 6:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Daft Punk - Discovery - Seems a bit twee to really rock a dance floor.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

― xhuxk mangione (deej)

one more time...

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

serious question: o. nate who the fuck are you?

leading prediction: an alien

but not a robot alien, like a gooey alien. robot aliens i'm sure get down to discovery like weekly.

For the record, The Hounds of Love is actually one of my top 1 or 2 albums of all time.

funny, but ... this only makes sense if youve somehow managed to avoid a dancefloor w/ daft punk sometime in the last decade

i think the twee thing is generally funny cuz daft punk are pretty twee which tends to be downplayed round here

but the idea that this gets in the way of them rocking a dancefloor is, yknow, 100% 180 degrees rong

Other music that has been too twee to rock dancefloors:

Disco

House

i was wondering where twee and disco intersect. i always saw 'digital love' as a throwback rather than a twee anthem, though i've heard it used as the latter at indie clubs.

I think in popular consciousness disco is considered pretty twee, or at least twee crossed with camp divatude, and unless you care about such things the difference between the two is probably considered unimportant.

e.g. "You Make Me Feel Might Real", "Don't Leave Me This Way", "Rasputin", "I Will Survive", "Young Hearts Run Free".

i dunno i kinda think of twee as being a lot smaller in scope but maybe i dont know twee like i thought i did ... i kinda assume the diff between the two is pretty wide! like twee is never about big confident diva-esque wailing

Maybe I Don't Know Twee Like I Thought I Did

A Novel

by Deej

short novel

lolz

And I don't think there's anything wrong with genuinely tending to prefer music made/sung by guys. Not necessarily, anyway.

no of course not - but

1) on an individual level, if you're a critic you should be questioning why you respond to certain things all the time - and questioning why you don't espond so easily to other things, and maybe pushing yourself a lil bit in directions you're not comfortable in. i agree w/most of deej's points on the construction of taste here; there's also the issue that some genres need a lot more investment and understanding of their rules and values than others. as a listener it's easy to fall back on your comfort food, but - as i hope everyone here has experienced - it can be so worthwhile teaching yourself to appreciate something which you don't initially get. a basic example would be hip-hop for me - i didn't grow up immersed in it at all, but from the initial gateway songs throughout the 90s to being led more into via the r&b crossover to being able to delve as deeply into it as i wanted via the internet, i've gained such a great appreciation for it - and these days it's become a comfort food.

this applies equally to "female-coded" music. and what i think when i look at a list as homogeneous and predictable as the pfork one is that not enough contributors to it are interested in doing this.

2) on an editorial level you should be trying to ensure a diversity of tastes and value sets being represented, certainly if you're as significant a cultural arbiter as pfork is. nothing wrong w/one individual writer preferring dudes. a whole lot wrong with the vast majority of them preferring dudes.

is this ^^^^^^^^^^ dude really lecturing people about not exploring music outside of their comfort zones?