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

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?

you have an issue w/that?

emphasis on the "this dude" - got no problem w/ people exploring music outside of their comfort zones

you have an issue w/me?

you've earned your reputation on this site due to your loud dismissals of genres you have no interest in ever liking and artists you've never heard.

you obviously don't know me. luckily, others do.

Ahem lex I love you but with respect to indie rock he's technically correct.

Not that i cry myself to sleep every night over how you pay disrespect to indie rock.

my dislike of most - not even all - indie rock does not mean that i don't push myself out of my musical comfort zone regularly. it's got nothing to do w/the points i was making.

out of curiosity, what's a more recent example of you getting into something you initially disliked?

steve why do you always fucking nitpick everything i say rather than addressing the points i made? it's about stuff i initially didn't "get", not stuff i dislike, so - country, probably.

you don't think it's theoretically possible that many of the p4k voters push themselves outside of their musical comfort zones, listen to about as much rap and female-produced music as you listen to indie rock - and just happen to like animal collective more?

(cause I'm pretty sure that's the case for a lot of em)

I dunno, I think trying to compare the open-mindedness of different people's tastes is a nigh on impossible exercise.

Like, I think the standard response w/r/t music we don't find interesting is to think "I "get" it but I don't like it."

I don't think there are many people who openly dismiss mainstream country who would allow "Oh but to be honest I'm sure this is actually really interesting and sophisticated music, I just haven't gotten my head around it."

More often the reverse is true - there's a kind of "I see right through what this music is trying to do" reaction, as if all this music we don't like is obviously really boring and shallow and we have luckily escaped being hoodwinked by it.

Usually it's only after we successfully come around to a style or an artist or whatever that we go "oh yeah, I totally didn't get that before."

The main exception i can think of is where people you respect are into something, such that when you're underwhelmed you give it the benefit of the doubt and think "i don't get it." For some people, "people they respect" = the canon, so they're more inclined to say "I don't get Bob Dylan" than "I get Bob Dylan but I don't like him."

But all of the above is why I tend to think that the best negative reviews - "I get it but I don't like it" - are disappointed reviews, reviews where people thoroughly understand the kind of aesthetic the artist is pitching for and so can measure very precisely the falling-short that has occurred.

Interestingly, Joe Tangari (pitchfork writer) is kind of my idea of someone who does seem to have generally wide-ranging ears, picking up on stuff across an impossibly broad range of genres, genres which don't even necessarily share much in the way of similar aesthetic impulses even*, and I feel musically narrow-minded by comparison.

*Just as there as an "indie mindset" that can embrace folk, punk, instrumental music, certain kinds of hip hop, certain kinds of dance music etc, I feel like I have a "dance-pop" mindset which means that often the kind of qualities I'm reacting to in pop, R&B, hip hop, dance music etc. are really very similar, such that for me listening to all these styles requires less open-mindedness as a listener than might be assumed.

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. ... it can be so worthwhile teaching yourself to appreciate something which you don't initially get.

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.

I totally agree w/100% of these two points.

And no, I don't think it's ironic coming from The Lex at all - if you spent any time at all listening to him or reading his work instead of kneejerk shouting at him, you'd realise that although yes, he does frequently write off the entire tiny birdbath genre of whiteboy indie guitarrock, his exploration of the 90% of current music that *isn't* the indie birdbath is pretty open-minded.

x-posts coz I knew this would get long...

Going back to something raised earlier, which might be tangential now...

All I can do is offer mine own experience and the experience of friends.

Someone back there said that they never *meant* for their organisation to be all-dude, they wanted to get girls onboard, but the girls were turned off by the all-male environment. I don't think that men can ever really realise JUST HOW HARD it is to be the First Girl In The Room. And just how self-reinforcing all-male environments really are. You may not intend for them to be intimidating, but it remains so - even someone like me, who has brass balls (to make up for my lack of flesh ones) finds it incredibly intimidating to try to enter into an all male environment. Simply the fact that you see no other women doing something makes one feel like women will not be welcomed, either actively or passively.

This is something that comes up again and again in a different setting - a resource for women in tech that I read - it talks about how important female role models are. I don't think that it's necessarily that the female psyche *needs* role models more than the male - it's just that males ones are so more readily available in every single field.

One wants to conserve one's energy for things you know you have the *possibility* of attaining. To give you an example - walking into a new club last week, I thought "hrmm, nice place, good crowd, close to home, I would really like to DJ here some time." But then I looked up on the stage and in the DJ booth, and there wasn't one single woman up there, all night. My band's manager was all "oh, you should totally ask!" Thing is, there's that voice in the back of my mind - and I suspect in the back of a lot of women's minds, conscious or unconscious - that thinks "I don't see any other women doing it. I wonder if there's a reason for that." And it's so hard to shake that idea that they won't even listen to your mix let alone book you because clearly, EVIDENTLY, they don't book women. (And this is reinforcing itself yet again, when you ask, and they just never get back to you - I mean, a male DJ would probably think "eh, my tune selection wasn't that great, my beatmatching was a little off, I'll work on that and try to improve" - but, as a woman, you're constantly wondering and second-guessing "is it because I'm a woman?")

So when you're sitting there as the booker or the editor or the promoter and you're wondering why women don't approach your organisation or don't join or even ask - think about the message that you are giving out - through your all male lineups, or your all male lists.

I recognise, from my continued fairly lonely existence on this forum (and others) that I am (perceived as?) an oddity for participating in this culture as a woman. But if a brass-balled, elephant-hide woman like me has gender-based doubts and insecurities - what does that say about the participation levels of girls who *aren't* freaks like me?

Felt like I should chime in since I'm one of those elusive Women Who Write for Pitchfork. I don't know how representative I am of female listeners, female rock critics or even female Pfork writers (prob not much of any of them), but...

While compiling my own Pfork decade lists, the sex of the musicians never factored--not once!--and was in no way a conscious part of my selection. I've never really had a particular bias towards male or female musicians or vocalists (though funny thing--I've known tons of guys who prefer female voices rather than the other way around!). I voted according to my own taste, (which will, of course, be somewhat gendered, but ultimately isn't a lot different from men who share my socio-economic background, listening habits) and of Pfork's top 20 , Spoon, the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Knife and Panda Bear were in my own top 20. I had Interpol, LCD, Kanye, Arcade Fire and Radiohead lower on my list. I'm sure (I hope) that the other female voters in this poll approached it the same way. I wish Ys had landed higher. Not because Joanna Newsom's a woman, but because it's an extraordinary record. And it probably would have placed higher if there hadn't been a lot of voters who prefer Milk-Eyed Mender.

You'd have to get the number from someone who actually knows, but I'd estimate somewhere between 5 and 8 of this list's listmakers were women. Which totally sucks, of course. But I doubt more women voting would have much changed the outcome because like all strong publications, Pfork does have something of an institutional voice and taste, and the people who gravitate to the site share that to some degree. That said, I know the editors have worked in recent years for greater diversity of taste, which includes writers who specialize in chart pop, hip-hop, metal, world music, etc, and more women. I was recruited (yeah, like a girl I waited to be asked) and am very much a part-time rock critic as I've got several unrelated gigs going. But I do write up a number of records that don't seem to interest other Pfork staffers and, thus, *might* not otherwise get covered (though my preference for these doesn't seem particularly gendered).

I wish I knew why more women aren't getting paid to write about music. Dude culture's part of it for sure (but that's also true of law and finance and a million other occupations that women have come to be reasonably well-represented in), and I definitely agree that some aspects (apples to oranges listmaking, assigning numbers to records) are probably less appealing to female critics (for whatever reason!). They are to me, anyway. But yeah, we shouldn't even have to have this discussion in 2009.

Yeah, see that's what I keep trying to say. People here are conflating two different issues. (Though similar forces may be behind them, they are different issues.)

Point 1) canonnical lists are overtly slanted towards male artists

Point 2) it would be good for many, many reasons if there were more females writing for the organs that produced said canonical lists

HOWEVER, fixing Point 2 by itself is not BY ITSELF going to fix Point 1

And if you think that it is, then you're falling into that "only female writers can write about female artists" bullshit which only leads to ghettoisation and pidgeonholing and all that other bad, bad stuff.

I've mainly been concerned with point #2, cuz it seems like the only thing that be reasonably addressed in a direct manner. I.e., it's something that any editor can (and should) do something about -- right now.

Changing what people/critics enjoy, respect, and put on lists is a much bigger and more complicated task. Moreover, it's not one I'd feel good about "taking on" even if I thought I should. And I don't. I'm more inclined to think that the imbalances reflected in cultural tastes can and will change slowly over time, and that the best we can do as individuals is to behave thoughtfully/responsibly in the short term (i.e., hire more women writers).

I've never thought or said that PFork's having a more gender-balanced writing staff would necessarily result in a more gender-balanced list. Not right away, anyway. (I mean, I think it probably would, though the immediate difference would likely be more subtle than profound. Again, see all-girl Pazz n Jop lists...) I just think that it's a shame that PFork doesn't have many girls writing. It strikes me as strange and depressing, especially given how achingly, self-consciously PC their general tone can be. That said, I understand it. Music crit is and long has been a boy's club.

cricket, thanks for chiming in--do u mind indicating who u are?

it's jessica harvell iirc

How hot is she in person, I'll tell you what

And lex, you've totally earned your rep as an at least occasionally narrow-minded defender of the music you think is right and proper. You may not be the lex you once were (dunno, been away for a while), but you have in the past been rather famously frustrating in this respect -- though not quite to Geir levels. This isn't an attack, you're generally a very interesting poster, and I don't think any of the light mockery above was anything but fond. Not to mention fair...

Plus yeah -- thanks for the perspective, cricket.

when i disdain indie rock it's "narrow-minded", when others admit their prejudice against non-indie rock genres it's just their honest taste. right.

I would think that the details of your celebrity would be a point of pride, but what do I know?

when i disdain indie rock it's "narrow-minded", when others admit their prejudice against non-indie rock genres it's just their honest taste. right.

No, they're narrow-minded too! Everyone's narrow-minded about SOMETHING (for example, as far as I'm concerned the vast majority of country music can go fuck itself).

it's kind of annoying when i spend most of my time on ilx repping for and talking in depth about music i like, to be characterised as narrow-minded just b/c the one genre i openly disdain happens to be the critical mainstream. and i only disdain it b/c i like it on the rare occasion when it's done well!

lex i know yr critical faculties are sharp but i would suggest this is a perception issue based on you regularly wading into indie rock and pfork threads with no purpose beyond expressing your disdain.

I suspect people are less bothered by people dismissing entire swathes of music than their tendencies to bang on about their disdain, unprompted, over and over and over

i think i've done more in this thread than dismiss and disdain. as have kate, tim, deej, contenderizer, dan &c.

pfork is for better or worse a cultural arbiter beyond "indie rock" - if it wasn't, i wouldn't be confronted w/it on a regular basis and i wouldn't have to think about it ever.

lol yes you have in this thread but that's because this thread has gone off on some pretty major tangents iirc.

lex have you softened yr position since you wrote this last year:

"when i first went to university i made a real effort for maybe 5 months to get into the old music i thought/was told i "should" like and i'm not joking, it almost all sucked...dylan, stones, beatles, bowie. dreadful! so many hours wasted trying to get into them. those 5 months may have put me off delving into the past 4 life."

it's not the only genre you openly dislike tbf lex

^^^^ this this this this this this this

And the fact is that yr generally pretty funny about it, lex (see above quote). It's part of yr brand, and I don't see anyone really hating on your for it -- not on this thread, anyway.

hang on, my experience of actively trying to get into stuff i didn't know about is "narrow-minded" now? oh, fuck you all. well done especially to the people whose only contributions here are snarking at me rather than responding to any of the points raised.

yeah let's make this a thread about how Lex dislikes stuff, that will be original AND productive

xp: okay too late

I know how we can settle this. FIGHT! FIGHT!

Preferably involving Turkish Oil Wrestling, please.

sorry lex, i wasnt having a go at you, i was just making a point.

lex i know yr critical faculties are sharp but i would suggest this is a perception issue based on you regularly wading into indie rock and pfork threads with no purpose beyond expressing your disdain.

― call all destroyer, woensdag 7 oktober 2009 16:12 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

Well this, basically, makes me agree with most here on how you got your 'reputation'. I wouldn't say you're narrow minded, but I have shaken my head on more than one occassion seeing you entering a thread about some band or genre you just do not like, and we all understand, but you seem to be there only to express your disgust of that music. It's not narrow minded, rather than 'pointless'.

(and I'm NOT joining in on a hate march here or anything Lex, please believe)

what a disaster for the canon

my experience of actively trying to get into stuff i didn't know about is "narrow-minded" now?

― lex pretend

No, dude, it's yr experience of actively (and hilariously) slagging off like 90% of the music in the world. With special bonus points for the casual dismissal of sacred cows in a manner that makes die-hards see spots. All of this is to yr credit.

when i went to university i made no real effort at all to get into dylan, stones, beatles, bowie etc. but i didn't have that same feeling that i should, or maybe i just found that i could dismiss this as i felt comfortable enough with the relative broadness of contemporary music love. i would say i've become more...appreciative of that older canon stuff as i've aged (matured? hmm) tho not to the extent that it figures in my regular listening much, just that i'm more willing to see why they're good (when they were/are good).

so ignoring them at the time as i did may seem narrow-minded, just as a blanket dismissal (at least one beyond 'tried it, don't get it/not for me') of them might despite the initial gesture of being prepared to give them a chance could be considered the opposite.

just picking up on this because it struck as interesting if not particularly relevant to the main topic.

Well, you're getting old, and "contemporary music" will become Old Music soon enough.

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the most usual complaint about canon (from those that I hear, at least) is NOT about what is included, but more about what seems to be almost deliberately EXCLUDED. Just sayin'

No, dude, it's yr experience of actively (and hilariously) slagging off like 90% of the music in the world

bowie/beatles/stones = 90% of the music in the world now?

ppl who diss the many artists and genres i love don't seem to get this sort of treatment.