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

Yeah, lex, sorry, but the only consistent critical props Carey ever got (apart for "Vision of Love" very early on) was for Mimi (it even got a proper SFJ review in the ol' New Yorker).

i think this is a bad thing and an indictment of critics everywhere, not something to sigh and go "eh, whatever" over

Well, and William McKinley is an underrated president. Get the fuck over it.

u guys are being pretty dick-ish

xxp lol it is an indictment of critics that they don't like something you like

There's a fairly strong, loud Carey claque here. Go pitch some essays. It's a shame PFM won't take them.

who will be Mariah's Leon Czolgosz?

i still dont think lex saying "mariah should have made the list" is really that absurd. I understand that on a personal level Dan doesnt like her music, but purely from an objective standpoint, its obvious that r&b is underrepresented in pfork's voting blocs when her record doesnt make the list. neither did records by Aaliyah, (R&B elite mindgardgen choice) Teedra, Usher, etc

*mindgarden

a weingarten?

you guys are acting like this is some minor niche interest kind of deal. its not the same as dan still listening to new order 2 decades after they mattered

not really sure why thats super objectionable to ppl

It's not super-objectionable to anyone, I don't think. I'm just saying that Mariah Carey not making Pitchfork's list doesn't make it all "what a disaster for Pitchfork." You know what else didn't make Pitchfork's list? Anything by Bob Dylan, who topped the Pazz and Jop poll twice this decade. Which I don't really hear anyone complaining about.

There's a fairly strong, loud Carey claque here. Go pitch some essays. It's a shame PFM won't take them.

oh no you didn't. fuck you too.

pfork clearly does not have enough writers repping boring old man rock

xxp lol it is an indictment of critics that they don't like something you like

have you even managed to read any of the wider issues which kate/deej/myself and others have been discussing at length here

i dont think im saying "what a disaster for pitchfork." I dont think its ridiculous or challopsy to say 'i wish pfork's albums list had more R&B.' If not mariah specifically, then a few more of the other acclaimed R&B records of the past ten years.

I don't think Bob Dylan records not making it is comparable. R&B appeals to a young audience. Pitchfork has a young audience. Bob Dylan records sell to a cult of followers, like a bigger-screen baby boomer version of dan perry's fav 80s artists Still Making Music

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

I'm more in sympathy with you three than you think -- most posters here are! But this conversation is akin to sitting in a bar with people whose reactions you can predict to a metronome.

xp yeah i have and tbh it is often difficult to rectify those larger points with the stuff you say post to post

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

― xhuxk mangione (deej), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:00 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

have you listened to Love and Theft?

Here's two smart Carey articles.

I dont think its ridiculous or challopsy to say 'i wish pfork's albums list had more R&B.'

I don't think it is, or that anyone is really saying it is - it's just that when you start talking about individual records it's hard to give empirical airtight reasons why anything should be elevated above *an entire decade's worth of albums* to this uh hallowed top 20 status, and it's also pretty easy to find reasons why this *shouldn't* be the case

(obv that goes for the stuff that is being polled here [lol remember when this was a poll thread] at least as much as Mariah or whatever else)

I still don't get it, though, deej. I can totally understand saying "Mariah made a great fucking record. More people need to know this." And I can totally understand being uninterested in the Pitchfork list due to different taste.

But I don't get the idea that Pitchfork NEEDS to include this or that album, or that there's something WRONG with the fact that it's not paying proper respect to certain things. I don't see how this would matter to anyone who didn't have some emotional investment in PFork that they now feel bitter about. Or envied PFork's influence. Both of which seem a bit ridiculous to me.

That's what bugs me about the complaints. It's not like PFork = the fucking government or something.

Barack Obama uses 'Tom Ewing' as an alias.

I don't think it is, or that anyone is really saying it is - it's just that when you start talking about individual records it's hard to give empirical airtight reasons why anything should be elevated above *an entire decade's worth of albums* to this uh hallowed top 20 status, and it's also pretty easy to find reasons why this *shouldn't* be the case

― Vladislav Delap (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:06 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but ... 'individual records' representing indie made this list, & altho folks nitpick they mostly agree on em
go to a message board w/ ppl talking about rap or R&B and a lot of them will agree on a bunch of records too, including most likely the mariah record

have you listened to Love and Theft?

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yah i heard it when it dropped, funny old man record no one would have paid attention to if it wasnt by BOB DYLAN

i dont think im saying "what a disaster for pitchfork."

The Lex said something about how it reflects poorly on Pitchfork not to have an album as self-evidently great as Mimi on the list.

In general, though, yeah, I'm with you: it'd be nice to see more R&B on the list. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm also not particularly incensed that it's not there.

Plus the ridiculous young vs. old bullshit isn't helping your argument, deej. If that were the case, Pitchfork would have an equal responsibility to pay respect to all kinds of shit it currently doesn't. It's not fucking PeterPanFork.

But I don't get the idea that Pitchfork NEEDS to include this or that album, or that there's something WRONG with the fact that it's not paying proper respect to certain things. I don't see how this would matter to anyone who didn't have some emotional investment in PFork that they now feel bitter about. Or envied PFork's influence. Both of which seem a bit ridiculous to me.

b/c pfork's influence is such that its aesthetic spreads throughout pop culture in such a way that it impinges on the stuff i like? i'm sure deej can tell you about how the internet has ruined hip-hop in some ways, and a whole lot of that is to do with the indiefication of it

and fucking juno won an oscar, etc

It's not fucking PeterPanFork.

can we start a letter writing campaign, plz?

i guess i get that but you should consider practicing steely resolve in the face of these attacks.

no wait i don't get that--how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?

Wait, "Diablo Cody" is a pen name for Brent DiCrescenzo?

yah i heard it when it dropped, funny old man record no one would have paid attention to if it wasnt by BOB DYLAN

this is 100% insane.

and there's nothing wrong with funny old man records

notice my restraint, however, in not clamoring for it's inclusion in Pitchfork's list

quite frankly I think SouljaBoy and crunk did more to ruin hip-hop than anything else but that's just me

In general, though, yeah, I'm with you: it'd be nice to see more R&B on the list. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm also not particularly incensed that it's not there.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:11 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol im not buggin out in sal's pizzeria here .... but doesnt it start to get meaningless when yr like, "well, i guess it would be nicer to have more R&B ... would also be nice if i didn't just give myself a papercut" on the spectrum of distaste

at any rate, pitchfork & 'indie' are at some level about whats cool / trendy, i think R&B & hiphop are cool and think they make sense in pfork's broader rubric, in a way old man rock doesnt. i dont know wtf 'peterpanfork' has to do with anything.

and there's nothing wrong with funny old man records

― Mr. Que, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

of course not. but are you seriously trying to compare the entire genre of R&B to the cult of bob dylan

how does the aesthetic of a website that doesn't cover stuff you like impinge on stuff you like?

^this, serious no-snark question - I don't read the damn thing at all regularly (mainly just if someone on here or elsewhere links to it), it may have bled into the various stuff I fill my time with also but I really wouldn't know how I was sposed to tell

i have ably avoided mojo magazine and alternative press for YEARS

i dont think it does & thats not a point i made, but i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

I'm just not buying the idea that Pitchfork is this critical snarling despot that owes the poor, trampled R&B legions its beneficence. It's some geeks who like Sufjan Stevens.

i mean, its basically the only spot for long-form music criticism read by a wide audience ... they get like 2m readers a month, which i imagine blows any other niche non-gossip music review site out of the water ....

of course not. but are you seriously trying to compare the entire genre of R&B to the cult of bob dylan

no. i'm just saying, if you ignore the cult of dylan (as i do) you might find something interesting going on in his arrangements, his phrasing, his grizzled voice and his hilarious lyrics. i was mostly responding to this

plus its a total auteur-cult type deal that get ppl saying hes still making GENIUS SHIT this long into his career ... i mean seriously

to dismiss him as old man rock tells me you a) just aren't that interested in rock music and b) you're not understanding that the guy is making great records (note i did not say GENIUS SHIT) almost fifty years after his first one. when mariah does that, be sure to let me know.

do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

deej, are you getting paid by the word to repeat and write your thesis or are you bored?

pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

^^^^^^^concisely summing up what kate and i kept saying earlier, which contenderizer seems intent on misrepresenting

Possibly because I'm British, I actually *don't* think that Pitchfork is as influential as it's being made out to be here. No one here ever mentions Pitchfork in non-critical circles and even in the Brit critical discourse the NME (old and new) and yer Reynoldses and so forth loom much larger.

Look at bands like Spoon, Wilco, etc - revered by the Pitchfork kids but with next to no cultural or critical cache over here. Lex I think you're paying disproportionate attention to the critical discourse in messageboard land at the expense of the professional critical discourse you're actually part of and the market you're writing for.

i do think pitchfork's given a lot of centrality in the discourse around popular music by the music press that is out of whack with its areas of focus.

― deej

Horrible, endless can-of-worms argument. Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.

The only people I ever see giving Pitchfork centrality in the discourse around popular music are complainers on this board who don't like it when their lists exclude women and R&B! No one in my circle ever talks about it, ever.

(I would not be at all surprised if this is a 20s vs 30s divide.)

Pitchfork should receive less attention because it's not aggressively universalist? I just don't see what good can come of this.

hopefully either

a) pfork becomes more universalist and more representative & respectful of the whole spectrum of popular music; or
b) pfork receives less attention