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

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

jesus christ dude stop putting words in ppls mouths every time you argue with them xxp to contenderizer

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 don't even like Dylan at all, but to dismiss him as an old man who gets good reviews because of his reputation does him a disservice. It's not like we're talking about Jann S. Wenner giving five stars to Goddess at the Doorway. Anyway, I think there's always going to be older stuff that the Pitchfork audience likes and respects, even if it's just because M. Ward lists them as influences. And Dylan fits into that. I know guys of his generation are never going to be the site's main focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda Petrusich or William Bowers or Josh Love all put "Love and Theft" high on their ballot.

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

― lex pretend

Shit, I'm just trying to understand where yr. coming from. And I don't think that deej's argument makes any kind of sense. Essentially you guys seem to be saying that PFork's focus should marginalize it, and that people are wrongly treating it as central. And this is just horseshit. There is no right or wrong in questions like this. No one has an obligation to make sure that the center is centrist.

I actually think even Drownedinsound's influence vastly outstrips Pitchfork's in the UK and THAT'S not going to get a thousand-post thread when it puts up it's rubbish albums of the decade list.

i dont know why this is such a big deal -- pfork's staff already acknowledge & have actively recruited ppl to make up these deficiencies, from an editorial level ... so its like you guys are defending them from something theyve already acknowledged is an issue back when ryan wrote that funny intro to we are the world ....

getting the uk critical establishment to respect r&b is EVEN MORE of a non-starter and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!

I don't even like Dylan at all, but to dismiss him as an old man who gets good reviews because of his reputation does him a disservice. It's not like we're talking about Jann S. Wenner giving five stars to Goddess at the Doorway. Anyway, I think there's always going to be older stuff that the Pitchfork audience likes and respects, even if it's just because M. Ward lists them as influences. And Dylan fits into that. I know guys of his generation are never going to be the site's main focus, but I wouldn't be surprised if Amanda Petrusich or William Bowers or Josh Love all put "Love and Theft" high on their ballot.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:28 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jaymc i never said no one should review bob dylan, just that arguing his later-years records (however good they are) are kind of a ridiculous thing to compare to the central records of the 00s R&B canon when it comes to discussing what was excluded from the list

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

hahah i think it is a crazy weirdo vs. normal ppl divide.

The older records have had the chance to really cement themselves, so initial reviews of say Discovery are not quite as relevant. But how different do you think things would be if a different Pitchfork writer wrote the review for the new Animal Collective and gave it a 8.3? I want a machine that generates outcomes in hypeland based on Pitchfork reviews.

and if you get me started on that i may end up stabbing someone UGHHHH critics' stupidity and bad taste is so frustrating sometimes!!

pro tip writing like this is why you catch shit sometimes.

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

If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?

Who are you really more disappointed with?

For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.

pro tip writing like this is why you catch shit sometimes.

do you catch shit for being fucking dense?

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

I'm not trying to put words in yr mouth, deej. I'm honestly and sincerely trying to parse the implications of what yr saying. You complain that PFork is "given a lot of centrality" in a way that's "out of whack with its areas of focus".

Okay. This suggests to me that you think that PFork's focus (shmindie) should naturally marginalize (decentralize) it to some degree. And the "out of whack" bit suggests that the "music press" is making a mistake in failing to enforce this marginalization. That's what I took from yr statement, rightly or wrongly.

If my read is way off base, lemme know. If not, I think yr making an indefensible argument about what critical entities should be obliged to do.

I actually think even Drownedinsound's influence vastly outstrips Pitchfork's in the UK and THAT'S not going to get a thousand-post thread when it puts up it's rubbish albums of the decade list.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 8:29 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well we have a head start, let's make this dream a reality ILM Drowned In Sound Top 66 Albums Of This Decade

If a reading audience, by and large, including writers and commenters on music in their own right, chooses to limit the vast majority of its music reading to Pitchfork alone, is the fault Pitchfork's for not giving said audience anything and everything or is the fault the audience's for only reading Pitchfork and nothing else and/or prioritizing what Pitchfork thinks at the expense of anything else out there?

Who are you really more disappointed with?

For myself, I assume that whatever audience I have, in whatever venue, reads and reacts to my thoughts as part of a large context. It may be Pitchfork, it may be something else. But I'm not going to waste time chasing down phantoms. There's music to listen to -- like the Lady Leshurr mixtape the Lex recommended a few weeks back, and which is v. good -- and thoughts to consider, and work to do, and life to live.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:34 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont know why this is such a big deal -- pfork's staff already acknowledge & have actively recruited ppl to make up these deficiencies, from an editorial level ... so its like you guys are defending them from something theyve already acknowledged is an issue back when ryan wrote that funny intro to we are the world ....

I suppose it depends on whether you read this as correcting deficiencies versus simply expanding their coverage.

just that arguing his later-years records (however good they are) are kind of a ridiculous thing to compare to the central records of the 00s R&B canon when it comes to discussing what was excluded from the list

― deej

And I think that the assumptions yr broadcasting here about what is and should be important to critics are at least as questionable as Pitchfork's failure to respect R&B. You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

Saying this as someone with no interest in Dylan.

I suppose it depends on whether you read this as correcting deficiencies versus simply expanding their coverage.

― katherine helmand province (jaymc), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:39 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

one & the same

You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

OTM

And I think that the assumptions yr broadcasting here about what is and should be important to critics are at least as questionable as Pitchfork's failure to respect R&B. You haven't just dismissed Dylan, after all, but "old man rock" in general, and by usage of that phrase a bunch of other people and ideas. Don't see how this is any different or better than what you accuse PFork of. Worse, really, cuz it's so much more obviously prejudiced.

Saying this as someone with no interest in Dylan.

― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jesus dude get over it, i was just being mildly troll-y in order to emphasize the ridiculous of the comparison between dylan & the entire genre of R&B

the ridiculousness

why don't you get over your little R n B snit, then, and we'll call it even?