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

If a critic was a historian, then an album review would just be a band bio.

Jaymc that Stereolab review reads like Dave Eggers.

I guess I'm a bit late to the discussion prompted by my criticism of Daft Punk above as "twee". (I should have guessed that should prompt the most outrage on ILM of all my snarky dismissals of the bands on the Pitchfork list.) I don't agree that all disco and house are by their nature twee. It seems to me that the "tweeness" is a special sauce that the Daft Punksters add all on their own. My working definition of "twee" is taken from definition 4 here: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=twee

"Something that is cute ironically, with the irony taken out."

That nails it, I think.

Related discussion here:

Is Daft Punk's "Discovery" supposed to be ironic?

# Who ever said Cobra and Phases is a bad Stereolab album? This record blows me away. 24 year old critics can be pretty stupid.2:36 PM Oct 2nd from web

otm

To bring it back to a bit waaaaaay upthread: "believe that pforks big audience is pretty conservative in their tastes, and its not easy to convince people other wise (especially because--and maybe this is another discussion--the kind of music consumers listening to pfork, i would wager, are maybe more stubborn than more 'mainstream' consumers."

And Contenderizer talking about it being good that they're conservative.

It's weird, y'know, the vast majority of stuff that I listen to is "indie," in that, y'know, it's on tiny little labels and comes on 7"s or whatever, but very little of what I listen to is "Indie," the Animal Collective/Arcade Fire/hell even Radiohead despite being on a major. One of my biggest problems with "Indie" is that I feel like a conservative approach to the sound has ossified, exactly like "Alternative" before. And in the places where "Indie" listeners have branched out, they've brought that same conservative, petit-outsider aesthetic to their listening that really seems to compress the options of whatever genre they're ostensibly listening to. I was writing a letter to a friend the other day, contrasting "quirky" with "weird," and writing about how "quirky" has supplanted "weird" as the dominant aesthetic of independent music, and how by embracing that quirk, it's undercutting the weird. I do think Pitchfork is, as Scott said, ahead of their audience, and I realize that these are the same complaints that get raised about any counter-culture as it gets broader.

And, to switch gears rather completely, this discussion about taste and presenting it as something that precedes all judgment and experience, so is unquestionable and sacrosanct, reminds me of the discussion going on on Metafilter about whether or not institutional racism is observable in the OKCupid data regarding response rates as a function of race. A lot of folks there are like, I just don't ever find black women attractive. So what? Which seems like a really odd view (and different than just having never dated a black woman or whatever). But there's that same "Don't question my taste!" thing going on here. I tend to think that taste is changeable—there's a lot of music that I love now because I learned to listen for different things in it, even though I didn't like it—and I think that, yeah, one of the roles of a critic is to always be questioning why the critic/the public likes what they like.

But then, there are more proper roles for critics than there are baseball cards, so I realize arguing over that is a bit of a non-starter. I don't fault consumer guides for not putting Mariah Carey into existential context.

But shorter—I got into indie because it was supposed to be wide open, and more and more, it looks like it's closing up and congealing.

The thing about indie is that it was never open, it was just different, and the more you got to know it, you realized the less different it actually was.

No, not really. Indie labels had and still have a tremendous breadth, but "Indie" has been codified into something more reductive.

But shorter—I got into indie because it was supposed to be wide open, and more and more, it looks like it's closing up and congealing.

Yes and no. On one hand, I think indie is still pretty "open" -- cf. Nabisco's Decade in Indie column talking about indie's tendency to "magpie" other genres and how you see indie bands in 2009 borrowing from, say, Afropop or techno in ways that would've been hard to imagine 10 years ago. On the other, the growing popularity of indie means that there are greater impulses toward canon-building from within the genre -- or, maybe more accurately, the lists and canons produced by Pitchfork and its kin are increasingly seen as influential. Which can, on the surface, look like a sort of ossification when the same bands appear over and over.

Many many x-posts:

I don't like the "women make feminine dance music" argument either Steve (the reverse seems true more often than not if anything) but I do think there are aspects of minimal and associated euro tech-house that made it easier for women to participate relative to other similar scenes - one being that it was more globalist and fragmented than a lot of other scenes, which I think creates the opportunity for women to build up their artistry and product in their own space and then simply unleash its quality on the world as a fait accompli, whereas a lot of more geographically defined and community-based scenes privilege people who are active participants in the (boy's) "club". This translated on a musical level insofar as there was a peculiar confluence between "facelessness" and artists being able to build p singular aesthetics amenable to genius-fetishism (think Ada, Cassie etc.). One thing that seems persistently true about the profile of female producers in dance music is that they're either treated as an iconoclastic genius or they're ignored; you don't tend to get that same collegiate second-level respect vibe that's applied to a lot of male producers, whereby listeners/critics may not write gushing frankenstein-flower reviews but they give the producer his due as part of some broader genre or label based aesthetic.

The "taste is sacrosanct" think I've been arguing (and I've been saying just that, though not in those words) is a tough and complicated idea. I've sort of been waiting for someone to challenge it on the grounds of something outside music appreciation, so thanks for that, cannibals. Gives me an opportunity to expand on it a little.

Okay, so one of the baseline ideas I'm working from is that we don't choose our sexual proclivities. This is the contemporary liberal/left party line when it comes to sexual orientation (arguably a form of "taste" -- and just as arguably not). Although I'm not certain that this argument is equally true in all cases, I accept it because I think it's important to assert that it IS true, at least with regard to homo- and heterosexuality. The crux of it is that people cannot be wrong in their sexual taste. It simply IS. Sexual taste exists within us in a manner that is beyond question.

There's a downside to this idea, of course, in that it seems to imply that sexual tastes that we view as abhorrent are equally fixed and unchangeable (and perhaps thus not "wrong"), but I'll leave that aside for a moment. If we accept that sexual proclivity/taste/orientation is neither correct or incorrect, not chosen, entirely, but in large part simply found within the self, then I think that we should apply this line of thinking to other forms of taste.

It is, after all, almost certainly true that one is not right or wrong in preferring apples to oranges, or the color pink to the color purple. In preferring sunshine to rain, or hamburgers to sushi. Sure, a sophisticated sensibility may be able to appreciate a broad variety of things, but sophistication is defined just as much by what it excludes. Anyway, why shouldn't the idea that human tastes/proclivities/orientations are sacrosanct be extended to all areas in which they are expressed. Frankly, I think this idea should be extended in this manner, at least to some degree.

Okay, but there's another layer here. In spite of the extreme stance we've forced outselves to adopt with regard to sexual orientation (out of necessity, due to the comparably extreme stances adopted by conservative groups), we know that tastes are fluid and in large part culturally determined. They are not simply and wholly "biological" in a nice clean sense, and almost anyone can learn to appreciate new things. To the extent that a culture can be intrinsically racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., the tastes it imprints on its members can obviously reflect this.

That leaves us stuck in the middle. Rightly treating taste as sacrosanct, perhaps the essence of individual identity, but knowing too that it can express damaging cultural biases. This applies directly to the sort of sexual taste cannibals mentions, and also to the gender disparaties we've been discussing with regard to musical taste. Moreover, it's hard to separate the "good" (defensible) tastes from the "bad" (bigoted) ones. If, for example, it turns out that a lot of men are more impressed by music made by other men, is this necessarily an expression of bigotry? Can't taste be gendered or culturally specific without being bigoted?

I'm just rambling here, but it's a difficult issue to summarize cleanly.

God, that needed some editing...

thats totally wrong, though

There's a downside to this idea, of course, in that it seems to imply that sexual tastes that we view as abhorrent are equally fixed and unchangeable (and perhaps thus not "wrong"), but I'll leave that aside for a moment. If we accept that sexual proclivity/taste/orientation is neither correct or incorrect, not chosen, entirely, but in large part simply found within the self, then I think that we should apply this line of thinking to other forms of taste.

^^^^I totally reject all of this

It's a matter of intellectual consistency, which isn't something I'm too concerned about, generally -- but in this case, I think that a failure to really follow through with and broadly apply the line of thinking sort of dooms it. I know that sexuality isn't simply BIOLOGY!, written in the stars and entirely immutable. I know that it's fluid, at least in part learned, perhaps "set" in some core way at a very early age, but not simply and totally a matter of the DNA one happens to get borned with.

But I also see exactly why it's vitally important to defend sexuality as sacrosanct, as beyond question -- to treat it as if it was entirely immutable, no one's fault or responsibility.

Given my belief in the importance of free thought and speech, and of individual identity, I find it very easy to extend this line of thinking to other sorts of "taste". What's yr. objection, deej?

alcoholism is in biology x environment too, but that doesnt mean alcoholics have to lead lifestyles involving alcohol

'taste' functions entirely differently from 'sexuality' -- & w/ a totally different purpose

people are way way way more flexible than having immutable 'taste' -- we choose to have immutable taste when we choose to have it

i dunno i dont really feel like arguing here cuz we're talking kind of out of my depth w/r/t behavioral psychology etc but this whole 'taste is sacrosanct' thing seems really beside the pt to me ... no one's taste is that 'true' -- these are cultural artifacts created by others, im not sure i really buy that there arent a lot more 'accident of birth' kind of effects on what ppls 'tastes' are

i mean, are you seriously on some nature vs. nurture w/r/t indie kids liking Kid A? I think maybe only perfect-as-a-wizards-cap Brent has a good argument for being essentially predestined to like radiohead

No, I wouldn't reduce it to something as absolute (and ridiculous) as "some people are just biologically destined to like Radiohead." And I'm speaking more about social philosophy than behavioral psychology. Like: what is the individual, and what rights does the individual have in relation to the social whole?

One of the most basic rights I can think of the right to freely like and dislike, agree and disagree. It's related to freedom of thought and speech, but also a little deeper than that. Freedom of taste relates to my conception of identity -- the freedom to exist and be.

And I do think that one can fairly consider sexuality a form of "taste". Is it precisely the same as, say, musical taste? Of course not. But the two things do share certain traits in common. I'd argue that they're similarly fundamental expressions of the self as a thing that likes and dislikes, is attracted and repelled. A think that does not necessarily choose, but is in some sense and to some degree chosen by taste.

Taking it a little farther, we can see that homophobia, racism and sexism could easily be defended as "similar" expressions of fundamental taste, fundamental identity. And I think that this is valid. But society has a right to determine what it will and won't accept, especially with regard to things that threaten it. The social proscriptions against bigotry trump individual right to identity (and expression of identity) in certain case because bigotry is so socially harmful. I've got no problem with that.

But in the absence of the threat of grave social harm, I'm inclined to consider individual identity (and thus "taste") sacrosanct. That's just my basic operating POV, and it definitely colors the way I view discussions such as this one.

I think it's the job of the critic to shape and challenge the reader's ideas about music crit.

Are there any examples of ppls 'taste' in things they don't like being challenged in a way that threatens their individual identity?

Not sure I understand the question. I'd argue that our collective refusal to accept certain sorts of bigotry threatens the identity of certain bigots. But I'm willing to accept that, cuz expressions of those sorts of bigotry can be so socially harmful.

I don't think you can compare sexuality and musical taste as like with like, because it's like saying Radiohead = a gender. It's empirically true that people's taste in music changes much more rapidly and more substantially than their sexual preference. It's easy to become a Radiohead fan overnight: you buy their albums, listen and pass judgment.

Becoming a homosexual is by and large a much longer, more traumatic and life-altering process.

If you wanted to find some sort of comparison, you might say that our choices in music are a bit like our choices in particular sexual partners (rather than our choice of the typical gender of our sexual partners): over time, we might go from being attracted one type of person (in terms of physical appearance, or style or personality or etc) to being attracted to another, and we might be attracted to a variety of different types for different reasons, and what we want right now might change depending on context or how we feel, and the justifications we make to ourselves regarding why we want what we want might change over time. We might even look back and think "woah,I kinda cringe to think of how I used to like guys who described themselves as "straight acting" and simply ignore or dismiss leather queens."

The reason other people don't tend to interrogate such tastes is not because of some belief in fundamental sexual-orientation equality, but usually because they're polite, because they reason that what a person likes is pretty much their private business, because they (usually correctly) conclude that how people arrive at their own taste is pretty complicated and they're not in a position to understand it fully, or because ultimately they don't care enough to bother.

All of which are similar to the reasons on ILM we are mostly polite to one another w/r/t each others' taste in music.

Notice, though, how what people like sexually is up for heaps of criticism on a general social level: we criticise magazines that enforce and promote restrictive standards of female (and male) beauty - a common complaint against gay magazines for example is that they feature lots of photos of young white athletic guys and very few of older guys, or guys of non-white ethnicity, or bears, or etc.

Nb. When I say "what a person likes is pretty much their own private business" - I mean this not as a statement of right but of practicality; we don't tend to worry about stuff unless and until we feel that it impinges on us.

That wording was horrible, I guess I just think that however much people's identity is shaped by their musical taste, it's something they're consciously constructing, mostly to present themselves to other people. Taste isn't an individual private thing that needs to be respected, it's a way of communicating yr experience to other people e.g. this list. It's not something in you which is 'socially determined', it exists in expression, in dialogue w/yourself & w/society (HEAVY,). The sort of challenges to male indie norms/canons that ppl here want to make aren't going to threaten an existing group's freedom of thought/freedom-to-be so much as make space for more music and more people. I don't think that nec. involves having Mariah Carey in yr top 200, but I do think pitchfork having a strong identity/brand which a lot of their reader's identify with means they're in a good position to broaden things up.

x posts

In terms of shifts though, one of the things I liked when I read pitchfork the most, in 2000-3ish was their pretty indie-centric treatment of stuff like Morton Feldman, music which is generally seen as niche, old-man avant-garde stuff. Ppl moan about indie's outsider appreciation of some genres but I think it was a strength, at least as a way in. Maybe I don't read enough but it feels like there's less pieces on stuff like that, & perhaps that's because indie bands today are more likely to borrow from dubstep or afropop and less from modern classical stuff say, which makes me wonder if there's a tiny bit of chicken/egg stuff and that changes in what other shit gets pushed by indiecentric reviewers affects what indie bands borrow from/which indie bands sound good to that audience.

I feel you on all that, Tim. Especially on the difference between personal and social (collective) expressions of taste, and between deep sexual orientation and a more superficial taste in partners. Most of this thread has been dedicated to dissecting the PFork list as an expression of social taste, and yeah that's fair game for criticism of any kind. Nevertheless, I do defend their right to express a culturally specific taste, even to the extent that this reveals that culture's biases. Within reason, of course.

I do think that you can compare things in a way that highlights relevant similarities without insisting on any level that the two things are the same. I would never say that sexual orientation is equivalent to musical taste. But I would say that the two things are similar in certain interesting respects.

Finally, in response to oggie, I do think of taste as "an individual, private thing that needs to be respected," as a kind of essential human right/characteristic. Sure, tastes can be constructed and communicated, as a form of social display, but that's not the kind of taste I'm primarily concerned with. The tastes I'm describing are discovered within rather than constructed for external use, and can be very difficult (if not impossible) to significantly alter. They tell us what they are, and there's often little we can do about it -- in the short run, anyway.

I don't think that sort of taste makes any sort of sense.

I saw Os Mutantes tonight and the keyboard player was wearing an actual wizard's cap

which wizard?

I don't think a consciously constructed taste makes any sort of sense!

Or rather, such a thing is vulgar to me.

I'm in favor of reducing most posts to "such a thing is vulgar to me"

Oh god, this thread has started to give me a headache.

But WRT that whole "our taste in music is as biologically conditioned as our sexuality" argument that is such patent bullshit that I'm a bit o_O that someone would even suggest such a thing.

I think that Tim F has put it quite nicely - that although our biology and genes may specify what *gender* we are attracted to, the mechanics of "taste in partners" on an individual level *is* a highly conditioned and fetishised and constructed thing that *is* heavily influenced by what we are exposed to. (And just as frequently in opposition to what one is exposed to.)

The kind of people (male or female) who are put on display as being These Are Our Society's Sex Symbols DO have an influence on both genders as to what is considered beautiful. Ditto the artists that are put on display as being These Are Our Society's Musical Geniuses - these *shape* our conception of what a genius is (even subconsciously). So if only ever MEN are posited as Musical Geniuses, people will continue to only see MEN as geniuses.

And to go back to Dan's point about music critic vs. music historian and their roles in assigning music as part of its context - erm, isn't a "BEST OF THE DECADE" somewhere that music criticism has crossed over into music history? This is a deliberate attempt to make a historical document of some kind - THIS is what this decade just gone by MEANT.

Kate, you're absolutely right.

One thing we haven't talked about directly is that Pitchfork puts an editorial stamp on this that say, the Voice doesn't on P&J. P&J is explicitly a poll, this is PITCHFORK'S LIST OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF etc etc. So it seems like they have more of a responsibility to answer for the outcome.

It would be interesting to discuss what exactly they could have done differently. (A more concrete discussion might also cool down the rhetoric a bit.) Maybe had an album nomination process similar to the song nomination process, and taken a stronger editorial hand in what was nominated / available for nomination?

I think that there are always certain kinds of sounds that will hit my sweet spot no matter what -- and I do think of them as innate, or at least just formed so long ago that they might as well be -- but I also think there are certain sounds or genres that I've managed to train myself to appreciate, in many cases because I consciously want to like them.

And to go back to Dan's point about music critic vs. music historian and their roles in assigning music as part of its context - erm, isn't a "BEST OF THE DECADE" somewhere that music criticism has crossed over into music history? This is a deliberate attempt to make a historical document of some kind - THIS is what this decade just gone by MEANT.

Yes, this crosses over from criticism to history.

No, I don't think this list says "this is what this decade meant". That tag was assigned to the top song and the top album but the list as a whole comes across to me as "this is what we were listening to". Maybe I'm too self-centered to be an effective participant in this conversation but the only importance these lists have to me is in answer of the question "Was there anything Pitchfork liked this past decade that I missed or intended to check out but never got around to?" I am not concerned about the importance of this past decade in music and likely will not even start thinking about grand historical context for another 20 years; it's still too close to for me to draw any meaningful conclusions. I view everyone's lists this way.

The tastes I'm describing are discovered within rather than constructed for external use, and can be very difficult (if not impossible) to significantly alter. They tell us what they are, and there's often little we can do about it -- in the short run, anyway.

no i'm pretty sure that you can grow a taste for pretty much anything. like for example i don't like linkin park, and probably never will. but linkin park are also really uncool these days and almost universally shat-on critically. it's difficult to separate my social impression from my objective musical opinion, but once you make an effort to ignore the "social side" of things you'd be surprised at all the uncool shit you'll end up liking. this is more a reflection of my experience than anything else, nowadays i never trust my tastes for more than a second they're so likely to switch up on me: definitely not some immutable inner reality.

let's get some bourdieu up this bitch.

up in this bitch even.

You'd have to exhume him first.

IDK, I've been drawn to the same musical signifiers since I was a child and like a lot of the things I like *despite* awful cultural baggage.

It's like you married your childheart sweetheart.

haha

WRT that whole "our taste in music is as biologically conditioned as our sexuality" argument that is such patent bullshit that I'm a bit o_O that someone would even suggest such a thing.

― Masonic Boom

Kate, I kinda wish you'd, I dunno, actually read my posts before projecting something rantworthy onto them. But I realize that's not gonna happen, so whatever.

no i'm pretty sure that you can grow a taste for pretty much anything. [...] it's difficult to separate my social impression from my objective musical opinion, but once you make an effort to ignore the "social side" of things you'd be surprised at all the uncool shit you'll end up liking. ...nowadays i never trust my tastes for more than a second they're so likely to switch up on me: definitely not some immutable inner reality.

― samosa gibreel

I see what yr getting at, but I think that has to do with a distinction between a socialized/conscious interest in things (a form of superficial taste) and core identity (the source of deeper taste). Somewhat similar to the distinction Tim F drew between superficial taste in partners and fundamental sexual orientation. But, yeah, only somewhat similar...

I mean, think of one of your very favorite songs, a song you've liked for a long, long time, perhaps one that influenced your general taste and that still moves you on a deep level. Makes you happy, makes you sad, makes you wanna dance, reminds you of something important -- whatever. Now try to convince yourself that you don't like it. Try to edit or control your "taste" for that song. I don't think you can. I know I can't, and I think we can't, in general, control this sort of "deep taste". Same goes for songs that you don't just dislike or find annoying, but kind of actively hate. Songs that just rub you the wrong way. It's all but impossible to make yourself like them.

Same goes for taste in food and even people. We can become bored with things that once intrigued us or ashamed of affections that seem to reflect badly, we can aquire a taste for things we once found off-putting, or learn to appreciate things we might otherwise overlook in ignorance. But the basic shape of our underlying core identity, its fundamental likes and dislikes, are much harder to change consciously. The things we love the most and hate the most aren't so easily budged.

And there's no clean distinction between the casual, interest-based, largely social taste that we can mess with and the deep stuff we can't.

was going to go withwhite blood cells but then realized i likede stijl better

so i just went with panda bear

Look, I just don't agree. I am constantly surprised by my ability to surprise myself with what I like, in terms of songs and music and genres. My musical tastes have some things at its core, but it's been expanding and growing for nearly 40 years at this point.

You can grow up and learn to love non-intuitive music the way you can grow up and learn to love spinach or blue cheese or even 1000 year old eggs.

And besides, this whole argument is a red herring because I am not talking about training yourself to like a song you don't like, or even a whole GENRE.

But if one can not find ANYTHING worthy - in whatever genre in whatever kind of music in whatever kind of culture - that had a female involved in its production - then one is clearly such a bigot one shouldn't be reviewing music fullstop, IMO.

I agree, but no one on the Pitchfork staff is playing that type of zero-sum game and everyone on this thread knows this, so I'm not sure that's a particularly fruitful argument for you to pursue.

i just looked at my tentative top 20 for the decade. Only 3 albums have women in the band :/

You can grow up and learn to love non-intuitive music the way you can grow up and learn to love spinach or blue cheese or even 1000 year old eggs.

^^^^^this is true. and more to the point, insofar as a critic has any "duty" or whatever, they should be trying to push themselves towards doing this. obviously, everyone has limitations and genres and aesthetics they'll never grow to love; but these should be in the minority.