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

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.

ha, spinach and blue cheese are really apposite examples - hated 'em as a kid, love 'em now.

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.

― Masonic Boom

This is, of course true, but thing is, Kate: I said that. I said almost exactly that in my last post. And you present this to me as some kind of rebuttal? WTF?

The only way that what I am saying relates to the representation of women on the Pitchfork list is that I don't think angry accusations of sexism are necessarily the best response to these sorts of expressions of taste. Rather the male-dominated character of the list should raise questions in our minds, and these questions ought to cause us to look a little more closely at the people who made the list and ways in which they rationalize it. All of which inevitably leads us to note that, well, it's almost all dudes. That seems like a much more undeniably problematic issue, and a more immediately addressable one besides.

Dan is right that this is all getting a bit exaggerated - which Pitchfork staffmember didn't vote for female artists?

This idea that Pitchfork writers are too bigoted even to listen to female-created music is a million miles in meaning and sense from the (much more legitimate) argument that the Pitchfork top 200 has less female artists than would seem either ideal or "logical".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

so soon :( :( :(

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

― System

Haha. Well, easily one of the best poll threads in the history of ILM.

uhhhhhh

mark u have weird ideas

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I fuck with these results. Lol @ Kanye coming in last.

15 ppl drinkin the kool aid and thinkin knife made the album of the decade o_O

Or just the best album on the list? I may not have voted for it but it is a great record.

What Sam said.

id be more worried that 15 people thought the avalanches did

whiney g weingarten good job not drinking the kool aid

what dont you like about the avalanches, pfunkboy?

its boring.

15 ppl drinkin the kool aid and thinkin knife made the album of the decade o_O

I am actually having some Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade right now.

I highly recommend it to my 14 comrades.

Alternate choices: Man-o-Mangoberry; Oh-Yeah Orange-Pineapple; Eerie Orange.

you guys really gonna start an argument about the wrongness of a poll result's poll results?

if only there were some way to solve arguments like this

like a poll?

id be more worried that 15 people thought the avalanches did

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Saturday, October 10, 2009 4:48 PM Bookmark

otm

yo fuck modest mouse. how anything that band made is better than kala, which would've walked this if it were top 20, is beyond me.

also yay discovery

jesus fucking christ

― Mr. Que, Sunday, 4 October 2009 16:12

^^^ This, about the poll results.

informative poll; I never knew anyone had any sort of opinion about Spoon

Spoon are probably the best rock band of the 2000's.

first Rock album at number 8.
interesting..

not really

the number or the interesting?

1,2,3 are all rock albums on some level

some

Spoon are probably the best rock band of the 2000's

Eurgh. (Sorry, those dudes bored me senseless at the first ArthurFest and I've had it in for them since.)

Ned! Give them another chance.

Try Gimme Fiction or, even better, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Do not try Kill The Moonlight, which can be boring.

Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga imo

informative poll; I never knew anyone had any sort of opinion about Spoon

lol ilm stans spoon pretty hard, you must just not be paying much attention

Inspired by the poll results, I went and listened to some more tracks off of Discovery, and I found one that I like - "Face To Face"! So maybe it's just the robot voices I'm having trouble with.

kill the moonlight is so obviously ahead of their other albums in my mind. so amazing that everybody doesn't agree with me.

uh i don't agree nor do i see why this is amazing. tbh the last four spoon albums probably sound pretty similar to non-fans and among fans having different favorites isn't exactly shocking.

yeah I find it more amazing that someone could enjoy one spoon album that much more than the others...you either dig the aesthetic or you don't, but they'vene be remarkably consistent

*they've been