Best Album Rated 10.0 by Pitchfork Media Upon Its Initial Release

10.0: Essential
9.5-9.9: Spectacular
9.0-9.4: Amazing
8.5-8.9: Exceptional; will likely rank among writer's top ten albums of the year
8.0-8.4: Very good
7.5-7.9: Above average; enjoyable
7.0-7.4: Not brilliant, but nice enough
6.0-6.9: Has its moments, but isn't strong
5.0-5.9: Mediocre; not good, but not awful
4.0-4.9: Just below average; bad outweighs good by just a little bit
3.0-3.9: Definitely below average, but a few redeeming qualities
2.0-2.9: Heard worse, but still pretty bad
1.0-1.9: Awful; not a single pleasant track
0.0-0.9: Breaks new ground for terrible

In terms of the Dylan album I think anyone would be hard pushed to deny that it is indeed essential, it more or less documents the moment at which rock music was born and IMO you can't get much more essential than that. Plus "bootleg" is a misnomer (as it is for the whole Dylan Bootleg series), of course there were always bootlegs of the show but this was the official live recording which Columbia had been sitting on all those years for reasons best known to themselves.

Doran thats the rating system they came up with. The White album is "essential" because of how influential/important it, along with the other Beatles albums, is to pop music since then.
Your argument reminds me of my friend saying "The Velvet Underground are so terrible... if they put out those albums now everyone would hate them." That theoretical scenario is impossible because they were so influential on music, that you would be comparing them with a musical landscape/bands that wouldn't exist without them. And I think that Pitchfork currently understands that nothing really deserves a ten without a proper amount of time to measure its cultural importance.

listing their 0.0 albums would be way more interesting

also Lex is absolutely 100% wrong about Radiohead but then again I would say that (that Amon Tobin album is still the shit, too)

10.0: Essential
9.5-9.9: Spectacular
9.0-9.4: Amazing
8.5-8.9: Exceptional; will likely rank among writer's top ten albums of the year
8.0-8.4: Very good
7.5-7.9: Above average; enjoyable
7.0-7.4: Not brilliant, but nice enough
6.0-6.9: Has its moments, but isn't strong
5.0-5.9: Mediocre; not good, but not awful
4.0-4.9: Just below average; bad outweighs good by just a little bit
3.0-3.9: Definitely below average, but a few redeeming qualities
2.0-2.9: Heard worse, but still pretty bad
1.0-1.9: Awful; not a single pleasant track
0.0-0.9: Breaks new ground for terrible

― Evan, Friday, June 11, 2010 7:00 AM (20 minutes ago)

ha I remember this from way back. Nice find!

Spectacular vs Amazing

0.0 albums include both Zaireeka and NYC Ghosts And Flowers

we're assuming the Jet was a 0.0 although it seemed to transcend rating scales

Jet was beyond words or numbers

And I think that Pitchfork currently understands that nothing really deserves a ten without a proper amount of time to measure its cultural importance

yeah but that's total bullshit! "cultural importance" has little to do with how much a piece of music affects me. and in any case, cultural importance to whom? there are vast swathes of music and artists who owe little/nothing to the sodding beatles

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5607-travistan/

also the white album is terrible and therefore very much inessential

yeah but that's total bullshit! "cultural importance" has little to do with how much a piece of music affects me

Wasn't it you who was claiming last years Rihanna album was culturally important?

hang on that review is not a 0.0 review it is a 4.8 review

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/5607-travistan/

LOL: link to the left of the review "Travis Morrison Retires From Music"

And I think that Pitchfork currently understands that nothing really deserves a ten without a proper amount of time to measure its cultural importance

I wouldn't go along with that either, I don't see how that can be a factor given that (as per this thread) they give 10s to newly released albums as well as reissues

plus I don't think "cultural importance" is something that is built into pfk's concept of what is essential

there are vast swathes of music and artists who owe little/nothing to the sodding beatles

-lex

That doesn't mean that there isn't a huge percentage of music and artists who are. I'm not saying Pitchfork or its scoring system is perfect but they definitely seem more careful about it these days.

Wasn't the review of Coltrane's Live at the Village Vanguard (shit, cat) a 10.0?

Nah, 8.5.

Wait a minute I wasn't implying that Pitchfork was deciding cultural importance for us, just that thats part of what they are using to determine the score they give something, especially when they are considering a 10.

Oh maybe thats not what you meant either anagram. Sorry.

Wasn't it you who was claiming last years Rihanna album was culturally important?

as these things go it was, but that's not a reason to give it 10! (i'd give it 8.)

Eitherway, I just think "cultural importance" is a tiny summary of an element that helps them decide. There. Also, when I say current Pitchfork I mean post-2002 and no new releases have received a 10 since then.

I feel sorry for anyone under the age of 60 who thinks that the white album is "culturally important".

In what way is it essential? I know Beatles obsessives who don't think it's that good.

if the beatles aren't culturally important I dunno wtf is

No one can ever decide which tracks would make the "greatest ever single album"
xp

it's better than sgt peppers, but that's no great compliment

Who actually cares if something is culturally important or not?

the same people who care about whether pitchfork gave something a 9.9 or a 10

Sad people!

I remember NME giving a Wolfsbane live album 10/10 once. Doesn't get more culturally important than that, huh?

I cant remember any other NME 10/10 albums. Did the strokes first album get a 10?

9xposts

it more or less documents the moment at which rock music was born

I haven't heard the Dylan album but why would a 1966 Bob Dylan concert be the moment at which rock music was born?

I haven't listened in a while but I always really liked the white album the whole way through, including the goofy tracks.

oh wait , Doran, did you give the last flaming lips album a 10/10 in nme?

it more or less documents the moment at which rock music was born

Bollocks

btw how many suggest bans will I get when I start 'Best Album Rated 9.9 by Pitchfork Media Upon Its Initial Release'

NME gave Asian Dub Foundation's 'Community Music' 10/10. it then failed to appear on their EOY list iirc.

Whether you like the White Album or not, denying that it has cultural relevance is a laugh.

Well maybe it doesn't but it sure sounds that way to me. The way he plays solo acoustic on disc 1 and then just plugs in and lets rip on disc 2 sounds totally seismic, like a massive turning point. I mean I'm not going to start going all Geir here but it seems to me that if anyone can be said to have invented rock music (as opposed to pop, or to rock'n'roll), then Dylan did it when he went electric. The Beatles certainly didn't do it.

xxxp

Lots of people were playing loud rock music in 1966

"if most people were to choose their best ten albums of the last decade, they would struggle to come up with a list that looked better to most others than this."

oh man i think almost anybody could come up with a list that looked better than this.

Especially in Paisley.
xp

Just giving the MOST CURRENT Pitchfork.com a little credit. None of the reviews in the poll are current. so a disclaimer: I am not saying the albums above are culturally important, and I don't think Pitchfork is right about anything. There are only varying levels of agreement I can apply to everything they say.

Varying levels as in lots of disagreement, too.

...as with any publication.

Pfunkboy: No, that was something that was flying round on ILX for some reason a year or so ago... I gave it 9/10 but like I say, it's pretty meaningless without the text and when left to my own devices I don't score albums. It's pointless and misleading. (I stand by how I feel about that album... and there were other things to take into consideration such as the fact that anything less than 9/10 would have suggested the magazine felt that At War and Pink Robots were better albums, which they aren't.)

Scott: That's not what I mean. I mean if you came up with your list now, as many people would disagree with it.

ah okay. i didn't read that right.

I hate BPrinceB but I understand why that album means a lot to a lot of people. It's not like they've given 10/10 to Hot Hot Heat's second album.

would vote the soft bulletin because i am a sentimental wuss

the white album has helter skelter, julia and i'm so tired, and is therefore godhead

I don't get that at all, anagram, especially considering that "Like a Rolling Stone" had already gone Top 10 in 1965, one year before this concert, not to mention that the Rolling Stones had released several albums by that point. (And I'm not sure I see it as obvious that the Beatles had less to do with the emergence of rock than Dylan.)