pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

not really

Forknancial Times

what is "drum filtering"

he's just talking about the dj-esque part of the single where there's a low pass filter on the drums.

ian cohen also responsible for this infamously terrible review:
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17136-mumps-etc/

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they're on the festival bill

copy and paste the url. ilx doesn't put the final "/" in the link and so it doesn't work

I don't really care about IC as a writer but he reviews so much nu-emo/pop-punk stuff that is reviving sounds I didn't care much about the first time around that I basically skip anything with his byline.

It's a huge bummer that he got assigned to review the Tenement album, which didn't really say anything beyond "It's a double-LP; therefore, it's too long." Couldn't they have gotten literally anyone else?

oh yeah just like when he reviewed the new mew record and mostly used it as an opportunity to make thousand-year-old prog jokes about rick wakeman's king arthur

IC is the most Pitchfork-y of Pitchfork writers though, a true objectivist, will always mention the album's relatability, hook count, and cross-reference with other Pitchfork-approved records positively. Music to him is something to affirm his own privileged position, not to challenge it. As long as he writes there regularly that site will never be a positive force for anything

Every site needs one of those, like David Fricke at RS. Or Anthony DeCurtis in his heyday.

i would like to suggest: nah

speaking of pitchfork writers, this looks pretty cool:

"Rural Violence", curated by Brandon Stosuy, features the work of the artists Matthew Barney, Cindy Daignault, Lionel Maunz, and Prurient (with John Sharian). It is a meditation on the bucolic as sinister and the quiet violence of the pastoral, along with the various rituals attached to both natural and personal cycles.

"Rural Violence" opens on August 8, 2015, in the Family Chapel of the 150-year old Woodside Church in Troy, NY. Opening is 7pm. Performance is 8pm.

There will be a second movement on September 19, 2015.

prurient in a church in troy. that's pretty damn poetic.

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9700-the-200-best-songs-of-the-1980s/

TOP 10 SPOILER ALERT:

10. "How Soon Is Now?"
9. "The Message"
8. "Once in a Lifetime"
7. "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
6. "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)"
5. "Fight the Power"
4. "Blue Monday"
3. "Straight Outta Compton"
2. "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin"
1. "Purple Rain"

Hardly visionary, but I'm sure there's a lot of cool stuff in the 200-50s

here's a spotify playlist with 191 of its songs https://open.spotify.com/user/norwich5/playlist/5rYtPUau6Aewf3UrsM7r66

great list!

nah but

(shruggie)

not to sound like all the idiot rockist/crypto-racist Slicing Up Eyeballs commenters who are complaining about this list, but no Human League was a lil surprising to me

a lot of great choices through 200-101 and then it hardens into an established, only lightly distorted version of canon, there are also a lot of inexplicable omissions and some u2 songs

...and Hall & Oates.

...and Michael McDonald.

no george michael, no 'perfect way,' no pointer sisters, no freestyle (unless you count shannon who to me was always on the cusp), no country, no 'higher love,' totally weak on all the weird left-field pop that bubbled up from secondary and tertiary markets to the charts and made top 40 radio an exciting place

also 'straight outta compton' being picked as the '80s best hip-hop track is just, i mean, what?

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" is such a mediocre song

the post-disco/electro-funk inclusions are the real highlight of the list and their blurbs are almost exclusively written by deej, tim, or meaghan garvey, thrilling me

and like... 'about a girl' but not 'touch me i'm sick'? come onnnnnnnnn

the selection/order/distribution of janet and madonna singles is baffling but

Alan Parsons Project right between Frankie Knuckles and Madonna, where it belongs.

the post-disco/electro-funk inclusions are the real highlight of the list and their blurbs are almost exclusively written by deej, tim, or meaghan garvey, thrilling me

this is the main reason i think this list is great

no 'perfect way,' no pointer sisters, no freestyle (unless you count shannon who to me was always on the cusp), no country

agree that the list needs more of ^^^

i was just happy to see Egyptian Lover first thing

yeah i was gonna say that i love nwa as much as anybody but calling straight outta compton the third best song of the decade isn't just revisionist, it reeks of au courant click prioritization

on the other hand, this is a fun mix to listen to because these are pretty much all very good and well remembered songs
numbering lists by priority and then having DEEP MEANINGFUL ISSUES with those priorities is pretty much always meh

xpost
I felt the same way about Nirvana being on an 80s list.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" is such a mediocre song

― welltris (crüt), Monday, August 24, 2015 7:49 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no country

George Clinton once called "Purple Rain" a country song in disguise, which is kind of true. But that's not even the best song on Purple Rain (the album), much less from the whole decade.

alexinnyc will be asking where is: Killing Joke - Love like Blood

Thanks crüt for the tip on the Slicing Up Eyeballs reactions. Hoo boy! I maybe have problems with this list, but when you're writing comments like "I can't take this serious because I never heard of a lot of trash here," you are a dope.

i counted 137 songs that i like/love. i don't mind that this list is half random and half the usual. lots of great music. fugazi is ugh to me. their one good song is nowhere near as good as a good minor threat song. also, no B-52s no credibility.

also, when i saw grace jones on there i couldn't help but think that you could replace ten of the songs on this list with ten grace jones songs and you would make your list better.

Can you imagine the "criminally excluded" list if they done this ten if not fifteen years ago

These lists are always a photograph of its authors current fascinations and canon, and man Ive seen worse

Exactly. If they'd done this list in 2000, it would've been all Mission of Burma and R.E.M. and maybe one token rap single.

Without talking about exclusions - there will always be exclusions - I would swap "When Doves Cry" (11) with "Purple Rain" (1).

I'm pretty sure 10 years ago the highest charting Kate Bush tune in the list would have been below 50, this is a turn of the tide I'm particularly fond of.

Purple Rain is one of the most 60s/70s-sounding songs of the entire 80s and When Doves Cry is futuristic even now. iow, I agree with you. xp

purple rain is really such a bore of a choice

*prince choice

seems like the UK in general and synth-pop in particular are underrepresented. No 'Tainted Love'?
still, there's something kind of fun about the uber-indie rock site more or less snubbing a lot of college rock.

don't mind most of the list! If anything, it tracks Pitchfork's progress since injecting new blood almost a decade ago.

whether its a tendency of consensus, an active aesthetic choice or a little of both, pitchfork tends to give the top spot of their big lists to grand expressions of romantic sentiment - "purple rain," "seasons (waiting on you), "Hold on we're going home," "midnight city," "gold soundz," "god only knows". big exception: "oblivion"