pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

https://twitter.com/1000TimesYes/status/767745011236601856

love how whiney has been at the cutting edge of painstakingly documenting every whim of millenial taste for like a decade now and is somehow SHOCKED JUST SHOCKED that Steely Dan can make it onto a p4k list in 2016

ha

TWO Steely Dan songs!

Apparently David Bowie is "in" now??!?!?!?

nice to see the ILX love for Croce and Staples

I didn't read this list and have no plans to

Bowie in, John Denver out.

The latter owned the decade to a much bigger degree than the former, but y'know...history is written by the winners or something.

These doofuses put Minnie Riperton's "Les Fleurs" at #107 but didn't mention Charles Stepney, who co-wrote the song and was the true author of Come to My Garden. At least give us some perspective. It also came out in 1970, not 1971.
Nascimento, Veloso Jorge Ben and yes, Tom Ze. But no Gilberto Gil.
Shuggie Otis makes it but not the Brothers Johnson doing Otis. No Stylistics: "People Make the World Go Round" is so awesome.
Steely Dan's Aja-era--"Deacon Blues" and "Peg" but not "Reelin'" or, for chrissake, "Rikki."
Todd Rundgren's "International Feel" but not "Hello It's Me," Slut" or "Couldn't I Just Tell You." Although they did get Miles' "Right Off" they forgot "Calypso Frelimo." No James Blood Ulmer or Arthur Blythe or Ornette.
Country: No Willie Nelson. No George Jones: "The Grand Tour," '73; "Bartender's Blues," '78, or great album cuts like "A Drunk Can't Be a Man." Nor any Tammy Wynette: 1970's "He Loves Me All the Way," at least.

The only artist I'm surprised to not be on there at all is Black Sabbath. Really thought they would try to get in some token metal aside from Zeppelin.

but not the Brothers Johnson doing Otis

You missed it. It's there.

The argument that something that wasn't actually popular in the 70s doesn't belong on the list - that's a moot point, isn't? This isn't a document of how people in the 70s experienced the 70s; it's a document of how people in 2016 experience the 70s.

how did pitchfork not fit my personal favorite 200 songs of the 1970s into their list of 200 best songs from the 1970s

Of course. I never expect John Denver to get within spitting distance of this list. It's just weird that history has diminished him so much (probably because he died before the internet was a real thing). xp

if we all know how consensus polls work why do people need to keep saying it

also sabbath is on there, pretty close to the top 10 iirc

Ahh, I somehow missed it during my quick search. Fair enough.

Denver is an interesting phenomenon in that he is independent of almost any genre or scene - he wasn't really country (certainly not of the Nashville variety), he def wasn't rock, etc. He had some connections to the 60s folk axis but his music represents a shift out of that era's formalism. His career reminds me of Cat Stevens in that way. A huge star, but somehow apart and independent from everything else that was going on.

xp

if we all know how consensus polls work why do people need to keep saying it

Not really sure of any valid reason to even publish a poll except to get people talking about other songs that should've made the cut (and maybe hear some songs for the first time that did make it).

Nascimento, Veloso Jorge Ben and yes, Tom Ze. But no Gilberto Gil.

This surprised me as well, but I honestly don't know what the big 70's Gilberto Gil song is. I would go for Expresso 2222 I think. I dislike the Veloso pick as well, would have gone for O Leaozinho or something off of A Little More Blue. But I've never liked Transa.

xp Yeah, my thinking about Denver led me to Cat Stevens as well.

Millenials love Ram. I'm surprised "My Sweet Lord" and "Jealous Guy" made it in before like "Heart Of The Country" or whatever.

No Wings on the list, right?

No solo McCartney at all.

bottom reaches of this list are dollar bin as fuck lol

Cat Stevens at least has film sdtks in his corner to keep his fortunes/critical rep alive, Denver has nothing but Muppets specials.

xxposts

Also, he isn't dead.

death is usually a great career move!

Millenials hate "Imagine."

Yeah, but he died too early into the internet age to likely ever benefit from any kind of critical reappraisal, not that he seemed headed for any kind of get-back-to-my-roots turnaround at the time of his death. He'd probably just keep making albums that were continuously worse until he EARNED his asterisk in 70s folklore.

I just realized Carly Simon made the 80s list (for a non-hit remix) and not the 70s list where she was a megastar.

Millenials hate "Imagine."

The only point in their favor so far.

J.D. Considine
5 mins ·
I suppose I should be grateful that Pitchfork managed to include jazz in its "200 Best Songs of the 1970s," given how many other genres got the short shrift. But at the risk of sounding like the Jazz Police, is it asking too much that they at least get their facts straight? In entry 128, Herbie Hancock's "Chameleon," Jeremy Larson writes, "...and it all marches around Paul Jackson's iconic six-note bass line, so sticky it would gum up any other engine but this."
First of all, the line is 12 notes, not six. Secondly, that's not Jackson's bass, it's Hancock's synth playing the line. Jackson enters about 24 bars in, playing a funky, string-bending counterpoint up the neck which he maintains until the riff disappears, about halfway through.
Amateurs....

i dig the randomness of lists like this. it's how my brain works. kinda hard to believe it wouldn't come with a spotify playlist though. corporate synergy is a thing. the random shuffle generation is okay by me.

there are apple music and spotify links at the end of the intro

The "sequenced loop" referred to in the "Baba O'Riley" entry is neither sequenced nor a loop. It's the Marimba Repeat setting on a Lowrey home organ.

Besides prog, wonder how much folk is in this list? Going to guess pretty much zero

Wasn't there an indie rock tribute to John Denver a while back? Low was on it and some other bands?

you could make a different list this way for every day of the year that would be as good. they should just make a different list every day of the year. and i feel love should just be number one every time.

"there are apple music and spotify links at the end of the intro"

oh okay i missed that!

why no youtube playlist?

wow that chameleon fuckup is p egregious

Besides prog, wonder how much folk is in this list? Going to guess pretty much zero

― imago

well hammond song is folk + prog guitar

Fripp is awesome in that song. I don't know how I'd never heard it before today.

colour field version of hammond song is also tops!

no John Prine, right?

Sorry Alfred Dinosaur completely belongs on that list. Classic 12"

I said I loved it!

bu to me it's like overrating the importance of Arthur Russell. I suppose you can make the argument that he's important because of the people he's influenced now, not on his colleagues or his times.

Roches 4ever

It is pretty light on folk. Nick Drake's on there of course. Karen Dalton. Judee Sill (although it's "The Kiss", which is kind of it's own thing)

The Pitchfork crowd really need to get up on "One World"