Pitchfork: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01

1 are you that somebody
2 spottieotte
3 juicy
4 say it ain't so
5 nothin but a g thang

I like all these, except NMH...blech.

Going with "Only Shallow" though, because that fucking guitar monster changed my life (even if I almost never listen to MBV anymore).

protect ya neck
common people
are you that somebody
g thang
the state i am in

my ballot from ILM 90s tracks poll:

1.Dr. Dre – Nuthin' But a G Thang
2.Breeders – Cannonball
3.Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth - "T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You)"
4.Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody?"
5.Belle & Sebastian - "The State I Am In"

and I complained protect ya neck wasn't one of the nominiations. good to see my musical taste hasn't evolved over the last six years.

I voted for Hyperballad as it's one of my top ten songs of all time.

I never need to hear Loser or Smells Like Teen Spirit again but apart from those and Neutral Milk Hotel which I've not heard, these are all great tracks.

ilm list top 20:

020.- JAY-Z - "Big Pimpin'"
019.- DAFT PUNK - "Around the World"
018.- DR. DRE - "Nuthin' But A G Thang"
017.- SINEAD O'CONNOR - "Nothing Compares 2 U"
016.- STARDUST - "Music Sounds Better With You"
015.- MASSIVE ATTACK - "Unfinished Sympathy"
014.- BECK - "Loser"
013.- AALIYAH - "Are You That Somebody?"
012.- NIRVANA - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
011.- BLACKSTREET - "No Diggity"
010.- BJORK - "Hyperballad"
009.- RADIOHEAD - "Paranoid Android"
008.- APHEX TWIN - "Windowlicker"
007.- WARREN G - "Regulate"
006.- NEW ORDER - "Regret"
005.- GETO BOYS - "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"
004.- MY BLOODY VALENTINE - "Soon"
003.- THE BREEDERS - "Cannonball"
002.- DEEE-LITE - "Groove Is In the Heart"
001.- PULP - "Common People"

i'll never understand why "hyperballad" seems to be the consensus pick from the björk discography. it's not even a standout on its parent album!

lol this is the first i realised "enjoy the silence" was released in the 90s. REALLY?! i've just always assumed it was from like 1981 or something.

basically came down to "are you that somebody?" vs "juicy" - rip babygirl and biggie ;_; - went w/the hawk in the sky in the end

"common people" is such an annoying song. i hate it when people canonise pulp as being better and smarter than the rest of britpop trash. NOT SO. JUST AS AWFUL AS ALL THE OTHERS.

anyway in that song my sympathies are entirely with the poor girl who had to put up with being jarvis cocker's gf briefly.

ahahahaha i've just realised these are meant to be the 20 best songs of the entire 90s?! lolololololololololololol and indeed smh

shocked by striking lack of overlap between lex & pitchfork's taste

that "loser" song. i remember that from when it came out! absolutely dreadful. it's like a fucking parody of every socially inept indie mumble there's every been! "i'm a loser so why don't you kill me?" - OK THEN, happily! i genuinely didn't know it was rated as remotely acceptable by anyone (ah, the days before i'd read any music crit). seriously i remember laughing at that song w/my girls in high school, it was so obviously lame.

idk i just feel a touch of pity for anyone whose top 20 of that decade includes, like, belle & sebastian or neutral milk hotel (lolllll @ their stupid name, still) or pavement or nirvana. or WEEZER! god, i remember them from the '90s as well, and i swear they were a joke novelty band possibly put together by comedians. i can't believe they still have a career.

keep swinging for the bleachers

like anyone who was a teenager in the '90s i liked a ton of "alternative" music from then but this is all the stuff that even 14-year-old me knew to mock

Loser

to be fair, weezer barely have a career

happy to hear it

my favorite line in Loser is "And my time is a piece of wax fallin' on a termite who's chokin' on the splinters". and yes, Loser is my #1 choice

"i'm a loser so why don't you kill me?" - OK THEN, happily!

Rap? More like CRAP!

yeah, i can't really hate on anything here. favorites = beck, belle & sebastian, daft punk, dre/snoop, B.I.G, and well, everything else straight through to the bottom. the last seven tracks in this list cannot be fucked with. but honestly, nothing here incenses me or even bums me out. bjork is not my favorite, but hyperballad is solid. if you have to have an aphex twin track, it might as well be windowlicker. neutral milk hotel track is probably my least favorite, closest to horrible, but i like other stuff from that record, so i'm okay with it.

"i'm a loser so why don't you kill me?" - OK THEN, happily!

Rap? More like CRAP!

― symsymsym, Friday, September 3, 2010 3:52 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol

Belle and Sebastian - "The State I Am In"

rmde

oh my god, pavement #1?

s0 embarrassing for p4k

yes, last i heard, indie rockers en masse had rejected the teachings of pavement and burned all existing record of their heresy

well, if not, then why not

guys you're ignoring this important youtube comment

#
maitlanr
6 months ago 103

early 90s man. that was our sixties. and we blew it!

the 90s are gonna make the 60s look like the 50s

lol reactionary lex is back

god there are some b&s tracks i can vibe to but this is just abject

Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody?" - freaking great
Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker" - feel like I should vote for this but it's not even my fave Aphex track let alone fave track of the 90s :-(
Beck - "Loser" - this was the first time I ever had the feeling I was being "marketed to" like my generation had become a demographic, and I didn't particularly like it
Belle and Sebastian - "The State I Am In" - at a particular moment in time, this was meaningful, but that moment has passed
Björk - "Hyperballad" - freaking great
Daft Punk - "Da Funk" - just a bit of fun, be cool
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence" - hated at the time, but it's really grown on me
DJ Shadow - "Midnight in a Perfect World" - can't remember how it went
Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] - "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" - can't remember how it went
Mazzy Star - "Fade Into You" - oh just go away
My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" - see my Aphex entry. Not my fave MBV track.
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945" - can't remember how it went
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - oh just go away
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy" - can't remember how it went
OutKast - "Spottieottedopalicious" - can't remember how it went
Pavement - "Gold Soundz" - can't remember how it went also OH JUST GO AWAY god I fucking hate Pavewank
Pulp - "Common People" - God I fucking hated this song with an utter passion
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android" - a moment in time but that moment has passed
Weezer - "Say It Ain't So" - can't remember how it went
Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck" - can't remember how it went

So OF THIS LIST it looks like the only tracks I still have unreserved love for are Aaliyah and Bjork. But at the same time I feel like I should vote for what Aphex Twin or MBV *mean* to me, and *mean* to my impression of what 90s music was about. Even though there are other songs by those artists that should get the nod.

But now I'm listening to Hyperballad again, I'm getting the same "BUT THIS ISN'T EVEN THE BEST SONG!" vibe.

Oh wah waht a boring and unrepresentative list etc. moan groan complain etc.

I hate the nineties and "Loser" is not at all my favorite Beck, but hating that song or dismissing it as an example of being "marketed to" is crazy talk. It could have been released in 1979. Just a buncha cool sounds and non sequiturs stitched together whose chorus happened to be exactly the generational catchphrase adapted by record companies.

think that was Kate's point...?

I mean given it originaly came out on a microindie before Geffen jumped on it, I don't think there's any suggestion that Beck was a literal marketing creation, but I can see why someone might roll their eyes at its presentation

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945" - can't remember how it went

played it about an hour ago and i can't remember how it went. as with weezer and pavement and belle and sebastian, totally unremarkable piece of music.

^ this. this is otm. but i remember feeling that same weird twinge of encroachment in 93. i loved the song in spite of the feeling that i'd been sold, but it was definitely there. wasn't beck's fault, either, cuz he was clearly & authentically of my generation & culture, but he was one of the first examples of what i then thought of as "my" outsider/slacker/indie-refusenik youth culture and values being sold back at me by the dreaded "mainstream". it was somewhat jarring in that sense.

whether or not this makes sense to you probably says a lot about where and who you were at the time.

by "this" i meant alfred's initial response to KDT.

not history mayne's inability to properly listen to music

Thanks for your dismissal of my personal reaction to a song as "a dismissal". It was not a dismissal, it was a pretty powerful disillusioning - which was probably rather important for me to make at that age, and in that time and place. I'm not denying that that song was, certainly, a generational moment. However, it did mark for me the moment (along with Grunge Boutiques in Macy's and the like) that I realised that anything and everything could/would be coopted by the mainstream, that I wasn't so unique and that I should stop being such a fucking snob about music because many of the lines were absolutely arbitrary and "indie" or "alternative" or whatever it was that I'd been a part of in the late 80s and early 90s was really just one lifestyle choice among others.

i was 13 when 'loser' 'dropped', felt it was something of a parody?

Karen, no offense, but that disillusionment seems like a good thing in retrospect, no?

wasn't beck's fault, either, cuz he was clearly & authentically of my generation & culture, but he was one of the first examples of what i then thought of as "my" outsider/slacker/indie-refusenik youth culture and values being sold back at me by the dreaded "mainstream". it was somewhat jarring in that sense.

Yes. This ^^^^^^^^

It was that sense of having your own self-generated culture sold back to you that I disliked, not the song. The song was actually pretty catchy.

Karen, no offense, but that disillusionment seems like a good thing in retrospect, no?

This was my ENTIRE point.

So then, thank you, record company!

Not really, no.

i was 13 when 'loser' 'dropped', felt it was something of a parody?

it totally was, but it was a clever insider's self-mockery. delivered to us from one of us, if you will. the otm wit was a big part of what made it feel so weirdly intrustive on pop radio. plus awesome. still love it, btw, though not as much.

As for Neutral Milk Hotel, still haven't heard'em, don't remember'em at all at the time. Were their tapes passed around in college dorms or something? Were they played on college radio?

kind of glossing over the parallel doublethink required, because at the same time is was SO FUCKING GREAT to see this stuff beginning to break through to the mainstream, to see "kool thing" on MTV and trade secret tapes of nevermind demos while waiting for it to officially drop.

speaking of tapes.

and yes, afred, college students passed neutral milk hotel demos around as if they were doobies

once again, there is a huge transatlantic divide on this [via the bbc]

I remember similar sort of phenomena, but the reaction to this stuff starting to break through to the meainstream wasn't so much "SO FUCKING GREAT!" but "Oh shit, we're about to get really completely screwed, aren't we?"

Perhaps that's down to indie snobbery, perhaps that was the cynicism that would haunt my generation. But my personal reaction to the sight of the kind of people who used to beat me up in high school suddenly walking around in Kurt Cobain t-shirts was "oh fucking shit, end times" rather than untrammelled joy.

Downloaded Neutral Milk Hotel years ago after it came high in an ILX poll. I remember them nearly as dull as The National.

now that's just mean

Sorry!

I remember when Neutral Milk Hotel came out - I think I read an article about Tribe 8 in like Relix or something - but I could never find any of their albums and Olivia Treble Control was a better band name anyway. Every now and again, someone extols the genius of "The Aeroplane Flies High (Turns Left, Looks Right)" to me and I'll go check out some song samples on iTunes, but it's always really unremarkable.

Olivia Treble Control was a better band name anyway.

it is kinda better than their actual name

my horribly-formed attempt at one of those faux-naive skot seward posts.

I'd pick any number of the >20 tracks before these, but from this list I'll go MBV. Stunning piece of music, one of my favourite album openings ever.

Enjoy the Silence.

'da funk' -- then aaliyah

at least the mood im in right now. i think i voted 'g thang' highest on my ballot

Went with Hyperballad, btw, but I'm really having a good time listening to this Enjoy the Silence youtube. I haven't heard this song in years, but it's pretty dope.

just to say a few words in defense of NMH...

I don't know how that album went down in the US when it was released, I've always presumed it was a modest, cult success. I remember seeing them support Olivia Tremor Control at the Garage in 1998, and being entirely blown away by them. In the context of those times, you didn't often see 8-piece groups with musical saws and hobbit-looking dudes playing tubas onstage, so that was remarkable. But there was something so joyous and unhinged about the performance, swinging hard between chaos and melody: I remember the drummer playing these crazily overloaded drum rolls that were so OTT he had trouble getting back into the rhythm of the song, but somehow it all held together. The songs were great, much better than those of OTC, and they had none of that group's antiseptic slavery to a single style and moment - NMH seemed gloriously alive by comparison.

I got the album, and loved it. I remember pushing hard to write about them while I was at Melody Maker, but was turned down, and told that others in the office thought they sounded like the panpipe group from The Fast Show. An editor at The Times was more understanding at let me write some end of year blurbs about them. I was pretty obsessed with the record, but in the UK, it just seemed to pass by under the radar. I was a pretty dedicated partisan for their cause, putting their songs on mix-tapes I made for friends. If I was interviewing a musician I thought would appreciate their music, I'd make 'em cassettes, most of which probably ended up discarded and unlistened on the floors of tourvans. But if that artist turned round and said they already loved the album, it was a pretty big thrill, and would often result in long discussions about the unheralded magic of NMH, this brilliant secret were were lucky enough to be in on.

I'm really not surprised that the album has enjoyed such acclaim in the years since it was released. The 'concept' behind the songs - that Jeff Mangum was so inspired by reading the Diary Of Anne Frank that he penned this album-length treatise of love'n'death/fantasy that he travelled back in time to try and save her - is both opaque and alluring, and, of course, makes for both good copy and at-length decoding by obsessive fans. Jeff Mangum's own subsequent non-career and silence, full of mystery and hints of tragedy, also makes for a great story - the doomed artist and his final folly, etc etc. It's an archetypal 'lost album', if you like. And you'd be crazy to deny its influence on indie groups (many of whom I detest) that have followed.

I still think its a marvellous record, though I don't play it often now, as I perhaps played it too much a decade or so ago. I can't deny that it still moves me today, when I do hear songs from it, and even a track as outwardly-ebullient as 'Holland 1945' remains affecting, not least for the poetry of Jeff's lyrics, and the sentiments and stories its telling.

I mean all the above is corny as hell, but its also the truth

Say what you want about this list but the inevitable torrent compilation is going to kick ass.

Sometimes > Only Shallow, voted for Loser for old time's sake. Bought the CD single because I would usually rather get 2 singles than one album with my $12 for music.

I still think its a marvellous record, though I don't play it often now, as I perhaps played it too much a decade or so ago. I can't deny that it still moves me today, when I do hear songs from it, and even a track as outwardly-ebullient as 'Holland 1945' remains affecting, not least for the poetry of Jeff's lyrics, and the sentiments and stories its telling.

QFT

xp: The Loser CD single was dope too! The alternate version of Soul Suckin' Jerk is soooo much better than the album version.

re: NMH, i got the holland 7" before the album and was v excited, the album was subsequently a ridiculous disappointment to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_5nNQmszDw

between gold soundz and juicy for me

I bought the first Neutral Milk Hotel album after reading a rave review in Spin or Magnet, liked a couple tunes but didn't really see the big fuss and then proceeded to ignore them for the next couple of years, only later realizing that In the Aeroplane had become an indie touchstone.

At the same time, the Elephant 6 collective as a whole was definitely a *thing* if you paid attention to US indie in the late 90s. I mean, I skipped In the Aeroplane in 1998 but I did buy Olivia Tremor Control's Black Foliage.

"Loser"

Sorry, autogoons

In ILMverse I would assume "Enjoy" will take this handily.

'da funk' or 'midnight iapw' for me

lot of those choices, mbv, outkast, b.i.g., don't seem right to me, and very few of the rap choices blew up in the uk, at least from the perspective i had -- some of them i heard later -- whereas 'da funk' and 'midnight were everywhere when i was 16/17.

aaliyah, even though it isn't even the aaliyah single that made my own top ten for this thing.

the NMH song is one of my all-time favorites; has been for years. Try Again wd be the Aaliyah song that would have made me think about changing my mind...

i want to read more on why k8 hates "common people" because whenever people talk about pulp these days there's a really really strong assumption that *everyone* loves them, that you *should* love them and jarvis cunting cocker is a national treasure and wise man of letters, which is BULLLLSHIT, so yeah, k8, if you have time?

i was 11 when "loser" was released - surprising, thought i was older, but at any rate i had no conception of the music press or indie or whatever it meant, i just thought it was HILARIOUSLY PATHETIC. and i was right, c'mon, to like that song you really have to hate yourself.

xp "Try Again" came out in 2000.

yes good job maintaining the same mindset/attitude you had at 11, lex.

atlex shrugged

dyslexia more like

i still love janet & luther's "the best things in life are free" with all my heart, which iirc i did at 11 too

to like that song you really have to hate yourself.

Ha what? Most of what I liked about Beck in the '90s (indeed, starting with "Loser") was his collage-like aesthetic in both words and sound. "Loser" is a triumph of great nonsense.

lex, you know you're making the same assumptions about the audience for this shit as the Ashlee and Taylor haters, right?

They like "Loser" because they hate our freedoms themselves (and want to die).

So very 90's.

i still love pizza, which iirc i did at 11 too, but i'm not gonna go around shitting on people who liked tacos* back then (or now) because 21 years later i've managed to grasp concepts like subjectivity.

*of course, i like tacos, too. much as i like both "common people" and aaliyah. but it's a wacky world.

I'd hate myself if I loved Janet Jackson, that's for sure.

collage-like aesthetic

totally read this as "college-like aesthetic" at 1st

beck is so dreary and staid. i remember him being lauded as a great experimenter and innovator lolololol please tell me no one actually believes that any more?

Say It Ain't So. Kind of defined that era for me.

lol @ the way everyone in this thread is often totally ready to shit on a band's fans but as soon as someone does it to one of their own lame teenage nostalgia trips it's all about getting on your high horse about subjectivity

i'm not quite sure when the last time i shat on a band's fans was, but feel free to point out to so i can 40 lashings myself for penance purposes.

lex, you're a madman. you know that right?

lol @ the way everyone in this thread is often totally ready to shit on a band's fans but as soon as someone does it to one of their own lame teenage nostalgia trips it's all about getting on your high horse about subjectivity

including you

people probably wouldn't care that you hate some of these songs if you didn't act like an annoying teenager about it

Nothing on the list comes close to "Enjoy The Silence" for me, after that, I guess it's "Common People". I never liked much 90's indie rock, I like Weezer but "Say It Ain't So" is maybe the 6th or 7th best song on that album, "Windowlicker" is just another one of the 8484 Aphex Twin tracks from the 90's, etc. I like almost all of these songs but not in a "best of the entire decade" sort of way.

"Windowlicker" is just another one of the 8484 Aphex Twin tracks from the 90's, etc.

lol whut

Surprising omission from this list: Baby One More Time. Unless I missed it in one of the see also areas.

Windowlicker's pretty stand-out, but there were so many awesome Aphex Twin tracks in the 90s that it's easy for me to see how someone could rate it pretty far down their personal list.

xpost to me, Just seems essential to 'telling the story' of 90s pop.

I get why everyone goes crazy for "Windowlicker" but I've always been a "Ventolin"/"On"/"Come To Daddy"/"Girl/Boy Song" guy; I would rather have seen any of those on the list.

xp "Try Again" came out in 2000.

dammit I knew this; I'm a disgrace to NMH fans everywhere :(

Don't let the current status of Jarvis Cocker (annoying knob) get in the way of the facts here, "Common People" is the best tune here.

Aphex's "Milk Man' ftw.

-x post-

Aphex, like many artists on this list, is irreducible. Not to the extent that, say, Oasis is (if you like them), but "Xtal", "Girl/Boy"/"4" - he was in the mix during multiple creativity peaks, techno, dance, jungle etc. My crit-hat quip on "Windowlicker" is that it's in so many ways a remix of "Closer". Which makes it even more excellent.

"Common People" is a great song but if you're purporting to account for the 1990s in any way, as a time period, take, say, Pearl Jam. Hugely unaccounted for, a random cut low in the list. I hate Vedder more than words but they were just an absolutely enormous band with a string of SMASH HITS off that debut. Even a deep album track in "Black". And to put a marginal, extremely UK-centric act like Pulp at #2 for the decade, with Nirvana at #13, who were easily massive as Pulp in Pulp's native country, is both challops and poor history.

Eh, usually I wouldn't post something like this on ILX because I know that both Common People and Cocker himself are such sacred cows (and I don't want my dislike to be interpreted as some lame challops for the sake of it any more than I want to repeat arguments I've had since the mid 90s.) But for you, Lex, I'll say a little of it, because I suspect you will understand my reasoning.

1) The terrible awareness that I (middle class, arty, have probably engaged in bouts of class tourism) am exactly the person that the entire nasty vipituous diatribe is aimed at. You're right. I will never *really* know what it's like not to have an expensive education. I will never *really* know what it's like not to have my class background. I don't think that gives you (author or listener) the automatic right to sneer at such a person for wanting to broaden my horizons and *trying* to understand. And also, due to peculiar quirks of the British class system (that one can actually have education and breeding and still be as poor as a church mouse) this does *not* mean that I do not know what it means to live with lack or poverty or difficult choices or narrowed horizons.

2) the conflation of the British class system (Posh vs. Common) with the idea of common vs. uncommon. You're right. I will *never* live like "Common people" and, in fact, I absolutely *refuse* to live "like common people" because I refuse to see it as something negative to aspire towards the extraordinary, the sublime, thegoodthebeautifulthetrue. This song, for me, really encapsulates this kind of negative anti-cultural-Thatcherism which produces some pretty questionable aesthetic results and political conclusions if taken to the logical conclusion. The only kind of aspiration is *not* simply the material kind. I am the kind of person who will spend money on books when she hasn't the money for new clothes, so this has nothing to do with wealth. I can NOT conceive of a world where there is nothing else to do but "drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do" because no matter how little money I have, I *always* have my imagination and enough intellect to think of *something* else. I refuse to apologise for that.

I realise that these things are not entirely of Cocker's intentions, but they are certainly what the song has come to symbolise. In fact, I would have thought that Cocker, with his weirdo arty intellectual background, would understand, but, as we talked about on twitter yesterday, if you play with archetypes that are bigger than you, usually it's you that gets played.

This will of course all be misunderstood and torn to pieces because I don't think I've expressed this very well, but hey, it's Friday afternoon on ILX, I've got time. :-/

As an American tween/teenager it felt like an awesome pop song with an interesting angle and it still does today. It's amazing how much can be wrapped up in a song like that for some people and not for others. Not that yanks don't have our own multitude of issues but that kind of classist self-examination and judgmentalism isn't one of them, or at least it's not at the front of our minds.

it's the british 'pretty fly for a white guy'

As the lone Brit in a group of Americans (who were all massive Anglophiles) I kinda got sick of being the only person who actually saw any kind of class issues at work in that song, and also really really really hated having to constantly explain why I wasn't going completely bonkers over the "weirdoes, we're great, actually, thank you!" message that was all my American friends ever saw in the song.

So perhaps having that conversation about a dozen too many times has also contributed to my dislike of the song.

#
MusicChangesMe
1 hour ago

I know nothing about rock music i'm only here because pitchfork named this the number 1 song of the 90's...i can kinda see why though...this song really has a 90 feels to it. when you hear this track it brings back memories from the 90's

#
MusicChangesMe
1 hour ago

oops sorry for calling this rock i see that it's indie oops my bad

It is hard out there for a posh.

thought that might be something to do with it k8, and fwiw i totally agree (and though this is totally removed from what that song is about, i've seen it happen a lot whenever someone who isn't working-class becomes involved in "urban" street/underground music.

i don't like the song, but what i like even less is the way it's most often picked up by middle-class kids as a defence of working-class, idk, purity or something, and as an attack on "posh kids" (lacking the self-awareness of their own privilege, of course).

I also got really really really sick of explaining to Americans that "posh" and "rich" were not the same thing in UK culture at all, even though they are practically synonymous in the US.

And also wanting to say to Cocker, "look, I understand that you had it rough as a working class weirdo, but please don't leap to the assumption that it was somehow... *OK* to be an upper middle class weirdo. If anything, it had its own particular set of pressure from both sides. That you got kicked really hard by posh people for being a weirdo and kicked even harder by "common people" for being posh."

So yeah, first world problems. Whatevs. But also yeah: but what i like even less is the way it's most often picked up by middle-class kids as a defence of working-class, idk, purity or something, and as an attack on "posh kids" (lacking the self-awareness of their own privilege, of course). *TOTALLY*

it's got a good beat.

The in-the-know/out-of-the-know perspectives on Common People remind me of going to a party in Germany about 10 years ago and seeing people rock out to Sunday Bloody Sunday (not saying this only happens in Germany but I don't think classic U2 was a party staple here in the 2000s). I was kind of shocked that people were having a good time to this but it makes perfect sense if you have no idea what the song is about or no connection to Irish history.

(many xposts but) Lex, I guess the thing I find most infuriating is your implication that anyone who likes certain artists that happen to fall within the indie or rock canon has somehow been hoodwinked into doing so, and that you are the only person who is clear-eyed enough to see the truth.

everybody loves "Loser" then. good to know.

Think it's between Bjork and Shadow for me. Most of these are good.

And before there's any more "LOL @ Karen D. for her first world problems" - please understand. I'm not asking anyone to feel sorry for me or anything, just explaining why I really really REALLY hate the song.

There are a few songs I could vote for out of this list. Even Hyperballad, although Bjork in general annoys. The Robyn cover reminded me how great this song is.

i think i at least like every song on this list! (actually i'm not sure i've heard the bell and sebastian song unless it's on boy with the arab strap.)

For some reason, google chrome isn't fully reading the pitchfork list on my computer. What is are the top 7 songs?

gotta say i'm impressed the NMH hotel song isn't the first track on the album, indie album-artists i'm surprised to see chart on a pitchfork tracks list tend to be represented by those.

mbv and afx very far ahead of the rest, 'windowlicker' is certainly more of a signature song tho

tend to agree w/ kate abt common ppl although i've never given the song a lot of thought

completly agree w/ h8 of menopausal jarvis cocker and his stephen fryish reknown to a certain breed of slow-witted english ppl

'we love life is' is great tho

voted juicy btw, my favorite songs are songs that make me cry and "damn right I like the life I live/'cause I went from negative to positive" gets me every time, who can't feel that at some level

I haven't heard two of the songs on this list: B&S and Depeche Mode (I don't think). I like all the others. Hooray for me!

Wow, that's kind of impressive; "Enjoy the Silence" was almost as omnipresent in 1990/1991 as Lady Gaga's "Telephone" was this year.

I'm going to listen to it in a minute, maybe I'm just forgetting which song it is. But also I was living overseas in 1990/1991.

this nmh song (the only one i'm not familiar with) isn't bad!

I've never been sure exactly *what* makes "Windowlicker" a "signature" Aphex song though ... how much of this is because of the video?

Windowlicker's pretty stand-out, but there were so many awesome Aphex Twin tracks in the 90s that it's easy for me to see how someone could rate it pretty far down their personal list.

This is kind of what I meant ... to me, "Windowlicker" always seemed like such a random choice to be the *one* signature 90's Aphex Twin track.

I'd be saying the same thing if they'd pulled some random track off of Autechre's LP5 (I never really understood the love for that one either, and I LOVE Autechre) and talked about how it scaled IDM's tallest heights and still sounds like the future ... maybe this did happen and there was a track at #184 that I forgot about.

Actually I probably couldn't identify "windowlicker" or "da funk" if i heard them (blame videos that don't really highlight the tracks themselves, prefer "Come To Daddy" and "Around The World" easy), and I dunno one DJ Shadow track from the next, basically went from "i don't give a fuck if your lite jazz comes from two turntables or a harmonica up your ass" to "this aint bad lite jazz" on him.

oh I totally know "Enjoy the Silence," nevermind. I like it.

I listened to the B&S song and it didn't sound familiar but also it sounded like every other B&S song so who knows, maybe I'd heard it before. Anyways it wasn't my thing but it's pretty innocuous.

I've never been sure exactly *what* makes "Windowlicker" a "signature" Aphex song though ... how much of this is because of the video?

like... all of it? Which is partially why I'm bummed it didn't end up being "Come To Daddy"

xp: "Da Funk" is IMO the most easily-identifiable Daft Punk song aside from "One More Time"!

enjoy the silence is so classic. im more a policy of truth dude tho

xp: "Da Funk" is IMO the most easily-identifiable Daft Punk song aside from "One More Time"!

more than the one that goes around the world around the world around the world around the world around the world around the world? I've seen the video for "Da Funk" plenty of times and the song just never soaked in from it (probably because they keep turning off the song for extended periods of it.

Come To Daddy isn't any more "signature" Aphex than Windowlicker, to be honest.

Or maybe it is, in that CTD is a total pisstake song and Mr D.James is all about the pisstaking in ways that end up being quite intriguing and appealing to lots of people. But, as I keep saying in these kinds of debates is, what makes Mr D.James GR8 is the fact that there really *is* no signature Mr D.James - everything he does ends up sounding really not a lot like what everything else he does sounds, and yet it all sounds really *him*.

I just don't really like Windowlicker that much, except for the last minute and a half where all the distortion and phase kicks in and it suddenly goes really wubtastic. But that minute and a half is greater than most artists' whole careers.

Karen, from what you've written I think you hate Common People because you have completely misunderstood it and the kind of person it is attacking. It's not even about being a weirdo/outcast - that's Mis-Shapes. Surprised by such a misreading and staggered by your "being the only person [in your circle] who actually saw any kind of class issues at work in that song". What the hell else is there in the song BUT class?

"more than the one that goes around the world around the world around the world around the world around the world around the world?"

"da funk" is the one that sounds like it's going "around the world around the world around the world" except it's a synth riff.

Dorian, go and live in America for a while, and see how completely Americans can completely miss something WRT British culture that you think is BLINDINGLY obvious. It will really astonish you.

misinterpreting culture is sorta one way pop gets made though.

"da funk" is the one that sounds like it's going "around the world around the world around the world" except it's a synth riff.

it shouldn't be surprising that a song with a nagging vocal hook would be more memorable than an instrumental simulacrum (esp when the video for the former actually promotes the song).

kind of forget dance music never really cross the atlantic

xpost. Sure, I guess so, but I'm still amazed that anyone could hear those lyrics and not clock that it's a song about class.

Anyway, I think it's crucial to acknowledge that the song is about a specific individual, or at least a specific type - shallow, condescending, slumming it - rather than an attack on the middle classes per se.

"surprising"?

in ref to Dan's "only One More Time beats Da Funk in the recognition dept" claim

shallow, condescending, slumming it

it's a poorly-written song because cocker doesn't actually manage to portray this character as unsympathetic enough - she doesn't come across as malicious or unpleasant, just naive, and his vitriol comes off as disproportionate. your sympathies end up with her, not him.

spottieotte 4 lyfe

'da funk' is hugely memorable. what is going on itt

"da funk" is the only daft punk song i really and truly love, and it's hella catchy

"around the world" otoh is dreadful and grating

is there a difference between "hella catchy" and "grating" other than taste?

Songs that are about "a specific individual" can still be taken up and used as a trope in a way that leaves that individual behind.

And I never said it was an attack on the middle classes, it's much more of an attack on the upper classes, and on class tourism itself. But, as the Lex pointed out, I really resent the way that many of the middle classes take it up as a kind of battle cry, completely ignoring the fact that the lyrics are an attack on privilege itself, rather than on "someone more privileged than me".

Yes, I'm also aware that my takeaway from the song is also dependent on its context within the album and other songs and their themes. Which is perhaps where the conflation comes from, but I'm not the only person who has made that conflation in either a positive or negative sense.

"da funk" is many things, but for an instrumental single, i'm not sure if it's "memorable" in the sense that a pop instrumental is "memorable." (if you heard it once, on mtv, years ago, i'm not sure anyone can hold it against you for not being able to name the artist if you heard it again 10 years later.)

i mean it's no "sandstorm."

I voted for it, it is my precious. xp

too many favourites to choose from, but i plumped for depeche mode.

btw "sandstorm" robbed in both this and 2000's poll

Common People is the only song where the William Shatner cover is better than the original; wtg p4k etc.

tbf if shatner any pulp song it'd be better than the original

still need to make this happen somehow eight years later:

what would you like andrew wk to cover?

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"common people"

― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, October 29, 2002

oh wait forgot Joe Jackson taking the chorus, I'll take the Pulp version over that actually

I fuck w/ every song here except for Beck, Weezer, Neutral Milk Hotel, Pavement, Belle & Sebastian. Voted "Enjoy the Silence" -- was a toss-up between that and MBV based on the insane # of times I've listened to each.

xp Yeah I'm also surprised about Sandstorm's absence. You'd think it fits in perfectly with p4k's pop reclamation efforts over the last decade.

good point, where is "sandstorm" on this list!!!

was it 1999 or 2000?>

it was both.

originally released in 1999, went massive in 2000

I have to really rrrrreaaallly resist the urge to make a "I prefer the Fake Blood remix" joke every time anyone mentions Sandstorm.

btw pretty sure i am the only "sandstorm" fan on staff tho

It's surely as rushy as Euphoria (Nino's Dream)..

btw pretty sure i am the only "sandstorm" fan on staff tho

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Friday, 3 September 2010 14:55 (2 minutes ago) Permalink

certainly not

in college parties at the 'russian suite' would play it three times over the course of one night

haha i almost added "except maybe drake"

it's a poorly-written song because cocker doesn't actually manage to portray this character as unsympathetic enough - she doesn't come across as malicious or unpleasant, just naive, and his vitriol comes off as disproportionate. your sympathies end up with her, not him.

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Friday, 3 September 2010 14:40 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

I would disagree that this song is badly written, and I'm a bit surprised you hate Pulp, Lex, I would of thought there is enough "non-indie" stuff going on with them to make it potentially of interest.

The whole album that this single comes from is pretty vitriolic, in particular "I Spy", the album's centrepice, a tour-de-force of bitterness and class resentment.

heady times

xpost. Sure, I guess so, but I'm still amazed that anyone could hear those lyrics and not clock that it's a song about class.

We, or at least I as a 13-year-old, knew it was a song about a rich person slumming it but the story didn't really MEAN anything. It was just a story, certainly not anything philosophical or political or even particularly meaningful. Having learned more about the British class system I get where Karen is coming from, but the song simply doesn't and can't resonate in the same way to people who haven't lived it firsthand.

no "sandstorm"?! another lol/smh @ this list

Lex in "disagreeing with Pitchfork list", more news at 10.

How about something like Wannabe? Heheheh..not sure how big SG were in the states. They would surely place on an ILM pop-centric list.

no "sandstorm"?! another lol/smh @ this list

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend),

Who knew the lex was such a huge Cast fan ;)

the video is obviously important but windowlicker still sounds like the apotheosis of afx's phase (95-01) of hyperactively programmed dsp fuckery (or w/e), w/ the catchy central motif, some parodic relation to late 90s futurist rnb and the amazingly distorted cadenza

it's a perfectly formed track! come to daddy is also great but more obviously a pisstake

xpost. OTM. It's a vicious, vengeful, score-settling album and Common People has to be set against Mis-Shapes, in which unthinking working-class bullies are the villains. I don't think Jarvis is presenting himself as representative of his class, which is why I think Mis-Shapes is one of the weakest tracks because it says "we" instead of "I". Jarvis doesn't really convince as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself. If there's a major criticism to be levelled at the album, it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority, a la Dylan, but I find that bracing and fascinating rather than unpleasant (and there's enough compassion and ambiguity in tracks like Sorted and Underwear to counterbalance it).

it's the joke that needed to be made xxp

man cant believe they left of sandstorm

xp to Dorian Well put. Whatever you think about Jarvis' current public persona, he was IMO an always-interesting lyricist, but not always likeable, which actually contributed to him being interesting.

The problem is, really, that "Common People" made it very clear to me that *I* was not going to be allowed to be in the team of "we" described in "Mis-shapes". So that really made the whole album kind of fall down for me in a way that I really just could not ignore.

1. "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang," 2. "Loser."

it's that sense of embittered, finger-pointing superiority

yeah i think this is def part of what k8 and i take issue with. i think this also has a lot to do with how you listen to music, how you align yourself with narrators. as you said, cocker doesn't work as a spokesperson for anyone other than himself, so you can't identify with the one pointing the finger (and if you do, that song gets even uglier) - you can't sing along as him. but then what role are you left playing? the one being pointed at? fuck off! or no role at all? well, maybe, but that's prob why the entire narrative leaves me cold.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

And I disagree about Cocker not speaking for anyone but himself. He very clearly spoke for quite a number of people who identified with that angry, embittered, finger-pointing superiority. And it was almost *more* insulting to be told that people like me weren't going to be welcome in his army-of-the-different because I was different in an unacceptable way, even while he was gathering his flock of the different around him.

He often plays characters, though, although admittedly Common People is to some extent autobiographical. Identifying with an artist is such a subjective thing, I suppose.

"Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" = "Common People"

― cee-oh-tee-tee, Friday, September 3, 2010 4:12 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

hmm, i'd never thought of it that way before

truthbomb

like, "common people" works as neither a song that the listener gets to sing, nor as one that is sung to them...

I'd agree with that but also say that it's not a problem for me.

I find the same with most hip hop to be honest. I don't need to identify with either the narrator or the subject of a song in order to like it.

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

this is an excelent song, fits in with what its like to live in towns when u dress 'alternatively' in yr 11 there were 2 gangs the 'grebs' and the 'roodies' the 'roodies' being the ppl who were like pretty hard, but were compleatly senceless, wondered around creating trouble with mindless vandalisum and beating ppl up. the 'grebs' on the other had had quite a few intalectuals in, we didnt go round beating ppl up, cus most of us would get our heads kicked in if we tryed. but in 10 years time we are all going to be in decent jobs and they are going to be on the doll, in prison or a dustbinman (no offence to dustbinmen)

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

^^^ this. It's all performance.

Agreed. I don't identify much with e.g. John Lydon, doesn't stop me liking (some of) his records.

that's mis-shapes, not common people

xposts to can't remember

I realise that you're speaking to Lex and not me, but that's not what I dislike about the song. I don't have to *relate* to the narrator or the object of the song to like it. But I do kinda have to be not implicitly denounced in it, in a way that I find rather unfair. I do object to that. But it is only one part of the tangle of what I dislike about it.

Anyway...

I've just had an unfortunate realisation re: Hyperballad and Bjork in general.

I love her songwriting, I love her vision, I love her words and her music, I love the arrangements and the production, and the way that she puts everything together. I love her persona, her image and all that. I even like the *sound* of her voice.

I do not like the *way* that she sings.

I didn't want to be one of *those* people but I guess I am. :-(

This is getting narrower and narrower and harder and harder.

I think 'Common People' is way more complicated than just 'class tourist fuck off you'll never be real/pure like us'. It has a pretty grim view of a certain section of the working class, one of which I know is true of a certain section of society, but not one in which I imagine Jarvis identifies with. As much as he loathes the woman, he seems to loathe his character just as much. Mis-Shapes can be seen as the kind of outcast/arty/weirdos call to arms, but I don't think the same holds for CP.

I could be misinterpreting his intentions, but as has been said so many times, it doesn't matter. To bring it around to Lex, I don't think the crushing (class) subtext of Taylor Swift's "Love Story" is intentional, but it's one of my favourite things about it. And I know a lot of people who take it as a sweet, romantic story, but that doesn't take away from its greatness for me.

you guys.

This is basically down to Windowlicker vs Are You That Somebody for me, now.

Which is a really really weird choice, and yet the songs have quite a lot in common, almost as if they are weird inverses of each other.

(Also that neither song is my favourite by that particular artist)

If only it'd been Soon instead of Only Shallow then I could unreservedly vote for that.

just vote for juicy it's a better song than all this business you're all getting all worked up about

the way björk sings "car parts, bottles and cutlery" may be my favorite single moment in one of her songs. overall though, I'd take about a dozen of her songs ahead of hyperballad

xpost. I dislike Mis-Shapes because it pretends there's a gang to join whereas (as This Is Hardcore made very clear) there was no gang. It was all about Jarvis. In that sense he's more like Lydon (strange, twisted, compelling, kind of unpleasant individual) than he is, say, Joe Strummer (come join me, we're in this together), though that's not how he was presented in the press at the time.

I generally dislike it when musicians claim to speak for the weirdos/outcasts anyway - it's the part of Lady Gaga's shtick which really sticks in my craw. It's more interesting to explore the gap between the artist and the audience than to pretend they're all outsiders together.

I mean, I think one of the reasons I really hate Common People is because it's just way too *simplistic* a take on class issues.

it's a fucking pop song

Thing is, as is usually the case with pop records, most people engage with Common People because they find it a powerful piece of music, and don't get detained by worrying about who they should be relating to.

great songs don't exist in vacuums though. i don't think i have to relate specifically to what someone's singing about, but there has to be a way in to the general emotional thrust of the song. there's none in "common people", or at least none i want to.

jess is still a total dickhead after all these years, huh

you want depth, go read a damn book.

that one can actually have [an expensive] education and breeding and still be as poor as a church mouse

what quirks of the british class system bring this about? because i mean the song is quite specific: "She told me that her Dad was loaded", "'cos when you're laid in bed at night Watching roaches climb the wall If you called your Dad he could stop it all" , "everybody hates a tourist". i don't know the culture in the flesh and we can never underestimate people's ability to ignore lyrics, but these points are pounded home in the arrangement. if your dad can't stop it all you're not this type of tourist.

You're right. I will *never* live like "Common people" and, in fact, I absolutely *refuse* to live "like common people" because I refuse to see it as something negative to aspire towards the extraordinary, the sublime, thegoodthebeautifulthetrue. This song, for me, really encapsulates this kind of negative anti-cultural-Thatcherism which produces some pretty questionable aesthetic results and political conclusions if taken to the logical conclusion.

this is complicated and i don't want to be presumptuous but isn't this part of what he means when he says "you'll never fail like common people" beyond the financial safety net. i mean the lyric is "You'll never watch your life slide out of view And then dance and drink and screw Because there's nothing else to do". couldn't u be armed by your education and background in a way that makes this refusal more possible, less heroic, than it would be for a "common person". i think this is so.

history mayne: it's a poorly-written song because cocker doesn't actually manage to portray this character as unsympathetic enough

what the song's doing is showing u it may take exactly this much to engender this sort of snarling resentment. that u haven't seen it i wouldn't blame on the songwriting, no offense.

Just because something is "just a fucking pop song" doesn't mean that it can't be *more* than a pop song. In fact, I think some of the more important cultural truths about the society we live in are revealed by the more ephemeral aspects. Hence, it's really important to dig inside pop songs if they stick in your throat in a particular way.

I mean, I hate Common People, but I do agree it should probably be on a list of "important songs of the 90s" because it managed to catch such a zeitgeist.

x-post to jess

it's a fucking pop song

Silly me. A music critic discussing the meaning of a pop song on a messageboard about pop songs. What was I thinking?

all i meant by that is that berating a three-four minute rock song for being "simplistic" is sort of massively missing the point of what it can do. i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything. the compression of the form almost requires reduction.

my beef was merely with using "simplistic" as a criticism.

I'm also trying to imagine how hard this poll would be if it had pitted, say Don't Know What To Tell Ya vs. Polynomial-C or Try Again vs. Cock/Ver10 and watch my head explode.

Surprised it was "Hyperballad" over "All is Full of Love" but I agree completely and xp on the "car parts" line mmmmmmm; it's her launching point from club/dance into thinking-x's pop, head in both spaces.

Is "Sandstorm" the one with Sting and an Algerian dude?

that wasn't me who said that?

the chick is greek so the song's connection to the british class system is sort of indirect; and the narrator/jarvis is not someone whose life is sliding out of view: he is at the prestigious st martin's school of art. the bit about the dog is weird. but it's an undeniable tune and i don't rly mind about all this, 15 years on.

xposts to zvookster

OMG, Jess, you might actually be being stupider than I initially thought. Are you really trying to tell me that a pop song or lyrics or poetry or something is really not capable of *not* being simplistic? That a lyric really can't capture something ambiguous and complex and multifaceted?

Because fuck me, that is *exactly* what I go to poetry and the more ... lyrical of lyrics to *do* for me.

...

oh sorry i see now that was lex! xp to mayne

i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.

I mean, jesus h. christ, yeah, OK, this is why you write for fucking Pitchfork, and this absolutely encapsulates everything about why people around here bitch and moan and complain about said organ.

Time for me to bow out of this conversation now, because this direction of conversation actually *is* going to piss me off.

"Common People"'s lyrics seem amazingly appropriate for what's going on here.

Is "Sandstorm" the one with Sting and an Algerian dude?

― jaymc, Friday, September 3, 2010 11:41 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thats desert rose dummy

i actually phoned st martins the other week to check that in fact there is no apostrophe there

so i amend my earlier post

well my work here is done

sandstorm is the one that goes "duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes higher] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes lower] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh"

I wonder where this kind of ferocious, articulate working-class voice exists in indie these days. Pulp had it and the Manics had it but the current crop are almost universally privileged - not rich, necessarily, but relatively comfortable. It's a constant in hip hop - it's all over the Tinie Tempah album - but I don't hear many (any?) new indie musicians with years of financial struggle behind them. I'm not saying that it's better to have that - I hate the tired old Alan McGee point-scoring - but there should be somebody voicing that kind of experience and outlook.

i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.
i can't even imagine a rock song that takes a "nuanced" view of anything.

Oh my god, people are having a lively debate about something I MUST STOP THAT RIGHT NOW - you actually make me want to go on talking about this with Lex and Dorian until the lights go down.

this is kind of awesome, i forgot about this

thats desert rose dummy

I know. ;-)

I don't know what "Sandstorm" is, though.

could we take this to the sandstorm thread so i can continue trolling kate

sandstorm is the one that goes "duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes higher] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh [goes lower] duh duh duh duh duh duh duh"

― max, Friday, September 3, 2010 11:45 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Oh, I got it - it's 'Enter Sandstorm' right?

xpost I feel The Streets' first album, which was certainly not indie, but had a massive indie listenership, captures some of this class consciousness you're referencing here. I might be wrong, but I feel lots of people listened to his writing in the same way as Cocker or Strummer or Morrissey in the past, in addition to all the dance culture references on that record.

I wonder where this kind of ferocious, articulate working-class voice exists in indie these days.

new labour and everyone got rich.

the north is all elbow and doves these days.

Skinner=Moz is ©2002 me.

Common People: A lyrical discussion/dissection

you know 'sandstorm' even if you think you don't

it's probably more omnipresent than the beatles

don't much like 'sandstorm', but i guess out of principle big euro-dance floorfillers > weezer

you know 'sandstorm' even if you think you don't

it's probably more omnipresent than the beatles

― ciderpress, Friday, September 3, 2010 4:53 PM (32 seconds ago) Bookmark

yeah -- feels like it's still around in a weird way

srsly though

ould we take this to the sandstorm thread so i can continue trolling kate

― strongohulkingtonsghost, Friday, September 3, 2010 3:48 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

k8 is pretty much worth 100 of you, you utter twit

ah that old black magic

are you having a nice time there, dear?

I think I've said everything about Common People/Pulp that I really need to.

I'm gonna spend the rest of the afternoon listening to Aaliyah and Aphex until my head explodes. And probably end up voting Aphex because I want to eat up his little boolies even though that's one of my least favourite songs of his.

really i'm just bored as shit at work before a holiday weekend

tbh this list is p decent, glad to see the outkast choice, protect ya neck, gold soundz, aaliyah etc.

is this thread huge just because lex read pitchfork again?

another bored office worker being a twat to people on the internet, wouldn't have ever guessed

iirc it's that lex thinks when people like music he doesn't like it's really appalling

sam the irony is i genuinely haven't clicked on the actual list, i've no idea what's on it beyond the 20 in the poll!!

For Pitchfork's worldview it's a great list. Plenty of omissions, inevitably, but I like everything here except Weezer.

lex, you're being just as big a twat

early 90s man. that was our sixties. and we blew it

I love this. Voted for 'G Thang'.

i'm not the one admitting to deliberately trolling someone to make them upset?

not admitting to it, no

because being disingenuous is so much better xpost

even though that's pretty much exactly what you're doing, and you're smart enough and self-aware enough to know that

This thread has turned into Summer Heights High. I approve.

"i'm a loser so why don't you kill me?" - OK THEN, happily!

^^ still my favorite moment of this thread

imagining lex sitting back in his chair after typing that to take a sip of his pepsi and say softly to himself "zing"

well if you're going to pile on me for it, i'd also direct you over there to jess

and what's actually even worse are people like electricsound who contribute nothing except popping in to pile on someone once everyone else starts

you know 'sandstorm' even if you think you don't

Nah, I listened to it, didn't sound familiar. Oh well!

i don't drink pepsi

dang

i'm a diet coke with lime man, myself

lex - i haven't read the thread, just skimmed it, so i ask this sincerely and feel free to tell me I'm wrong but

1. why so upset about an indie list? surely for a crusader like yourself it is great to see wu tang and aaliyah above nirvana and then after that, you don't really get it so its not worth getting angry about?

2. common people is a pop song, its not exactly supposed to sort out a 1000 yrs of class issues. catchy though. loser is supposed to be funny and silly and throwaway. other stuff we should all just let go.

3. life is for enjoying, not spending yr friday night bitching abouts pitchfork.

:)

3. life is for enjoying, not spending yr friday night bitching abouts pitchfork.

I think I speak on behalf of many here when I say I will kill you

with my bare fucking hands

i don't think common people is overly simplistic or insufficiently nuanced at all btw

lol aero

life is for enjoying, not spending yr friday night bitching abouts pitchfork.

Friday NITE, sure. But Friday afternoon stretching eternally at horrible day job with only 5 minutes of work to fill 3 hours, threads like this are actually really really good for.

and what's actually even worse are people like electricsound who contribute nothing except popping in to pile on someone once everyone else starts

you really are the most pathetic individual in this entire board's history.

1. i'm not upset about the list! i don't know what's on it. i have no intention of clicking on pfork again. i was amused at finding these DREADFUL songs being repped for by anyone, anywhere, and people took offense.
2. "it's just a pop song" is my least favourite defence of stupid or unconvincing songs. though even if the lyrics were any good i'd still hate the sound. "loser" is just a piece of shit.
3. alternative to bitching about pfork is currently transcribing endless endless interview, neither offers much in the way of enjoyment :(

One area where I completely have Lex's back is re: Pavement; that song is horrible.

i was amused at finding these DREADFUL songs being repped for by anyone, anywhere

Do you really have no way of understanding what might make some people like them, though? I mean, I don't give a toss about Bob Dylan at all -- I think his music is boring -- but I absolutely get why other people, those who privilege things like lyrics and personae more than I do, find something of value in him. I'd be curious to know why you think so many people like Beck or Pavement or My Bloody Valentine or Neutral Milk Hotel.

(Without suggesting that those people are dumb or brainwashed or whatever.)

I'll forever rep for "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea". It's one of my favourite albums for a lot of reasons. I don't think it has anything to do with being brainwashed, it's just very good.

Lots of songs by bands I like that aren't necessarily songs I like - Gold Soundz isn't even that great a song.

reptilian shapeshifters trying to control our brains thru indie music iirc

Don't want to derail thread, but I love Dylan because I privilege singing and personae. Lyrics are a happy third.

i think the thread has been officially and thoroughly derailed already.

i love dylan because he's funny as fuck. when he's good.

I love Dylan because he wasn't afraid to move to London to be with the girl he loved even tho he had it made in B Hills

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/submit-a-video/index2.shtml

man i didn't know dylan moved somewhere to be with a chick. hate that dude now.

9/02/10 was yesterday dudes

we're in a post-90210 world now guys

hi, deej!

missed trick by todd haynes, really

http://pinkisthenewblog.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/093008_dylanreturns90210.jpg

see he totally coulda played born again era bob

Bob's got his own teen hearthrob movie:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/ciu/79/d8/fbd8017b42a05c5a45572210.L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

didnt know bob dylan wrote that for cut copy

he also wrote the lyrics for "Windowlicker."

I love Dylan because I privilege singing

O_O

Dylan is one of the most insufferable singers of all time.

OF ALL TIME

Where the big bands of the mid-90s were filling theaters and copping the arena-rock moves that had ossified somewhere back in the 70s,

-_-

Surely he's not talking about ironic boas!

I always have hated Neutral Milk Hotel. Now I'll explain why

1) It's nothing but campfire music with timely, orchestrated buildup shoveled on top
2) The Vocals remind me of an indie version of Blink 182's vocals.
3) It really comes down to #2 most of all. The singer makes me vomit diarrhea

NMH sound is grating for me and not boring like some people mentioned upthread.

----------

Now I'm listening to 'Commom People'. This has an equivalently annoying sound.

I listen to a lot of lo-fi and experimental junk so I know the difference of harsh music that sounds pleasing and music that is just an annoyance.

----------

Again, my opinion is just my opinion on what sounds aesthetically pleasing and what does not. So no offense if I shit vomit to a band you truly like.

"I listen to a lot of lo-fi and experimental junk so I know the difference of harsh music that sounds pleasing and music that is just an annoyance."

do tell!

fair enough. don't know what 'campfire music' means though.

"holland 1945" is a beautiful song & fuck anyone who disagrees

so wait, are you shitting vomit or vomiting shit

he knows the difference of shitting vomit that sounds pleasing and vomiting shit that is just an annoyance

xp both at the same time as I listen to holland 1945. but if I hit pause it abrubtly stops until I hit play again

vomiting shit sounds way more like a serious medical condition rather than just an annoyance

in the aeroplane over the sea is such a horrible album

and it gets unbelievably high ratings. I seriously think it is the most overrated indie album of all 90s

or the most appropriately rated

never heard it, does it sound more like shit being vomited or vomit being shat?

as with every list ever, why that MBV song? why that kast song? why that pavement song? why that radiohead song?

xp NMH haters - http://i27.tinypic.com/33mreph.gif

it sounds like david the gnome shitting into the mouthpiece of a french horn and vomiting onto an acoustic guitar

haha

if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a gif worth

a thousand posts

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/7770/1283501259727.gif

Pavement :: Pitchfork as Sgt. Pepper :: Rolling Stone

hands up if you're surprised by any of this...

hands up if you're tired of shitty analogies

Would easily have voted for MBV if the choice was "Soon." I'm also not British so "Common People" means nothing more to me than just a good song. I also lived in Silver Lake during the 90s, so I'm fine with all the "Loser" hatred.

Voted Mazzy because I like the song, however I would have voted "Cannonball" over all of these.

actually that's a pretty good analogy

I'm working class and I understand the deep hurt caused to others by Common People. I feel the same way about The Chauffeur by Duran Duran, Smooth Operator by Sade, Country House by Blur, How To Be A Millionaire by ABC, I've Never Been To Me be Charlene and many other songs that rub the restrictions of my damn class in my face! I could only dream of visiting Niece, and the Isles of Greece and sipping champagne on a yacht! When will these people think of the emotional turmoil they're wreaking on the listeners! But at least I had the class solidarity of my brothers in arms Wham! on such socialist sons of toil classics as Everything She Wants and Young Guns! I can only dream of what it must be like to be on the other side of the fence... to not be invited to be part of Jarvis Cocker's gang of misfits... whom I imagine to be slightly like the cast of the Breakfast Club but with odd teeth and jackets from Oxfam.

Loser is such a shit song.

Doran: go fuck yourself, you unpleasant dickwad.

jesus christ this thread cannot die fast enough

wow!!

Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody?" classic song obv but definitely not her best single of the 90s
Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker" cool song but i guess i dont 'get' how important it was so it being in the top 20 is kinda confusing
Beck - "Loser" annoying
Belle and Sebastian - "The State I Am In" never heard
Björk - "Hyperballad" love bjork, but NO she has soooooooooo many better singles from he 90s
Daft Punk - "Da Funk" classique
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence" yesssssssss
DJ Shadow - "Midnight in a Perfect World" eh i guess
Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] - "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang" played out but obv classic
Mazzy Star - "Fade Into You" i think i heard this once
My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow" - fucks with this
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945" i like this song but no
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" obv
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy" never gets old, still he has much better singles from 90s but i guess this is his most seminal...
OutKast - "Spottieottedopalicious" - rosa parks, elevators, playas ball, art of storytelin etc. >>>
Pavement - "Gold Soundz" - never heard this
Pulp - "Common People" - never heard this, i am not a britishes so don't care about ur boring ass class conflicts or boring indie bands
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android" - yep
Weezer - "Say It Ain't So" - um, "buddy holly" pwnz this song
Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck" - not a top 20 single or even the best wu single from that album but i guess

voted for depeche mode

which is weird because if i made a top 100 of the 90s list that probbaly wouldn't crack it all even tho its an amazing song

i would have voted for juicy but that feels to obvious

The crudeness might be regretable but seriously. His reading comprehension is so low and his level of projection of things that were never actually said was so high that I just wanted to make sure my response was absolutely unequivocaly clear.

ummm, no problem in that regard, KDT

but you may have mistaken light whimsy for a declaration of war...

how long until kate is banned again

hopefully not too long

i am always so amazed i am not banned

wait ur name is kate

does that mean ur a girl

hai guys! I'm back from happy hour and I ordered pizza. What class warfare did I miss?

jesus christ this thread cannot die fast enough

― call all destroyer, Friday, September 3, 2010 6:18 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what r u talkin about this thread is hilar

just walked by north coast fest in chicago, the one being headlined by the chem bros, nas, damien marley & umphreys mcgee. i can confirm that, contrary to reports, everyone is not 'a hipster'

also, baggy cargo pants & shell toes = still a thing

I'm wearing baggy cargo shorts. Would I be a thing?

what r u talkin about this thread is hilar HITLER

oops good catch crut

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/05/25/weekinreview/chotiner-600.jpg

juicy. i like some of these other songs, but c'mon

Alfred - is that a photo of Pulp? Being an American I don't understand what they're supposed to look like.

LAWLZ

Alfred - is that a photo of Pulp? Being an American I don't understand what they're supposed to look like.

The one on the left is Jarvis Cocker, meeting Beck (right) at Pitchfork '95.

http://news-political.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Hitler_laughing.jpg

Oh - so "Loser" is the song Hitler sang to Eva Braun! Now it all makes sense.

no, that was "Holland, 1945"

Ha!

hitlar

Daft Punk - "Da Funk"
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"
My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"

One of these. "Enjoy" is the best track I suppose, but it feels like the 80s in spite of its release date.

lolser

Only Stalin

haha

could it be that only shallow is a reference to stalinist death camps and the lack of human respect for even a proper burial - hence the size of the graves, ONLY SHALLOW? could it be?

let us contemplate this

Lots of songs by bands I like that aren't necessarily songs I like - Gold Soundz isn't even that great a song.

For real -- I am one of those "Pavement, best band of the 90s, I love every record" people and probably always will be. And I don't think Gold Soundz is even in the top half of that record. I feel like "coming to the chorus now" is the kind of self-referential the-song-is-about-the-song business that they carry off so gracefully elsewhere. Here it clunks.

fade into you is my favorite of these tbh

just wanted to pop in and say that I really enjoyed stevie's post upthread about NMH.

yeah, me too, and i'm not even a fan

I am a pretty big fan of that album - and I'll just say that for me, the way in was the lyrics. they are pretty special.

bet Anne Frank would've verbally skewered Mangum for trying to slum it in her attic.

'slum in her attic' is a potentially great euphemism imo

slum in her attic and not long until there's one in the oven

slummin it in her attic makes me think there's something anatomically wrong with the girl

haven't read the previous 10000 responses because I'm sure people are butthurtz for no reason, but gotta go with Windowlicker. I was just listening to it yesterday again for the first time in a while, and the little blurb on the pitchfork list (sounded way ahead of its time in 1999...STILL sounds way ahead of its time in 2010) is spot on.

1. Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"
2. Daft Punk - "Da Funk"
3. Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"
4. Pulp - "Common People"
5. Mazzy Star - "Fade Into You"

My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel and even Pavement work better as albums than songs. "Paranoid Android" to me is a remarkable song. gets my vote just because it's cool and so uncool these day (no that's a lie, i can care less about the latter).

i started this, "Please Understand. We don't want no trouble, we just want the right to be different. That's all." PULP - D.I.F.F.E.R.E.N.T.C.L.A.S.S poll before bumping pitchfork 's 90's countdown thread. just a bit ironic that i decided to do that album this week.

gotta admit if they were going to include snoop dogg & dre, they should've placed "hit me baby one more time" somewhere along the top 10 as well. not joking here when i say that song is a classic.

i thought it was pretty funny as well... pulp, even tho i realize they "won" the britpop war, was one of those bands i cared little if at all for and thought the same for the majority of ilxors (in the same way none of us truly like blur/oasis/etc). i'd suspect a lot of p4k writers peruse here for inspiration.

My favorite is the one that's still causing people to lose their shit 15 years on. Ranked from favorite to most detested.

Pulp - "Common People"
Daft Punk - "Da Funk"
OutKast - "Spottieottedopalicious"
Pavement - "Gold Soundz"
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"
Belle and Sebastian - "The State I Am In"
My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck"
Mazzy Star - "Fade Into You"
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"
Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] - "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang"
Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker"
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"
Beck - "Loser"
Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody?"
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"
Weezer - "Say It Ain't So"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
DJ Shadow - "Midnight in a Perfect World"
Björk - "Hyperballad"

i voted shadow.

Whoops. I can only apologize for the sensitivities I've discombobulated with what I thought was quite clearly a joke.

Am I really the only person who prefers Hypnotize to Juicy?

no

And I should say I really like Kate as a poster here, I like the way she sets her stall out now matter how anti-canonical the stuff she has to say it's always well thought out and she's never looking round nervously to see if anyone else agrees with her or not. I'm not surprised that she comes across as slightly embattled sometimes the amount of yapping tools she gets on her back.

But I still think hers is a pretty clear misreading of Common People.

No one else think that Beers, Steers and Queers (remix) should be at number one?

just gave gold soundz a relistening....and much as i love pavement, this was the pinnacle of the entire decade? a sloppy, self referential song? it innovates in fucking nothing. i suspect a rewrite, a la the greatest albums of the 90's list.

Thanks, I appreciate that, Doran.

But I think it's a bit ironic to call my personal response to a song "a pretty clear misreading" when you haven't even grasped what I think about it accurately enough to lampoon it. <- this was my issue with what you wrote, not whether it was a "horribly formed" "joke" or not.

Say It Ain't So is fine and all, but top 20 of the decade, really?

xp: I understand what your gripe with the song is clear enough - I'm just calling it as a misreading.

You seem to have some kind of issue with something that's happened in your personal life, which in turn suggests that the way that the song rankles with you means the song writing is actually pretty good if it's having these effects of recognition and projection. Cocker is talking specifically about an incident, apart from at the end when he has a broader point to make. And I think your confusion on the terms of cash (told me that her dad was loaded/poor as a church mouse) suggest that you're mixing up something from your own experience with the 'message' of the song (if there is much of one at all...)

"I will never *really* know what it's like not to have an expensive education. "

They met at St Martin's College. They are educationally identical. It would be like a Billy Childish character meeting a M.I.A. character. This has nothing to do with the education system.

"(that one can actually have education and breeding and still be as poor as a church mouse) this does *not* mean that I do not know what it means to live with lack or poverty or difficult choices or narrowed horizons."

If you called your dad he could stop it all.

Breeding?!

"You're right. I will *never* live like "Common people" and, in fact, I absolutely *refuse* to live "like common people" because I refuse to see it as something negative to aspire towards the extraordinary, the sublime, thegoodthebeautifulthetrue. "

Common people should, to be fair, be in quotes on the lyric sheet. The girl from Greece wants to live like common people. Cocker is just answering her statement. You are using common people here to mean people with no imagination and no drive. That is not how the word is being used in the song.

Suede were my favourite britpop band because they were aspirational. Living in the gutters looking at the stars. Sleeping on a bare mattress saving up for the one night of the week when you can strut it like a film star. Blur were the worst because they were downwardly mobile. I don't want some dick who's got a double first from Oxford geezering me around the park going on about pigeon racing. Pulp were observational and everything they said was a lot less militant and a lot more subtle. Whoever (Dorian?) said about Mis-shapes has got it spot on - if you're looking for a message from Pulp that year then you need to listen to Different Class as a whole - it tells a remarkably different story to the one you're giving.

"negative anti-cultural-Thatcherism"

Wrong. The only remotely Thatcherite person in this song is the girl from Greece or her dad. Everyone else - bar Cocker, it should be mentioned - is disenfranchised. Cocker is a freeloading observer, as he clearly makes out. You hear vindictiveness in Cocker's voice where I can only hear warning.

Warning: Everyone hates a tourist. Warning: Like a dog lying in the corner...

As for Neutral Milk Hotel, still haven't heard'em, don't remember'em at all at the time. Were their tapes passed around in college dorms or something? Were they played on college radio?

― Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 3, 2010 7:36 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

alf did you seriously forget on one of your own threads like a month ago when i pointed out the CMJ chart that listed NMH as one of the top 10 most played albums on college radio in '98? Billboard Modern Rock Hits - 1998

While calling me out for projecting mine own personal experiences onto the song (which I have admitted AGAIN AND AGAIN that I am) - you are projecting equally strongly about who you think I am and what my experiences might be.

I'm sorry, but that does not make for a conversation.

You are using common people here to mean people with no imagination and no drive. That is not how the word is being used in the song.

I am responding, directly, to words used in the song, Describing that "common people" "drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do" <-if that's not description of having no imagination and no drive I don't know what is. Jarvis's words, not mine. This assessment, I am rejecting. This definition of "common" I refuse, point blank, to live.

Now you can just go and argue with your own class prejudices some more because we're not talking to each other, we're taking to sets of assumptions that come from very different lives.

And this really is the last I'm going to say on this thread because I'm sure people would prefer more carping about Pitchfork when THERE ARE TWO OTHER WHOLE THREADS ABOUT THIS SONG & ALBUM.

Hey working class dudes, shall we play pool and listen to Northern Uproar? Where are you going 'Geezers'? Come back and talk about ferret racing with me. I've brought a flask of Tetley's mild with me...

Was kinda horrified to read that Damon Albarn had an Oxford double-first, feel very relieved now I've checked and found it's not true.

(Horrified in an I've been getting this band wrong way obviously, not a how dare he one!)

I am responding, directly, to words used in the song, Describing that "common people" "drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do" <-if that's not description of having no imagination and no drive I don't know what is

Then you don't know what is. Lots of people have imagination and drive but have not only no resources, but no means of leveraging the scarce things they do have, and no way of even learning how to leverage then. Or perhaps no opportunities to because other responsibilities supercede them. At least in the US, there's an urban/rural aspect here which goes beyond class that I don't even think you've considered.

Describing that "common people" "drink and dance and screw, because there's nothing else to do" <-if that's not description of having no imagination and no drive I don't know what is

No, no, no. How can you write this? The point of the bitterness is 'how it feels to live your life with no meaning or control' and watching it slide out of view - because it's all in the hands of people with art school and money and dads who would stop it all. And who can't see it, even when faced with somebody who's done all they can to clamber out of that trap. Calling it lack of drive is pretty ironic when you're the one who suggested that bringing in more heiresses might ameliorate things.

"It doesn't matter that you don't have money or prospects or control over your life! As long as you can color your hair purple and play a guitar or paint, you'll never be common!"

This has become almost comical at this point, the total mutual lack of understanding going on at this point.

Just carry on putting words in my mouth. I'm not even going to bother trying to contradict you any more. Just make up whatever shit you feel like and attribute it to me. Because I really give up on trying to get you to understand what I think and it doesn't seem to make a difference what I actually post.

Enjoy.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaand cut

Disappointed at Lex's take on Pulp. I hated britpop with a passion at the time and think it was the worst thing to happen in living memory in British music. But then there was all the more reason to cherish the few good 'indie' bands that were round at the time. Pulp were certainly one of them. Have very happy memories of spending two years going to the Blue Note, Turnmills, The Albany, Bar Rhumba, Dog Star, The End when I first moved to London... but listening to Mogwai, Pulp and Suede as much as possible as well. There was no way I was going to hang out in some pub that smelled of piss in Camden, wearing braces, cultivating a cockney accent and pretending to like The Faces and Sleeper. But Pulp were clearly a cut above Oasis. It seems senseless to lump them together.

Gravel: I was over exaggerating for comic effect but Blur have, partially gone on to show their true colours in Alex James' politics and profession.

I had much more time for Justine Elastica who was posh, rich, well educated and didn't give a fuck. There's nothing wrong with having money per se.

I'd fucking love some.

There's nothing wrong with having money per se.

wait what?

the whole point of 'common people' is that rich people suck

what is the greek chick to do?

obvi not try to enjoy herself among the poor folk, because they're unsmiling, canine types who'll rip you apart if you even try to bro down with them

so i guess just stick to her own?

Or not run round Bermondsey swigging Special Brew shouting 'ee by gum, when does the bear baiting begin?'

yeah honestly the biggest wtf for me on this list was "say it ain't so" getting so high. fine track but wwwwwwwwwwwwwtf. and i fucking hate neutral milk hotel, i heard that album and though it was awful -_-

Buddy Holly has the stench of Windows '95 all over it. Say It Ain't So is a relatively laid back number with more interesting lyrics that featured a video where his mother was doing laundry in the garage and they were playing with a hackey sack in slow motion while wearing a t-shirt with a storm trooper helmet on i really don't know what's so strange about all this to you guys.

I think I like all of these songs except for DJ Shadow, voted 'Fade Into You'

Buddy Holly is a cute song but it almost certainly wasn't even the best song released that week.

Let alone that decade.

yes i am biased b/c many have noticed my fervent fantacism for mbv, but i really truly think almost any song on loveless can be considered one of the greatest achievements of the 90's. pavement could've been a band today.

1. Beck - "Loser"
2. Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"
3. DJ Shadow - "Midnight in a Perfect World"
4. Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck"
5. My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
6. Pavement - "Gold Soundz"
7. Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker"

OutKast - "Spottieottedopalicious"
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"
Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] - "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang"
Daft Punk - "Da Funk"
Aaliyah - "Are You That Somebody?"
Björk - "Hyperballad"
Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck"
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"
Pulp - "Common People"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Aphex Twin - "Windowlicker"
Weezer - "Say It Ain't So"

^^^like all these

Beck - "Loser"

^^^don't like

don't know the others don't even know what mazzy star is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fF0lRYhhiwI

funny thing about Mazzy Star is they were real shy during live performances, and if the crowd got too loud they'd threaten to end the concert. they had one song the fans dubbed the "shh shh" song because Mazzy Star demanded total quiet during it.

hope sandoval is so cute like that isn't she. i mean if you find corpse-like vocal delivery cute. which i do.

i like the lighting in this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H88g_Eew4PY

Voted for 'Loser'.

probably wouldn't have voted for "Common People", even though it's a great song (and good for karaoke, as someone mentioned way upthread) and I've been replaying Different Class a lot lately... but its ability to set off enormous clusterfuck threads 15 years down the road has to count for something, right?

PS as an American who is 'class-conscious' but doesn't really know about the specifics of the British system, it seems obvious to me that the target is more a certain romantic (young person's?) view of "common people" than, like, every wealthy person in England

read the thread!
in short, for british people who were around then, the context was a big part of the story.

Pavement - "Gold Soundz"
My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
Neutral Milk Hotel - "Holland, 1945"
The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"
Wu-Tang Clan - "Protect Ya Neck"
Radiohead - "Paranoid Android"
Dr. Dre [ft. Snoop Doggy Dogg] - "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang"
Weezer - "Say It Ain't So"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence"
OutKast - "Spottieottedopalicious"
Pulp - "Common People"

xpost I did read the thread! and like half of the other one. just sayin'.

Who honestly thinks gold soundz is the best song of the 1990s?????

some dudes at pfork. read yr blogs.

xpost I have thought that before, altho not right now (RIP summer)

someone put on protect ya neck at a party i was at friday night and me and a friend switched back n forth verses and rapped the entire thing. having some girl troubles and was feelin really bummed out all night but it cheered me up so much

Anybody else think that "When You Sleep" is twice as nice as "Only Shallow"? What a lazy pick.

it's arbitrary. i probably would have gone with "to here knows when"

Someone else mentioned their tendency to cite a (usually indie) album's first track if there are no famous singles. It's the usual conceit you get in pfk reviews in weird and futile attempts to forge experiential consensus. 'That was the Sebadoh album we had been all been waiting for after the generational trauma of Waco, and it didn't disappoint'. Though I guess every pfk person shares a certain memory of feeling awed the first time they heard the opening chords of Loveless, whether they did or not.

"pfk person"!!

voted 4 the weezer jam cuz its so fukken righteous

"i'm a loser so why don't you kill me?" - OK THEN, happily!

^^ still my favorite moment of this thread

when i read this i srsly snapped my fingers & shouted OWNED! at the screen

"pfk person"!!

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Sunday, 5 September 2010 19:15 (2 minutes ago)

Their writers. The more doctrinaire readers too maybe. No need to be alarmed, they seem harmless enough.

"pfk person"!!

Pitchfolk

"pitchfolk"!

"their writers"!

voted 4 the weezer jam cuz its so fukken righteous

― swagula (Lamp), Sunday, September 5, 2010 7:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

i lol'd

Voted for Mazzy Star but could've easily voted for anything else. Only song in here I don't care about is Holland 1945.

neutral milk in general is overrated hipster trash. "semen stains the mountaintops" -- OoOoO, so edgy, contemporary, and artfully done. ALBUM OF THE DECADE.

Anybody else think that "When You Sleep" is twice as nice as "Only Shallow"? What a lazy pick.

― coolsundays, Sunday, September 5, 2010 5:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it's arbitrary. i probably would have gone with "to here knows when"

― max skim (k3vin k.), Sunday, September 5, 2010 5:53 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

great album but let's all stop fronting about it, the songs on it are all pretty much the same right

"Touched" would've solidified everything ever said negatively about p4k, tho. i actually sort of wished it would happen.

"semen stains the mountaintops" -- OoOoO, so edgy, contemporary, and artfully done.

this is ridiculous

sorta my point.

I guess every pfk person shares a certain memory of feeling awed the first time they heard the opening chords of Loveless, whether they did or not

otm. anybody who lives loveless fronting like 'only shallow' does not have one of the most stylish, attractive, immediate & just totally, like, mind-blowing (&thus unifying) opening riffs of all time is stinking shit up in this pitchfork thread

Anybody else think that "When You Sleep" is twice as nice as "Only Shallow"? What a lazy pick.

really hate this (type of) post. my favourite song on the album is "i only said" but what the fuck does that have to do with anything, you know?

in quebec the french acronym for KFC is PFK; poulet frit kentucky and my brain is always tricked when people spell p4k that way

stinking shit up in this pitchfork thread

sigfiles I would totally use, no. 73 in a series

at the same, "i only said" has one of the most cathartic "guitar solos" in music history. i rewound that song dozens of times the very first time i heard it just so i could experience that sense of violent, roaring calm again. for reference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVj-fc1M_D0
its at about 1:45, but you really have to listen to it in context to really appreciate it. then again i feel like i'm talking down to all of you just by queuing the video up in the first place, so i'll shut up now.

only shallow is a cool song but i hardly find "tap tap tap" the sole reason it truimphed amongst all the others. soon, or what you want, really should've taken it's place.

but what i care? life goez on.

OH FUCK IT NOW IM ANGRY

man you ain't gotta scarequote guitar solos - guitar solos are awesome iirc

yeah but it's more like a continuation of what's already been going on, with another layer of what i'm just going to presume is a sample machine and really mixed-far-back vocals. it's more like a change of pace than a guitar solo. mbv doesn't really have guitar solos. either way.

i think its like, people who love mbv have not only just heard only shallow but have probably listened to loveless a billion times and have rewound that "solo" and cultivated a small crop of extra favourites that are the ones that are closest to the innerest folds of their heart and stuck with them. but unless you are arguing that only shallow is not a good example of what-the-album-is-all-about or that it is NOT a fucking jam (in which case, see: my previous post) there's no point saying there's a more perfect representative, right?

not at all - i was really more arguing that the "tap tap tap tap" that introduces Loveless is entirely unmemorable. but i'm going to refrain right now as that was a reaction to gibreel's comment that - upon re-read - i realize now refers to the "elephant crying" riff that introduces loveless, and not the way the album opens up with four frantic hits. i really am an idiot and having a hard time believing that that all appeared logical to me(that only shallow's greatest merit is it's first 2 seconds).

loool - i understand

i was trying pretty hard to avoid this thread anyways & not expecting much good to come of it :)

It's "Blown a Wish" anyway.

great album but let's all stop fronting about it, the songs on it are all pretty much the same right

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, September 6, 2010 5:42 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

o no u didn't

No lie I love that album but I couldn't tell you what any of the songs were called on it.

I mean I know what some of the titles are but I couldn't pin them to a riff or anything.

Not like I didn't vote Dre on this bollocks anyway.

i'll be real and say i could identify about five:

the first one
loomer
to here knows when
blown a wish (enya everywhere in this bitch)
soon

otm. anybody who lives loveless fronting like 'only shallow' does not have one of the most stylish, attractive, immediate & just totally, like, mind-blowing (&thus unifying) opening riffs of all time is stinking shit up in this pitchfork thread

That may be so, but the album is full of great tracks. As NV said they're difficult to parse in recollection, I've probably played it more than any other album but I forget which songs are which. So my theory was that the evil pfk ppl chose the first track in order to create a sense of phenomenological coherence that may not really exist in our cruelly random world where everybody has a favourite song and nobody knows what it's called [via late capitalism].

Nah that big unwindy "shit my tape player's fucked" riff at the beginning was a game-changer at the time and still sounds as good as anything on there.

think there was once upon a time a small consensus around the two singles, especially 'soon' [via vague 'dance element' guilt]

That was probably the best known song at the time.

Symphonic Chaos". Melody Maker. December 1990. "And [Soon] won them acclaim from Brian Eno, who, in a lecture at New York's Museum Of Modern Art, described it as 'the vaguest piece of music ever to get into the charts'. If Steve Reich or Glenn Branca had been responsible for it, he continued, they would have been given an award by the classical music establishment."

Though 'To Here Knows When' was vaguer still (released afterwards).

Belle and Sebastian - "The State I Am In":

WTF?!

anyway, i'll go with NMH

or maybe gold soundz

i dunno how you're wtf'ing b&S then plumping for the other two most milquetoasted tracks on the list but eh

Side order of SB with your NMH

ok, this last is like the "greatest hits" of 90's indie.

of course there are better songs by pavement/NMH, but gold soundz and holland are good one's and State i Am In is one of the worst B&S songs ever.

if i would make my top 20 90's songs list - none of those songs would appear in it.relatively speaking, those are the best imo.

that "loser" song. i remember that from when it came out! absolutely dreadful. it's like a fucking parody of every socially inept indie mumble there's every been!

...seriously i remember laughing at that song w/my girls in high school, it was so obviously lame.

It is a parody of socially indept indie mumble, which is why it's so great! It's both a parody and a foreshadowing of the next 20 years of indie! Plus it has a sitar! I seriously remember laughing at it -- and the wonderful music video. Laughing at it and laughing in complete joy! My pick for No. 1.

The solo in Weezer, tho, is one of the best guitar solos of all time.

Voted "Loser"

I vote Paranoid Android cuz it was one of the quirkiest pop singles I ever heard on MTV in the 90s. I was already a Radiohead fan at that point (due to The Bends) but that opening acoustic riff, the video, plus the awesome coda made me clamoring to get OK Computer.

you may be way too cool for neutral milk hotel but no way is "holland, 1945" 'milquetoasted'

great album but let's all stop fronting about it, the songs on it are all pretty much the same right

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Monday, September 6, 2010 12:42 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

thanking u

kev otm

lovin "to milquetoast" as a verb tbh

First time I ever heard "Paranoid Android" was listening to that album while driving around in Athens, Ga, and right when he started singing "Rain down" it started raining I swear to God. I will never forget that day.

Woah and i can think of a dozen or so Pavement songs i like more than "Gold Soundz".

Protect Your Neck

if i could go through the rest of my life without hearing anyone say anything about the relative importance of weezer, nirvana, beck, neutral milk hotel, my bloody valentine and the wu-tang clan, it would be aok with me.

step #1 in achieving that goal is probably not reading pitchfork, or pitchfork-related ilm threads

that "loser" song. i remember that from when it came out! absolutely dreadful. it's like a fucking parody of every socially inept indie mumble there's every been!

...seriously i remember laughing at that song w/my girls in high school, it was so obviously lame.

It is a parody of socially indept indie mumble, which is why it's so great! It's both a parody and a foreshadowing of the next 20 years of indie! Plus it has a sitar! I seriously remember laughing at it -- and the wonderful music video. Laughing at it and laughing in complete joy! My pick for No. 1.

― Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 6 September 2010 14:57 (Yesterday) Bookmark

OTM of course it's a parody.

step #1 in achieving that goal is probably not reading pitchfork, or pitchfork-related ilm threads

but i CAN'T STOP

AND THAT IS WHY U FAIL

fail is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to fail, and not be able to

also worse to like NMH

List feels ridiculously revisionist, like it's been put together on the basis of who people rated during the 00s - exhibit A being the inclusion of Outkast.

Nah, lots of people only rep for Outkast's 90s stuff. Yeah it's a shit list but that's legit I think.

outkast weren't much known in the uk iirc. maybe it was different in the US, though PROBABLY NOT among future-p4k-writers.

all my posts are predicated on not giving a flying fuck about p4k

Outkast had three top 20 records in the states and several videos that had huge airplay in the 90s. Pretty inescapable even for people like me who weren't paying particular attention.

man, why wouldn't you want this list to be revisionist - do you really just want a bunch of pitchfork writers to tell you what they were listening to in elementary school/high school/college?

It wd be funner.

List could do with some Crash Test Dummies

If you think this list was revisionist check out their "songs of the 60s" list, guarantee they were listening to NONE of that shit back then

I too would be shocked and amazed to discover that Pitchfork writers were listening to Neutral Milk Hotel and Pavement at college.

wait are you complaining this list is too revisionist or not enough now

Not complaining at all, just changing the angle of derision for the sake of it.

lol

do you really just want a bunch of pitchfork writers to tell you what they were listening to in elementary school/high school/college?

ideally i don't want a bunch of pfork writers telling me anything about what they've ever listened to

again, probably best not to read the site or related ilm threads then

They've actually pitched up outside his house, next to the man who sells hotdogs on matchdays.

i don't read the site!

i always think ilx is better than to agree w/pfork ;_;

GOD I WISH

i always think ilx is better than to agree w/pfork ;_;

well, you know, broken clocks telling the correct time twice a day and all that...

i mean, pfork loved the bug record, which i also loved, and so i think did you... so even you agree with pfork sometimes?

more like pfork agrees with me sometimes.