pitchfork

xpost, I know for a fact that 24/24 wasn't goin to u, dude!

markers got 1/24 i believe

And why do you need to collide these in an overarching single list, that's - nobody's fault - but that's the problem with the 1990s. The genre activity was so stratified and flourishing at different times, it just doesn't lend itself well to any fell-swoop summation.

Well the money was drawn out of my account, so something better be coming to me.

whats a 24/24?

anyhow gotta run a lowry's. pox on both yr houses if freak nasty doesn't make top ten.

Dunno if segregation is really the way forward though. HEY BLACK PEOPLE WAIT YR TURN, WE R CURRENTLY LISTENING TO WHITE PPL (and tv on the radio, depending on timeframe.)

be better if they just didn't include so many dull guitar records

kept hearing method man's "get emmmm" after each balls post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKJC8GAxT5I

weren't dull guitar records one of the defining trends of 90s music though?

Little Fluffy Clouds should have been top ten.

or top twenty at least!

I checked and lucky for them "Da Butt" was '89. Totally would have called them out on that shit.

Before "Girls & Boys", Blur were seen as just another Britpop band, maybe a couple notches above Dodgy.

yeah, no.

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:49 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Looks like they changed this part (assuming that was a C&P from the Pfork blurb) to this now:

Before "Girls & Boys", Blur were a successful UK indie band

haha

o snap

face<IMG SRC="http://healthy-aging.advanceweb.com/SharedResources/Images/2009/072009/POM_16ozBottle.jpg";>

Awesome it's even better that way.

currently considering the possibility that banaka is ott

something tells me "They Want EFX" is not gonna make this list

theres a lot of stuff that didnt make it that id put ahead of das efx's 3rd best song

There really isn't any reason to deny the awesomeness of scenario for real

This. Especially if it's going to place above Geto Boys.

Also, is "Spottieottiedopaliscious" going to make the top 20? Because that would be solid.

Looking like the top 20's gonna be about 40% rap, r&b, dance; about 60% indie touchstones. That's not a bad ratio for p4k.

this just feels like two groups of people in mutual incomprehension, basically indietards + rap/dance heads

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:00 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

terribly unfair, but still pretty accurate. i'd say it's more like 3 streams: basic p4k indie, rap/pop/r&b and dance music (as defined by UK tastes in). and it's kind of weird to me that they've worked so hard two incorporate these two worlds, but haven't broadened their tastes in other directions. list contains hardly any experimental/noise stuff, "world music", garage or punk rock, metal, contemporary composers, jazz or other improvisation, etc.

not that those absences are a flaw of any sort - they aren't - but it's interesting to me that p4k has decided to expand their brand in these two specific directions (basically rap & dance) and not in others. just a year or two back, for instance, they seemed to be making a serious attempt to incorporate metal, but lately that seems to have been relegated to outlier status. maybe the readership didn't bite?

for instance, they seemed to be making a serious attempt to incorporate metal, but lately that seems to have been relegated to outlier status. maybe the readership didn't bite?

stosuy jumped ship to stereogum iirc

i mean, and i'm the biggest whiner when it comes to including genres, but it always looks a little cloying when experimental stuff shows up in track countdowns. Because it sort of says, "Yeah, 'Make Em Say Uhhh' was a classic single and all, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OVAL?

is guided by voices' 1995 track 'game of pricks' really the 36th best song of the 1990s?

like a whole s.tonne of picks, it's a completely unremarkable indie record

― i am legernd (history mayne), Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:16 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

game of pricks is only a "completely unremarkable indie record" if you're not deeply invested in the progress of indie guitar pop over the last couple decades. and if you're not, why the fuck would you bother with pitchfork rankings on any level? indie guitar pop is what they do - it's the absolute core of their aesthetic, their ethos to the extent they have one. and if you are invested in the history of that particular musical niche, then game of pricks is anything but unremarkable. it's crucial (though, yeah, you could and probably would quibble about which GBV track, alien lanes vs bee thousand, etc).

i.e., this kind of complaint seems so totally ass-backwards, given that it's a fucking pitchfork list.

t always looks a little cloying when experimental stuff shows up in track countdowns. Because it sort of says, "Yeah, 'Make Em Say Uhhh' was a classic single and all, BUT HAVE YOU HEARD OVAL?

― miccio kurihara (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, September 2, 2010 2:50 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

this is only true if the list in question treats the experimental tracks as token curiosities. if a legit interest in experimental music is part of your basic POV, then it doesn't seem weird at all.

game of pricks is only a "completely unremarkable indie record" if you're not deeply invested in the progress of indie guitar pop over the last couple decades.

well, i haven't been invested in it for a while. but i was, big time, back in the 90s. i can still grok what i liked about indie. but that song is nothing.

fyi, i'm a huge experimental music nerdball, and i would feel straight fuckin ridiculous trying to put Keijo Haino and Masonna and Borbetomagus up against like my 200 favorite banging pop/rap/dance/alternarock/MTV singles of the 90s.

Though I'd feel even more ridiculous putting milquetoast weiner music like "Bonnie Prince Billy" and Guided By Voices up against them

yeah, okay. sounded like you were airily dismissing indie rock in general, which makes no sense as a criticism of this or that track on a pitchfork list. but if it's it's more that you personally don't dig "game of pricks" or GBV in general, that's cool, matters of taste, etc.

i do think there's a sort of weird duality here of pfork simultaneously trying to redefine itself, evidenced by all the landmark rap,dance,pop tracks in the list, while still clinging to its indie-is-the-best roots as evidenced by the high placing of "game of pricks", "car", "race for the prize", etc, none of which were as big or important or popular as a lot of the lower tracks in the list

...like, if your rock canon has built to spill and guided by voices at the top, then ok fine. but then why does your rap canon have biggie and wu-tang instead of like...company flow or black moon or something? [2nd paragraph lifted from a subsequent ciderpress post]

― ciderpress, Thursday, September 2, 2010 7:35 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

don't think that one's interest in indie rock necessarily demands an across the board indie-is-the-best stance. though it's in flux, somewhat novel, and thus somewhat schizophrenic, p4k's current emphasis on mainstream rap and cult dance stuff seems pretty natural. remember their supporting acts like cannibal ox and aesop rock way back when though... did any of those tracks place?

omg dude you were just making fun of jay-z for writing 'slash/fic'

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omg

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jaymc

― max, Wednesday, September 1, 2010 1:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i knew there was a reason i clicked on this thread

borbetomagus was the most insane live thing i ever saw, just hellish and amazing

i would feel straight fuckin ridiculous trying to put Keijo Haino and Masonna and Borbetomagus up against like my 200 favorite banging pop/rap/dance/alternarock/MTV singles of the 90s.

i don't get this, whiney. why would that feel so ridiculous? i mean, i put shit & shine's "toilet door tits" as my single favorite track on some recent best-of-the-decade poll, along with all kinds of pop/rap/etc stuff. and other noise/weirdo stuff, too. is it my honest-to-god favorite song of the decade? fuck, i dunno. but i love it to death, love it every bit as much as "hey ya" or "my hood" or whatever. just in a different way. why should i let the fact that some of the things i love are unpopular marginalize them even further when i'm expressing my own individual taste?

No, but basically putting that on any ballot would be essentially throwing a vote away.

The point being that pop/rap/rock hits are things that we share via radio, MTV, mssg boards, blogs; and indie-rock songs like "Summer Babe" are similar in that they are usually shared on a smaller level—plus they build up legends, are passed around AS songs. You get down to expirimental music circles and—save the occassional Lightning Bolt song--it's almost impossible to find a consensus on ANYTHING since the music is tailored to individual tastes and ppl generally listen to albums instead of songs. Like get 100 casual-to-rabid Devo fans in a room and ask their favorite song vs get 100 casual-to-rabid Sightings fans in a room, and you're gonna have a lot harder time managing that second group.

Like it or not, there's a canon of 90s indie rock songs that Pitchfork can embrace or neglect, but it exists. Like name me five experimental music tracks from the 90s (non-IDM) that you would call "canonic"

Like Harry Pussy's "Pussy Control"?

that's an interesting point. not sure it's true, but it's interesting nonetheless. i've tended to think that there's "pop" in almost every genre and stripe of music, barring only the most extreme forms of noise & experimental music. by pop i mean qualities that enable shared appreciation among those who dig that genre. or elements that reach out of genre confines to more conventional/common appreciations, and that can thus unify fans. but maybe not.

like the devo fans analogy seems off, somehow. you get 100 people who maybe kinda like devo or have heard some devo, and you're gonna come to a quick consensus on the hits. but you get rabid fans in the room, and they're gonna be repping for shit like "gates of steel", "penetration in the centerfold", "be stiff", "wiggly world". they're gonna argue the minutia of live tracks and b-sides, some weirdo's gonna claim that "words get stick in my throat" deserves serious consideration.

just by treating "indie" indie as magnetic north, pitchfork steps aside from the idea that quality is what we share, into the idea that quality is what differentiates us. i'm not arguing that indie music is of higher or special quality, note, just that it's predicated to some extent on its supposed separation from a more thoroughly shared & sharable mainstream. and maybe it is harder to come to a consensus on like sightings or keiji haino tracks, but metal, punk and world music (for instance) have a unifying power that's similar to rap & dance music, at least among fans.

Like name me five experimental music tracks from the 90s (non-IDM) that you would call "canonic"

well, i'm not really hooked into that scene. certainly wasn't in the 90s. imagine that the people at the wire could bang something together though. or that you could just by indexing the references in their reviews for a year or two.

two people at the wire would have vastly different opinions, is what i'm saying

There's no "Summer Babe" of noise, dogg

xpost Super Shine!

i don't even think 'summer babe' is in the top 25% of pavement songs tbh

Not the hugest noise person, but I'm sure there is some Merzbow or Dead C/Gate or whatever equivalent to "Summer Babe" that plenty of noise fans agree on.

Goddamn I am so sick of all this Pavement love! If anything, they deserve the term 'milquetoast weiner music' above any indie fuxxor!

^^^

great guys, really interesting

feel it's more intense among people who weren't 'around' back then. and americans.

xpost

i'd argue that one of the reasons that it's hard for me (as a generalist type music fan with a pronounced taste for noisy psychedelic shit) to cough up the canonical experimental music tracks from the 90s is that mainstream critics haven't done the job of building this canon for me. they haven't done it either cuz they aren't tuned in, or cuz no one's demanding it - probably both. in the same way that tracks by basinski, fennesz & gas/voight have become canonical in the last decade, however, i'm sure that there's stuff that equally well represents the 90s. as pieces by cage, oliveros, subotnik, reich, lucier and stockhausen did in the mid-20th century. and pieces by laurie anderson, negativland, einsturzende neubauten and john oswald (etc.) did in the 80s.

^^^ those reference points cobbled together with full awareness of my own ignorance in these matters